Focusing on What Really Matters: Mark Mears, Author of The Purposeful Growth Revolution

The Salesforce Certification Voucher Giveaway is underway. Tune in for details on how to easily enter a chance to win 1 of 5 vouchers worth $400. The drawing is on December 4th, live. 

And now, the episode:

Mark Mears, a luminary in leadership transformation, joins us to share his revolutionary "LEAF methodology" for purposeful growth  in our latest episode. Discover how his remarkable journey in the food and beverage industry led him to champion a balanced approach to leadership that prioritizes both profit and purpose. We explore Mark's insightful perspectives on how aligning leadership models with organizational priorities can foster fulfillment and legacy-building.

We take a thought-provoking look at the role of organizational alignment and how small to mid-sized businesses can overcome challenges through effective communication and integrative approaches. Mark's experiences offer a unique lens on the interplay between misalignment and business outcomes, highlighting the importance of integrating the well-being of employees and the community into business success. We also reflect on how systemic issues, such as those in healthcare, can influence organizational dynamics and leadership effectiveness.

Our conversation goes beyond traditional management styles, emphasizing the importance of trust, community, and empowerment in transforming corporate culture. Personal stories from Mark illuminate the impact of a supportive work environment and mentorship on career development. In a world where younger generations seek meaningful work, we discuss how to foster belonging and psychological safety within organizations. Join us as we share gratitude with our audience and look forward to upcoming discussions on legacy-building leadership and Mark's forthcoming book.

Episode Transcript

Josh Matthews (00:06):
And now the number one audio program that
helps you to hire, get hired andsoar higher in the Salesforce
ecosystem.
It's the Salesforce Career Showwith Josh Matthews and Vanessa
Grant.
So welcome everybody to theSalesforce Career Show.
I'm your host, josh Matthews.
My co-host, vanessa Grant, willbe joining us in about 20 or 30

(00:28):
minutes.
This is an exciting showbecause we have author Mark
Mears joining us.
Mark is the author of thePurposeful Growth Revolution
Four Ways to Grow from Leader toLegacy Builder, and we're
excited to get his insights onall of his experience.
He's had an incredible career.
I'll do a full introduction ofyou here, mark, in just a moment

(00:52):
, but we've got some other newsthat I'd like to cover as well,
and some of you may be tuning injust to find out what's going
on with this cool contest thatwe're doing.
So first to let you know, weare giving away five Salesforce
certification vouchers onDecember 4th.
These are valued at up to $400.
So if you get it and blow it ona $75 cert, it's your choice,

(01:15):
but it might be a little bit ofa waste.
Gilda shared these with us whenI ran into her over at that's
Gilda Hilaire, director ofProduct Marketing for Salesforce
when I ran into her at FloridaDreamin' in between hurricanes
in Clearwater, florida.
Really generous of her to dothis, not for us but for you, so
that you guys can have a chanceto hopefully not have any kind

(01:39):
of financial strain when tryingto grow your career and grow
your credibility and yourknowledge by obtaining maybe
it's your first certification,maybe it's your 17th or 20th,
but you'll get to have a chanceto win these.
So I'm going to go over therules real quick about it.
They're pretty straightforward,and also let everybody know

(02:00):
that you can find these rules atsalesforcecareershowcom.
Again, it'ssalesforcecareershowcom, that is
our podcast website and it'sright at the top of the homepage
so you can dive right in.
Now.
There are two ways to enter.
You can enter one way simply bygoing to
salesforcecareershowcom andfilling out the Ask Us Anything

(02:23):
form.
So that gives you anopportunity to go ahead and
request of me or Vanessa or anyof our illustrious panel that
often join us on this show tohelp us or to have us help you
by answering your questions.
It's that simple.
You do that, you get an entryinto the contest.
There's another way and you canenter two ways, but not more

(02:45):
than twice.
The other way is to leave areview on either Apple Podcasts
or Spotify.
So to do that, you would go toyour Apple Podcasts app on your
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(03:06):
And then you just need to sendyour name, contact information
and a screenshot of that reviewto josh at
salesforcerecruitercom Again,it's josh at, or actually I put
down the salesforcerecruitercomso you can do that.
Okay, and then on Spotify it'sthe same thing.
You just go in, hit your stars,scroll past the play controls

(03:27):
of the episode page.
You can go ahead and leave amessage for us and, again, share
your contact information and ascreenshot.
So we're going to conduct thisdrawing live on our program on
December 4th at 530 Easternright here on X Spaces.
We're going to have five uniquewinners and I want to wish

(03:48):
everybody good luck.
This is going to be a reallyfun contest, at least for me,
for you just click on a couplebuttons, but we're pretty stoked
to be able to offer this.
We've been running this programeither on X or on Clubhouse for
about four years now.
It's been a while before, maybeeven four and a half years, and

(04:10):
this is the first time we'veever done anything like this.
So stumble around talking abouta little bit, just you know
we're kind of new.
Hopefully it's a lot of fun foreverybody.
So with that, I would like tofind out first of all how are
you doing, mark?
How's the week going?

Mark Mears (04:20):
Yeah, so far so good .
It's ironic it's hump dayalready and I don't know about
you, but the weeks are startingto fly by as you're getting
busier and busier and it'sNovember already.
I know Christmas decorationsstarting to go up.
It's like not even Thanksgivingyet.
We just had Halloween.
So a lot's going on all at thesame time, but it's all good.

Josh Matthews (04:43):
It is all good.
Well, mark, you have had anillustrious career.
You've held incredible titlessuch as president, evp, chief
marketing officer.
You've been a director, You'vebeen a CEO, before a marketing
director and predominantly, atleast in your early career

(05:06):
mostly in the food beveragebusiness, working for
organizations such as PepsiCo,running marketing for Cheesecake
Factory and a number of othersPizza Hut and JCPenney and
Blimpy.
So you've had some reallyfascinating and interesting
roles in your lifetime.
But it's my understanding thathere, a little bit later on in
your life I'm assuming in your50s I was able to read enough in

(05:29):
your book and about your bookto understand that you awoke one
morning after having asignificant and potentially at
the time negative event occur inyour life and you woke up and
you looked outside and you saw atiny little leaf on a fig tree
and that was the inspiration forwhat eventually became the

(05:51):
purposeful growth revolution andyour leaf methodology.
Why don't you go ahead and tellus a little bit about that?
Maybe about that morning orabout you can start sharing
information about your book.

Mark Mears (06:02):
Yeah, you've heard the saying it's always darkest
before the dawn.
And now I finally realized whythat's true.
Significant life event was Iwas president of a half a
billion dollar casual diningchain that had 145 locations in
24 states and was owned by apublicly traded company, and I
was recruited there as the chiefmarketing officer for the

(06:25):
Cheesecake Factory to help thebrand undergo a turnaround.
It was double digit negative insales.
It was getting a little long inthe tooth, so they wanted a
more relevant contemporary brandpositioning and a new concept
that could earn the right tocapital so that we could grow
and become a larger part of thatholding company's portfolio.

(06:47):
Well, we did.
In two years we turned thebrand around from double-digit
negative sales.
We did a ton of research, cameup with an exciting new
contemporary brand positioningand then also a new concept that
was killing our pro formareturn on investment capital by
even a couple of years.

(07:07):
And so here we were, thinkingthat we'd accomplished this
great turnaround story, and Ihad learned of the rule of
threes, which is, if you focuson three things, you'll get
people to be more clear and moreproductive and ultimately, more
successful.
So my three things wereleadership, engagement and
accountability, and I would say,in every opportunity I had

(07:32):
whether it was weekly emails ormeetings or back in the day with
voicemails that you know Joshis demonstrating great
leadership.
Look what results he's getting.
Or Josh is engaging his teamwith their heart, their head,
their hands and their habits andlook what they're accomplishing
.
Or Josh is holding his teamaccountable for results, and

(07:52):
that's the way we're going toturn this brand around.
And so everything was aboutleadership, engagement and
accountability.
That became my mantra, untilthat fateful morning after the
deal closed with a new buyer.
Instead of us getting thecapital we've earned, they put
us up for sale, and so a newbuyer came in on a Friday.
We're drinking champagne on aweekend, thinking we found our

(08:13):
new parent rightful owner, and Ihad a meeting scheduled at 8
o'clock with the new CEO to kindof plot our new future together
.
At 8.05, I'm out the door.
We've decided to move into debtfor correction.
And that's the second timemajor time I'd heard that.
So that's when it was February21st, I believe 2018.

