April 7, 2025 • 50 mins
Have you ever led a team where true connection felt out of reach? Kyle McDowell, once a top executive in Fortune 10 companies, had a powerful realization—his leadership was driven by fear, not respect. This moment sparked a transformation that led to his "Begin With We" philosophy: 10 principles focused on shifting from individual success to collective excellence.
Kyle shares a pivotal moment—alone in a hotel room, preparing to address 50 leaders—when he realized he needed a new approach. Principles like “We do the right thing always” and “We challenge each other” became the backbone of a more authentic, values-driven leadership style, centered on trust and vulnerability.
He explains how even small changes in language—like saying “our team” instead of “my team”—can reshape culture. His ABCs of teamwork are simple but powerful: Add value, Be valued, and Connect to purpose. When leaders meet these needs, teams thrive.
Kyle’s message is a call to break the cycle of toxic leadership and build something better. Whether you lead five people or five thousand, starting with “we” can change everything.
🌐 Connect with Kyle:
• Website: https://kylemcdowellinc.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylemcdowellinc/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylemcdowellinc/
📚 You can purchase Kyle's book on Amazon:
• Begin With WE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1544529902/
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📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.
🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers
📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV
If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mick Spiers (00:01):
Have you ever worked in a team where everyone
seemed to be out for themselves?
What would it take to shift froma culture of competition to a
culture of collaboration, andwhat if the real key to
excellence wasn't in strategy orsystems, but in a simple shift
from me to we? Today, I'm joinedby the incredible Kyle McDowell
you've heard of start with whyKyle is going to introduce you
(00:25):
to his concept today. Begin withwe. Kyle is on a mission to
transform the way we lead bychallenging the status quo and
building cultures rooted inshared values, authenticity and
courageous leadership. And itall starts with language. In
this conversation, we explorehow leaders can move beyond
individual performers to createtruly high performing United
(00:49):
teams, and why doing the rightthing, even when it's hard, is
the cornerstone of lastingsuccess.
Hey everyone, and welcome backto The Leadership Project. I'm
greatly honored today to bejoined by Kyle McDowell. Kyle is
an former executive withmultiple fortune 10
(01:10):
organizations who's had anexceptional track record of
leadership. He's also the bestselling author of a book called
Begin with We and you canprobably tell that's going to be
our focus today to unpack whatdoes that mean. He's on a quest
to help organizations to createcultures of excellence and to
(01:31):
help leaders reignite theirpassion and their purpose. But
it's all around this frameworkand 10 principles about we. So
that's going to be what weunpack. So, Kyle, I want to get
straight into this so withoutany further ado, tell us a
little bit about that backgroundof yours and what inspired you
(01:52):
around these cultures ofexcellence, and begin with, we?
Kyle McDowell (01:56):
Yeah, you bet.
And Mick, first of all, thankyou for having me. Man, it's
really it's an honor. You'redoing really important work,
right down to the name of theshow, the leadership project.
Because we're never like we'realways a work in progress, even
the best and most impactfulleaders in the world, right? So
I love that. It's a project,it's ongoing. That that struck
me when I was first introducedto your show. So for me, I was
(02:18):
very, very similar in so manythat have spent any amount of
time in the corporate world, andthat is with each step in my
career. And I was very lucky tolead 10s of 1000s of employees.
I live massive organizations, asyou mentioned, inside three
fortune 10 firms, multi billiondollar P and L's. But as my
(02:38):
level of let's call it influenceor authority or scope, that's as
that increased, the only thingthat matched the level of
increases was my level ofapathy. I just grew really tired
of the classic corporate kind ofcliche, the command and control,
the bang, the fist on the desk,which I was that leader for a
(03:00):
couple of decades. I spentnearly 30 years in the corporate
world, but I I reached this kindof inflection point where I
don't know, you know, we cancall it some kind of
intervention, or maybe anepiphany, that I realized those
around me that I was certain hadtons of respect for me. They
actually feared me, my way ofleading actually alienated a
(03:21):
number of people, includingmyself. And I stepped away for a
moment. I'm going to get out ofthis corporate world for a
moment and just kind of reassesswhat I want to do, my purpose
and things like that. And I wascalled to a job for an
opportunity to take a job withina couple of weeks that would
have me lead about 15,000 peopleand really impactful, purpose
(03:45):
driven work. And in the nightbefore I took the role, and the
night before I was to meet withthe top 40 or 50 leaders of the
organization, I was probably 60days in, had this gut check
moment in my hotel room. I'mlike, first of all, I was
terrified. I didn't know what Iwas going to say. I just knew
that I needed to do if I wantedto feel differently, if I wanted
(04:06):
to have an even greater impactand find fulfillment, all these
things that I chased from dayone. And by the way, I think we
all do. We all enter theworkforce with optimism. We want
to make an impact. We want tofind fulfillment. Want to make
some money. I don't think that'sI think everyone is kind of
consistent in those wants, butover time, we lose a lot of
that, and I wanted to reigniteand connect with that. So I'm in
(04:27):
my hotel room the night before.
I'm like, All right, what am Igonna say to these guys? I
hadn't met many of them. I'donly been with a company about
60 days. And I started typing,and I created this, these
principles, and I don't knowfrom where they came. There was
no muse on my shoulder. There'sthese 10 sentences that did then
and still do, begin with theword we. And I stepped out in
(04:50):
front of those leaders the nextmorning, and I said, guys, let
me be very, very direct. Iexpect every single one of you
in this room follow and be heldaccountable to these principles.
Because I. Want to make surethat, you know, I will do the
same, and I want you to hold meaccountable. And I had said
those things in the past, butthis time, I really meant it. I
felt like if I wanted to get ridof the things that drove my
(05:12):
unhappiness and the toxicitythat I saw, I needed to be
really overt in how I was goingto lead this group, including
what they can expect from me. SoI walked through these 10
principles, and what happenedover the course of the next
couple of years changed my life.
And I think it's safe to say atthis point, it changed the live
lives of a lot of other folks somuch. So the group of leaders,
(05:32):
my direct reports from that fromthat period of time, they were
the ones that reached out tosay, this should be a book. You
need to get this out to the areyou really about this is
something that how authentic? Isthis real? Is this real? Is this
who you are? Because we've seenthe transformation, and that
transformation wasn't justbusiness results, man, it was
watching bosses transform intoreal leaders that genuinely
(05:55):
cared about those around them,the development and growth of
others. So that was so profoundto me. And then, you know, the
most humbling thing was themsaying, you know, you might want
to this in writing. And I wrotethe book, and it became a USA
Today and Wall Street Journalbestseller, and now I spend all
my time traveling the country toevangelize the value of
principle based leadership. Wasspecifically a we oriented
paradigm, looking out for the wemore so than myself.
Mick Spiers (06:20):
Well, congratulations on your success,
Kyle, and I'm so glad that youhad that epiphany. I have to say
there were three words that youuse that are ringing in my head
as I listen to you. The wordswere fear, apathy and overt. So
let me unpack that a little bit.
So first of all, leading byfear. That is going to say the
stereotypical Alpha styleleadership that we saw in a lot
(06:42):
of organizations. So you're notalone there in leading with
fear. But if people are beingled by fear, are they happy or
are they unhappy? And then I'mhearing that the leader who is
on the surface and to theexterior world being very
successful was feeling apathywas also unhappy. So we've got
(07:04):
people showing up to work withthe best intentions to do their
very best work, and we fall intothese stereotypes of mimicking
the behavior of leaders beforeus, because that's what we've
seen. That's that would havebeen the role model you would
have seen, Kyle. You startrepeating it, and all it does is
perpetuate leading by fear,which makes the people unhappy.
(07:26):
And mind you, and people don'talways recognize this by the
way, Kyle, the leader that'sdoing the leading with fear, is
also unhappy. So we got a bunchof people that are spending a
1/3 of their lives in thisworkplace, and none of them
happy, and then the third wordthat I loved was over. You
brought it to the surface.
(07:47):
Instead of everyone hiding thisand going, Oh, really unhappy.
I'm really apathetic, I'm reallystruggling with all of this, you
went, doesn't have to be thisway. Let's have a conversation.
How does that sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (08:01):
You know, in hindsight, it, it's where it put
me in a position where I'm doingwhat I'm supposed to be doing,
and my identity inside of thecorporate world, my identity in
this world, was defined by myidentity in the corporate world.
And I that didn't sit well. Andstill to this day I have regrets
(08:22):
about that, because I didn'tlead with authenticity, but you
nailed it, Mick, I led in a wayin which I was taught to lead. I
mimicked what I saw. I tried toweed out the things that weren't
necessarily as healthy and notas inspiring as I wanted to be.
I'm sure I wasn't great at it.
And the challenge for me today,though, is I've become so
(08:45):
entrenched and committed to thismessage and the value and
importance of we but I'm not.
I'm still not naive to thosethat might hear the message,
even read the book or see mespeak and think, Oh, my
company's not going to subscribeto that, or my boss won't
subscribe to that, and gettingpeople to understand, but more
(09:06):
importantly, believe, there is abetter way. Now you may not be
in the organization that willembrace that better way or allow
you to operate in that betterway, which takes us to another
choice. And the choice is, do Iwant to stay in this place or go
do something differently. Andfor those that decide to not do
something differently, and theyjust keep their head down. And
this is the world in which Ilive, I have respect for that. I
(09:28):
understand. We all havecommitments, and sometimes the
path to least resistance allowsus to fulfill those commitments.
Good on you. I have no I have noill will towards that, but
everything in life, and I lovethe way you started this, this
question everything in life, notjust our leadership journey. It
starts with a choice. And I knewI needed to do something
(09:48):
different if I wanted toexperience something different.
So I chose to lead differently.
And to be very fair and honestabout this, of those 40 or 50
people in the room, I would sayonly half of them bought in on.
One, there was a quarter of thegroup that was kind of, we'll
see, skeptical, but maybeoptimistic, and then a quarter
of the group was like, This guyis full of it. We've heard this
before. We've seen the starkshirt, we've seen the shiny
(10:10):
shoes. I don't believe it, andit took me a long time in some
of those cases. And not, Ididn't convert 100% but it did
take me a while to earn thatcredibility and that trust, and
that came via aligning myactions with those principles,
being really consistent in thethings I was espousing. You
could see it in my behavior.
Mick Spiers (10:32):
Yeah, really interesting, Kyle, so a few
things jumping into my mind whenI hear you speak now the word
identity, and I'm going to diveinto some Jungian psychology
here for a moment, but you'reprojecting yourself onto the
world. But at that moment, a lotof what you're projecting is
what you think people expect youto do. Yeah, you're being
(10:54):
channeled by societalexpectations, or what you think
people expect of you, and that'sthe person that you start
becoming, but where the shadowcomes in, as Kyle young would
call it, where the shadow comesin.
Kyle McDowell (11:08):
Mag jump in, right there, because that's a
very important and that it isreinforced, because you can be
very successful.
Mick Spiers (11:15):
Yes, exactly, yeah.
Kyle McDowell (11:17):
Quote, unquote, there, right? It's reinforced
that this style is working. SoI'm going to keep doing it.
Mick Spiers (11:22):
You start getting applauded, so you start
repeating it. Go, oh, okay, allright, it's working. So you
start getting applauded andrecognized for it. So you keep
on doing it. But the longer youkeep doing it, the further
you've drifted away from yourtrue self, your authentic self.
