July 28, 2025 • 33 mins
Charles Spinoza shares his journey from Shakespearean professor to leadership consultant, exploring how leaders can transform their organizations into moral masterpieces that reflect their deepest values and vision.
• Former humanities professor turned leadership consultant with 27 years of experience
• Author of "Leadership as Masterpiece Creation" focusing on morally distinctive leadership
• Contrarian view that leadership has evolved beyond humility to moral artistry
• Leaders have strong moral intuitions about treatment of customers, employees, suppliers, and owners
• Business leaders are today's moral artists more than political leaders
• Three key questions: What always goes wrong? What would you love instead? What moral risks must you take?
• Creating a masterpiece requires courage to make difficult decisions that challenge industry norms
• Taking moral risks unites multi-generational workforces around a meaningful purpose
• Book gives leaders permission to create organizations that embody their authentic moral vision
Find Charles Spinoza on LinkedIn or at stratumcom. His book "Leadership as Masterpiece Creation" is available on Amazon.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host
leadership consultant, ronHarvey of GlobalCore Strategies
and Consulting.
Ron believes that leadership isthe fundamental driver towards
making a difference.
So now to find out more of whatit means to unpack leadership,
here's your host, ron Harvey.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning.
This is Ron Harvey, the vicepresident, chief operator of
GlobalCore, and we're aleadership development firm.
We do a lot of executivecoaching, team building.
Our goal really is to helpleaders be better connected to
their workforce at the end ofthe day and there are multiple
ways to do that.
But today is really not aboutwhat we do as a company.
You'll be able to find us onLinkedIn and our website.
Today is really about ourguests and what they bring to
(00:42):
the table and unpack with RonHarvey.
So we're super excited to haveanother guest that is going to
come before you, has great bookthat's out doing great work in
the space that he's doing it.
But I want to be able to allowCharles to come on and he's
going to.
I'm ahead of the microphone andalways do it.
Every guest.
Let them introduce themselves.
How would they desire to?
Nobody knows them better thanthey know themselves, but always
(01:04):
give them the microphone andsay, hey, however, you want to
do it.
So, charles, I'm going to moveout of your way and hand you the
microphone.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you, ron, and greetings to everybody who's
listening.
I'm honored to be here.
So I'm Charles Spinoza.
I am also someone who doesleadership coaching.
I'm a management consultant.
I've been that for about 27, 28years.
I work in leadershipdevelopment, I work in
organizational culture changeand I help people develop new
(01:29):
customer propositions, and forme they're all related.
If you're going to change yourculture, you need to be a very
strong leader, and one of thereasons to change your culture
is to have a really coolproposition for your customers.
So, as I said, I've done thatfor about 27 years small
companies, large companies,europe, uk, canada, once in
China, latin America.
(01:50):
I think the thing that makes medistinctive among consultants is
that my background is not thetraditional business school
background or economicsbackground or social science
background.
Social science background.
I used to be a professor in thehumanities.
I was a Shakespearean for awhile.
I taught Shakespeare at theMiami University in Ohio and
(02:11):
then I went on, published a lotin academic philosophy and my
final teaching position was atUC Berkeley in the philosophy
department there, and that'swhat I bring to consulting and
that's what my new book is about.
My new book is about leadershipas masterpiece creation.
That's how to turn yourorganization into a masterpiece,
(02:32):
how to turn your leadershipstyle into a masterpiece.
And if you think aboutmasterpiece, that comes out of
the humanities and what I'vebeen doing, what I realized I
was doing mostly the last eightyears of my consulting.
It took me a long time.
I was always drawing on thehumanities.
I helped leaders find theirdefining passions, but I didn't
(02:53):
realize that helping them to gettheir defining passions would
help them also createorganizations that were
masterpieces, that were admiredby people and morally
distinctive.
And that's the thing I've cometo realize that when a leader
creates a masterpiece, it'sactually morally distinctive,
not just commerciallydistinctive.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Wow, I probably like the audience there enjoying it.
You know hearing the backgroundand the stories and how you
leaned into you know how you gotto where you are today, which
you know you're several yearsahead of me in the business, and
so I'm excited to listen andlearn and how you've made that
shift for you.
You've watched leadershipevolve over the years.
What are some of the thingsthat stand out the most for how
leadership has evolved over theyears?
(03:35):
You know you look back overyour time in the space.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of a contrarian on
leadership.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of acontrarian on leadership.
What's happened in leadershipwas we went from a period of
what we considered strongmasculine, patriarchal leaders
were highly directive in whatthey did and had a strong sense
of what they were about and justdemanded that other people
(04:03):
follow it or get out of the way.
That evolved into what wascalled transformational
leadership.
There's a thinker, nick Burns,who was behind that, and the
idea was that doesn't work sowell.
What we have to do is we haveto make sure at least the
members of our leadership teamare successful in their own
rights.
And so you became much more ofa coach as a leader.
(04:28):
The other thing that was popularat that time was called servant
leadership, and then you werealso a coach, but servant
leadership interestingly, youwouldn't get it from the name.
You were also a visionary.
You gave people a vision andyou served them as a vision.
Now what's happened isleadership has become, as it's
moved in that direction, it'srequired more and more quote
(04:53):
humility, and Jim Collins wrotea book from good to great I
think it is now 10 years agomight be longer ago where the
top top quality of a leader washumility, and I have an
interesting story about a leaderwho tried to do that.
It works in the US.
It doesn't work so much ifyou're in a third world country
(05:14):
and leading a company there.
I'll tell it real quickly.
Lorenzo Zambrano, the CEO ofCemex, read Jim Collins' book,
said this is great, I'm going tobe humble.
I'm going to go talk to thefinancial analysts.
And he was growing his smallcompany in Mexico to what became
the third largest cementcompany in the world.
He was taking it global.
And when they asked him whatkind of genius he had, he said
(05:36):
well, it's not really my genius,it's the genius of my senior
team.
His stock price fell by 50%.
Humility doesn't play so well asJim Collins would make it seem,
but this led to I'm being veryacademic here, I'm going to
bring it to a close two thingsthat, for me, are knives in the
(05:59):
back of humility.
Think of leaders as JuliusCaesar, and it's one.
Two.
One is that leadership isdistributed throughout the
organization.
Don't look for the seniorleader as the one who's setting
the course.
Don't look to the senior leaderas direct.
Realize that it's distributedall throughout the organization.
(06:20):
It's not even just the top team, it's not even the next team
down.
Everybody gets to be a leaderand that is the final thing.
What is leadership?
Leadership is influence.
Let me say how I stand againstthat.
Would you mind?
I don't mind.
(06:50):
Yes, yes, okay.
All of this view of leadershiplooks at leaders as basically
operational and getting peopleto maintain operations.
What you add to that is apurpose that people care about,
particularly that your employeescare about, but generally it's
from the menu of typicalpurposes out there.
(07:12):
We're going to take care of theenvironment, we're going to be
sustainable, whatever.
I think leadership is deeply,deeply moral, and by that I mean
virtually every leader I haverun into not everyone, but
virtually everyone I've run intohas a sense of what's right for
customers, has a sense of whatis right for suppliers, has a
(07:35):
sense of what is right foremployees, has a sense of what
is right for owners.
They'll have some other sensesof what is right, but those four
they believe in strongly.