(08:37):
And that's about the sign, orthe dates.
The first sign the springstarted to emerge in Southern
California and, as you mentioned, we had a fig tree in our
backyard.
I got up early after a fitfulnight of sleep and I went and
took the dog out back to do hisbusiness.
Well, josh, as God is mywitness, as the sun was coming
up over this wall in ourbackyard it shone on that fig
tree, and there, on the end ofone branch, was a tiny little

(08:59):
green sprig of a leaf juststarting to bud.
And it was in that moment I gotthis epiphany that a leaf is a
symbol of growth and rebirth.
And so I took the dog insideand went to my office, started
banging out a treatment on mycomputer for this idea, and one
thing after another kept comingto me.
The next thing was I've beenleading with the rule of threes.

(09:20):
As I think about it, I actuallybelieve in the higher power of
fours.
You think about, there's fourseasons, not three.
There's four directions, notthree.
There's four chambers to thehuman heart, not three.
There's four elements to anatom, the source of all life,
not three, and I could go on andon with this four-play Did you
get the idea.
So the thing that was missingfor me in all of that burning
the candle at both ends andsacrificing and traveling all

(09:43):
over the country and being awayfrom my family, was fulfillment.
And I wrote it down and I said,oh my God, there it is, and it
came to me as a four circle benddiagram, like our four seasons
that overlap with one another.
It is leadership, it isengagement, it is accountability
, but it also has to be afulfillment.

Josh Matthews (10:02):
You know that's such a huge thing.
You know it reminds me of thisthing I watched recently.
It's a behavioralist and wetalked a little bit about this
guy the other day on on our chatoffline.
But he talks about confidenceand one of the things that he
added to, like how to beconfident or ways to be
confident or how you canrecognize that someone has

(10:23):
confidence, and it was enjoymentand that had never crossed my
mind.
I'm 52.
I think a lot about a lot ofdifferent things and especially
those sorts of things.
Confidence and always trying togauge that from our clients and
from our candidates, and he,you know, to hear all of a
sudden it's like, oh no,confident people exhibit
enjoyment was a powerfulrevelation for me and it sounds

(10:48):
not dissimilar.
You know, fulfillment isenjoyment often.

Mark Mears (10:51):
Yeah, and I love that word enjoyment, you know.
For me, the broader word beyondthat is attraction.
When you're around someonewho's enjoying themselves, they
appear confident and they havethis natural attraction that
makes you want to be around themor follow them, right.

Josh Matthews (11:09):
So I love that, and so out of this morning you
then wrote again.
You said a treatment and theacronym for well, you used LEAF
and you selected leadership,engagement, accountability and,
of course, layered infulfillment.
Maybe you can walk us through alittle bit of each of these.
You described leadership as theseed and root system, or

(11:32):
alignment.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?

Mark Mears (11:34):
Yeah, just like in any organization, you have to
have strong leadership.
Well, same for any plant ortree, right?
So the seed is who you are, andin my backyard that fig tree
only knows how to be a fig treeand its purpose is to grow
strong and tall through the leaf, where all growth happens
through photosynthesis, right,and then bear fig fruit, and

(11:55):
we'll talk about why that'simportant in a minute.
But getting it aligned isreally important.
That way, you have sturdy rootsystem that can allow that plant
to grow strong and tall, justlike an organization.
And so, in my view, theleadership model comes down to
four sub-processes clarity ofwhat you stand for, who you are

(12:18):
and your values, of how you'llwork together, but then
connecting them to your businesspriorities across all four
stakeholders your team members,your guests or customers, your
business partners and yourcommunities.

Josh Matthews (12:32):
I believe those are the four stakeholders for
any firm that then leads to andwell, let me just jump in here
because this is a reallyimportant thing here, this idea
of connection, and I like theclarity thing your mission
vision values most companies andyou know there's millions of
companies here in the UnitedStates.
Most companies have these to anextent, but the connection

(12:54):
piece often.
I mean, you tell me, do youthink that the connection piece
within organizational prioritiesis often one of the core things
that's lacking?
Like there's an almost anexpectation that, like, if
you're called in to consult, forinstance, or if you're called
in to take over a department orlead an organization, is the
connection piece frequently theone of the parts that's not

(13:17):
there.

Mark Mears (13:17):
Yeah, it's the missing link, so to speak, gone,
you know, into different, youknow studies and or brought in
consultants to kind of figureout the clarity of their
purposeful vision, mission andvalues.
Right, and so all that's great,but if you don't act on them,
if you don't connect them to howyou make money, you're really

(13:39):
just creating some emptyplatitudes that maybe people
will salute you know a poster onthe wall when they come in and
out of the building and come upin a monthly meeting or annual
meeting, and maybe they'll putsome awards around this and that
and the other thing but ifyou're not truly connecting it
to your four key stakeholders.
Again, your team members first.

(13:59):
You know what was it that SimonSinek said is, you know,
customers will never love abrand unless the team members
love it first.
And you need board employees,which I believe the words matter
I don't like the word employee,and so that is a big thing.
And then, if you do connect them, which is rare then you got to
communicate up, down andsideways, as I like to say, from

(14:22):
the boardroom to the break room, across all constituents, so
everybody knows what we're doing, why we're doing it and what
the role is in it, and thatinspires a commitment of all
members of the team to do theirpart and achieve their specific
goals individually as well asteam goals that ladder up to
this sense of alignment that'sgoing to help that tree grow

(14:45):
strong and tall.

Josh Matthews (14:46):
Yeah, man, I'll tell you, I've seen misalignment
in so many organizations, bethem Fortune 500 organizations
which, by the way, you have tohave a certain amount of
alignment to grow anorganization that big right, you
just have to, so it's notcompletely failing.
Usually, when you're looking atorganizations, are you
generally seeing this lack ofalignment in small to mid-sized

(15:10):
companies versus the large ones,or are you coming into big
companies too, like PepsiCo,Pizza Hut and some of these
other larger groups that you'veworked with and seeing this
disconnect despite their success?

Mark Mears (15:23):
Yeah, while it can happen at any level, any size
organization, I think the largerones have an advantage in that
they've been around usually fora lot longer.
They've found their rhythm,they've scaled, they've learned
what to do, what not to do.
And they have the access toresources from the very top
consultancies in the country.
I think it's more the growingor mid-sized companies that have

(15:47):
not yet hit that scale anddon't have the resources and
maybe don't have the high-levelleadership of a CEO who
understands how all of thesepieces of the puzzle fit
together.
Sure, often you can have anentrepreneur, founder, owner
takes a concept to a certainlevel and then, when it's time

(16:10):
to scale, how do you scale in ahealthy way, to be more
purposeful on your growth,versus just slapping more people
on it or slapping more to it orother ways to grow, other ways
to grow but not really growingfrom the inside out?
That is really the situation Isee.

(16:31):
Most is small to mid-sizedcompanies.
They want to grow.
They don't exactly know how toget there.

Josh Matthews (16:37):
We can also see it in very large ecosystems too.
I'm trying to remember if youand I talked a little bit about
the Joe Rogan podcast that hadKaylee and Casey Means on there.
They're Stanford traineddoctors who've written a fairly
significant book that talksabout the history of healthcare

(17:00):
and the relationship of healthin the United States.
Nutrition, the tobaccocompanies, the you know the gosh
, what was it?
It was like the standards formedical education that were
designed by designed byRockefeller's attorney, right,
it was one of the of course, hewas one of the first big pharma
guys, and it really can feel,when they talk about stuff,

(17:23):
almost like this collusion,right, this collusion between
food companies, corn syrupcompanies and you know
organizations that you know,companies that produce pills to
solve symptoms, versus, you know, getting into actual healthy
nutrition to solve most of themedical challenges that most
Americans face, which aretypically metabolic issues,

(17:44):
right, and inflammation, thissort of thing.
And so here you've gotconnection in this giant, you
know med, pharma, slash,education and food ecosystem,
but it's just not working.
The goal isn't aligned tohealth, the goal is aligned to
profit, so there's going to beissues, and so, you know,
figuring out that goal like,well, what do we really want to

(18:06):
do?
Do we want to make things andorganizations and people healthy
, or do we want to make a lot ofmoney?
I mean, it's well, you got topick one.
Really, you know you got topick one, and then we all know
where the fulfillment is goingto come, from which direction
you would go to actually gainmore fulfillment.
So it sounds like, yeah, smalland mid-sized companies, but
also the broader ecosystems thatwe all participate in willing

(18:29):
or unwillingly here in the US.