Really powerful. The next partI'm not surprised to hear this
(11:42):
either, is your stats withalmost exactly, you know, the
early adopters versus the messymiddle versus the laggards. But
the reason those laggards arethere and you nailed this, is
because they've heard it before.
Oh yeah, yeah, here we go. Butwhat speaks louder than your
words is your actions. Tell uswhat happens next day. Stand up
(12:04):
on the stage, and we'll get tothe principles later. You start
speaking your values and saying,No, there's a better way, and
this is the way I want to do it.
But not everyone sold in on thatday one. How do you what happens
next in the days after?
Kyle McDowell (12:19):
Yeah, yeah.
That's when the real work began.
And this is where I see this.
This this kind of inflectionpoint, in this moment when the
leader, the boss, however youwant to define them, I guess,
depending on what they are toyou, where your actions and your
words must align, or everythingyou just said, in my case, these
10 Weis that I, that I walkedthe team through is a fraud and
(12:40):
I'm a hypocrite. So it wasreally important for me to not
be, to not force this. You know,I didn't want to be words on a
wall. I didn't want to be amission statement or values that
no one, frankly, can recite onthe team, and certainly that we
don't operate in accordance withthose words on the wall. So I
didn't push it. I was committedto living it every day, every
(13:03):
interaction of every day. Was Iperfect at it? Absolutely not.
But what I was really adamantabout was using the principles
by word in my daily vernacular.
It's like, Mick, let's justpretend you're on the team and
you're struggling withsomething. One of the principles
is we challenge each other, andthe challenge must be grounded
(13:25):
in data or experience. But whenI approach you and I say, hey,
Mick, man, we challenge eachother, right? You've already
subscribed to the team. You'vealready subscribed to being part
of this team. And the 10 waysare there. Are there are our
identity. They are who we theyhow we operate. It's kind of our
rules or our Code of Conductwithin so the more I would
reaffirm those principles andusing them my daily vernacular
(13:47):
dialog, it became kind ofobvious this guy is living he's
living these principles. He'snot just forcing them on us, and
he's not and what happened, manwas so beautiful. So I had 11
offices around the country, andI would visit each office on a
monthly basis, one per month Iwould and every single month I
would be, in some cases,overwhelmed, but always
(14:07):
pleasantly surprised when Iwould see 10 weeks signage I
would see post its where peoplewere giving each other, we kind
of kudos, or atta boys or attagirls, and then, without my
urging, there were T shirts andrubber bracelets. I still wear
the same we challenge eachother. Rubber bracelet what
seven or eight years later, hadmore made, and the 10 we awards
(14:30):
were launched twice a year, ifyou're caught or observe living
any one of these principles, andthey became part of that
organization's performanceappraisal criteria. But what
happened immediately aftersharing those principles,
there's one example that stillhighlights to me, the importance
of what we're talking about. Sothere was a fella on the team.
He knows I tell this story anduse his name is his name's Mick.
(14:53):
He was honest enough thatevening at dinner to share that
he didn't he thought I was fullof it, so much so that I made
these. Principles, or I stolethese principles from somewhere
on the internet, or somebodyelse had created them. So he
Googled to see if there wasanything on the 10 reason Kyle
McDowell, and that at that pointthere was none. I was still deep
in corporate. And then he said,I like the presentation so much.
(15:14):
I want to share it with my team.
Can you send me the PowerPoint?
I said, Sure, that's great, man.
Go for it. And I sent him thePowerPoint, and he admitted he
only wanted the PowerPointbecause he wanted to check the
file properties to see if Iindeed created the presentation
or I'd gotten it from somewhereelse. Fast forward, seven years
later. Nick is a dear friend ofmine. We still have occasional
(15:34):
check ins and one on ones, justto kind of see how each other's
is doing. And I just thinkthat's a testament to the
connection. So my old, the oldKyle, would have reacted kind of
adversely that this guy is hewas dishonest with me. Uh, he's
only kind of pandering to thenew boss by saying how great he
thinks this stuff is. And Iwould have taken that
(15:55):
personally, which part of myevolution has as and I'm proud
to say that I'm less connectedto the ego of needing and its
association with needing to beright, needing to be the
smartest person in the room,needing to have the last word,
to have the most expansivevocabulary, to be the most
impressive person I can be. I'veworked really hard at setting
(16:18):
that aside, because with thatthat I've created space for
others to have that shineinstead of me, which only
benefit stands to benefit thewhole team.
Mick Spiers (16:28):
There's many powerful things in there, Kyle,
thanks for sharing that story.
To me, It's a story of trust,and when I listened to you, and
there was mistrust there fromNick but where the mistrust
comes from, is from a I'm goingto say history without unpacking
his life, a history ofexecutives where the actions
didn't match the words. So thesevalues and principles that you
(16:51):
speak of, which you'vecultivated your own, they can't
be just on the office wallplaque. They need to be lived
and it needs to be seen in theactions. And if Nick has seen a
bunch of leaders before you thatwould say wonderful things when
they're on stage, but theiractions were the opposite.
That's where that mistrust comesfrom. And where do you rebuild
(17:12):
the trust you show that you areliving it. And what I heard in
your story when you're goingaround in the very language that
you're using with people like,hey, we challenge each other,
right? You started with rolemodeling. Hey, these are not
just 10 statements. I dreamt up.
We're going to live these. Andwe're going to use them as our
(17:33):
credo. We're going to use themas our you use the word code of
conduct. We're going to refer tothem every day in our
conversations. And then by rolemodeling, that what I heard when
you started to go around theoffices is what other people
started doing, it too. Now we'reliving the values, and we're
congruent with those values, andnow trust rebuilds. Howdoes that
(17:55):
sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (17:56):
Beautifully said, and I believe most impactful of
leaders understand trust is thefoundation, right? I ain't gonna
follow you if I don't trust you.
And to me, I boil down the verycomplex topic of trust, because
it's complex. I boil it down tothis. It's a simple equation. I
think authenticity plusrelatability equals trust. And
(18:17):
you kind of alluded to that it'sin the relatability side of that
is what you see, is what youget. My actions align with my
words. And I can understand whyyou might be skeptical of this,
or I can understand why yourwork might be compromised or
sliding because you have a sickchild or an aging parent like
relating to your lifeexperiences tells you that I'm
(18:40):
human and we don't. When wedon't do that, we create this
air of inauthenticity, and it'shard to trust and then follow
but, but that relatabilityconnected with the authenticity
I am, who I say I am, I behavethe way that I'm telling you I'm
going to babe. You can count onthe consistency of my behavior.
For the most part, I'm authenticand I'm relatable. Those two
(19:01):
things form a bond, and I nowtrust you, that's how I try to
live. Unfortunately, I reallyonly led that way or behaved
that way, mostly in my personallife, and then when I developed
these principles, and this isprobably the most beautiful
unintended byproduct that I ammost excited about over the last
(19:22):
two years since the book cameout, is the impact these
principles have had on my ownpersonal life, but from at this
point now 1000s of readers.
Mick, when I wrote the book, Isaid, Man, I told my wife, if I
sell 1000 copies, I'll be overthe moon. Because, you know,
you're an author, it's sellingbooks is not easy, and you don't
get rich selling books. I'vesold, we have sold just shy of
(19:47):
30,000 copies. Now, I hear fromreaders about about how they
have received the principles,the impact that they may or may
not be having on their worklives, but the impact they are
certainly having on theirpersonal lives. This is the most
profound and humbling impactthat I could have ever guessed
or imagined from this book.
Mick Spiers (20:05):
So I was going to say congratulations on the
success, but I'm going to saycongratulations on the impact.
That's the word there. And soyou are impacting so many
people's lives, and you andyou're paying it forward. You've
had the epiphany. You're nowpaying it forward to others to
show them that there is adifferent way. The other thing
that you said before is, andyou've said this a few times,
(20:27):
actually, that you didn't usethese exact words, but you're
not going to also get it rightevery day, but that's also part
of being humble and vulnerableto show Hey, these are the
values I strive to. I won't getit right every day, but this is
what I'll always try. I'm alwaysgoing to try and live these
values for you and with you. Ithink that was really powerful
(20:51):
as well.
Kyle McDowell (20:52):
That's right. And you know, you know what tends to
happen Mick is kind of cool,like, especially, so I connected
really quickly with my directreports. When we have a team of
15,000 it's really hard to getto know everybody. Obviously,
especially when you'regeographically kind of spread
apart. I was really lucky inthat I was able to connect with
my six or seven direct reports,most of them pretty early on.
(21:16):
But what happens is, when youstart to use that there's this,
it happens in every corporateenvironment when the boss or
leader, depending on who theyare, uses the same cliches over
and over again, uses the samedialog, and they kind of reach
into this bag of cliche typewords the team ultimately starts
to repeat it. The beauty in thatis if you say things and talk in
(21:41):
a way that inspires, motivatesand connects and bonds those
around you. They'll do that aswell. They'll start so one of my
favorite examples is we were,this is many years ago, but
there was a woman on my teamcouldn't respect her more love
her. Her name is Lori. We had anissue with a pay a pay issue
where many of our team members,long story short, but many of
(22:01):
our team members were in aposition where were in a
position where we it was over aholiday thing. It was a weird
deal. We had an opportunity tonot pay them and get away with
it. It wasn't illegal. It wasn'twe would have no repercussions
other than a black eye becausewe were beating bad actors. And
Lori came to me and said, I justneed you to know. She led about
3000 people at the time. Shesaid, I need you to know. Need
(22:23):
you to know that we have thisproblem. Think I have a
solution, and I know what you'regoing to say. And I go, Okay,
what am I going to say? Shegoes, we do the right thing
always. It's the first principleof the 10 ways. And I go, it was
the conversation was over inabout 30 seconds. The point of
sharing that story is when wealign on those expected
behaviors and we call people outwhen they don't live them, but
(22:45):
more importantly, probablypraise them and acknowledge when
they are living them, it happensover and over again, and it
becomes almost a second languageto the team.
Mick Spiers (22:55):
So what I'm hearing here is the consistency, the
consistency and then it becomessome predictability, but
predictability in a good way. Sothe consistency of message?
Yeah, I think we sometimes shyaway from that, but there's a
great power in that, that if youdon't repeat the message and
live the values, so it'srepeating the message, living
the values all the time, it'snot going to stick right, but
(23:18):
you've got to you're going tohave a choice there. We spoke
about choice before. Do you wantthat to be a virtuous choice,
that everyone's repeating thebehaviors that you want them to
repeat? Or do you want it to besomething else? So if you're
true to your values and they'rethe right values, and you're
repeating those valuesconsistently, there's nothing
wrong with that and living bythem. Yes, people are going to
(23:41):
start repeating what the bosssays. So think about the great
power that comes with that.
People are going to repeat whatthe boss consistently. You call
them cliches before, but thatconsistency of message, people
are going to repeat those whatdo you want them to repeat? Do
you want it to be a good thingthat's aligned with the values
that you're trying to espouse?
Or do you want it to be somedisastrous, toxic kind of alpha
(24:06):
style that you want them torepeat the same thing that we
started with you? Kyle, that yourepeated and mimic the behavior
of leaders before you the nextgeneration is going to repeat
your behaviors, Kyle, there's agreat power in that and a great
responsibility, in that.