Of course they go toconsultants like me and business
schools and they get told hereare the recipes.
And venture capitalists they'refull of recipes too.
Here are the recipes for how tomake your business successful.
(07:58):
And they feel vexed and by andlarge, they start following the
recipes because people believein those recipes.
But behind their back and onthe sides they're trying to do
what they think is right foremployees and it might not be
that you find out what theemployee wants and you try to
help the employee achieve whatthe employee wants.
(08:19):
It might be what's right foremployees is to stretch them, to
stretch them near theirbreaking points so that they can
feel extraordinarily proud oftheir lives.
You might believe that, or andthat's sort of an Amazon view,
or you might have a Google viewLet them explore, take 20% of
their time, follow their heartin a way, so they invent
(08:42):
something really cool.
That's another way of dealingwith employees.
Those are two different visionsand they're two different moral
visions.
The good life that you'reoffered at Amazon the good life
you're offered at Google they'revery different good lives.
The way you treat each other atAmazon or Google, they're very
different.
And my view is business leadersdo have a sense, the same for
(09:04):
employees, for customers, for soforth.
You see it all the time.
Walk down the street in yourtown.
You'll see different stores.
In my neighborhood there aretwo hardware stores.
One you walk into you hearclassic jazz music.
You smell actually I think it'ssoaps, I'm not sure, I'm not
really good and the minute, just30 seconds after you walk in,
(09:28):
there's somebody saying how canI help you?
What can I do?
The prices are a little high.
The service is great.
The other one you walk into,you're sawdust on the floor.
You have the faint smell ofthree-in-one oil.
I hope you have people that canremember what that's like.
Just think like the oil theyput on tools in the old days and
(09:50):
you might see somebody stockingshelves and somebody else at
the cash register.
Nobody asks you if you want tohelp.
It's a sort of do-it-yourselfplace.
That's two different visions onwhat's right for treating
customers, what's right fortreating employees, what a
hardware store should be like.
I think we can admire both.
We embrace one or the other,depending on our tastes.
(10:12):
But those are moral visions.
We see it at the bottom, we seeit at the top.
Jeff Bezos has a differentmoral vision from, say, anita
Roddick or Ray Dalio.
For the shapers they do it.
For the people at the bottomthey do it.
My whole goal was to bring thatto everybody, from between the
(10:32):
small business to the largeshaping businesses.
They have a moral vision aboutwhat is right and enable
business leaders to bring outtheir moral vision.
I don't always agree exactly.
Well, usually I admire moralvisions.
I don't do ones that I totallyoppose.
But I couldn't embrace many ofthe moral visions that I help
(10:54):
leaders bring out, and that'swhat I do, and I'll just end
with this.
The one question I begin when Iask leaders, when I start
working with leaders, is whatalways goes wrong with your
company, what always goes wrongin your industry?
Answer either one of those.
I find leaders can, and thenwe're off to creating a
masterpiece.
(11:14):
Well, awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I mean, yeah, phenomenal.
I'm glad that you're unpackingit, because that's really what
the whole podcast is about.
So when you think about it,charles, I love that you're
talking about the moral vision.
How do people develop that?
I mean because you know youthink of morals and where they
come from and you look at thevalues of their family or their
history or where they live, thatin the community and it can be
a geographic.
How do you come to this idea ofthe moral vision?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Well, for me, first of all a lot of people morality
means just how we treat eachother justly.
Yes, it's strictly that.
Yeah, I follow this is a bit ofme as a philosopher.
I follow Bernard Williams, thefamous British philosopher, who
said that's Sort of nonsense.
A moral vision just as we treateach other justly is
(11:58):
insufficient.
Any moral life has to includehow you lead a good life.
Now, technically, in philosophy, a lot of people call good life
ethics and how you treat eachother morality.
Bernard Williams and CharlesSpinoza, as his followers, say
moral and vision includes howyou treat each other Right and
how, inside that, you can lead agood life.
(12:20):
You can have a perfectly runprison where everybody's
treating each other in a fairway, but there are no good lives
there.
I want a good life, so that'sthe first view.
Now my sense is I can't saythis for everybody, but the
leaders I've dealt with most ofthem as they go through the
(12:40):
management ranks, they findthemselves in certain fights.
I want to be stretching myemployees more.
I want to be solving thisproblem by working more with the
customers, more in partnershipwith the customers.
I want to treat our loyalcustomers better than our newer
customers.
I want to reward them forloyalty somehow, and they'd have
(13:02):
that as an intuition.
They don't have that as abinding principle.
But then they're told the waythe marketplace works is make
great new offers to newcustomers.
Leave your loyal customersalone.
They'll keep producing money sothat you can have sustainable
and predictable profits.
And likewise, don't go to.
(13:24):
In our industry we try to havebeautiful big engineering
solutions.
We don't try to have smallsolutions by working with
customers and so on and so forth.
One of the most recent wassomebody who in management a
video game company and I have tokeep this as confidential as I
can had said you know, we couldcreate a video game that both
(13:46):
genders would like.
Men and women would like, youngmen and women, teenage men
would like.
It's going to be harder, butwouldn't that be cool?
Cool, well, it might be verycool, but it's much harder.
And you bring together peopleand suddenly you're creating a
video game for macho young malesthat shoot them up video game
(14:08):
and you're good at it, you'vegot talents and you do that and
you make money.
And so what happens is forpeople who become leaders.
They start out as successfulmanagers and they push aside
concerns that they had earlierin their career.
They push aside, and theybecome very good at pushing
aside.
Or they begin we can have alittle bit.
We'll put in better charactersin our video game so it might
have more appeal here, or we'llstart having customers collect
(14:33):
some of the runoff water fromthe roof so we don't have to
build so many underground plants.
And we'll do a little bit here,a little bit there, and that's
the brilliance of management.
The brilliance of management isto take a big problem and find
workaround solutions to getbeyond it fast.
And as managers they've done alot of this and as they move up,
(14:54):
by the time I get to see them,they have a lot of this baggage
where they're saying I wish Icould do it this way, or
wouldn't it be cool if I coulddo it this way?
Now, what I do, the first thingI do is I say let's take it out
of the language of wouldn't itbe cool or wouldn't it be nice,
or it's too bad.
We can't ever and say that isyour view of what's the right
(15:18):
thing to do, and nine times outof 10, they said yeah, yeah,
that would be the right thing todo, charles, but obviously I
can't do it, or obviouslyeverybody would be against me if
I did it, or the CFO would bejumping down my throat if I
tried to do that, because Iwouldn't have as profits that
are as predictable and so forth.
(15:39):
But they're developing it asthey develop, as managers,
things that they would like todo that they talk themselves out
of.
That's where they get it andwhat's it based on.
It's based on how they interactwith people in their lives.
One of the big ones is in manybusinesses it's just a matter of
habit that you go out and tryto create a win-lose contract
(15:59):
with people, but in our livesthat's not how we do it.
It might be the traditions ofthe business say, do that
particularly, say, if you're inthe construction industry, in
your lives you have things thatpull you apart in other ways.
You didn't try to create awin-lose contract with your wife
, I bet, or your spouse, I bet.
Maybe you did, but most peopledid not and you have.