Mark Mears (18:31):
Yeah Well.
I'd say all over the world, andI don't believe it's either, or
so I don't think you have topick one.
As a matter of fact, I'madvocating that you pick, and it
isn't just about profit, it'spurpose and profit.
And I have, you know, a memberof Conscious Capitalism Inc, and
I just came back from theannual CEO summit in Austin last

(18:52):
two weeks ago, I guess now andyou know there's a lot of
conscious companies out therethat are doing well by doing
good, and so you know the RJRsthat you mentioned, or some of
the other.

Josh Matthews (19:05):
Philomorus yeah.

Mark Mears (19:07):
That are looking at, you know, replicating habitual
but negative personal healthhabits.
Scientific addiction processesyeah, that would not be, in my
definition, a purposeful.
That would be.
We're in it for profit.
We don't care what happens toreally the people that use our
products.
All we care about is keepingthat quarterly earnings train

(19:30):
moving forward and hitting ourguidance, because you don't have
to do that with Frito-Lay forexample, there was a lot of
backlash at the time abouthaving salty snacks, high level
of fat, in schools, and soinstead of just saying, well,
let's lobby for this, let's keepit going.

(19:51):
Steve Reinemann, the CEO at thetime, later became the CEO and
chairman of PepsiCo and was alsothe CEO at Pizza Hut.
When I worked for him, he saidwe've got to fix this.
We've got to find a way to dobetter for you products that
will still be craveable and yetnot harm the person eating them.

(20:13):
And there was a whole movementaround a better for you
portfolio of products, and thisgoes back several years, and so
it's something that differentfirms have recognized, and their
sales have not gone down,they've gone up as a result.
And so you have to take a bitof a risk, because if someone

(20:33):
tells you hey, I got all thesecase studies that great
companies and even smallbusinesses have figured out how
to be more purposeful, and youknow what it permeates all four
of those stakeholders.
If you're more purposeful, yourteam members are going to feel
better.
A Deloitte study just came outa couple of months ago that said
, among Gen Z and millennials,nearly 90% want purpose at work.

(20:58):
They don't want to just workfor the weekend.

Josh Matthews (21:01):
Yeah, it's huge.
It's huge now.
It's so much different than 15,20 years ago, dramatically
different.

Mark Mears (21:08):
Yeah, I think COVID gave us all a bit of a timeout,
Josh, and it really it's liketrends were moving in that
direction, but not all thatquickly.
But I think it gave us a bit ofa timeout to reflect deeply on
not only what, but who mattersmost in our lives.
And when I saw the Sloan Schoolof Management at MIT's research
on 34 million people who leftthe workforce across the globe,

(21:29):
I asked a simple question whythe number one answer?
By 10x over the second mostgiven answer work environment.
And then you follow that upwith Deloitte's human
sustainability work and theresearch that I just mentioned
about wanting purpose at work.
So your team members come first,and then your customers see

(21:50):
that you're doing good andthey're going to feel better and
maybe they'll even pay more forworking with a conscious
company.
And then your business partnerswho are in your ecosystem are
going to make more money andwant to invest deeper in you
because of the financial benefityou're getting, and the
communities you serve are goingto be enriched because you're in

(22:11):
them.
Whether it's your localcommunity could be statewide,
countrywide or globally,depending on the size of your
enterprise.
And all that together says thatbusiness can be and should be,
and was always meant to be, aforce for good, and so conscious
capitalism's mission thatresonates with me and is aligned

(22:31):
with my values is elevatinghumanity through business.

Josh Matthews (22:35):
I love it Now Mark.
The next letter in a leaf.
E stands for engagement.
You described that as the trunkand the branches.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?

Mark Mears (22:46):
Yeah, it's the trunk and branches and system of
nourishment, which I found outis called sabia, and Spanish
translates into English aslifeblood.
Well, what's the lifeblood ofany organization?
It's people, right?
And so if you go back to yourhigh school science days and
you-.

Josh Matthews (23:04):
No thanks.

Mark Mears (23:06):
There's ways that the energy and nutrition gets
through the leap into the treewhere it comes back up, and so
the idea is it's allinterrelated, and so one must be
engaged with their heart, theirhead, their hands and their
habits, and that leads toempowerment.

(23:27):
So again you hear about lack ofengagement or quiet, quitting
or all these things that youknow, or the great resignation a
few years ago of people wantingto leave the workforce or leave
toxic environments or just notfeeling purposeful at work why
they're disengaged.
Can I?

Josh Matthews (23:44):
ask you something , though, about this, because we
talk about this a lot, right,and this show was born of COVID,
right?
That's why we even have thisprogram, and I'm kind of
interested to know what yourperspective is on these 34
million global I hope I got thatnumber right 34 million global

(24:04):
people who listed a toxic workenvironment.
Now I have to ask how much ofthat do you think was actually
real toxic work environments,versus people just being averse
to work, or people havingbehavioral challenges or mental
health crises or things that hadnothing to do with their

(24:25):
immediate manager, their team orwhat work that they were
producing?
You know what I mean, becauseI've interviewed so many people,
thousands of people, andsometimes I talk to them and
they tell me about this toxicwork environment and they
describe the situations, andthen, the more and more I dig in
, I just think, well, gosh, if Ihad an employee like you, you

(24:46):
might think it's a toxic workenvironment too, because I don't
think that you're very good,and I don't mean that harshly, I
mean it truthfully andtransparently.
So what do you think about that?
You know?

Mark Mears (24:58):
there's never anything black and white,
there's always shades of gray.
And, to be clear, the researchthat was done on 34 million I
didn't say all 34 million citedit.
I said of those who took thesurvey, the number one most
given answer was toxic work.
It was 10 times more than thesecond most given answer.
And now compensation didn't comeup until number 16 on the list.

(25:20):
Okay, so I believe it has lessto do personally, and when I
read the report you can read itas well it's cited on their
website it's not wanting to goback to an unsatisfying status
quo.
Right Now.
I'm a little older than you,but I know you also know that
we've been working under acommand and control management

(25:42):
style that no longer serves us,and so my goal is to put the
human back in human resources,and I say to do so, all we need
is love, which we'll talk aboutlater.
I don't want to fall in themiddle of the leaf model.
I've seen that, whether someonegot COVID themselves, whether
someone in their family washospitalized or God forbid
someone they loved actually died, we were all sheltered in place

(26:05):
.
If you remember, we all didn'tknow what we didn't know.
We were all fearful of goingout and touching something or
being in someone's closeproximity and having it happen
to us, and so there was thisreal kind of fear.
That wasn't a US thing, itwasn't a red or blue thing, it
was a global thing.
So many people just got achance to reevaluate what's

(26:29):
important in their life andwho's important in their life
and so that when you see thatstudy of younger people wanting
purpose in their work, I think alot of it comes out of that.
I don't think they want to workless.
I think they want to work for acompany and for a purpose that
they can get behind and feellike they're doing something to
make their world or theircommunity better, versus just

(26:50):
punching in and out of clock andgetting paid every other week.

Josh Matthews (27:18):
But we are kind of talking about fulfillment and
you know I've mentioned on themonths or even years whilst
raising them, that you knowthere's little happiness, you
know, during some moments ofchild rearing.
You know, like we know, thatEveryone who's a parent knows,
yeah, They've been studying foryears and that show the dip.

Mark Mears (27:39):
You know it's like a U-shape that when married
couples first get marriedthey're at a certain level of
happiness.
And that show the dip.
It's like a U-shape that whenmarried couples first get
married they're at a certainlevel of happiness and that goes
down through a certain numberof years, which happened to be
the child-rearing years.
So there's a definite commondenominator.
But once they're out of thetest, it shows that the curve
continues to go up long intotheir elder years.

Josh Matthews (27:59):
That's right, but they get fulfillment.
Even during those less happyyears, you can be fulfilled and
unhappy.
It's not the same thing.
At least that's what I think.
What do you think?