Kyle McDowell (24:22):
Great responsibility. And I actually
approach it as an obligation. Itis my not as a not as a nerd in
corporate America, but assomeone that cares about his
fellow human. And I get it man,sometimes across, I think it's
so common, unfortunately, forpeople to separate the goodness
inside of them as a personoutside of work versus how they
(24:46):
are supposed to have an actinside of work. And they think
that that needs to be twodifferent filters and two
different criteria. And I justin other words, if I'm going to
help somebody outside of work,shouldn't it be in my nature to
also do it in. Side. I mean,we're tribal by nature. You and
I are separated by 1000s ofmiles in different continents,
but we're aligning on somereally cool things. Here, you're
(25:07):
helping me promote the message.
I'm hopefully helping you growyour following in the podcast
and getting your importantmessage out. Those are
obligations, in my mind, notjust responsibilities, and it's
a choice whether or not you wantto take that obligation. And for
those that choose not to, Ithink you're short changing
yourself. You're short sellingyour opportunity.
Mick Spiers (25:27):
Yeah, really powerful. I don't want to put
words in your mouth, but I'mgoing to say also, when that
leader came to you, and evenbefore they spoke, they said, I
know what you're going to say,that predictability, that must
have been a bit of a proudmoment, because what then came
out of the mouth is we always dothe right thing. We do the right
thing, always right. So that's,that's when it's landed, when
(25:49):
people actually don't need Kyleanymore, because we know what he
would say, even if he was, evenif he was in the room, that's
the goal. That's when you've hada great impact.
Kyle McDowell (26:01):
That's the goal.
Mick Spiers (26:02):
Yeah, really powerful.
Kyle McDowell (26:04):
And you probably caught. You're an astute
listener, so you probably caughtwhen I said a woman I used to
work with, and then I inserted,I love her, because I do. I love
that human Lori is a greatperson who we've connected and
we never would have had if I wasthe boss of the Kyle of old, I
would have been open to therelationship that we ended up
forging. And what a blessing,man. How cool is that? And I
(26:25):
just feel like I lost thoseopportunities in the first 20
years. I'm trying to make up forthose now.
Mick Spiers (26:31):
Yeah, very good.
All right, so I want to comeback a little bit to your
identity, and then this is goingto take us towards the word we
so part of your identity yousaid before that what you're
projecting on the world aboutalways having to be right and
not necessarily being open tothings. The Alpha style leader
(26:51):
is prone to words like I andyou, but all of your statements
start with we. Tell us about thepower of the word we? Why does
it begin with we?
Kyle McDowell (27:05):
Our words, especially those in any kind of
position of authority. You'veprobably noticed me
differentiating at times betweenboss and leader, because they're
clearly not the same thing. Butwhen you're in any type of
influential or position ofauthority, people, your words
matter. Your words matter awhole hell of a lot. And I just
(27:25):
remember being in rooms with myboss or other people's boss, and
they say, you know, my team didthis, or my team did that, or he
reports, not he reports to me,but he's Mick is part of my
team. Why is it your team? Whyisn't it our team? And when you
say my team did this, why isn'tit the team or we did this? It
(27:51):
makes me, it made me in stillwould today. Made me feel like a
possession, like I wasn't acontributing member to this
thing. This thing owned me and Iwas giving it because I had to.
It's a very nuanced thing, butit's powerful. And I just don't
think, by the way, I don't thinkanybody wants to be managed.
Nobody. When you're a manager,you think you're supposed to
(28:12):
manage people. You're reallysupposed to manage the process,
the outcomes, setting theexpectations, in terms of the
KPIs, it's leadership thatbrings out the behavior that
delivers on those things. Nobodywants to be managed. We want we
all want to be led. So I justfelt like this possessive thing
that came from, you know, myteam did this, and just people
using it as if the team, thosehumans on their in their
(28:35):
organization, or to whom theywere fortunate enough to have an
influence on or four is a veryslippery slope, and the first
time one of us feels like we'rewe're a possession. I think it's
a slippery slope in that you maynever win somebody back. Never
mind the whole entire, by theway, Coronavirus conversation of
giving credit where credit'sdue. I think that's connected.
(28:56):
Obviously there's this notionthat there's only so much shine
to go around. And I havelearned, and I am a walking
Testament, that the more youshine that light on somebody
else, that light clearlyreflects on you. If they're
successful, you're successful.
If the team is successful, bydefinition, the leader is
successful. So those, thosewords, matter a lot to me.
Mick Spiers (29:17):
So that's a an important lesson if you're
listening to this now, listen towhat Kyle is saying. This is a
pivot point that most leaderseventually find, but it takes a
while, so this might be anaccelerated for you. A lot of,
I'm going to say new leaders,Kyle or early to mid in their
career, they're always trying toprove themselves, and therefore,
(29:39):
there's a lot of I language ormy team, you know that kind of
language comes comes in. Ittakes a while to realize that
actually shining a lot onsomeone else reflects on you. It
takes a while to realize thatone for sure, the other part is
getting down to remember thatthey're human beings too. They
also have a sense of. Self. Theyhave their own identity. They
(30:03):
don't want to be treated like apossession. They want to be
seen, heard and valued. Theywant to know that they matter.
They individually andcollectively, matter. They want
to feel like they're part ofsomething important and part of
something bigger than themselvesthat they're contributing to. So
your choice of language here,it's going to either be an
(30:23):
inclusive and and multiplyingchoice of language, or it's
going to be a diminishing choiceof language that's going to get
them to back off and not bringtheir full energy to work. How
does that sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (30:36):
Beautifully said.
And I think a lot about this,this cycle that you and I have
touched on a couple of times.
You know, I kind of repeat whatI see. If I had a bad leader, I
become a bad leader, a bad boss,become a so I have kind of
distilled it down to what I callthe ABCs of being on a team, or
the employee values chain,however you want to frame, but
it's always ABC for me, everysingle person on the planet, of
(30:59):
course, with some exception, youknow, that is, I don't want to
over generalize, but with someexception, we want to add value.
That's the A I want to addvalue. The B is, I want to be
valued. I don't just want tocome to work and contribute and
give my best without arecognition of what I'm doing.
That recognition comes in manyforms. Doesn't have to be just
money, but money is a big one.
And then C is, I want to connectthe work that I'm doing with the
(31:22):
delight that is delivered viathat product or service, or the
WoW or the however you want toframe it, but I want to be
connected to what I'm doing. Iwant to connect what I'm doing
to those who experience andbenefit from what I'm doing. And
that's hard in some gigs. That'shard in some in some roles,
because, you know, my entirecareer was spent mainly in back
(31:44):
office operations. So it's hard,necessarily, it's hard to get
someone who who has a widgetproducing job that they never
interact with a consumer or acustomer. It's hard to make that
connection, which reallyrequires you to be an even more
inspiring leader. But thatconnection. And think about that
man, if you, if you make abeautiful painting and you sell
it to a friend or even just astranger, because it moves them,
(32:06):
that connectivity that you justformed is the end of that
equation. Add value, be valued,and connect the value, I think,
is the goal for all leaders toremind themselves of that and
then enable that and those theylead.
Mick Spiers (32:22):
That's another great takeaway for everyone
right now. Colin and theexercise I want people to do
listening to Kyle, have a thinkabout what you want in the
workplace. You want to addvalue. You want to be valued.
You want to connect that valueto something meaningful,
something that has some kind ofpurpose and impact. Now turn
(32:43):
around and project that to yourteam. What do they all
individually want? They want toadd value. They want to be
valued. They want to connectwhat they're doing to some kind
of value that has some kind ofmeaning and impact. Guess what?
That's your job. That's your jobto help them.
Kyle McDowell (32:58):
There's your relatability.
Mick Spiers (33:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Now you've got the relatabilityand the connection between you,
but that's your job, that it'syour job to create the
environment where they can addvalue, where they feel that
they're being valued, and thatthey connect the value of what
they're doing, even if it'sseems like a little micro task
of a spreadsheet, they want toknow that I'm not just doing
(33:21):
this spreadsheet, because theboss told me to have it done by
Thursday at three o'clock. Theywanted to know that it means
something, that it connects tosomething that made it different
somewhere. That's your job.
Kyle McDowell (33:34):
And I so sometimes when I get on this
track, so it's so beautiful,well said, man. And sometimes I
get on this kind of thoughttrack, and occasionally I'll get
an eye roll, or I'll be I'll seesomeone in the audience, and you
could tell it just doesn'tconnect with them. And I
understand that, but I amconvinced, if I'm managing a
coffee shop, if I am anattendant at a convenience
(33:56):
store, my position and my titleor my quote, unquote importance
inside the organization does notlimit my ability to say, Hey,
thanks for Mick, I hope youenjoyed this coffee. Here's a
smile. You know, you give itwith a smile. Or, you know, hope
your day goes well. Hopefullythis caffeine gives you the jolt
you need, whatever it takes. Oris most appropriate, I think, or
I know so many of us look at ourjobs as just a job and not a
(34:23):
career or an opportunity to helpyourself or others. And I get
that I've been there. Iunderstand that I think our
challenge for all, the challengefor all of us, is to get the
most out of each of those steps,those jobs that help put us in a
position to land in the careerthat we want. But I just deny
the I deny this notion thatunless I'm a leader of a big
(34:44):
company, or I lead a lot ofpeople, or I have an important
title with a fancy office, Ican't have an impact on others.
I just don't buy that anylonger.
Mick Spiers (34:52):
Yeah, so I'm going to share a story back with you
now. This comes from ZachMercurio, the author of the
invisible leader. He's aprevious guest on the show, and
I'm going to show a power thatyou can find meaningful purpose.
I'm going to say in any job,someone will prove me wrong at
some point. So he studiespurpose. That's what he does.
(35:13):
And he does these interviewswith leaders and all kinds of
people. This one day, he wasinterviewing the janitor at the
university, and asked thejanitor, so what is it that you
do? And her answer just blew hismind. I ensure that the students
at this school to not get sickso they go on and change the
(35:34):
world. She didn't say, I cleanthe toilets, I mop the floors, I
do the dishes, I ensure thestudents that they see at this
school do not get sick so theygo on to trans Well, if you look
carefully about how you'reimpacting other human beings in
the work that you do, whatyou're enabling them to go on
and do, it could be theconnection that you spoke about
(35:55):
before that by doing this, I'menabling this, and Then that's
impactful in this way. I thinkyou can do it in any job,
whether it's barista, through tojanitor, through to CEO, you can
find a purpose. If you lookcarefully.
Unknown (36:12):
Can you can't. Is Costco a thing in Australia?
Mick Spiers (36:16):
Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah.
Kyle McDowell (36:18):
Do you see who their their new CEO is? Man he
started, like, 30 somethingyears ago with Costco, the then
Costco, whatever it's called, asa forklift driver, as a forklift
driver, you know? So I just youknow, you we subscribe to what
the world tells us we'resupposed to be doing. And you
said that in a very beautifulway earlier, like I was leading
(36:40):
in a way that I had been taught,whether I realized it or not, I
was just replicating and playingit forward. And the benefit of
that kind of psychology is theopposite can also be true. If I
want to add value and I want tocontribute positively, not just
to my work and my team, but theworld is a choice. It's a
(37:00):
choice. And the way she repliedis, is really, is really
powerful. Now the challenge, Ithink, Mick, is when someone on
the team has that paradigm andthey're committed to that way of
behaving, in the way of living.