(16:23):
Our lives are rich, our livesgo in various ways and it's out
of those responses that we findthat in our business life there
are things that we are doingbecause they're efficient,
because they're advised byHarvard or another consultant
that we just do.
They're a simple pattern, thatsimplicity is a big thing and
(16:45):
we're drawn against ourinstincts.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Wow, Charles have you noticed, for with many
generations in the workforce,it's more difficult to create
that masterpiece as a leaderwith work with so many I mean.
So there's a lot ofperspectives, different
generations and all thevariables how difficult is it to
hone in and be good at thismasterpiece of leadership around
the work that you're doing?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I'd be lying if I said it was easy.
In fact it's rewarding.
Yeah, okay, that's the key.
It's rewarding.
It's not easy.
Any business leader who says tome, Charles, why are you telling
me I should create amasterpiece?
Isn't it hard enough for me tocreate a profitable business
that supplies goods to customers, that takes care of their needs
, and do it year after yearafter year, why should I create
(17:30):
a masterpiece?
And to that person and I haverun into those people I'd say
you're right, it is hard.
I'm not telling you you have tocreate a masterpiece.
I'm saying that if you believethere's something that you are
doing that's not morally right,that's not the best thing to do,
let's explore and see if youcan create a masterpiece on that
(17:51):
.
If you don't have that feeling,don't.
It is hard enough to create agood, profitable business.
So I'm going to take you throughthe three questions I take
people through.
This will give you a sense ofwhat's hard.
The first is what always goeswrong in this business or in
this industry.
Surprisingly, virtually everyleader I run into can answer
(18:13):
that we don't have enoughfinancial transparency, we don't
take care of our loyalcustomers, we're selling stuff
that is sort of miraculous andnot quite fully honest to people
, and so forth.
You run into all sorts ofanswers and people come up with
that.
And then the next question,which is a harder question to
(18:33):
answer and I promise you it'sharder.
I think with your background,Ron, you'll see it's harder.
Your listeners might notbelieve me, but it is harder
than the next one what would youlove to do instead?
Now for leaders who have beensenior managers they're
brilliant at finding workarounds, at not having to address the
central thing, so that stymiesthem.
(18:54):
What would I love?
And that's the hard one.
But you could almost always getthe answer from people.
Now, when they're with theirsenior teams, their senior teams
, as soon as they say what theywould love, there'll be a bunch
of naysayers that's impossible,Can't do it, Can't do it.
So you have to work with seniorteams.
Now, do not say, do not say no,I was working with somebody in
(19:16):
health care.
What I would love is financialtransparency so the patient
knows exactly what he's payingfor to whom, and so forth, and
it can actually negotiate it.
And you should have seen hissenior team.
Oh, that's impossible for thisreason.
It's impossible for that reason.
But I have to say we have avery smart senior team.
They gave very compellingreasons and the leader sort of
(19:38):
being backed off into the corner.
I knew it was impossible.
How did I let Charles Spinozaget me into this situation where
I'm saying what I thought?
So I said stop all of that.
What would be the benefit ifyou did it?
(20:10):
No-transcript the common senseof your industry.
It's going to go against thecommon sense of members of your
senior team and people aren'tgoing to really believe you're
serious.
The first thing most peoplebelieve is oh, he's come up with
some brilliant public relations.
Say we're doing this, we'll go25% of the way there.
(20:33):
That's more virtuous thananybody else on the planet.
What more could anybody ask?
And figuring out those moralrisks and figuring out the order
you're going to take them inthat's really where I earn my
money.
That's the difficult thing.
One company we worked with I cantalk about it, it's in the book
was Impellum.
(20:53):
It's a recruitment company.
It was based in the UK.
It's now global.
Julia Robertson ran it and therecruitment industry used to be
a sort of cutthroat industry.
Get people in seats in offices,pull them out, get them in and
out.
The whole idea was a flexibleworkforce in and out.
(21:13):
The whole idea was a flexibleworkforce.
Now, flexible workforce is agood thing.
The economy is changing all thetime.
You want to provide yourcustomers good service, you need
to flex.
But the cutthroat ways in whichyou would get people into
chairs and out of chairs, thatwas a bit heartbreaking.
Julia Robertson wanted tochange that, and so the first
thing.
So we set out the three moralrisks that she was going to have
(21:34):
to take.
She was going to have to getpeople in her own organization
making honest, to goodnesspromises to each other.
In that industry, the wholeidea of making a promise was so
you could betray somebody andmake an extra dollar.
It was all.
Promises were all win, lose,and even inside the company.
So she insisted on promises forrevenue, promises for profit,
(21:57):
and the idea was not that youalways kept your promise, but if
you were failing as soon as younoticed you might not be able
to keep it.
You went and spoke to her andrenegotiated and what happens?
Classically, one of her mosttalented persons didn't take her
seriously, missed his promiseby a huge amount and didn't
renegotiate her.
And what'd she have to do Ifshe was going to take the stand
(22:19):
that this is the new way we'regoing to behave in this industry
, even though it doesn't makesense to you.
She had to fire that person andit was considered a brutal
firing and it was considereddidn't make any sense.
The guy was normally a highperformer.
Just because he missed apromise Everybody misses
promises we don't take promisesseriously, and now they were
(22:41):
going to take promises seriouslyat Impellum and it is a mind
shift.
In an industry like that, it'sa huge mind shift.
You think about theconstruction industry people
trying to do that now.
It's a huge mind shift.
How does the constructionindustry work?
Well, we make a promise to theprovider and then we're going to
do change orders and we'llreally make our money on all the
change orders.
(23:14):
Honor the employees that shebrought to them and that is,
give them opportunities for someeducation, give them some sort
of other opportunity like that.
And that meant ultimately, shewas going to have to stop
serving some people Again.
She had to fire two or threepeople in a big, big way to show
that, and her third was overgreat profits.
I will go into that.
I mean, basically, one of thethings you could do is if you
(23:36):
didn't tell people that theycould get holiday pay.
They wouldn't ask for it andyou didn't have to pay them, and
then a lot of money was beingmade that way.
That's one example.
There were a lot of exampleslike that.
She eliminated that.
But it all required hard thingsthat you have to do, hard
personal things that you have todo to get people to take that
vision.
Clearly, Julia Robertson is nota household name.
(23:57):
Think Anita Roddick who foundedthe Body Shop.
She succeeded in creating thislittle boutique body shop.
Nobody in the beauty businesstook her seriously.
She went to her family and saidwe've got to grow this business
.
We've got to be taken seriously.
Her husband was also her CFOsaid no, let's grow organically,
we're not going to borrow anymore money.
What'd she do?
She believed so much in growthof that business.
(24:17):
When he went out of town shesold half the shares of the
company to get the money forgrowth.
He came back to town it's sortof a famous story.
He forgave her and the rest ishistory.
The body shop in its heyday hadmore international stores than
any other English business.
People have to make those kindsof sacrifices to create
(24:39):
masterpieces, for people to takethis new way of doing business
seriously.
So you're right, it's not easy,but it is enormously rewarding
and fulfilling.
You can look at your businessand see your view of the world,
your view of what you care about, realized there, and other
people will be admiring it andrecognizing it and you will, in
(25:03):
fact, have changed the world,which is what people who become
leaders want to do.