Mark Mears (28:08):
Well, I covered that in my book, ironically, okay,
and it's toward the end.
So I know you don't have thebook yet, so you wouldn't have
gotten to it.
But I believe there's four kindof elements that we're talking
about.
I think there's fun, which iscontextual, and it's internal I
had fun at the concert lastnight temporary.
Then I think there's happiness.
We all say we want happiness,but I also think happiness is

(28:31):
fleeting, it'll last longer thanfun.
And it's also internal.
It's about me.
Now, when you get to, joy lastslonger.
And joy is external.
Oftentimes we find joy inserving others and then
fulfillment, I think, is eternaland that is the joy we have in
serving others and fulfillingwhat our God-given purpose may

(28:52):
be in this life.
And that is something thatwe'll always kind of work toward
and maybe we'll never fulfillit while we're alive, but maybe
we'll look back at some point inour last days and say, yeah, I
left a mark.
Yeah, I crushed that yeahexactly, yeah, and that's one

(29:16):
definition of legacy about youknow, waiting until you're after
you're dead and buried, andbequeathing something of value
to people you love.
I'm saying, how do you useevery 24 hours of every day?
One thing I know for sure, joshwe only get 24 hours.
Not one of us gets a minutemore or a minute less.
So how are we going to use thattime to create a living legacy

(29:39):
by impacting the people we workwith to where they can then want
to lead, like us and that'sgoing to get into the other
discussion here in a minute.

Josh Matthews (29:47):
Well, let's.
Yeah, I really want to makesure that we're providing the
very best value, because noteveryone who listens to our show
is necessarily a businessleader or a business owner, and
you know, I want to find andexplore some of the aspects of
your work that does speakdirectly to those people who are

(30:09):
employees and I know you don'tlike that work or team members.

Mark Mears (30:13):
Yes, members, absolutely.
I'm happy to follow youwherever you lead me.

Josh Matthews (30:18):
Well, let's talk about the next one, which is
accountability.
That's the A in leaf, and youdescribed that as the leaf and
the fruit.

Mark Mears (30:25):
Right.
So we've got our seed and rootswith leadership.
We've now got our trunk,branches and system of
nourishment with engagement.
And now what are we in businessto do?
That fig tree is in business togrow fig leaves that can help
that tree grow strong and talland ultimately bear fig fruit.
That is not only sustenance forpeople and animals, but it

(30:49):
provides an opportunity throughthe seeds inside to be scattered
for future growth.
And so accountability, as I lookat it, has four different
elements.
There is kind of outcomes, likemeasuring what matters most.
We have to be clear about that.
There is gosh.
I'm just drawing a blank.

Josh Matthews (31:07):
You talk about outcomes.
You talked a little bit abouthow to overcome unexpected
obstacles.

Mark Mears (31:12):
Yeah, so obstacles is the next one.
Thank you for reminding me yougot it, buddy.

Josh Matthews (31:17):
I'm here to remind you of what you wrote.

Mark Mears (31:20):
Yes.
What obstacles are in our path?
Maybe we're off our plan, oursales plan, or maybe there's a
new government regulation that'simpacting our growth, or maybe
we got hit with a lawsuit weweren't intending we're any
number of things can happen.

Josh Matthews (31:32):
So how do you do happen, Right?
I mean, it's it's expected thatthere are going to be
unexpected obstacles.

Mark Mears (31:39):
Yeah.
And so you have to plan forthat.
And when you're going throughyour strategic planning you say
here's what will happen bestcase, mid case, worst case.
And what happens if it's midcase, what are we going to do?
Did we leave any?
As an old boss of mine used tosay and I say boss because he
was a boss, not a leader we gotto leave some dry powder in the

(32:00):
gun.
Let's go shoot everything off,because we'll have no
contingency in case we get offthe plan.
And then what would be theworst case?
If there was, if we're farmingand there was a drought, if
we're a restaurant and there wasan E coli outbreak or you name
it right.
So you don't know those thingsare going to happen, but you got
to plan for what might be theworst case.

(32:22):
So I've always been a bigbeliever in best cases if
everything goes right.
Mid case is if most things goright, and there are some, you
know, bad things that do happen.
And worst case is if man, thewheels could fall off.

Josh Matthews (32:34):
Yeah, man, it's really a huge thing, and I can't
remember what book it was in.
It might've been in yeah, I'mnot even going to bother,
possibly and I think it was aGladwell book or it could have
been in Atomic Habits.
But the importance of doingworst case planning right and I
think the example used was it'sa software launch right and it's

(32:55):
going a lot.
You know, they've been indevelopment for three years.
They're going live tomorrow.
What happens when all theservers break right, this sort
of stuff like let's figure itout, let's role play, all of
that, everyone's in the room,everyone's got to figure it out.
It's not the most fun thing tohave to think about these things
, but when we think about themthen we're not shocked.
You know when it happens.
It's like you know.

(33:15):
It's like college footballteams that practice playing
really loud, crowd noise right,so they can get really
comfortable calling their playsat the volume necessary for the
team to hear and know what'shappening on the field.
That kind of stuff.
It's like practice and plan inthe painful scenario so that
it's less.
I mean it's basically what theydo in boot camp for the

(33:37):
military.
I mean it's what it is.

Mark Mears (33:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good analogy.
Just like here in Kansas Cityand the chiefs were playing, uh,
a monday night game in the rain, and so you know, patrick
mahomes, now you know, prior tothat, before it started raining
but throwing wet footballs yeahexactly we're in these
conditions, and so we betterplan for it instead of being
surprised by yeah, exactly.

Josh Matthews (34:00):
I mean you're gonna lose whether you're
throwing a football or hitting agolf ball.
If the ball's wet, it's notgoing as far, probably.
It's just how it is.

Mark Mears (34:07):
No.
So now you know your outcomes,you have ways of overcoming
obstacles, and now you kind ofget to this idea of innovation.
So who are the outliers?
Whether it's in your company,or maybe it's in your you know
competitive set, or maybe it'soutside your competitive set,
but who can you learn from tohelp you do what you currently

(34:28):
do better?
Right, that leads toobsolescence, which you don't
want, and that's really whereinnovation kicks in to say who
can we learn from and what canwe do to create a new growth
path?
Once we start to kind of youknow level off where we are
currently, is create a newgrowth path?
Once we start to kind of leveloff where we are currently, is
there a new product or servicethat we could begin to invest in
and innovate in?
Now that will be there.

(34:49):
I mean think about greatcompanies like Kodak,
blockbuster Video, circuit City.

Josh Matthews (34:55):
I could go on and on yeah, they're obsolete
versus a Netflix that went fromdelivering videos by mail, dvds
by mail and Dropboxes and thissort of thing to delivering it
via the internet.
Absolutely.

Mark Mears (35:10):
And so I think every company has to wrestle with
that is how much time do Iinvest in the future?
And I remember the Steve Jobsquote when he was addressing his
executive team once, and hesays our job is to invent the
future while we're managing thepresent.
That would lead to achievement.
Then we get to fulfillment,which is the ecosystem the soil,

(35:31):
the sun, the rain that providesa perfect environment for
photosynthesis to occur, so thatplant or that company's culture
, or what I call a community,can grow into its purpose, into
the best version of itself,through people, places, process
and performance.
And so all that leads to, again, an environment that is

(35:55):
conducive for the best source ofgrowth, not a toxic environment
where people feel undervalued,treated like an employee ID
number, not given a chance tolearn and grow.
All of those things Gallup saysare disengaging factors not
feeling cared about at work, notbeing listened to and not being

(36:15):
given clear instructions whatI'm supposed to be doing and not
given frequent feedback.
For how am I doing?
It's shocking, isn't it?

Josh Matthews (36:23):
I mean you've been in this game for decades.
Right, and so have I.
And it is the most shockingthing to me how many times I
talk to people in any givenmonth where they describe their
last employment experience,where they're basically dropped
into the middle of a projectthey're shovel ready.

(36:44):
They might not even talk to ormeet their boss for three to six
months.
No joke, nevermind feedback,right, like forget that.
Yeah, we'll talk in a year ifyou're still here.
It's that kind of mentality.
And then they wonder why theyhave high turnover, you know.
And then they wonder why theyhave high turnover, you know.
It's incredible.

Mark Mears (37:02):
Yeah, it's sad because it's very avoidable.
But to do that, I think we'vegot to put the human back in
human resources.