You said it earlier, and I'lljust kind of repeat it in a
paraphrases. It's our obligationto continue to help that
behavior continue to inspirethat person to continue to live
(37:23):
and operate and work inside ofour team in that way and not
lose sight of that thing,because it happens, right? We're
all human. And there are dayswhen I go into the office and I
just don't have the juice I wishI had, and I got to remind
myself of a few things. I havethis internal dialog I always go
through, and it usually includesyou signed up for this not, oh,
it's not. You don't choose whenyou get to be a leader, because
(37:45):
leaders, not leadership, is noteasy, but getting folks to a
point where they believe thatthey're in those ABCs and
they're connecting that valueand keeping them there is a
really tough thing, and requiresa daily commitment from the
leader as well.
Mick Spiers (38:01):
Yeah, I'm going to say daily commitment and a daily
intention. So you got to show upas a leader with intention. That
that's what you're going to do.
Think about the leader, thinkabout the leader you want to be,
or the leader that you wouldlike to follow, and start
intentionally showing up withthose values and those
behaviors. And it is a greatresponsibility. People are
(38:21):
spending up to 1/3 of their lifewith you. It's your
responsibility to help them findthemselves and to help them have
a good time not be in a toxicenvironment where they go home,
you know, grumbling and moaningand taking that into their home
life. It's a it's a greatresponsibility, so we need to
take it very carefully. Allright, Kyle, I want to give you
(38:42):
a platform here to talk aboutthe ways you can either share
all 10 principles with us, ifyou like, or tell us your
favorites of your we principlesthat you instilled in that
organization, what stillresonates with you today.
Kyle McDowell (39:00):
Yeah, I'd love to. And thank you for the
opportunity. And before I right,before jumping into that, I
just, I must issue two caveats.
The first is the 10 we's and I'mthe and I admit this freely,
they're incredibly simple.
They're incredibly simple. Butsimple is not easy. We know if
we want to lose weight, we gotto reduce calories and burn more
(39:20):
calories get active. Incrediblysimple, but not easy. The other
caveat is, as I and I'll share afew, as many as you like, but
the other caveat, or thought Iwould, I would like your
audience to think about, isframing these principles, these
10 ways, not just as a work,only leadership, only thing
(39:42):
framing them as how can thisimpact my life, improve and
impact my relationships, give megreater fulfillment in whatever
it is that I do, because I'vefound and I went through this
transition by the way, I livedthese principles for many years,
inside of my work life, but Ididn't outside. And when I
realized what a hypocrite I wasbeing, started to live them. A
level of fulfillment andpresence in each moment is
(40:03):
dramatically increased. So withthat said, I'll give you the
first and it's, I think Imentioned it earlier, but it is
the foundation that's we do theright thing always, and then
they just they grow from there.
We lead by example. We say whatwe're going to do, and then we
do it. We take action, we ownour mistakes, we pick each other
up. We measure ourselves byoutcomes, not activity. We
(40:24):
challenge each other. We embracechallenge and we obsess over
details. My favorite of themall, and light years head and
shoulders, more difficult forfolks to get behind and live
consistently is we number eightas we challenge each other in
most environments, boss issueschallenges, and that's just the
(40:44):
way it is. In a high functioningculture where we is embraced and
the best ideas of realmeritocracy exists, challenges
go in every direction, the bossto the team, the team to the
boss, peer to peer, on side theteam if you're not pulling your
weight for this team, I thinkthere's an obligation to call
someone out for that. Now,challenges must be grounded in
(41:05):
either data or experience. Ican't just give you my opinion
and say you should changebecause I said so the data or
experience will do that for me.
And of course, there's chaos inthe on the team. If we don't
subscribe to We number nine aswell. We embrace challenge. But
that was admittedly tough forme, and it is tough for a lot of
folks who try to embrace theseprinciples and try to
(41:27):
incorporate them into theirorganization. Why? Because we've
touched on this a couple oftimes already. I gotta be right.
You're challenging me. Threatensmy authority. By authority, we
should insert ego, and it mightminimize my level of
effectiveness or impact on thisteam. And life gets so much
easier when the best ideas comefrom some other come from other
(41:48):
people, and we get the bestideas, but you won't get them
unless you encourage thosechallenges. And that's the one I
think has the greatest impact,but also the toughest for folks
to grasp.
Mick Spiers (41:58):
Yeah, really good.
I love that we challenge eachother. It is going to be the
most challenging, sorry to saythat, but because of the
equation of fear and couragethat's going to happen there, so
that one's going to take time tobuild but if you do it the right
way, you will build it. Theother thing is, when you do get
to that level of diversity ofthought and bringing everyone,
bringing their best ideas to thetable. This is when we can co
(42:21):
create something much biggerthan any of us could have
individually done, and we'reholding space for each other,
and we challenge each otherdirectly and care personally, as
Kim Scott would put it, this iswhen we can co create something
much bigger than any of usindividually could have done,
regardless of how smart the bossthinks they are, we are smarter
(42:41):
together. Yeah, very good.
Kyle McDowell (42:46):
It's just math.
Mick Spiers (42:48):
It's exactly good one at the
Kyle McDowell (42:51):
End of the day. I think it's just math. You know,
in America, we have Americanfootball, and an NFL Coach has a
50 leads a 53 man roster.
There's a reason there's anoffensive coordinator, a
defensive coordinator, anoffensive like because there's
no one. There's no way that oneperson can have the greatest
level of impact humanly possiblewith a group of people, without
(43:12):
others contributing. So to me,it's just a math equation.
Mick Spiers (43:16):
All right.
Excellent, yeah, I'm gonnareflect some of the lessons I'm
taking away from today, Kyle andI'm doing it for myself and I'm
doing it for the audience at thesame time. So the key thing here
is stop mimicking the behaviorof leaders before you,
particularly if it was aleadership style you didn't even
like yourself. You didn't likeit. Why are you repeating it
(43:36):
onto other human beings? Okay,get back to your true self.
Think about your values. What doyou value? What do you want to
see happen if you were theperson following you? What would
you like to experience with thatthere's a power in language. So
listen to Kyle in the languagethat he uses, and particularly
(43:59):
the power of the language of theword we, instead of I and you.
Then when we have these values,we broadcast them, and it's okay
to be repeating that messagemultiple times. And then the
next most important thing isthat we live the values we live,
and we reinforce the values inin everything we do. And it
becomes infectious. It becomesinfectious when you do it in
(44:21):
this way. Now hear these words.
You need to find your values.
Don't just stand up on the stagetomorrow and go, Hey everyone.
I've got these 10 ways. That'sKyle. Don't be Kyle. Be you find
your values and get out thereand be true to yourself and
share those with the team fromthere, remember, your job is
(44:42):
create an environment whereother people can do their very
best work, where they can addvalue, where they can be valued,
and where they can connect thevalue of what they do to
something bigger and moremeaningful, so that they can go
home at the end of the dayfeeling proud that they did.
Something important. All right.
(45:02):
Kyle, this has been a awonderful conversation. I've
absolutely loved it. I'd like usto now go to our Rapid Round.
These are the same fourquestions we ask all of I guess.
So what's the one thing you knownow, Kyle Mcdowell, that you
wish you knew when you were 20?
Kyle McDowell (45:18):
Don't need to have all the answers. Don't need
to have all the answers to be animpactful leader. I'll connect
that to a you know, the tired,very tired cliche, fake it till
you make it. I did that. Had alittle bit of success, alienated
people and myself along the way.
So it's not the answer. It's beauthentic, be yourself and I you
don't have to be perfect to beimpactful.
Mick Spiers (45:42):
Yeah, well said, All right, as a best selling
author yourself, what is yourfavorite book?
Kyle McDowell (45:47):
Oh, man, favorite book ever. Oof, I would go with
the Power of Now, by EckhartTolle, you familiar? Yes, I am,
yeah, yeah, great one. And Imust give a quick plug, because
I'm also, I just, I'm abouthalfway done with Rick Rubin's
book, creative act, the art ofbeing. I always get the title
(46:08):
wrong. Okay, it's a more hipversion. I've come to the
conclusion of the power of now.
It's from Rick Rubin, the famousproducers. Really great read.
Mick Spiers (46:19):
Yeah, very good.
Okay. What's your favoritequote?
Kyle McDowell (46:22):
Oh, my mother, who was a very important
influence in my life, clearly,as so many probably of your
audience, who we lost a dozen orso years ago to cancer, would
always say, tough times neverlast. Tough people do.
Mick Spiers (46:37):
Yeah, that's a really good one. I can see the
emotion you saying out thatloud. I can see the emotion
coming through as well.
Kyle McDowell (46:46):
Real, yeah, yeah.
That's never happened before, bythe way. Nice job, host. It's
never happened before.
Mick Spiers (46:52):
It's okay, it's okay, it's you're human and
you're being human, right? Sonow tell me call. There's going
to be people listening to this,going war. This is amazing.
They're going to be interestedin either finding the book begin
with we or booking you to comeand help their organizations
find their culture ofexcellence, or keynote speaking,
(47:12):
etc. How do people find youKyle?
Kyle McDowell (47:15):
Yeah, thank you.
And again, thank you for theopportunity to be with you
today. Thank you for theopportunity to share these
communication platforms that I'mon. And you know, I'm
essentially on every socialmedia platform. It's @Kyle
McDowell Inc. My website is alsokylemcDowellinc.com, the book is
available wherever books aresold, wherever you buy books.
The audio versions out therethat I narrated, ebook print
(47:35):
obviously harden hardcover andpaper bag folks typically find
it easiest on Amazon, but it'sessentially everywhere. And
again, I'm really grateful forthe opportunity to share the
message today.
Mick Spiers (47:50):
Well, thank you, Kyle, and thank you for your
impact. You mentioned about30,000 copies before I'm going
to share something. I'm going totell you that of those 30,000
people, guess what? They do.
They also pay it forward, theyshare it with others. I hope,
that's my hope. And they don'tjust impact their own lives.
That's 30,000 leaders that arethen turning around and
realizing that there's a betterway. So they're impacting their
(48:11):
organizations and their team. Soit's a big multiplication
effect. So thank you for yourimpact on the world, and you
paying it forward for whatyou've discovered, and then
helping others to do the same.
And then thank you for your thegift of your time today and your
your wisdom. I feel richer forhaving this conversation. I know
(48:32):
the audience will as well. Thankyou.
Kyle McDowell (48:34):
My pleasure.
Thank you, Mick.
Mick Spiers (48:37):
What a powerful conversation with Kyle, sharing
so openly his experience of thatturning point in his career, and
how he brought it all together.
If you're a leader who's tiredof toxic culture, misaligned
values and people just goingthrough the motions, Kyle's
message is your wake up call.
Leadership isn't about ego orauthority. It's about example.
(49:00):
It's about integrity, and aboveall, it's about we. In the next
episode, it's going to be a solocast where I reflect on his
powerful concept of begin withwe and I will share my personal
experiences of a me cultureversus a we culture and how it
shaped the way I lead today.