Anyway, my view is you become aleader because, deep down, deep
, you want your moral visionrealized in the world, and so I
say today's business leaders areour moral artists today, more
(25:24):
than our political leaders, whoare caught up in these really
ugly fights all the time.
The business leaders can go outand create businesses and
create organizations that havethis kind of moral pull.
And I have avoided the answer toyour question, so I apologize.
The answer to your question iswhen you do this, when you take
(25:44):
a moral risk like that, you areable to draw in those from
multiple generations around you.
That was the answer to yourquestion.
Your question was how can youcreate a masterpiece when you've
got Gen Zers, Gen Xers and allof these other?
That's it.
There's something about takinga moral risk which is shocking,
(26:04):
that wakes people up and sayseither I'm in or I'm out, and if
I'm in, I'm in.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No, I mean you've unpacked a lot and so thank you
for coming back around to thequestion, but I love that you
walked us through.
You know what does it look likeand on the show.
I love to unpack becausesometimes we make it look easy
and so the answer would havebeen easy for you to share, but
the story was valuable.
So I love you walking throughthe story and I tell people all
the time you can read the book,but having to opt on and walking
through the process of whatyou're thinking that we may not
(26:32):
pick up from the book, so I lovethat you walk through that,
that story to help us really getit.
Thank you, ron.
So when you think about youknow people that are going to
you know and I'll actually knowwhere they find your book in the
contact information.
When you think about leadersthat are in that position, they
say, hey, I'm actuallyinterested in the book.
What is the thing that's goingto be most helpful for them when
they're thinking of purchasingthe book?
(26:52):
What do you hope they walk awaywith or the value that you're
going to add by them purchasingthe book?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I've had three leaders who purchased the book
and read the book and they saidsomething that delighted me,
that I had tried.
Well, I don't know.
It's one of those things you dostuff behind your back that you
really care about and you don'trealize.
Three of them said let me giveyou the honest answer.
I thought the whole chapter ontaking moral risks and how you
(27:17):
do that and what it's like wasgoing to be mind blowing.
Everybody would love it andthey'd write me and say wow,
charles, this is such moralsubtlety.
I love the fact that you wereable to lay it out with such
simplicity and now I feel like Iunderstand what I'm doing
morally on this planet betterthan ever before.
You might say Charles Spinozahas a bit of a Jesus complex or
(27:40):
something, but that was my hope,ron.
That was honest to goodness, myhope, I confess.
The three leaders who said theyread the book and really got
something from it they all saidthe same thing Charles, your
book gives me permission to dowhat I really wanted to do.
Your book said it's all right tostop trying to follow all the
(28:04):
recipes and to try to create themoral organization, the
organization that is moral in mylight.
That's okay and so, look, thatis a good thing too, and that is
the intuition which drove thebook.
But I thought they would fallin love with some of the
(28:26):
particular steps along the waythere.
I mean, there's all sorts ofinteresting stuff.
There's how to build trust,there's how to manage moods,
there's how to listen fordifference.
There's the big stuff how toseek truth, how to take a moral
risk, how to calculate when totake your moralists and how to
examine yourself at the end ofevery day to see if your
(28:48):
masterpiece is working forpeople.
I had one person who said Ilike that thing of examining
yourself at the end of every day.
That was pretty.
I had one person that said thatthat's, I think, chapter nine
towards the end of the book.
You gave me permission to go outand try to create a masterpiece
, Charles.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I mean thank you for the transparency and the
vulnerability here in thisconversation, like here's what I
was hoping, because oftentimes,as leaders, what you're you're
set off to do people pick upsomething else and you meet them
where they are and so if yougave them permission to really
turn into this moralorganization and steps
throughout there and I thinkthat's important for all leaders
as we do things what weintended it to be may land
(29:29):
different, but it worked forwhat they need and that becomes
their masterpiece.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I should underline that.
Look, leaders get to be leadersbecause they have got all sorts
of talents.
The woman who had the strongestresponse to my book she created
a masterpiece.
She didn't exactly do it theway I set out in the book as the
way to do it.
It's a beautiful masterpiece.
I can't help but admire it andI'm sure she was inspired by
(29:57):
some bits and pieces along theway, other than just go create a
masterpiece.
But yeah, I mean, leaders will.
They'll develop, and I don'twant my book to be a recipe.
And that's what's happened.
They're sort of playing off it.
It's like they're jazzmusicians.
This is the song that wasoriginally written, but you know
, what John Coltrane does to myfavorite things is way beyond
(30:20):
anything anybody, I think, couldhave imagined.
And that's what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Awesome, awesome.
So, charles, as we wrap up,where do they find your book at?
And then, what's the best wayto get in touch with you If
people want to know two thingsbring you back on another
podcast, or want to leverageyour services.
You know you're in leadershipand development If everyone is
watching.
I collaborate with everyonethat does what I do, because
there are people that I learn alot from that do exactly so.
I don't compete against thepeople that I look for the best
(30:45):
at it and create relationships,so don't be afraid of someone
that's doing exactly what you doand they're doing it better.
Allow them to help you and youhelp them.
How do we find you?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Okay, so the simplest way to find me is through
LinkedIn, and I think it'sLinkedIn hashes in Charles
Spinoza, but Charles SpinozaLinkedIn should get you to me.
It's Charles Spinoza PhD.
I have to distinguish myselffrom others, so LinkedIn For the
book.
The simplest place to go isAmazon.
(31:16):
The title is Leadership asMasterpiece Creation.
It will come up very easily.
I do most of my consulting nowthrough Stratum, the Stratum
group, stratumcom,s-t-r-a-t-a-mcom.
But if you go to LinkedIn,you'll find the other companies
that I work through VisionConsulting and so forth as well,
(31:40):
and I'm happy to do consulting.
As I say, I'm retired now.
I only do consulting four daysa week and I do writing and
research three days a week.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Wow, Love it, love it .
He's retired and still enjoyingit.
So thank you so much for comingon Unpacked with Ron Harvey.
I mean, it's been phenomenal tolisten and learn and I've
definitely become a fan ofpicking up the book because you
know, based on the informationyou've shared and I did the
quick sample read of it is Ialways want to have something
better to offer to the peoplethat I serve.
So I'm a student constantly oflearning what else is out there,
(32:10):
what else is available to helpme add the most value, or our
partners.
So thank you so much and forall of you that followed along
and hung in with Charles and I,hopefully we added some value to
you and gave you something thatyou can actually use to go out
there and ensure that you createyour own masterpiece.
Pick up the book and figure out.
I love that you talk aboutmorals, because I think we're at
a time now where we got to getback to what's the moral fiber
(32:33):
of who we are and how we show.
Are we creating thecorporations?
Can you give us the four areas?
I think you gave four areasbefore we wrap up, charles, I'd
love for you to do that again.
You said right, for I mean,what's right for the customer?
What's right?
What were those categoriesagain?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
What do you believe is right for the customer?
What's the right way to treatour customer, and that's all
segments of customers.
What's the right way to treatemployees?
That's one where leaders havevery strong views.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
What's the right way to treat suppliers?
What's the right way to treatowners?
Wow, and those are allstakeholders.
I love that you said that,because you got to look at all
those.
So, again, thank y'all forjoining us.
You can catch us on any podcast.
We release the podcast everysingle Monday with a different
leader from around the country,with all different backgrounds.
We hope that we continue togive you something that makes
you more effective as a leader.