Josh Matthews (37:09):
So let's talk about that for a little bit,
right, because I've got.
You can probably guess I havevery strong feelings about human
resources, and particularly onthe recruiting side.
Human resources is a wonderfuldepartment, but I'm with you, I
don't know that the human is inhuman resources the way that it

(37:30):
was ever originally intended.
What have you found in yourexperience as a leader in some
of these larger organizations?
Where have human resourcesmaybe missed the mark and what
can they do about it?

Mark Mears (37:44):
Yeah, I think it's probably the most overworked and
under a department in mostfirms because they're asked to
do so many things and a lot ofthem are just administrative.
So we look to HR to solve peopleproblems and many of them are
not maybe coached or educated oradept at leading and developing

(38:08):
leaders to where the teammembers feel valued, and so
that's kind of an extension ofthe purposeful growth revolution
, which is all about personaland professional growth.
And yes, there's a lot ofinsight in there for how to be a
better leader and certainlythat's part and parcel to the
book.
But if that was about 100 mileswide and 10 feet deep because I

(38:31):
covered a lot of ground, as youcan tell from even the leaf
growth what's missing is thisidea of bringing love into the
workplace and not the kind oflove that's going to get you a
quick call from HR and escortedout of the building.
Really a model for tapping intosome of our most fundamental
human needs beyond food safety,sex, et cetera, et cetera.

(38:52):
Right, and Maslow's hierarchyneeds.
There's this idea we all needto feel seen and heard.

Josh Matthews (38:58):
Yeah, we need to.
We need connection.

Mark Mears (39:00):
It's a human need to feel seen and heard.
Yeah, we need connection.
It's a human need, yeah, and weneed to feel empowered to be
our very best.
And so you peel back that onion.
And what does love stand for?
Listen, observe, value andempower.
Listen to someoneempathetically deeper than you
normally do and not only hearwhat they're saying, but maybe
listen to what they're notsaying, maybe be naive to think

(39:22):
that people don't have thingsgoing on at home or outside of
work that are impacting theirability to do quality work and
feel fulfilled in their job.
So when you listen on a deeper,more empathetic level, you're
building trust, and that's thefoundation of any relationship,
right?
Trust.
Am I going to trust Josh bytelling him I've got an elderly

(39:44):
mom that needs this care, orI've got a sick kid who I don't
know how we're going to gettheir surgery paid for, or I'm
struggling with my spouse andit's really messing with my head
?
I don't know what he's going todo with that information.
But if you built thatfoundation of trust by saying
you know, hey, mark, I'm reallyvery sorry to hear that.
What can I do to help?

(40:05):
Is there anything I can do orthe company can do to help make
this situation better for you?
I mean imagine hearing that andthen that leads to observe
Don't wait for the dreadedannual performance appraisal
that no one likes and no onedoes well, or even quarterly
review.
That's too long.
Be able to observe by coaching,encouraging and maybe

(40:27):
critiquing in real time, sopeople feel like you really care
about what they're doing.

Josh Matthews (40:33):
So now you're talking about not the department
, not the HR department.
You're talking about someone'ssupervisor.

Mark Mears (40:39):
Yeah, because the HR department doesn't have most of
the time.
Now, bigger companies, they'rea little different.
They've got more money forlearning and development and
other things of that nature, butmost mid to small size
companies rely on HR to doeverything that is people
related.

Josh Matthews (40:56):
Yeah, look, they're doing compensation
reviews.
They're looking at, you know,various insurance benefits.
They're looking at their youknow their EVP.
Some of them are sort of crosstrained to do some recruiting,
but then they're also, you know,running insurance programs.
Yeah Right, some people arejust dedicated in the talent

(41:17):
acquisition division of an HRteam.
You know, tell me about this.
I've recognized there aredifferent.
Like, if you look at someonewho's in HR, who's in talent
acquisition, they're a recruiter.
Most recruiters I know who aretalent acquisition people at
companies are usually theyusually at one point or another,
always, and I could be wrong.

(41:37):
I haven't run stats on this,but in my experience most of
them at one point or another wasa recruiter at an agency like
mine or an agency like roberthalf or tech systems or
something like that, and thenthey left right and they leave
for a variety of reasons.
Agency work can be very up anddown.
I saw that you worked out youryour rsg that was a client of
mine back.
Agency work can be very up anddown.
I saw that you worked out yourRSCG that was a client of mine

(41:58):
back in the day.
That's an agency, not astaffing agency, but a digital
agency, one of the largest inthe world.
And you know those guys, man,it's crazy, it's super hectic,
right.
And so a lot of people comeinto agency work or consulting
practices and they're like I gotto get out of here, I just want
to work for one company and Idon't want to have to deal with
this stuff.
So they go and oftentimesthey're arriving with a

(42:22):
personality that is humancentric, right, but that and you
know empathetic and you knowservitude.
Servitude not in a bad way, notin a bad way, but a willingness
to serve others, right, awillingness to try and make
things better, make a workenvironment better.
But those same qualities thatmay make them sensitive or may

(42:45):
make them empathetic, forinstance, those same qualities
oftentimes are anathema to someof the qualities that they need
to actually be highly successful, in other words, the
willingness to speak up, andloudly, and often to foolhardy
senior leadership that's justmaking bad decisions around

(43:06):
their staff or whom they'rehiring or their hiring processes
, and they don't speak up.
And then they hire some guylike me and, because I don't
work there, they'll listen to me, and I tell them no, you're
doing it wrong.
Oh yeah, sally already told youthat.
Okay, well, you should havelistened to her the first time,
right?
What do you think about thatfrom an HR, from a person you
know?
Hr typically attracts certain,you know several personality

(43:27):
types, but it generally does notattract the highly ambitious
types.
Now, you could be ambitious inHR, and I know some VPs of HR
that are absolutely stunningwith their drive, absolutely
incredible, right, no doubtabout it.
But the vast majority don'tnecessarily have that fire in
them right?
And it's the nature of the role.

(43:48):
What do you think about that?

Mark Mears (43:50):
Yeah, again, I don't think it's all black or white,
there's some shades of gray.
I can cite Dina Barmesty Gray,who was the head of the people
at the Cheesecake Factory andeasily the best overall culture
and I'll say community because Ithink it was that I've ever
worked for and I would be rightnear PepsiCo Pizza Hut.

(44:10):
When I was working at Pizza Hut, we were owned by Pepsi.
We had a great leader namedDavid Novak as the head of
marketing and then, as Imentioned, steve Reinemann was
the CEO of the whole enterpriseand we had a great HR person at
the Cheesecake Factory who Ijust mentioned.
She would challenge DavidOverton, the founder and CEO

(44:32):
still there, not in a mean way,but just speak up.
It's so easy and I've seen it sooften where HR leaders swallow
their whistle because they getdominated by either the CEO
themselves or other members ofthe C-suite.
They still have a C title nextto their name and they still
have value to bring, butoftentimes they swallow their

(44:53):
whistle because they just wantto get along by getting along.
Dina never did that.
She was the exact person you'retalking about Vivacious,
inspirational, smart, talented,ambitious, and she wanted the
best for not only for thecompany, but for every
individual team member workingfor the Cheesecake Factory.
So it can happen, but you'vegot to be cut out of the right

(45:15):
mold and it can't be a fallbackposition for you To your point.
It has to be your life'sambition and you have to be
wired right for that to work.

Josh Matthews (45:25):
Yes, absolutely Absolutely, and I think it's a
bit of a crapshoot too.
I mean, I think it's one ofthose roles that some people go
to college for sure know morepeople go to college for HR than
they do for recruiting RightMaybe like one program in the
country that that you can get adegree in recruiting Right.
But HR generally attractsfemales more than males.

(45:50):
It just does same way withnursing Right.
It just does.
And there's a lower aggression,and I don't mean aggression in
a bad way, but there's a lowerchance of confrontation among
women than there is among men,and this isn't guys.
I'm not saying that therearen't people who are on either

(46:13):
side, soft men and and moredriven and confrontational women
, of course, but in general, youcan look at the numbers.
It's just how it is.
This is behavioral stuff and so, consequently, I think that
most strong leaders in HR that Ihave ever met in my life and
I've met a number of them thatare really fantastic They've all

(46:33):
been women, 100%, minus one.
I have a friend, drew, whoworked at a very high level in
human resources, and aside fromhim, they've all been women, but
for the most part they're lesslikely to be confrontational,
and I think that whatever we cando to empower people and I love
this because this is part ofyour LEAF model is empowering

(46:54):
and training the younger or thenewer folks who are joining
human resources, to reallyempower them to have that voice,
once they learn their job right, to speak up.
I think people should keep quietuntil they know their job and
they're good at their job, andthen you go ahead and challenge
away.
I don't think people shouldstart challenging from day one.