(49:24):
Thank you for listening to TheLeadership Project
mickspiers.com a huge call outto Faris Sedek for his video
editing of all of our videocontent and to all of the team
at TLP. Joan Gozon, GeraldCalibo and my amazing wife Sei
Spiers, I could not do this showwithout you. Don't forget to
subscribe to The LeadershipProject YouTube channel, where
(49:45):
we bring you interesting videoseach and every week, and you can
follow us on social,particularly on LinkedIn,
Facebook and Instagram. Now inthe meantime, please do take
care, look out for each otherand join us on this journey. Me
as we learn together and leadtogether.
Have you ever worked in a team where everyone
seemed to be out for themselves?
What would it take to shift froma culture of competition to a
culture of collaboration, andwhat if the real key to
excellence wasn't in strategy orsystems, but in a simple shift
from me to we? Today, I'm joinedby the incredible Kyle McDowell
you've heard of start with whyKyle is going to introduce you
(00:25):
to his concept today. Begin withwe. Kyle is on a mission to
transform the way we lead bychallenging the status quo and
building cultures rooted inshared values, authenticity and
courageous leadership. And itall starts with language. In
this conversation, we explorehow leaders can move beyond
individual performers to createtruly high performing United
(00:49):
teams, and why doing the rightthing, even when it's hard, is
the cornerstone of lastingsuccess.
Hey everyone, and welcome backto The Leadership Project. I'm
greatly honored today to bejoined by Kyle McDowell. Kyle is
an former executive withmultiple fortune 10
(01:10):
organizations who's had anexceptional track record of
leadership. He's also the bestselling author of a book called
Begin with We and you canprobably tell that's going to be
our focus today to unpack whatdoes that mean. He's on a quest
to help organizations to createcultures of excellence and to
(01:31):
help leaders reignite theirpassion and their purpose. But
it's all around this frameworkand 10 principles about we. So
that's going to be what weunpack. So, Kyle, I want to get
straight into this so withoutany further ado, tell us a
little bit about that backgroundof yours and what inspired you
(01:52):
around these cultures ofexcellence, and begin with, we?
Kyle McDowell (01:56):
Yeah, you bet.
And Mick, first of all, thankyou for having me. Man, it's
really it's an honor. You'redoing really important work,
right down to the name of theshow, the leadership project.
Because we're never like we'realways a work in progress, even
the best and most impactfulleaders in the world, right? So
I love that. It's a project,it's ongoing. That that struck
me when I was first introducedto your show. So for me, I was
(02:18):
very, very similar in so manythat have spent any amount of
time in the corporate world, andthat is with each step in my
career. And I was very lucky tolead 10s of 1000s of employees.
I live massive organizations, asyou mentioned, inside three
fortune 10 firms, multi billiondollar P and L's. But as my
(02:38):
level of let's call it influenceor authority or scope, that's as
that increased, the only thingthat matched the level of
increases was my level ofapathy. I just grew really tired
of the classic corporate kind ofcliche, the command and control,
the bang, the fist on the desk,which I was that leader for a
(03:00):
couple of decades. I spentnearly 30 years in the corporate
world, but I I reached this kindof inflection point where I
don't know, you know, we cancall it some kind of
intervention, or maybe anepiphany, that I realized those
around me that I was certain hadtons of respect for me. They
actually feared me, my way ofleading actually alienated a
(03:21):
number of people, includingmyself. And I stepped away for a
moment. I'm going to get out ofthis corporate world for a
moment and just kind of reassesswhat I want to do, my purpose
and things like that. And I wascalled to a job for an
opportunity to take a job withina couple of weeks that would
have me lead about 15,000 peopleand really impactful, purpose
(03:45):
driven work. And in the nightbefore I took the role, and the
night before I was to meet withthe top 40 or 50 leaders of the
organization, I was probably 60days in, had this gut check
moment in my hotel room. I'mlike, first of all, I was
terrified. I didn't know what Iwas going to say. I just knew
that I needed to do if I wantedto feel differently, if I wanted
(04:06):
to have an even greater impactand find fulfillment, all these
things that I chased from dayone. And by the way, I think we
all do. We all enter theworkforce with optimism. We want
to make an impact. We want tofind fulfillment. Want to make
some money. I don't think that'sI think everyone is kind of
consistent in those wants, butover time, we lose a lot of
that, and I wanted to reigniteand connect with that. So I'm in
(04:27):
my hotel room the night before.
I'm like, All right, what am Igonna say to these guys? I
hadn't met many of them. I'donly been with a company about
60 days. And I started typing,and I created this, these
principles, and I don't knowfrom where they came. There was
no muse on my shoulder. There'sthese 10 sentences that did then
and still do, begin with theword we. And I stepped out in
(04:50):
front of those leaders the nextmorning, and I said, guys, let
me be very, very direct. Iexpect every single one of you
in this room follow and be heldaccountable to these principles.
Because I. Want to make surethat, you know, I will do the
same, and I want you to hold meaccountable. And I had said
those things in the past, butthis time, I really meant it. I
felt like if I wanted to get ridof the things that drove my
(05:12):
unhappiness and the toxicitythat I saw, I needed to be
really overt in how I was goingto lead this group, including
what they can expect from me. SoI walked through these 10
principles, and what happenedover the course of the next
couple of years changed my life.
And I think it's safe to say atthis point, it changed the live
lives of a lot of other folks somuch. So the group of leaders,
(05:32):
my direct reports from that fromthat period of time, they were
the ones that reached out tosay, this should be a book. You
need to get this out to the areyou really about this is
something that how authentic? Isthis real? Is this real? Is this
who you are? Because we've seenthe transformation, and that
transformation wasn't justbusiness results, man, it was
watching bosses transform intoreal leaders that genuinely
(05:55):
cared about those around them,the development and growth of
others. So that was so profoundto me. And then, you know, the
most humbling thing was themsaying, you know, you might want
to this in writing. And I wrotethe book, and it became a USA
Today and Wall Street Journalbestseller, and now I spend all
my time traveling the country toevangelize the value of
principle based leadership. Wasspecifically a we oriented
paradigm, looking out for the wemore so than myself.
Mick Spiers (06:20):
Well, congratulations on your success,
Kyle, and I'm so glad that youhad that epiphany. I have to say
there were three words that youuse that are ringing in my head
as I listen to you. The wordswere fear, apathy and overt. So
let me unpack that a little bit.
So first of all, leading byfear. That is going to say the
stereotypical Alpha styleleadership that we saw in a lot
(06:42):
of organizations. So you're notalone there in leading with
fear. But if people are beingled by fear, are they happy or
are they unhappy? And then I'mhearing that the leader who is
on the surface and to theexterior world being very
successful was feeling apathywas also unhappy. So we've got
(07:04):
people showing up to work withthe best intentions to do their
very best work, and we fall intothese stereotypes of mimicking
the behavior of leaders beforeus, because that's what we've
seen. That's that would havebeen the role model you would
have seen, Kyle. You startrepeating it, and all it does is
perpetuate leading by fear,which makes the people unhappy.
(07:26):
And mind you, and people don'talways recognize this by the
way, Kyle, the leader that'sdoing the leading with fear, is
also unhappy. So we got a bunchof people that are spending a
1/3 of their lives in thisworkplace, and none of them
happy, and then the third wordthat I loved was over. You
brought it to the surface.
(07:47):
Instead of everyone hiding thisand going, Oh, really unhappy.
I'm really apathetic, I'm reallystruggling with all of this, you
went, doesn't have to be thisway. Let's have a conversation.
How does that sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (08:01):
You know, in hindsight, it, it's where it put
me in a position where I'm doingwhat I'm supposed to be doing,
and my identity inside of thecorporate world, my identity in
this world, was defined by myidentity in the corporate world.
And I that didn't sit well. Andstill to this day I have regrets
(08:22):
about that, because I didn'tlead with authenticity, but you
nailed it, Mick, I led in a wayin which I was taught to lead. I
mimicked what I saw. I tried toweed out the things that weren't
necessarily as healthy and notas inspiring as I wanted to be.
I'm sure I wasn't great at it.
And the challenge for me today,though, is I've become so
(08:45):
entrenched and committed to thismessage and the value and
importance of we but I'm not.
I'm still not naive to thosethat might hear the message,
even read the book or see mespeak and think, Oh, my
company's not going to subscribeto that, or my boss won't
subscribe to that, and gettingpeople to understand, but more
(09:06):
importantly, believe, there is abetter way. Now you may not be
in the organization that willembrace that better way or allow
you to operate in that betterway, which takes us to another
choice. And the choice is, do Iwant to stay in this place or go
do something differently. Andfor those that decide to not do
something differently, and theyjust keep their head down. And
this is the world in which Ilive, I have respect for that. I
(09:28):
understand. We all havecommitments, and sometimes the
path to least resistance allowsus to fulfill those commitments.
Good on you. I have no I have noill will towards that, but
everything in life, and I lovethe way you started this, this
question everything in life, notjust our leadership journey. It
starts with a choice. And I knewI needed to do something
(09:48):
different if I wanted toexperience something different.
So I chose to lead differently.
And to be very fair and honestabout this, of those 40 or 50
people in the room, I would sayonly half of them bought in on.
One, there was a quarter of thegroup that was kind of, we'll
see, skeptical, but maybeoptimistic, and then a quarter
of the group was like, This guyis full of it. We've heard this
before. We've seen the starkshirt, we've seen the shiny
(10:10):
shoes. I don't believe it, andit took me a long time in some
of those cases. And not, Ididn't convert 100% but it did
take me a while to earn thatcredibility and that trust, and
that came via aligning myactions with those principles,
being really consistent in thethings I was espousing. You
could see it in my behavior.
Mick Spiers (10:32):
Yeah, really interesting, Kyle, so a few
things jumping into my mind whenI hear you speak now the word
identity, and I'm going to diveinto some Jungian psychology
here for a moment, but you'reprojecting yourself onto the
world. But at that moment, a lotof what you're projecting is
what you think people expect youto do. Yeah, you're being
(10:54):
channeled by societalexpectations, or what you think
people expect of you, and that'sthe person that you start
becoming, but where the shadowcomes in, as Kyle young would
call it, where the shadow comesin.
Kyle McDowell (11:08):
Mag jump in, right there, because that's a
very important and that it isreinforced, because you can be
very successful.
Mick Spiers (11:15):
Yes, exactly, yeah.
Kyle McDowell (11:17):
Quote, unquote, there, right? It's reinforced
that this style is working. SoI'm going to keep doing it.
Mick Spiers (11:22):
You start getting applauded, so you start
repeating it. Go, oh, okay, allright, it's working. So you
start getting applauded andrecognized for it. So you keep
on doing it. But the longer youkeep doing it, the further
you've drifted away from yourtrue self, your authentic self.
Really powerful. The next partI'm not surprised to hear this
(11:42):
either, is your stats withalmost exactly, you know, the
early adopters versus the messymiddle versus the laggards. But
the reason those laggards arethere and you nailed this, is
because they've heard it before.
Oh yeah, yeah, here we go. Butwhat speaks louder than your
words is your actions. Tell uswhat happens next day. Stand up
(12:04):
on the stage, and we'll get tothe principles later. You start
speaking your values and saying,No, there's a better way, and
this is the way I want to do it.