Go out and make an impact.
Make a difference for yourorganization and the places that
(33:22):
you live, work and go to school.
Thank you all for joining usand until next time, charles and
I will sign off, until you havea wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked
Podcast with leadershipconsultant Ron Harvey.
Remember to join us everyMonday as Ron unpacks sound
advice, providing real answersfor real leadership challenges.
Until next time, remember toadd value and make a difference
where you are, for the peopleyou serve, because people always
(33:52):
matter.
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host
leadership consultant, ronHarvey of GlobalCore Strategies
and Consulting.
Ron believes that leadership isthe fundamental driver towards
making a difference.
So now to find out more of whatit means to unpack leadership,
here's your host, ron Harvey.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning.
This is Ron Harvey, the vicepresident, chief operator of
GlobalCore, and we're aleadership development firm.
We do a lot of executivecoaching, team building.
Our goal really is to helpleaders be better connected to
their workforce at the end ofthe day and there are multiple
ways to do that.
But today is really not aboutwhat we do as a company.
You'll be able to find us onLinkedIn and our website.
Today is really about ourguests and what they bring to
(00:42):
the table and unpack with RonHarvey.
So we're super excited to haveanother guest that is going to
come before you, has great bookthat's out doing great work in
the space that he's doing it.
But I want to be able to allowCharles to come on and he's
going to.
I'm ahead of the microphone andalways do it.
Every guest.
Let them introduce themselves.
How would they desire to?
Nobody knows them better thanthey know themselves, but always
(01:04):
give them the microphone andsay, hey, however, you want to
do it.
So, charles, I'm going to moveout of your way and hand you the
microphone.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you, ron, and greetings to everybody who's
listening.
I'm honored to be here.
So I'm Charles Spinoza.
I am also someone who doesleadership coaching.
I'm a management consultant.
I've been that for about 27, 28years.
I work in leadershipdevelopment, I work in
organizational culture changeand I help people develop new
(01:29):
customer propositions, and forme they're all related.
If you're going to change yourculture, you need to be a very
strong leader, and one of thereasons to change your culture
is to have a really coolproposition for your customers.
So, as I said, I've done thatfor about 27 years small
companies, large companies,europe, uk, canada, once in
China, latin America.
(01:50):
I think the thing that makes medistinctive among consultants is
that my background is not thetraditional business school
background or economicsbackground or social science
background.
Social science background.
I used to be a professor in thehumanities.
I was a Shakespearean for awhile.
I taught Shakespeare at theMiami University in Ohio and
(02:11):
then I went on, published a lotin academic philosophy and my
final teaching position was atUC Berkeley in the philosophy
department there, and that'swhat I bring to consulting and
that's what my new book is about.
My new book is about leadershipas masterpiece creation.
That's how to turn yourorganization into a masterpiece,
(02:32):
how to turn your leadershipstyle into a masterpiece.
And if you think aboutmasterpiece, that comes out of
the humanities and what I'vebeen doing, what I realized I
was doing mostly the last eightyears of my consulting.
It took me a long time.
I was always drawing on thehumanities.
I helped leaders find theirdefining passions, but I didn't
(02:53):
realize that helping them to gettheir defining passions would
help them also createorganizations that were
masterpieces, that were admiredby people and morally
distinctive.
And that's the thing I've cometo realize that when a leader
creates a masterpiece, it'sactually morally distinctive,
not just commerciallydistinctive.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Wow, I probably like the audience there enjoying it.
You know hearing the backgroundand the stories and how you
leaned into you know how you gotto where you are today, which
you know you're several yearsahead of me in the business, and
so I'm excited to listen andlearn and how you've made that
shift for you.
You've watched leadershipevolve over the years.
What are some of the thingsthat stand out the most for how
leadership has evolved over theyears?
(03:35):
You know you look back overyour time in the space.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of a contrarian on
leadership.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of acontrarian on leadership.
What's happened in leadershipwas we went from a period of
what we considered strongmasculine, patriarchal leaders
were highly directive in whatthey did and had a strong sense
of what they were about and justdemanded that other people
(04:03):
follow it or get out of the way.
That evolved into what wascalled transformational
leadership.
There's a thinker, nick Burns,who was behind that, and the
idea was that doesn't work sowell.
What we have to do is we haveto make sure at least the
members of our leadership teamare successful in their own
rights.
And so you became much more ofa coach as a leader.
(04:28):
The other thing that was popularat that time was called servant
leadership, and then you werealso a coach, but servant
leadership interestingly, youwouldn't get it from the name.
You were also a visionary.
You gave people a vision andyou served them as a vision.
Now what's happened isleadership has become, as it's
moved in that direction, it'srequired more and more quote
(04:53):
humility, and Jim Collins wrotea book from good to great I
think it is now 10 years agomight be longer ago where the
top top quality of a leader washumility, and I have an
interesting story about a leaderwho tried to do that.
It works in the US.
It doesn't work so much ifyou're in a third world country
(05:14):
and leading a company there.
I'll tell it real quickly.
Lorenzo Zambrano, the CEO ofCemex, read Jim Collins' book,
said this is great, I'm going tobe humble.
I'm going to go talk to thefinancial analysts.
And he was growing his smallcompany in Mexico to what became
the third largest cementcompany in the world.
He was taking it global.
And when they asked him whatkind of genius he had, he said
(05:36):
well, it's not really my genius,it's the genius of my senior
team.
His stock price fell by 50%.
Humility doesn't play so well asJim Collins would make it seem,
but this led to I'm being veryacademic here, I'm going to
bring it to a close two thingsthat, for me, are knives in the
(05:59):
back of humility.
Think of leaders as JuliusCaesar, and it's one.
Two.
One is that leadership isdistributed throughout the
organization.
Don't look for the seniorleader as the one who's setting
the course.
Don't look to the senior leaderas direct.
Realize that it's distributedall throughout the organization.
(06:20):
It's not even just the top team, it's not even the next team
down.
Everybody gets to be a leaderand that is the final thing.
What is leadership?
Leadership is influence.
Let me say how I stand againstthat.
Would you mind?
I don't mind.
(06:50):
Yes, yes, okay.
All of this view of leadershiplooks at leaders as basically
operational and getting peopleto maintain operations.
What you add to that is apurpose that people care about,
particularly that your employeescare about, but generally it's
from the menu of typicalpurposes out there.
(07:12):
We're going to take care of theenvironment, we're going to be
sustainable, whatever.
I think leadership is deeply,deeply moral, and by that I mean
virtually every leader I haverun into not everyone, but
virtually everyone I've run intohas a sense of what's right for
customers, has a sense of whatis right for suppliers, has a
(07:35):
sense of what is right foremployees, has a sense of what
is right for owners.
They'll have some other sensesof what is right, but those four
they believe in strongly.
Of course they go toconsultants like me and business
schools and they get told hereare the recipes.
And venture capitalists they'refull of recipes too.
Here are the recipes for how tomake your business successful.
(07:58):
And they feel vexed and by andlarge, they start following the
recipes because people believein those recipes.
But behind their back and onthe sides they're trying to do
what they think is right foremployees and it might not be
that you find out what theemployee wants and you try to
help the employee achieve whatthe employee wants.