(47:14):
If they showed up and theydon't know what they're doing,
right, that wouldn't last verylong.
Yeah, and they don't, and theydo it all the time and they
don't last very long.
And I talk to them and they'rejob hoppers.
We all know that.
We all know these types right.
But I think that this is such acritical and important point
whether you're a business owner,whether you're listening to
this program and you're in HR,you're a recruiter that's

(47:34):
listening to this program orsimply someone who's going to be
interacting with HR.
It's so critical to make surethat, look, these are the
situations where you absolutelyit's not just we hope you speak
up.
It's you must speak up.
This is part of your role too.

Mark Mears (47:50):
Well, here's what I've found to work as a former
CEO and president, I've had thefull P&L responsibility and the
responsibility of all directsreporting to me at C-level
individuals, but I've also spentthe most time on the marketing
side.
It's really about brandbuilding and for me, I think
there are four sub-brands thatlead into the total brand.

(48:12):
There's the personal brand thatasks the question who am I,
what do I bring to the table?
There's the internal brand thatasks the question who am I,
what do I bring to the table?
There's the internal brand, thecollective we, what do we stand
for?
There's the external brandthat's like all marketing and
sales is basically a valueexchange what do I get for?
What do I pay and, mostimportantly, how do I feel about
it?
That then leads to the employerbrand, which asks the question

(48:35):
do I belong here?
And that word belonging is sovery important.
While you've heard me talk aboutcommunity versus culture,
because I believe words matterand when you're trying to make
change, you can't just keepusing the same nomenclature and
doing things the same way.
We all know what that leads to.
Right Breaking it down, I thinka culture is a place someone
may feel that they're merely apart of.

(48:57):
It's not bad.
But a community is a placesomeone feels they belong in.
Notice the difference in thisworld of DEI.
Diversity gets us the door,that's good.
Equity gives us an equal voiceit's better.
Yet, inclusion gets us the seatof the table Wow.
But if we don't feel like webelong, the seat of the table

(49:18):
wow.
But if we don't feel like webelong, we're likely not going
to be or feel psychologicallysafe enough to be vulnerable to
give up our very best.
We're going to just get alongby getting along right, and that
doesn't do anybody any good.
Yeah, yeah, for real.
The V in the love model andI'll get to it quickly is value.
Okay, we all need to feelvalued, right.
And so Not just reward andrecognition, but value the whole

(49:40):
person.
Now let's say, josh, you cameto me as a team member and I'm
your leader.
You say, mark, I'm reallyinterested in AI and what it
could do to help improve theproductivity and satisfaction of
our team's job.
If you value something, youinvest in it.
And I like to say, josh, thatsounds interesting, let's get

(50:00):
you some training on how you canlearn more about this, and so
we figure out what we can do.
Is it a two-day conference?
Is it a series of webinars?
Is it?

Josh Matthews (50:09):
whatever right?
Yeah, here's a YouTube video.
Let's start there.
It's free and you'll probablylearn a ton right Exactly.
You don't have to spend twogrand to learn AI Right.

Mark Mears (50:21):
So now you feel valued as a member of a team and
not just as a random employeeID number.
That leads to empowerment.
And that is a strong word,because I remember when I
learned to ride a bike and Iremember having training wheels
and my dad taking them off oneSaturday morning and I was

(50:41):
excited and nervous at the sametime.
After a couple of falls andhe's teaching me how to do it,
he's holding on to thehandlebars and running down the
sidewalk with me and finallylets go.
And after a few times I wobbleand fall.
I then get myself back up andfinally, when I was able to
pedal and get to the end of theblock and turn around and come

(51:02):
back, I don't know whose grinwas bigger my dad or mine, but
I'll tell you this in my mind'seye as we're speaking.
I remember that sense of freedomI felt when I was finally
empowered to ride my bike and beon my own.
I lived on that bike thatsummer and the following summers
.
And so what if we were able tocreate that same sense of

(51:23):
empowerment?
So I say, josh, you've donesome learning on AI and how it
might work in our teamenvironment.
Maybe you might want to puttogether a presentation for our
team with some examples.
And you're all of a suddengoing wow and you'll say I'll
say to you I'm here if you needme.
what resources do you need?
What can I do to support you?

(51:44):
And you'll say, well, maybethere's this project that I'm
working with Bob and Sam andMary on.
Maybe, if I could have a littletime to work on this and maybe
have them pick up some of mySlack, that'd be helpful.
Okay, you know, we set a dateand all of a sudden you feel
empowered to teach the team thebenefits, the techniques of what

(52:07):
AI can do to help make ourlives better, our work more
productive, and all those kindof good things.
Who would want to quietly quitthat?
Who would want to resign fromthat?

Josh Matthews (52:23):
It would be a community where you feel like
you belong and you're empoweredto be your very best.
Yeah, no, you're absolutelyright.
I can recall not just you know,my boys learning to ride their
bike or me learning to ride mybike, but something similar that
happened to me when I was adivision director Well, I wasn't
quite a division director yetat Robert Half and I had asked
if I could run a training serieson teaching MBTI, basic MBTI

(52:48):
principles and how to understandthe different aspects of
Myers-Briggs type indicator andhow decipher or discern or guess
with pretty good accuracy basedon simple questions, what kind
of individual you'recommunicating with, so that you
could have a deeperunderstanding of them.
And we like to understandpeople, because when we
understand people we can moretypically, we can more

(53:11):
predictably predict theirbehavior.
And that gives us security,right, that gives us safety.
And now we know what we'redealing with, right, so we can
predict that.
Oh, I can predict thatcrocodile is going to bite me if
we get too close to the water,right, we already have that
prediction model in our head.
But when it comes to new teammembers, or you're joining a new

(53:31):
company and now you're going tobe engaged in working with four
to eight people on a regularbasis and you've got to figure
it out.
You've got to figure it outpretty quick this sort of thing.
But, man, if that didn'tbeholden me to that company in a
way that nothing else wouldhave, I was getting paid well, I
was very successful.
I was doing, I think, a verygood job.
The economy was great, like noissues Right, but the

(53:56):
opportunity to go and lead andteach and do more research and
kind of take my training wheelsoff as a manager, so to speak,
was the coolest thing thatcompany ever did for me, you
know so I totally got that Right.

Mark Mears (54:10):
You felt like you were a valued member of a team
versus just another cog in thewheel.
Absolutely, and it was onlywhen I began to versus just
another cog in the wheel.

Josh Matthews (54:16):
Absolutely, and it was only when I began to feel
like a cog in the wheel that Ileft.

Mark Mears (54:21):
Yeah, and it can change.
I remember my first agency job.
I was reporting to three peopledoing a ton of work, but I had
one leader who's acknowledged inmy book, who really took time
to mentor me and show me theropes and figure out how I could
manage to accomplish the workthat the three different leaders
were giving me and not goinsane, and prioritize and

(54:44):
understand and be empathetic.
And all of a sudden my worldchanged.
Well, he left.
A new one came in and he wasmuch more nose to the grindstone
.
Don't bring in that weak shit inhere, I don't want to hear
about it.
Just get your results and getthe grindstone.
Don't bring in that weak shitin here, I don't want to hear
about it.
You know, just get your resultsand get the job done.
And that's when I had theopportunity to go to Pizza Hut
and to work for a wonderfulleader like David Novak.

(55:04):
And my career, you know,trajectory, changed as a result
of that move, that decision.
But it took kind of having aturd ball Tell me what I would
and I wouldn't accept and I justwent.

Josh Matthews (55:16):
I don't think I've ever heard that term before
.
That's hysterical.
Yeah Well, let me ask you this,mark, because we're getting
closer, a little bit closer tothe end of the show and I'm just
going to do a quick littlepublic service announcement that
if you're just joining us rightnow on the live show or you
somehow popped into the backhalf of the broadcast, the
podcast visitsalesforcecareershowcom.