But not everyone sold in on thatday one. How do you what happens
next in the days after?
Kyle McDowell (12:19):
Yeah, yeah.
That's when the real work began.
And this is where I see this.
This this kind of inflectionpoint, in this moment when the
leader, the boss, however youwant to define them, I guess,
depending on what they are toyou, where your actions and your
words must align, or everythingyou just said, in my case, these
10 Weis that I, that I walkedthe team through is a fraud and
(12:40):
I'm a hypocrite. So it wasreally important for me to not
be, to not force this. You know,I didn't want to be words on a
wall. I didn't want to be amission statement or values that
no one, frankly, can recite onthe team, and certainly that we
don't operate in accordance withthose words on the wall. So I
didn't push it. I was committedto living it every day, every
(13:03):
interaction of every day. Was Iperfect at it? Absolutely not.
But what I was really adamantabout was using the principles
by word in my daily vernacular.
It's like, Mick, let's justpretend you're on the team and
you're struggling withsomething. One of the principles
is we challenge each other, andthe challenge must be grounded
(13:25):
in data or experience. But whenI approach you and I say, hey,
Mick, man, we challenge eachother, right? You've already
subscribed to the team. You'vealready subscribed to being part
of this team. And the 10 waysare there. Are there are our
identity. They are who we theyhow we operate. It's kind of our
rules or our Code of Conductwithin so the more I would
reaffirm those principles andusing them my daily vernacular
(13:47):
dialog, it became kind ofobvious this guy is living he's
living these principles. He'snot just forcing them on us, and
he's not and what happened, manwas so beautiful. So I had 11
offices around the country, andI would visit each office on a
monthly basis, one per month Iwould and every single month I
would be, in some cases,overwhelmed, but always
(14:07):
pleasantly surprised when Iwould see 10 weeks signage I
would see post its where peoplewere giving each other, we kind
of kudos, or atta boys or attagirls, and then, without my
urging, there were T shirts andrubber bracelets. I still wear
the same we challenge eachother. Rubber bracelet what
seven or eight years later, hadmore made, and the 10 we awards
(14:30):
were launched twice a year, ifyou're caught or observe living
any one of these principles, andthey became part of that
organization's performanceappraisal criteria. But what
happened immediately aftersharing those principles,
there's one example that stillhighlights to me, the importance
of what we're talking about. Sothere was a fella on the team.
He knows I tell this story anduse his name is his name's Mick.
(14:53):
He was honest enough thatevening at dinner to share that
he didn't he thought I was fullof it, so much so that I made
these. Principles, or I stolethese principles from somewhere
on the internet, or somebodyelse had created them. So he
Googled to see if there wasanything on the 10 reason Kyle
McDowell, and that at that pointthere was none. I was still deep
in corporate. And then he said,I like the presentation so much.
(15:14):
I want to share it with my team.
Can you send me the PowerPoint?
I said, Sure, that's great, man.
Go for it. And I sent him thePowerPoint, and he admitted he
only wanted the PowerPointbecause he wanted to check the
file properties to see if Iindeed created the presentation
or I'd gotten it from somewhereelse. Fast forward, seven years
later. Nick is a dear friend ofmine. We still have occasional
(15:34):
check ins and one on ones, justto kind of see how each other's
is doing. And I just thinkthat's a testament to the
connection. So my old, the oldKyle, would have reacted kind of
adversely that this guy is hewas dishonest with me. Uh, he's
only kind of pandering to thenew boss by saying how great he
thinks this stuff is. And Iwould have taken that
(15:55):
personally, which part of myevolution has as and I'm proud
to say that I'm less connectedto the ego of needing and its
association with needing to beright, needing to be the
smartest person in the room,needing to have the last word,
to have the most expansivevocabulary, to be the most
impressive person I can be. I'veworked really hard at setting
(16:18):
that aside, because with thatthat I've created space for
others to have that shineinstead of me, which only
benefit stands to benefit thewhole team.
Mick Spiers (16:28):
There's many powerful things in there, Kyle,
thanks for sharing that story.
To me, It's a story of trust,and when I listened to you, and
there was mistrust there fromNick but where the mistrust
comes from, is from a I'm goingto say history without unpacking
his life, a history ofexecutives where the actions
didn't match the words. So thesevalues and principles that you
(16:51):
speak of, which you'vecultivated your own, they can't
be just on the office wallplaque. They need to be lived
and it needs to be seen in theactions. And if Nick has seen a
bunch of leaders before you thatwould say wonderful things when
they're on stage, but theiractions were the opposite.
That's where that mistrust comesfrom. And where do you rebuild
(17:12):
the trust you show that you areliving it. And what I heard in
your story when you're goingaround in the very language that
you're using with people like,hey, we challenge each other,
right? You started with rolemodeling. Hey, these are not
just 10 statements. I dreamt up.
We're going to live these. Andwe're going to use them as our
(17:33):
credo. We're going to use themas our you use the word code of
conduct. We're going to refer tothem every day in our
conversations. And then by rolemodeling, that what I heard when
you started to go around theoffices is what other people
started doing, it too. Now we'reliving the values, and we're
congruent with those values, andnow trust rebuilds. Howdoes that
(17:55):
sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (17:56):
Beautifully said, and I believe most impactful of
leaders understand trust is thefoundation, right? I ain't gonna
follow you if I don't trust you.
And to me, I boil down the verycomplex topic of trust, because
it's complex. I boil it down tothis. It's a simple equation. I
think authenticity plusrelatability equals trust. And
(18:17):
you kind of alluded to that it'sin the relatability side of that
is what you see, is what youget. My actions align with my
words. And I can understand whyyou might be skeptical of this,
or I can understand why yourwork might be compromised or
sliding because you have a sickchild or an aging parent like
relating to your lifeexperiences tells you that I'm
(18:40):
human and we don't. When wedon't do that, we create this
air of inauthenticity, and it'shard to trust and then follow
but, but that relatabilityconnected with the authenticity
I am, who I say I am, I behavethe way that I'm telling you I'm
going to babe. You can count onthe consistency of my behavior.
For the most part, I'm authenticand I'm relatable. Those two
(19:01):
things form a bond, and I nowtrust you, that's how I try to
live. Unfortunately, I reallyonly led that way or behaved
that way, mostly in my personallife, and then when I developed
these principles, and this isprobably the most beautiful
unintended byproduct that I ammost excited about over the last
(19:22):
two years since the book cameout, is the impact these
principles have had on my ownpersonal life, but from at this
point now 1000s of readers.
Mick, when I wrote the book, Isaid, Man, I told my wife, if I
sell 1000 copies, I'll be overthe moon. Because, you know,
you're an author, it's sellingbooks is not easy, and you don't
get rich selling books. I'vesold, we have sold just shy of
(19:47):
30,000 copies. Now, I hear fromreaders about about how they
have received the principles,the impact that they may or may
not be having on their worklives, but the impact they are
certainly having on theirpersonal lives. This is the most
profound and humbling impactthat I could have ever guessed
or imagined from this book.
Mick Spiers (20:05):
So I was going to say congratulations on the
success, but I'm going to saycongratulations on the impact.
That's the word there. And soyou are impacting so many
people's lives, and you andyou're paying it forward. You've
had the epiphany. You're nowpaying it forward to others to
show them that there is adifferent way. The other thing
that you said before is, andyou've said this a few times,
(20:27):
actually, that you didn't usethese exact words, but you're
not going to also get it rightevery day, but that's also part
of being humble and vulnerableto show Hey, these are the
values I strive to. I won't getit right every day, but this is
what I'll always try. I'm alwaysgoing to try and live these
values for you and with you. Ithink that was really powerful
(20:51):
as well.
Kyle McDowell (20:52):
That's right. And you know, you know what tends to
happen Mick is kind of cool,like, especially, so I connected
really quickly with my directreports. When we have a team of
15,000 it's really hard to getto know everybody. Obviously,
especially when you'regeographically kind of spread
apart. I was really lucky inthat I was able to connect with
my six or seven direct reports,most of them pretty early on.
(21:16):
But what happens is, when youstart to use that there's this,
it happens in every corporateenvironment when the boss or
leader, depending on who theyare, uses the same cliches over
and over again, uses the samedialog, and they kind of reach
into this bag of cliche typewords the team ultimately starts
to repeat it. The beauty in thatis if you say things and talk in
(21:41):
a way that inspires, motivatesand connects and bonds those
around you. They'll do that aswell. They'll start so one of my
favorite examples is we were,this is many years ago, but
there was a woman on my teamcouldn't respect her more love
her. Her name is Lori. We had anissue with a pay a pay issue
where many of our team members,long story short, but many of
(22:01):
our team members were in aposition where were in a
position where we it was over aholiday thing. It was a weird
deal. We had an opportunity tonot pay them and get away with
it. It wasn't illegal. It wasn'twe would have no repercussions
other than a black eye becausewe were beating bad actors. And
Lori came to me and said, I justneed you to know. She led about
3000 people at the time. Shesaid, I need you to know. Need
(22:23):
you to know that we have thisproblem. Think I have a
solution, and I know what you'regoing to say. And I go, Okay,
what am I going to say? Shegoes, we do the right thing
always. It's the first principleof the 10 ways. And I go, it was
the conversation was over inabout 30 seconds. The point of
sharing that story is when wealign on those expected
behaviors and we call people outwhen they don't live them, but
(22:45):
more importantly, probablypraise them and acknowledge when
they are living them, it happensover and over again, and it
becomes almost a second languageto the team.
Mick Spiers (22:55):
So what I'm hearing here is the consistency, the
consistency and then it becomessome predictability, but
predictability in a good way. Sothe consistency of message?
Yeah, I think we sometimes shyaway from that, but there's a
great power in that, that if youdon't repeat the message and
live the values, so it'srepeating the message, living
the values all the time, it'snot going to stick right, but
(23:18):
you've got to you're going tohave a choice there. We spoke
about choice before. Do you wantthat to be a virtuous choice,
that everyone's repeating thebehaviors that you want them to
repeat? Or do you want it to besomething else? So if you're
true to your values and they'rethe right values, and you're
repeating those valuesconsistently, there's nothing
wrong with that and living bythem. Yes, people are going to
(23:41):
start repeating what the bosssays. So think about the great
power that comes with that.
People are going to repeat whatthe boss consistently. You call
them cliches before, but thatconsistency of message, people
are going to repeat those whatdo you want them to repeat? Do
you want it to be a good thingthat's aligned with the values
that you're trying to espouse?
Or do you want it to be somedisastrous, toxic kind of alpha
(24:06):
style that you want them torepeat the same thing that we
started with you? Kyle, that yourepeated and mimic the behavior
of leaders before you the nextgeneration is going to repeat
your behaviors, Kyle, there's agreat power in that and a great
responsibility, in that.
Kyle McDowell (24:22):
Great responsibility. And I actually
approach it as an obligation. Itis my not as a not as a nerd in
corporate America, but assomeone that cares about his
fellow human. And I get it man,sometimes across, I think it's
so common, unfortunately, forpeople to separate the goodness
inside of them as a personoutside of work versus how they
(24:46):
are supposed to have an actinside of work. And they think
that that needs to be twodifferent filters and two
different criteria. And I justin other words, if I'm going to
help somebody outside of work,shouldn't it be in my nature to
also do it in. Side. I mean,we're tribal by nature. You and
I are separated by 1000s ofmiles in different continents,
but we're aligning on somereally cool things. Here, you're
(25:07):
helping me promote the message.