(08:19):
It might be what's right foremployees is to stretch them, to
stretch them near theirbreaking points so that they can
feel extraordinarily proud oftheir lives.
You might believe that, or andthat's sort of an Amazon view,
or you might have a Google viewLet them explore, take 20% of
their time, follow their heartin a way, so they invent
(08:42):
something really cool.
That's another way of dealingwith employees.
Those are two different visionsand they're two different moral
visions.
The good life that you'reoffered at Amazon the good life
you're offered at Google they'revery different good lives.
The way you treat each other atAmazon or Google, they're very
different.
And my view is business leadersdo have a sense, the same for
(09:04):
employees, for customers, for soforth.
You see it all the time.
Walk down the street in yourtown.
You'll see different stores.
In my neighborhood there aretwo hardware stores.
One you walk into you hearclassic jazz music.
You smell actually I think it'ssoaps, I'm not sure, I'm not
really good and the minute, just30 seconds after you walk in,
(09:28):
there's somebody saying how canI help you?
What can I do?
The prices are a little high.
The service is great.
The other one you walk into,you're sawdust on the floor.
You have the faint smell ofthree-in-one oil.
I hope you have people that canremember what that's like.
Just think like the oil theyput on tools in the old days and
(09:50):
you might see somebody stockingshelves and somebody else at
the cash register.
Nobody asks you if you want tohelp.
It's a sort of do-it-yourselfplace.
That's two different visions onwhat's right for treating
customers, what's right fortreating employees, what a
hardware store should be like.
I think we can admire both.
We embrace one or the other,depending on our tastes.
(10:12):
But those are moral visions.
We see it at the bottom, we seeit at the top.
Jeff Bezos has a differentmoral vision from, say, anita
Roddick or Ray Dalio.
For the shapers they do it.
For the people at the bottomthey do it.
My whole goal was to bring thatto everybody, from between the
(10:32):
small business to the largeshaping businesses.
They have a moral vision aboutwhat is right and enable
business leaders to bring outtheir moral vision.
I don't always agree exactly.
Well, usually I admire moralvisions.
I don't do ones that I totallyoppose.
But I couldn't embrace many ofthe moral visions that I help
(10:54):
leaders bring out, and that'swhat I do, and I'll just end
with this.
The one question I begin when Iask leaders, when I start
working with leaders, is whatalways goes wrong with your
company, what always goes wrongin your industry?
Answer either one of those.
I find leaders can, and thenwe're off to creating a
masterpiece.
(11:14):
Well, awesome.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I mean, yeah, phenomenal.
I'm glad that you're unpackingit, because that's really what
the whole podcast is about.
So when you think about it,charles, I love that you're
talking about the moral vision.
How do people develop that?
I mean because you know youthink of morals and where they
come from and you look at thevalues of their family or their
history or where they live, thatin the community and it can be
a geographic.
How do you come to this idea ofthe moral vision?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Well, for me, first of all a lot of people morality
means just how we treat eachother justly.
Yes, it's strictly that.
Yeah, I follow this is a bit ofme as a philosopher.
I follow Bernard Williams, thefamous British philosopher, who
said that's Sort of nonsense.
A moral vision just as we treateach other justly is
(11:58):
insufficient.
Any moral life has to includehow you lead a good life.
Now, technically, in philosophy, a lot of people call good life
ethics and how you treat eachother morality.
Bernard Williams and CharlesSpinoza, as his followers, say
moral and vision includes howyou treat each other Right and
how, inside that, you can lead agood life.
(12:20):
You can have a perfectly runprison where everybody's
treating each other in a fairway, but there are no good lives
there.
I want a good life, so that'sthe first view.
Now my sense is I can't saythis for everybody, but the
leaders I've dealt with most ofthem as they go through the
(12:40):
management ranks, they findthemselves in certain fights.
I want to be stretching myemployees more.
I want to be solving thisproblem by working more with the
customers, more in partnershipwith the customers.
I want to treat our loyalcustomers better than our newer
customers.
I want to reward them forloyalty somehow, and they'd have
(13:02):
that as an intuition.
They don't have that as abinding principle.
But then they're told the waythe marketplace works is make
great new offers to newcustomers.
Leave your loyal customersalone.
They'll keep producing money sothat you can have sustainable
and predictable profits.
And likewise, don't go to.
(13:24):
In our industry we try to havebeautiful big engineering
solutions.
We don't try to have smallsolutions by working with
customers and so on and so forth.
One of the most recent wassomebody who in management a
video game company and I have tokeep this as confidential as I
can had said you know, we couldcreate a video game that both
(13:46):
genders would like.
Men and women would like, youngmen and women, teenage men
would like.
It's going to be harder, butwouldn't that be cool?
Cool, well, it might be verycool, but it's much harder.
And you bring together peopleand suddenly you're creating a
video game for macho young malesthat shoot them up video game
(14:08):
and you're good at it, you'vegot talents and you do that and
you make money.
And so what happens is forpeople who become leaders.
They start out as successfulmanagers and they push aside
concerns that they had earlierin their career.
They push aside, and theybecome very good at pushing
aside.
Or they begin we can have alittle bit.
We'll put in better charactersin our video game so it might
have more appeal here, or we'llstart having customers collect
(14:33):
some of the runoff water fromthe roof so we don't have to
build so many underground plants.
And we'll do a little bit here,a little bit there, and that's
the brilliance of management.
The brilliance of management isto take a big problem and find
workaround solutions to getbeyond it fast.
And as managers they've done alot of this and as they move up,
(14:54):
by the time I get to see them,they have a lot of this baggage
where they're saying I wish Icould do it this way, or
wouldn't it be cool if I coulddo it this way?
Now, what I do, the first thingI do is I say let's take it out
of the language of wouldn't itbe cool or wouldn't it be nice,
or it's too bad.
We can't ever and say that isyour view of what's the right
(15:18):
thing to do, and nine times outof 10, they said yeah, yeah,
that would be the right thing todo, charles, but obviously I
can't do it, or obviouslyeverybody would be against me if
I did it, or the CFO would bejumping down my throat if I
tried to do that, because Iwouldn't have as profits that
are as predictable and so forth.
(15:39):
But they're developing it asthey develop, as managers,
things that they would like todo that they talk themselves out
of.
That's where they get it andwhat's it based on.
It's based on how they interactwith people in their lives.
One of the big ones is in manybusinesses it's just a matter of
habit that you go out and tryto create a win-lose contract
(15:59):
with people, but in our livesthat's not how we do it.
It might be the traditions ofthe business say, do that
particularly, say, if you're inthe construction industry, in
your lives you have things thatpull you apart in other ways.
You didn't try to create awin-lose contract with your wife
, I bet, or your spouse, I bet.
Maybe you did, but most peopledid not and you have.
(16:23):
Our lives are rich, our livesgo in various ways and it's out
of those responses that we findthat in our business life there
are things that we are doingbecause they're efficient,
because they're advised byHarvard or another consultant
that we just do.
They're a simple pattern, thatsimplicity is a big thing and
(16:45):
we're drawn against ourinstincts.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Wow, Charles have you noticed, for with many
generations in the workforce,it's more difficult to create
that masterpiece as a leaderwith work with so many I mean.
So there's a lot ofperspectives, different
generations and all thevariables how difficult is it to
hone in and be good at thismasterpiece of leadership around
the work that you're doing?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I'd be lying if I said it was easy.