(55:37):
We've got a wonderful contestgoing on.
We're giving away fivecertifications.
These were gifted to us bySalesforce five certification
vouchers and there are twodifferent ways that you can
enter to win, and I thinkeveryone's got a really good
chance of winning.
So definitely check outsalesforcecareershowcom and go
ahead and enter into thatcontest.
So I'd like to steer thisconversation into some very

(56:01):
practical things that some ofour listeners might do, and, of
course, one of the practicalthings would be to go ahead and
get your book, and your book I'massuming it's available on
Amazon- it is as an e-book, apaperback, a hardcover and even
an audio book.

Mark Mears (56:17):
if that's the way you roll, did you do?

Josh Matthews (56:20):
the audio for it.

Mark Mears (56:21):
I did.

Josh Matthews (56:21):
Last winter.

Mark Mears (56:22):
I got it done this spring and I thought writing the
book was the hardest thing I'veever done.
But I will tell you, I justlike the sound of my own voice
and I have a lot of disruptionswhere I live, and so it was a
struggle to get the book done.
But I did it because it waspart of the creative process and
so many people talked me intoit and said, mark, you know your

(56:44):
material better than somegoldie throat voice actor, you
should do it.
And I relented and I think itcame out pretty good.

Josh Matthews (56:52):
I'm glad you did that, mark, because I happen to
think you've got a wonderfulspeaking voice, just so you know
, and I think that a lot ofpeople I'm glad you did that,
mark, because I happen to thinkyou've got a wonderful speaking
voice, just so you know, and Ithink that a lot of people,
including myself, we don'treally love our voices.
I know I'm not a great singerand I've learned to, I think,
get better at speaking and sortof open my voice up a little bit

(57:12):
over the years, particularlywith this program.
I actually did a littleresearch on it and did a little
practice on it, which is helpful.
But there's something reallyspecial when the author is the
one doing the audio book.
I remember I was just talkingabout Beyond Order, which is a
Jordan Peterson book, and I wastalking about it with my host.
I'm at an Airbnb in Charleston,south Carolina, right now and I

(57:34):
was talking to my host, who'sthis lovely woman, and we were
telling her about Beyond Orderand I was saying you know, one
of the things I loved about thataudio book is that he spoke
himself.
You can really get the passionand there are even moments when
you can tell he's full of tears,right, because he's talking
about a very sensitive situation, a very sad time in his life, a

(57:55):
very painful thing that he hadto go through.
So I'm a huge fan of that.
Now they can find it.
The book is called thePurposeful Growth Revolution.
It's by Mark Mears, m-e-a-r-s,and I want to touch on your book
that you're in.
You've got part two coming out.
It's a different title.
We're going to talk about thatin a moment, but before we do

(58:20):
that and wrap it up, I'd like tofind out what are some of the
things, and it doesn't even haveto be in the book, let's just
say from you.
Let's say, someone is anemployee, someone is a team
member and they are feeling likethey're not empowered where
they are.
They are feeling like they'renot fulfilled or not as
fulfilled as they could be.
What are some things they cando within the organization that
they're in right now tohopefully overcome some of those

(58:45):
negative feelings or less thanfulfilling experiences?

Mark Mears (58:50):
Yeah, I think the first thing I'm a big believer
in communication.
Okay, back in the olden days,when I was first, you know a
young Turk coming up climbingthe ladder, you didn't ever want
to bring attention to yourself,you just wanted to do a good
job.
You know, get work done.
You know, hopefully you'll getnoticed and be eligible for

(59:10):
promotion and other biggerprojects, and that was the way
of the world.
Whereas today, again, I thinkthat we're a little more open to
communicate and if you don'tadvocate for yourself, no one
else is going to advocate foryou.
So you know, you need tounderstand who is your boss or
leader, depending on you.

(59:31):
Know their style.
Are they new in their role?
Because you know, if it's a newmanager and we'll talk about
that in a minute the differencebetween a manager and a leader
they may not have thecommunication skills or the
emotional intelligence to beable to sense that you're not
100% engaged or happy with whatyou're doing.

(59:53):
You've got to set up time withthem and say look, josh, I just
really I love working here, butI've got some issues that I
would like to communicate to youand let's see if we can work
this out together.
And so all of a sudden you'redisarming that person and
telling him what you want totalk about, and then that gives
them time to go away and thinkabout it and you time to kind of

(01:00:14):
come back with a very wellarticulated communication of
what you want to accomplish withthe meeting.

Josh Matthews (01:00:21):
And you see, where it goes, you never show up
and show up with solutions.
I mean, I think that's a reallyimportant part yeah.

Mark Mears (01:00:27):
I always said bring me solutions, not problems.
I know what they are and I gotplenty, but I'm open to your
solutions.
Yeah, and I really am.
I love being a team player andI love being a team leader.
I can do both, but what Ireally love about it is the
camaraderie, the shared valuesand the esprit de corps that

(01:00:50):
happens when you're workingtogether.
It's like a rowing team withall the words in the water
rowing together.
And that's the right direction,right.
So you have to have thatcommunication first.
You have to have solutions.
Like I said, I love what I'mdoing, but I'd rather be doing
more of this and less of that.
Or I'd like to take on I've gotcapacity, I'd like to take on

(01:01:12):
another project, or maybe helpwork on Bobby and Sarah's
project.
But you've got to advocate foryourself because nobody else
will.
And then, all of a sudden,you're going to feel frustrated
because no one's helping you.
Well, you've got to reach forthe life raft yourself.

Josh Matthews (01:01:26):
Yeah, man, I love what you just said.
You've got to advocate foryourself Now.
Anybody who's ever had an alienfamily member or someone close
to you that's in the medicalsystem or you've had to, they're
in the hospital or you knowyou're concerned about their
care, Anyone who's gone throughthat by the way, I've gone
through that, but I didn't.
It didn't have to go throughthat until later in life, Right,

(01:01:47):
but I've gone through that andit's incredible how much
improved someone's healthoutcomes are when there is
someone there advocating forthat patient.
Right, Like it's a massive,massive difference and it could
even be life or death, or atleast severe discomfort and
comfort.

(01:02:07):
Right, but in the workplace, andyou just said, no one's going
to advocate for you but you.
I don't know if I'm going to100% subscribe to that because,
like you, I also believe indifferent shades of gray and I
do think that there are ways tobuild alliances and to build
advocates and develop advocatesfor yourself in the business.
But to do that initially, thatreally does have to fall.

(01:02:31):
That does fall on one'sshoulders, and so how would
someone go about advocating forthemselves or identifying
someone, or what's the work thatthey would need to do
necessarily to get recognized sothat they can have someone
advocating for their promotionor whatever else they're looking
for.

Mark Mears (01:02:50):
No, I love that you brought that up, and I was just
giving you step one right.

Josh Matthews (01:02:56):
Let me guess four steps.
Let me guess four steps.
Yes, four steps, Mark.

Mark Mears (01:02:59):
There would be four steps if we had time, but I'm
going to cover the one that you.

Josh Matthews (01:03:05):
It's a hard pair of fours man, come on.

Mark Mears (01:03:07):
Yeah, I know you said it's so powerful, this idea
of mentor and finding a mentorat work, and so in my book I
talk about having two mentorsone who can help you with maybe
the hard skills and how do youdo your job better?
And if you're in a technologyfield or maybe you're in a

(01:03:27):
financial organization, whathard skills do you need to get
better at beyond your education,and who do you admire that does
it well?
And then also find someone whocan help you with the soft
skills.
That's emotional intelligence,that's how to communicate,
that's how to advocate.
And you see someone that youadmire and say well, josh, I see

(01:03:48):
you in meetings and, man, Ilove the way you carry yourself.
I would love to learn from you.
Are you open to coaching me abit?
So, because you've asked forhelp now from two different
people and it could be the samepeople person that exhibits both
skills, but I doubt it, unlessthey're a rock star, but you are
.
So maybe now you've got someonewho says hey, mark really wants

(01:04:10):
to get better.
He's come to me and asked me totake him to coffee or go for a
walk or whatever, and coach himon ways that he can get better
at X or Y or Z.
Now, when your supervisors orhigher-ups hear that they're
going to be more likely to tonow kind of put an eye towards

(01:04:31):
you.
How are you growing?
You've asked for help.
Are you improving in theseareas?
And now are you ready to takeon more work and more leadership
through promotion?
Right, and so I've personallydone it, I've seen it done and
finding that mentor who canadvocate for you if you're
having a bad day with your bossand you just want someone who

(01:04:55):
you can trust to kind of helpyou work through it.