I'm hopefully helping you growyour following in the podcast
and getting your importantmessage out. Those are
obligations, in my mind, notjust responsibilities, and it's
a choice whether or not you wantto take that obligation. And for
those that choose not to, Ithink you're short changing
yourself. You're short sellingyour opportunity.
Mick Spiers (25:27):
Yeah, really powerful. I don't want to put
words in your mouth, but I'mgoing to say also, when that
leader came to you, and evenbefore they spoke, they said, I
know what you're going to say,that predictability, that must
have been a bit of a proudmoment, because what then came
out of the mouth is we always dothe right thing. We do the right
thing, always right. So that's,that's when it's landed, when
(25:49):
people actually don't need Kyleanymore, because we know what he
would say, even if he was, evenif he was in the room, that's
the goal. That's when you've hada great impact.
Kyle McDowell (26:01):
That's the goal.
Mick Spiers (26:02):
Yeah, really powerful.
Kyle McDowell (26:04):
And you probably caught. You're an astute
listener, so you probably caughtwhen I said a woman I used to
work with, and then I inserted,I love her, because I do. I love
that human Lori is a greatperson who we've connected and
we never would have had if I wasthe boss of the Kyle of old, I
would have been open to therelationship that we ended up
forging. And what a blessing,man. How cool is that? And I
(26:25):
just feel like I lost thoseopportunities in the first 20
years. I'm trying to make up forthose now.
Mick Spiers (26:31):
Yeah, very good.
All right, so I want to comeback a little bit to your
identity, and then this is goingto take us towards the word we
so part of your identity yousaid before that what you're
projecting on the world aboutalways having to be right and
not necessarily being open tothings. The Alpha style leader
(26:51):
is prone to words like I andyou, but all of your statements
start with we. Tell us about thepower of the word we? Why does
it begin with we?
Kyle McDowell (27:05):
Our words, especially those in any kind of
position of authority. You'veprobably noticed me
differentiating at times betweenboss and leader, because they're
clearly not the same thing. Butwhen you're in any type of
influential or position ofauthority, people, your words
matter. Your words matter awhole hell of a lot. And I just
(27:25):
remember being in rooms with myboss or other people's boss, and
they say, you know, my team didthis, or my team did that, or he
reports, not he reports to me,but he's Mick is part of my
team. Why is it your team? Whyisn't it our team? And when you
say my team did this, why isn'tit the team or we did this? It
(27:51):
makes me, it made me in stillwould today. Made me feel like a
possession, like I wasn't acontributing member to this
thing. This thing owned me and Iwas giving it because I had to.
It's a very nuanced thing, butit's powerful. And I just don't
think, by the way, I don't thinkanybody wants to be managed.
Nobody. When you're a manager,you think you're supposed to
(28:12):
manage people. You're reallysupposed to manage the process,
the outcomes, setting theexpectations, in terms of the
KPIs, it's leadership thatbrings out the behavior that
delivers on those things. Nobodywants to be managed. We want we
all want to be led. So I justfelt like this possessive thing
that came from, you know, myteam did this, and just people
using it as if the team, thosehumans on their in their
(28:35):
organization, or to whom theywere fortunate enough to have an
influence on or four is a veryslippery slope, and the first
time one of us feels like we'rewe're a possession. I think it's
a slippery slope in that you maynever win somebody back. Never
mind the whole entire, by theway, Coronavirus conversation of
giving credit where credit'sdue. I think that's connected.
(28:56):
Obviously there's this notionthat there's only so much shine
to go around. And I havelearned, and I am a walking
Testament, that the more youshine that light on somebody
else, that light clearlyreflects on you. If they're
successful, you're successful.
If the team is successful, bydefinition, the leader is
successful. So those, thosewords, matter a lot to me.
Mick Spiers (29:17):
So that's a an important lesson if you're
listening to this now, listen towhat Kyle is saying. This is a
pivot point that most leaderseventually find, but it takes a
while, so this might be anaccelerated for you. A lot of,
I'm going to say new leaders,Kyle or early to mid in their
career, they're always trying toprove themselves, and therefore,
(29:39):
there's a lot of I language ormy team, you know that kind of
language comes comes in. Ittakes a while to realize that
actually shining a lot onsomeone else reflects on you. It
takes a while to realize thatone for sure, the other part is
getting down to remember thatthey're human beings too. They
also have a sense of. Self. Theyhave their own identity. They
(30:03):
don't want to be treated like apossession. They want to be
seen, heard and valued. Theywant to know that they matter.
They individually andcollectively, matter. They want
to feel like they're part ofsomething important and part of
something bigger than themselvesthat they're contributing to. So
your choice of language here,it's going to either be an
(30:23):
inclusive and and multiplyingchoice of language, or it's
going to be a diminishing choiceof language that's going to get
them to back off and not bringtheir full energy to work. How
does that sit with you?
Kyle McDowell (30:36):
Beautifully said.
And I think a lot about this,this cycle that you and I have
touched on a couple of times.
You know, I kind of repeat whatI see. If I had a bad leader, I
become a bad leader, a bad boss,become a so I have kind of
distilled it down to what I callthe ABCs of being on a team, or
the employee values chain,however you want to frame, but
it's always ABC for me, everysingle person on the planet, of
(30:59):
course, with some exception, youknow, that is, I don't want to
over generalize, but with someexception, we want to add value.
That's the A I want to addvalue. The B is, I want to be
valued. I don't just want tocome to work and contribute and
give my best without arecognition of what I'm doing.
That recognition comes in manyforms. Doesn't have to be just
money, but money is a big one.
And then C is, I want to connectthe work that I'm doing with the
(31:22):
delight that is delivered viathat product or service, or the
WoW or the however you want toframe it, but I want to be
connected to what I'm doing. Iwant to connect what I'm doing
to those who experience andbenefit from what I'm doing. And
that's hard in some gigs. That'shard in some in some roles,
because, you know, my entirecareer was spent mainly in back
(31:44):
office operations. So it's hard,necessarily, it's hard to get
someone who who has a widgetproducing job that they never
interact with a consumer or acustomer. It's hard to make that
connection, which reallyrequires you to be an even more
inspiring leader. But thatconnection. And think about that
man, if you, if you make abeautiful painting and you sell
it to a friend or even just astranger, because it moves them,
(32:06):
that connectivity that you justformed is the end of that
equation. Add value, be valued,and connect the value, I think,
is the goal for all leaders toremind themselves of that and
then enable that and those theylead.
Mick Spiers (32:22):
That's another great takeaway for everyone
right now. Colin and theexercise I want people to do
listening to Kyle, have a thinkabout what you want in the
workplace. You want to addvalue. You want to be valued.
You want to connect that valueto something meaningful,
something that has some kind ofpurpose and impact. Now turn
(32:43):
around and project that to yourteam. What do they all
individually want? They want toadd value. They want to be
valued. They want to connectwhat they're doing to some kind
of value that has some kind ofmeaning and impact. Guess what?
That's your job. That's your jobto help them.
Kyle McDowell (32:58):
There's your relatability.
Mick Spiers (33:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Now you've got the relatabilityand the connection between you,
but that's your job, that it'syour job to create the
environment where they can addvalue, where they feel that
they're being valued, and thatthey connect the value of what
they're doing, even if it'sseems like a little micro task
of a spreadsheet, they want toknow that I'm not just doing
(33:21):
this spreadsheet, because theboss told me to have it done by
Thursday at three o'clock. Theywanted to know that it means
something, that it connects tosomething that made it different
somewhere. That's your job.
Kyle McDowell (33:34):
And I so sometimes when I get on this
track, so it's so beautiful,well said, man. And sometimes I
get on this kind of thoughttrack, and occasionally I'll get
an eye roll, or I'll be I'll seesomeone in the audience, and you
could tell it just doesn'tconnect with them. And I
understand that, but I amconvinced, if I'm managing a
coffee shop, if I am anattendant at a convenience
(33:56):
store, my position and my titleor my quote, unquote importance
inside the organization does notlimit my ability to say, Hey,
thanks for Mick, I hope youenjoyed this coffee. Here's a
smile. You know, you give itwith a smile. Or, you know, hope
your day goes well. Hopefullythis caffeine gives you the jolt
you need, whatever it takes. Oris most appropriate, I think, or
I know so many of us look at ourjobs as just a job and not a
(34:23):
career or an opportunity to helpyourself or others. And I get
that I've been there. Iunderstand that I think our
challenge for all, the challengefor all of us, is to get the
most out of each of those steps,those jobs that help put us in a
position to land in the careerthat we want. But I just deny
the I deny this notion thatunless I'm a leader of a big
(34:44):
company, or I lead a lot ofpeople, or I have an important
title with a fancy office, Ican't have an impact on others.
I just don't buy that anylonger.
Mick Spiers (34:52):
Yeah, so I'm going to share a story back with you
now. This comes from ZachMercurio, the author of the
invisible leader. He's aprevious guest on the show, and
I'm going to show a power thatyou can find meaningful purpose.
I'm going to say in any job,someone will prove me wrong at
some point. So he studiespurpose. That's what he does.
(35:13):
And he does these interviewswith leaders and all kinds of
people. This one day, he wasinterviewing the janitor at the
university, and asked thejanitor, so what is it that you
do? And her answer just blew hismind. I ensure that the students
at this school to not get sickso they go on and change the
(35:34):
world. She didn't say, I cleanthe toilets, I mop the floors, I
do the dishes, I ensure thestudents that they see at this
school do not get sick so theygo on to trans Well, if you look
carefully about how you'reimpacting other human beings in
the work that you do, whatyou're enabling them to go on
and do, it could be theconnection that you spoke about
(35:55):
before that by doing this, I'menabling this, and Then that's
impactful in this way. I thinkyou can do it in any job,
whether it's barista, through tojanitor, through to CEO, you can
find a purpose. If you lookcarefully.
Unknown (36:12):
Can you can't. Is Costco a thing in Australia?
Mick Spiers (36:16):
Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah.
Kyle McDowell (36:18):
Do you see who their their new CEO is? Man he
started, like, 30 somethingyears ago with Costco, the then
Costco, whatever it's called, asa forklift driver, as a forklift
driver, you know? So I just youknow, you we subscribe to what
the world tells us we'resupposed to be doing. And you
said that in a very beautifulway earlier, like I was leading
(36:40):
in a way that I had been taught,whether I realized it or not, I
was just replicating and playingit forward. And the benefit of
that kind of psychology is theopposite can also be true. If I
want to add value and I want tocontribute positively, not just
to my work and my team, but theworld is a choice. It's a
(37:00):
choice. And the way she repliedis, is really, is really
powerful. Now the challenge, Ithink, Mick, is when someone on
the team has that paradigm andthey're committed to that way of
behaving, in the way of living.