In fact it's rewarding.
Yeah, okay, that's the key.
It's rewarding.
It's not easy.
Any business leader who says tome, Charles, why are you telling
me I should create amasterpiece?
Isn't it hard enough for me tocreate a profitable business
that supplies goods to customers, that takes care of their needs
, and do it year after yearafter year, why should I create
(17:30):
a masterpiece?
And to that person and I haverun into those people I'd say
you're right, it is hard.
I'm not telling you you have tocreate a masterpiece.
I'm saying that if you believethere's something that you are
doing that's not morally right,that's not the best thing to do,
let's explore and see if youcan create a masterpiece on that
(17:51):
.
If you don't have that feeling,don't.
It is hard enough to create agood, profitable business.
So I'm going to take you throughthe three questions I take
people through.
This will give you a sense ofwhat's hard.
The first is what always goeswrong in this business or in
this industry.
Surprisingly, virtually everyleader I run into can answer
(18:13):
that we don't have enoughfinancial transparency, we don't
take care of our loyalcustomers, we're selling stuff
that is sort of miraculous andnot quite fully honest to people
, and so forth.
You run into all sorts ofanswers and people come up with
that.
And then the next question,which is a harder question to
(18:33):
answer and I promise you it'sharder.
I think with your background,Ron, you'll see it's harder.
Your listeners might notbelieve me, but it is harder
than the next one what would youlove to do instead?
Now for leaders who have beensenior managers they're
brilliant at finding workarounds, at not having to address the
central thing, so that stymiesthem.
(18:54):
What would I love?
And that's the hard one.
But you could almost always getthe answer from people.
Now, when they're with theirsenior teams, their senior teams
, as soon as they say what theywould love, there'll be a bunch
of naysayers that's impossible,Can't do it, Can't do it.
So you have to work with seniorteams.
Now, do not say, do not say no,I was working with somebody in
(19:16):
health care.
What I would love is financialtransparency so the patient
knows exactly what he's payingfor to whom, and so forth, and
it can actually negotiate it.
And you should have seen hissenior team.
Oh, that's impossible for thisreason.
It's impossible for that reason.
But I have to say we have avery smart senior team.
They gave very compellingreasons and the leader sort of
(19:38):
being backed off into the corner.
I knew it was impossible.
How did I let Charles Spinozaget me into this situation where
I'm saying what I thought?
So I said stop all of that.
What would be the benefit ifyou did it?
(20:10):
No-transcript the common senseof your industry.
It's going to go against thecommon sense of members of your
senior team and people aren'tgoing to really believe you're
serious.
The first thing most peoplebelieve is oh, he's come up with
some brilliant public relations.
Say we're doing this, we'll go25% of the way there.
(20:33):
That's more virtuous thananybody else on the planet.
What more could anybody ask?
And figuring out those moralrisks and figuring out the order
you're going to take them inthat's really where I earn my
money.
That's the difficult thing.
One company we worked with I cantalk about it, it's in the book
was Impellum.
(20:53):
It's a recruitment company.
It was based in the UK.
It's now global.
Julia Robertson ran it and therecruitment industry used to be
a sort of cutthroat industry.
Get people in seats in offices,pull them out, get them in and
out.
The whole idea was a flexibleworkforce in and out.
(21:13):
The whole idea was a flexibleworkforce.
Now, flexible workforce is agood thing.
The economy is changing all thetime.
You want to provide yourcustomers good service, you need
to flex.
But the cutthroat ways in whichyou would get people into
chairs and out of chairs, thatwas a bit heartbreaking.
Julia Robertson wanted tochange that, and so the first
thing.
So we set out the three moralrisks that she was going to have
(21:34):
to take.
She was going to have to getpeople in her own organization
making honest, to goodnesspromises to each other.
In that industry, the wholeidea of making a promise was so
you could betray somebody andmake an extra dollar.
It was all.
Promises were all win, lose,and even inside the company.
So she insisted on promises forrevenue, promises for profit,
(21:57):
and the idea was not that youalways kept your promise, but if
you were failing as soon as younoticed you might not be able
to keep it.
You went and spoke to her andrenegotiated and what happens?
Classically, one of her mosttalented persons didn't take her
seriously, missed his promiseby a huge amount and didn't
renegotiate her.
And what'd she have to do Ifshe was going to take the stand
(22:19):
that this is the new way we'regoing to behave in this industry
, even though it doesn't makesense to you.
She had to fire that person andit was considered a brutal
firing and it was considereddidn't make any sense.
The guy was normally a highperformer.
Just because he missed apromise Everybody misses
promises we don't take promisesseriously, and now they were
(22:41):
going to take promises seriouslyat Impellum and it is a mind
shift.
In an industry like that, it'sa huge mind shift.
You think about theconstruction industry people
trying to do that now.
It's a huge mind shift.
How does the constructionindustry work?
Well, we make a promise to theprovider and then we're going to
do change orders and we'llreally make our money on all the
change orders.
(23:14):
Honor the employees that shebrought to them and that is,
give them opportunities for someeducation, give them some sort
of other opportunity like that.
And that meant ultimately, shewas going to have to stop
serving some people Again.
She had to fire two or threepeople in a big, big way to show
that, and her third was overgreat profits.
I will go into that.
I mean, basically, one of thethings you could do is if you
(23:36):
didn't tell people that theycould get holiday pay.
They wouldn't ask for it andyou didn't have to pay them, and
then a lot of money was beingmade that way.
That's one example.
There were a lot of exampleslike that.
She eliminated that.
But it all required hard thingsthat you have to do, hard
personal things that you have todo to get people to take that
vision.
Clearly, Julia Robertson is nota household name.
(23:57):
Think Anita Roddick who foundedthe Body Shop.
She succeeded in creating thislittle boutique body shop.
Nobody in the beauty businesstook her seriously.
She went to her family and saidwe've got to grow this business
.
We've got to be taken seriously.
Her husband was also her CFOsaid no, let's grow organically,
we're not going to borrow anymore money.
What'd she do?
She believed so much in growthof that business.
(24:17):
When he went out of town shesold half the shares of the
company to get the money forgrowth.
He came back to town it's sortof a famous story.
He forgave her and the rest ishistory.
The body shop in its heyday hadmore international stores than
any other English business.
People have to make those kindsof sacrifices to create
(24:39):
masterpieces, for people to takethis new way of doing business
seriously.
So you're right, it's not easy,but it is enormously rewarding
and fulfilling.
You can look at your businessand see your view of the world,
your view of what you care about, realized there, and other
people will be admiring it andrecognizing it and you will, in
(25:03):
fact, have changed the world,which is what people who become
leaders want to do.
Anyway, my view is you become aleader because, deep down, deep
, you want your moral visionrealized in the world, and so I
say today's business leaders areour moral artists today, more
(25:24):
than our political leaders, whoare caught up in these really
ugly fights all the time.
The business leaders can go outand create businesses and
create organizations that havethis kind of moral pull.
And I have avoided the answer toyour question, so I apologize.
The answer to your question iswhen you do this, when you take
(25:44):
a moral risk like that, you areable to draw in those from
multiple generations around you.
That was the answer to yourquestion.
Your question was how can youcreate a masterpiece when you've
got Gen Zers, Gen Xers and allof these other?