Josh Matthews (01:04:58):
Absolutely, and I think it's very important to
get on your boss's radar as well.
Yes, because you never knowwhen you may lose that person
and you don't want to go in cold.
I started a job, I was hired asa branch manager for brisbane,

(01:05:19):
australia, for a scientificstaffing firm, and the day I
arrived to start my work, my myboss flew up from melbourne to
meet with me and within 15minutes, told me that he's
leaving the company and would begone by the end of the week.
Right, yeah, and it's like, oh,okay, so now all of this, all

(01:05:40):
of this affinity that I had forhim, who and he was one of the
reasons why I chose to workthere.
It was gone Right, zero time todevelop that relationship above
, but I did.
You know, I was then reportingdirectly to the CEO and had a
good relationship and eventuallywas able to take over for that
year, my boss's job, right,which was great.

(01:06:03):
Gave me a little, a lot morefun being able to do that.
But it's a hard road.
It's a hard road and we alsohave all seen mass layoffs,
right, and we don't know what'sgoing to happen to us, right,
and if your boss's boss doesn'tknow your name your boss's.
Boss may be the person who'smaking the decision.
Oftentimes our immediatesupervisor, you know, has no say

(01:06:24):
in it.

Mark Mears (01:06:25):
If your leader is truly a leader and not a boss,
they will make that introductionfor you to their leader or boss
, whoever, that's right, andthey won't feel threatened by it
.
It's people that want toprotect what they feel is theirs
.
They're going to hide you undera bushel because they just want
you to work for them and makethem look good.

(01:06:46):
But a true leader flips it justthe opposite.
I'm here to serve you.
What can I do to help you feela sense of satisfaction and
fulfillment here at work andachieve whatever career
objectives you have?
That's my job as a leader is togrow other leaders.

Josh Matthews (01:07:03):
And that demonstrates massive confidence,
which we talked about sort ofat the beginning of the show.
And let's face it, not allpeople who are in leadership
positions possess that.
They don't Many of them do,fortunately.
Thank goodness for that, yeah.

Mark Mears (01:07:16):
Right, and that's what leads me into my second
book and all around this idea ofputting the human back in human
resources.
But I don't mean at the humanresources level, I mean
throughout the organization.
To be sure I don't want to pileon again overworked and maybe
under-trained group of peoplethat do a lot of good for the
company.
But it's really again helpingmanagers who can become leaders,

(01:07:41):
who can grow into legacybuilders.
And I'll just break it downreal quick for you.
If you're a manager, many peoplego to schools of management.
We learn how to manage right.
We manage projects andtimelines and budgets and
resources and people.
It's very transactional.
So that makes the person thatworks for them say I will obey

(01:08:01):
you because of your title andthe hierarchy and all that
command and control malarkey.
That no longer serves us.
But if we can help managersgrow into leaders, that's where
trust is built and it's morerelational.
You don't work for me, you workwith me.
And actually I flip it aroundand say I serve you as your
leader.
Okay, now that's relational.

(01:08:23):
And then, if we do that reallywell, that person who says I was
going to obey this person, butnow I will willingly follow you,
now when it's their turn tolead, they'll, but now I will
willingly follow you.
Now, when it's their turn tolead, they'll say I will lead
like you, and that becomestransformational.
So you go from transactional asa manager to relational as a
leader, to transformational as aliving legacy builder.

Josh Matthews (01:08:46):
Yeah, Think of it as yeah buddy, I love it.

Mark Mears (01:08:49):
You know the pebble in the pond right.
Once you throw it in the pondyou don't see it again.
It's underneath the water onfloor right Of the pond, but
you'll see the ripple effect ontop Now let's say, you have four
or five direct reports, youhave a chance to have four or
five pebbles that canexponentially grow.
A leadership shadow is what weused to call it at PepsiCo years

(01:09:10):
ago and that will helpultimately transform the tired
old command and controlmanagement style that no longer
serves us into a more humanistic, relational leadership style
that will not only pay dividendsfor the team member, but it
will pay dividends for the wholeorganization and every

(01:09:32):
stakeholder underneath thatfirm's ecosystem right Team
members, customers or clients orguests, business partners and
communities.

Josh Matthews (01:09:42):
Sure, it radiates out.
Mark, I'm going to jump in herebecause we're going to be
wrapping up the show.
What is the title of your newbook that's going to be coming
out, and when is it coming out?

Mark Mears (01:09:52):
Well, I'm working on the new title as we speak.
I've done a ton of research,I've already written several
pages and usually the titlecomes later, but I'm open to
suggestions.
I'm looking at somethingprovocative like love at work
and think about the men at worksign construction sign,
replacing it with love at work,and underneath it it would be

(01:10:14):
something about building a senseof community and belonging for
X, y and Z.
There you go, but somethingtied around this whole idea of
love to be a better leader, kindof sounding like it's a
question and love is the answer,through the acronym or the
model.
I'm working on that as we speak.
Any ideas you or your listenershave, shoot them toward me.

(01:10:36):
You can find me on.
Linkedin and my website ismarkamierscom.
There you can also.
One of the practical things istake my purposeful growth
self-assessment and it takesabout six, seven minutes, but it
will kind of give you abenchmark of where do you stand
on the idea of finding andfulfilling purpose in both your
work and your life and I'll sendyou back a custom report with

(01:10:57):
your scores and some helpfultips from me.

Josh Matthews (01:11:00):
That's fantastic, mark.
Again, that's markamierscomM-A-R-K-A-M-E-A-R-Scom.
Again, the book is thePurposeful Growth Revolution.
You've been listening to theSalesforce Career Show.
I'm happy to say thatthroughout this program we've
been getting entries for thecontest, which has been terrific

(01:11:22):
.
So keep those coming, myfriends.
We appreciate the questions, weappreciate the reviews and
again, if you're just tuning inat the end or you didn't have a
pen to jot it down at the time,you can visit
salesforcecareershowcom and haveup to two entries in to win up
to $400 worth of Salesforcecertification vouchers.

(01:11:42):
Unfortunately, vanessa was notable to join us.
She is a solopreneur these daysand had a critical client
meeting, so we'll forgive herthis once.
I hope that everyone will tunein on November 20th, where you
can join me and Vanessa with ourspecial guests Bobby.
Bobby Dornbos, who's aprincipal at MRE Consulting, and
his friend Theron Stanley.

(01:12:03):
I've met both these guys.
They're wonderful people.
He's a strategic accountdirector at Salesforce, covering
a lot of the oil and gas out inTexas.
I believe they're out inHouston.
So join us on November 20th forthat and then the episode after
that is December 4th.
We've got a couple folks thatare going to be on that show.
We'll announce those in alittle bit, but December 4th is
when we are going to beannouncing the winners.

(01:12:25):
You don't have to listen to theshow live to be a winner.
It's not like that.
It's not like the raffle whereyou got to show up and get your
ticket number called, that sortof thing.
We'll just go ahead and let youknow by email or a phone call.
But definitely join us in acouple of weeks.
And, mark, I just want to saythank you so much.
Getting to know you over theselast couple of weeks and the

(01:12:47):
several conversations that we'vehad, and particularly in this
one, has been absolutelyremarkable.
I congratulate you on yoursuccess as an author, your
success as a business leader andyour willingness to pour your
heart and soul truly pour yourheart and soul into a work
dedicated to helping people havea better experience and better
productivity and a happier andmore fulfilling life in their

(01:13:10):
work.
So thank you for producing thisand thank you for being a guest
on the show.

Mark Mears (01:13:15):
My pleasure, Josh.
I appreciate the platform andhope to give in value to your
listeners.

Josh Matthews (01:13:21):
I'm sure you have , absolutely.
You have All right, my friend.
Well, look, when the new bookcomes back, comes out, let's
have you back on the show and Iwish you a very happy, a very
happy holiday season here.
And thanks everybody for tuninginto the live program.
I you know we've had folks allthe way from Nairobi listening
in.
Thank you Linda, thank you Tom,thanks Brana, thank you Casey

(01:13:44):
for joining this episode.
Every other listener that we'vehad on the live program, you
guys rock, appreciate you guyscoming back week in and week out
.
We're going to be covering alittle bit more salesforce
specific oriented stuff in twoweeks, so stay tuned for that.