You said it earlier, and I'lljust kind of repeat it in a
paraphrases. It's our obligationto continue to help that
behavior continue to inspirethat person to continue to live
(37:23):
and operate and work inside ofour team in that way and not
lose sight of that thing,because it happens, right? We're
all human. And there are dayswhen I go into the office and I
just don't have the juice I wishI had, and I got to remind
myself of a few things. I havethis internal dialog I always go
through, and it usually includesyou signed up for this not, oh,
it's not. You don't choose whenyou get to be a leader, because
(37:45):
leaders, not leadership, is noteasy, but getting folks to a
point where they believe thatthey're in those ABCs and
they're connecting that valueand keeping them there is a
really tough thing, and requiresa daily commitment from the
leader as well.
Mick Spiers (38:01):
Yeah, I'm going to say daily commitment and a daily
intention. So you got to show upas a leader with intention. That
that's what you're going to do.
Think about the leader, thinkabout the leader you want to be,
or the leader that you wouldlike to follow, and start
intentionally showing up withthose values and those
behaviors. And it is a greatresponsibility. People are
(38:21):
spending up to 1/3 of their lifewith you. It's your
responsibility to help them findthemselves and to help them have
a good time not be in a toxicenvironment where they go home,
you know, grumbling and moaningand taking that into their home
life. It's a it's a greatresponsibility, so we need to
take it very carefully. Allright, Kyle, I want to give you
(38:42):
a platform here to talk aboutthe ways you can either share
all 10 principles with us, ifyou like, or tell us your
favorites of your we principlesthat you instilled in that
organization, what stillresonates with you today.
Kyle McDowell (39:00):
Yeah, I'd love to. And thank you for the
opportunity. And before I right,before jumping into that, I
just, I must issue two caveats.
The first is the 10 we's and I'mthe and I admit this freely,
they're incredibly simple.
They're incredibly simple. Butsimple is not easy. We know if
we want to lose weight, we gotto reduce calories and burn more
(39:20):
calories get active. Incrediblysimple, but not easy. The other
caveat is, as I and I'll share afew, as many as you like, but
the other caveat, or thought Iwould, I would like your
audience to think about, isframing these principles, these
10 ways, not just as a work,only leadership, only thing
(39:42):
framing them as how can thisimpact my life, improve and
impact my relationships, give megreater fulfillment in whatever
it is that I do, because I'vefound and I went through this
transition by the way, I livedthese principles for many years,
inside of my work life, but Ididn't outside. And when I
realized what a hypocrite I wasbeing, started to live them. A
level of fulfillment andpresence in each moment is
(40:03):
dramatically increased. So withthat said, I'll give you the
first and it's, I think Imentioned it earlier, but it is
the foundation that's we do theright thing always, and then
they just they grow from there.
We lead by example. We say whatwe're going to do, and then we
do it. We take action, we ownour mistakes, we pick each other
up. We measure ourselves byoutcomes, not activity. We
(40:24):
challenge each other. We embracechallenge and we obsess over
details. My favorite of themall, and light years head and
shoulders, more difficult forfolks to get behind and live
consistently is we number eightas we challenge each other in
most environments, boss issueschallenges, and that's just the
(40:44):
way it is. In a high functioningculture where we is embraced and
the best ideas of realmeritocracy exists, challenges
go in every direction, the bossto the team, the team to the
boss, peer to peer, on side theteam if you're not pulling your
weight for this team, I thinkthere's an obligation to call
someone out for that. Now,challenges must be grounded in
(41:05):
either data or experience. Ican't just give you my opinion
and say you should changebecause I said so the data or
experience will do that for me.
And of course, there's chaos inthe on the team. If we don't
subscribe to We number nine aswell. We embrace challenge. But
that was admittedly tough forme, and it is tough for a lot of
folks who try to embrace theseprinciples and try to
(41:27):
incorporate them into theirorganization. Why? Because we've
touched on this a couple oftimes already. I gotta be right.
You're challenging me. Threatensmy authority. By authority, we
should insert ego, and it mightminimize my level of
effectiveness or impact on thisteam. And life gets so much
easier when the best ideas comefrom some other come from other
(41:48):
people, and we get the bestideas, but you won't get them
unless you encourage thosechallenges. And that's the one I
think has the greatest impact,but also the toughest for folks
to grasp.
Mick Spiers (41:58):
Yeah, really good.
I love that we challenge eachother. It is going to be the
most challenging, sorry to saythat, but because of the
equation of fear and couragethat's going to happen there, so
that one's going to take time tobuild but if you do it the right
way, you will build it. Theother thing is, when you do get
to that level of diversity ofthought and bringing everyone,
bringing their best ideas to thetable. This is when we can co
(42:21):
create something much biggerthan any of us could have
individually done, and we'reholding space for each other,
and we challenge each otherdirectly and care personally, as
Kim Scott would put it, this iswhen we can co create something
much bigger than any of usindividually could have done,
regardless of how smart the bossthinks they are, we are smarter
(42:41):
together. Yeah, very good.
Kyle McDowell (42:46):
It's just math.
Mick Spiers (42:48):
It's exactly good one at the
Kyle McDowell (42:51):
End of the day. I think it's just math. You know,
in America, we have Americanfootball, and an NFL Coach has a
50 leads a 53 man roster.
There's a reason there's anoffensive coordinator, a
defensive coordinator, anoffensive like because there's
no one. There's no way that oneperson can have the greatest
level of impact humanly possiblewith a group of people, without
(43:12):
others contributing. So to me,it's just a math equation.
Mick Spiers (43:16):
All right.
Excellent, yeah, I'm gonnareflect some of the lessons I'm
taking away from today, Kyle andI'm doing it for myself and I'm
doing it for the audience at thesame time. So the key thing here
is stop mimicking the behaviorof leaders before you,
particularly if it was aleadership style you didn't even
like yourself. You didn't likeit. Why are you repeating it
(43:36):
onto other human beings? Okay,get back to your true self.
Think about your values. What doyou value? What do you want to
see happen if you were theperson following you? What would
you like to experience with thatthere's a power in language. So
listen to Kyle in the languagethat he uses, and particularly
(43:59):
the power of the language of theword we, instead of I and you.
Then when we have these values,we broadcast them, and it's okay
to be repeating that messagemultiple times. And then the
next most important thing isthat we live the values we live,
and we reinforce the values inin everything we do. And it
becomes infectious. It becomesinfectious when you do it in
(44:21):
this way. Now hear these words.
You need to find your values.
Don't just stand up on the stagetomorrow and go, Hey everyone.
I've got these 10 ways. That'sKyle. Don't be Kyle. Be you find
your values and get out thereand be true to yourself and
share those with the team fromthere, remember, your job is
(44:42):
create an environment whereother people can do their very
best work, where they can addvalue, where they can be valued,
and where they can connect thevalue of what they do to
something bigger and moremeaningful, so that they can go
home at the end of the dayfeeling proud that they did.
Something important. All right.
(45:02):
Kyle, this has been a awonderful conversation. I've
absolutely loved it. I'd like usto now go to our Rapid Round.
These are the same fourquestions we ask all of I guess.
So what's the one thing you knownow, Kyle Mcdowell, that you
wish you knew when you were 20?
Kyle McDowell (45:18):
Don't need to have all the answers. Don't need
to have all the answers to be animpactful leader. I'll connect
that to a you know, the tired,very tired cliche, fake it till
you make it. I did that. Had alittle bit of success, alienated
people and myself along the way.
So it's not the answer. It's beauthentic, be yourself and I you
don't have to be perfect to beimpactful.
Mick Spiers (45:42):
Yeah, well said, All right, as a best selling
author yourself, what is yourfavorite book?
Kyle McDowell (45:47):
Oh, man, favorite book ever. Oof, I would go with
the Power of Now, by EckhartTolle, you familiar? Yes, I am,
yeah, yeah, great one. And Imust give a quick plug, because
I'm also, I just, I'm abouthalfway done with Rick Rubin's
book, creative act, the art ofbeing. I always get the title
(46:08):
wrong. Okay, it's a more hipversion. I've come to the
conclusion of the power of now.
It's from Rick Rubin, the famousproducers. Really great read.
Mick Spiers (46:19):
Yeah, very good.
Okay. What's your favoritequote?
Kyle McDowell (46:22):
Oh, my mother, who was a very important
influence in my life, clearly,as so many probably of your
audience, who we lost a dozen orso years ago to cancer, would
always say, tough times neverlast. Tough people do.
Mick Spiers (46:37):
Yeah, that's a really good one. I can see the
emotion you saying out thatloud. I can see the emotion
coming through as well.
Kyle McDowell (46:46):
Real, yeah, yeah.
That's never happened before, bythe way. Nice job, host. It's
never happened before.
Mick Spiers (46:52):
It's okay, it's okay, it's you're human and
you're being human, right? Sonow tell me call. There's going
to be people listening to this,going war. This is amazing.
They're going to be interestedin either finding the book begin
with we or booking you to comeand help their organizations
find their culture ofexcellence, or keynote speaking,
(47:12):
etc. How do people find youKyle?
Kyle McDowell (47:15):
Yeah, thank you.
And again, thank you for theopportunity to be with you
today. Thank you for theopportunity to share these
communication platforms that I'mon. And you know, I'm
essentially on every socialmedia platform. It's @Kyle
McDowell Inc. My website is alsokylemcDowellinc.com, the book is
available wherever books aresold, wherever you buy books.
The audio versions out therethat I narrated, ebook print
(47:35):
obviously harden hardcover andpaper bag folks typically find
it easiest on Amazon, but it'sessentially everywhere. And
again, I'm really grateful forthe opportunity to share the
message today.
Mick Spiers (47:50):
Well, thank you, Kyle, and thank you for your
impact. You mentioned about30,000 copies before I'm going
to share something. I'm going totell you that of those 30,000
people, guess what? They do.
They also pay it forward, theyshare it with others. I hope,
that's my hope. And they don'tjust impact their own lives.
That's 30,000 leaders that arethen turning around and
realizing that there's a betterway. So they're impacting their
(48:11):
organizations and their team. Soit's a big multiplication
effect. So thank you for yourimpact on the world, and you
paying it forward for whatyou've discovered, and then
helping others to do the same.
And then thank you for your thegift of your time today and your
your wisdom. I feel richer forhaving this conversation. I know
(48:32):
the audience will as well. Thankyou.
Kyle McDowell (48:34):
My pleasure.
Thank you, Mick.
Mick Spiers (48:37):
What a powerful conversation with Kyle, sharing
so openly his experience of thatturning point in his career, and
how he brought it all together.
If you're a leader who's tiredof toxic culture, misaligned
values and people just goingthrough the motions, Kyle's
message is your wake up call.
Leadership isn't about ego orauthority. It's about example.
(49:00):
It's about integrity, and aboveall, it's about we. In the next
episode, it's going to be a solocast where I reflect on his
powerful concept of begin withwe and I will share my personal
experiences of a me cultureversus a we culture and how it
shaped the way I lead today.
(49:24):
Thank you for listening to TheLeadership Project
mickspiers.com a huge call outto Faris Sedek for his video
editing of all of our videocontent and to all of the team
at TLP. Joan Gozon, GeraldCalibo and my amazing wife Sei
Spiers, I could not do this showwithout you. Don't forget to
subscribe to The LeadershipProject YouTube channel, where
(49:45):
we bring you interesting videoseach and every week, and you can
follow us on social,particularly on LinkedIn,
Facebook and Instagram. Now inthe meantime, please do take
care, look out for each otherand join us on this journey. Me
as we learn together and leadtogether.
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