That's it.
There's something about takinga moral risk which is shocking,
(26:04):
that wakes people up and sayseither I'm in or I'm out, and if
I'm in, I'm in.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No, I mean you've unpacked a lot and so thank you
for coming back around to thequestion, but I love that you
walked us through.
You know what does it look likeand on the show.
I love to unpack becausesometimes we make it look easy
and so the answer would havebeen easy for you to share, but
the story was valuable.
So I love you walking throughthe story and I tell people all
the time you can read the book,but having to opt on and walking
through the process of whatyou're thinking that we may not
(26:32):
pick up from the book, so I lovethat you walk through that,
that story to help us really getit.
Thank you, ron.
So when you think about youknow people that are going to
you know and I'll actually knowwhere they find your book in the
contact information.
When you think about leadersthat are in that position, they
say, hey, I'm actuallyinterested in the book.
What is the thing that's goingto be most helpful for them when
they're thinking of purchasingthe book?
(26:52):
What do you hope they walk awaywith or the value that you're
going to add by them purchasingthe book?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I've had three leaders who purchased the book
and read the book and they saidsomething that delighted me,
that I had tried.
Well, I don't know.
It's one of those things you dostuff behind your back that you
really care about and you don'trealize.
Three of them said let me giveyou the honest answer.
I thought the whole chapter ontaking moral risks and how you
(27:17):
do that and what it's like wasgoing to be mind blowing.
Everybody would love it andthey'd write me and say wow,
charles, this is such moralsubtlety.
I love the fact that you wereable to lay it out with such
simplicity and now I feel like Iunderstand what I'm doing
morally on this planet betterthan ever before.
You might say Charles Spinozahas a bit of a Jesus complex or
(27:40):
something, but that was my hope,ron.
That was honest to goodness, myhope, I confess.
The three leaders who said theyread the book and really got
something from it they all saidthe same thing Charles, your
book gives me permission to dowhat I really wanted to do.
Your book said it's all right tostop trying to follow all the
(28:04):
recipes and to try to create themoral organization, the
organization that is moral in mylight.
That's okay and so, look, thatis a good thing too, and that is
the intuition which drove thebook.
But I thought they would fallin love with some of the
(28:26):
particular steps along the waythere.
I mean, there's all sorts ofinteresting stuff.
There's how to build trust,there's how to manage moods,
there's how to listen fordifference.
There's the big stuff how toseek truth, how to take a moral
risk, how to calculate when totake your moralists and how to
examine yourself at the end ofevery day to see if your
(28:48):
masterpiece is working forpeople.
I had one person who said Ilike that thing of examining
yourself at the end of every day.
That was pretty.
I had one person that said thatthat's, I think, chapter nine
towards the end of the book.
You gave me permission to go outand try to create a masterpiece
, Charles.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I mean thank you for the transparency and the
vulnerability here in thisconversation, like here's what I
was hoping, because oftentimes,as leaders, what you're you're
set off to do people pick upsomething else and you meet them
where they are and so if yougave them permission to really
turn into this moralorganization and steps
throughout there and I thinkthat's important for all leaders
as we do things what weintended it to be may land
(29:29):
different, but it worked forwhat they need and that becomes
their masterpiece.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I should underline that.
Look, leaders get to be leadersbecause they have got all sorts
of talents.
The woman who had the strongestresponse to my book she created
a masterpiece.
She didn't exactly do it theway I set out in the book as the
way to do it.
It's a beautiful masterpiece.
I can't help but admire it andI'm sure she was inspired by
(29:57):
some bits and pieces along theway, other than just go create a
masterpiece.
But yeah, I mean, leaders will.
They'll develop, and I don'twant my book to be a recipe.
And that's what's happened.
They're sort of playing off it.
It's like they're jazzmusicians.
This is the song that wasoriginally written, but you know
, what John Coltrane does to myfavorite things is way beyond
(30:20):
anything anybody, I think, couldhave imagined.
And that's what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Awesome, awesome.
So, charles, as we wrap up,where do they find your book at?
And then, what's the best wayto get in touch with you If
people want to know two thingsbring you back on another
podcast, or want to leverageyour services.
You know you're in leadershipand development If everyone is
watching.
I collaborate with everyonethat does what I do, because
there are people that I learn alot from that do exactly so.
I don't compete against thepeople that I look for the best
(30:45):
at it and create relationships,so don't be afraid of someone
that's doing exactly what you doand they're doing it better.
Allow them to help you and youhelp them.
How do we find you?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Okay, so the simplest way to find me is through
LinkedIn, and I think it'sLinkedIn hashes in Charles
Spinoza, but Charles SpinozaLinkedIn should get you to me.
It's Charles Spinoza PhD.
I have to distinguish myselffrom others, so LinkedIn For the
book.
The simplest place to go isAmazon.
(31:16):
The title is Leadership asMasterpiece Creation.
It will come up very easily.
I do most of my consulting nowthrough Stratum, the Stratum
group, stratumcom,s-t-r-a-t-a-mcom.
But if you go to LinkedIn,you'll find the other companies
that I work through VisionConsulting and so forth as well,
(31:40):
and I'm happy to do consulting.
As I say, I'm retired now.
I only do consulting four daysa week and I do writing and
research three days a week.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Wow, Love it, love it .
He's retired and still enjoyingit.
So thank you so much for comingon Unpacked with Ron Harvey.
I mean, it's been phenomenal tolisten and learn and I've
definitely become a fan ofpicking up the book because you
know, based on the informationyou've shared and I did the
quick sample read of it is Ialways want to have something
better to offer to the peoplethat I serve.
So I'm a student constantly oflearning what else is out there,
(32:10):
what else is available to helpme add the most value, or our
partners.
So thank you so much and forall of you that followed along
and hung in with Charles and I,hopefully we added some value to
you and gave you something thatyou can actually use to go out
there and ensure that you createyour own masterpiece.
Pick up the book and figure out.
I love that you talk aboutmorals, because I think we're at
a time now where we got to getback to what's the moral fiber
(32:33):
of who we are and how we show.
Are we creating thecorporations?
Can you give us the four areas?
I think you gave four areasbefore we wrap up, charles, I'd
love for you to do that again.
You said right, for I mean,what's right for the customer?
What's right?
What were those categoriesagain?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
What do you believe is right for the customer?
What's the right way to treatour customer, and that's all
segments of customers.
What's the right way to treatemployees?
That's one where leaders havevery strong views.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
What's the right way to treat suppliers?
What's the right way to treatowners?
Wow, and those are allstakeholders.
I love that you said that,because you got to look at all
those.
So, again, thank y'all forjoining us.
You can catch us on any podcast.
We release the podcast everysingle Monday with a different
leader from around the country,with all different backgrounds.
We hope that we continue togive you something that makes
you more effective as a leader.
Go out and make an impact.
Make a difference for yourorganization and the places that
(33:22):
you live, work and go to school.
Thank you all for joining usand until next time, charles and
I will sign off, until you havea wonderful day.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked
Podcast with leadershipconsultant Ron Harvey.
Remember to join us everyMonday as Ron unpacks sound
advice, providing real answersfor real leadership challenges.
Until next time, remember toadd value and make a difference
where you are, for the peopleyou serve, because people always
(33:52):
matter.
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