Jim Ponder
[00.00.24]
Our guest today is Garry Ridge, former CEO and chairman emeritus of the WD 40 company, co-author of Helping People When at Work. Author of the new bestselling book Any Dumbass Can Do It, and the self-proclaimed Dean of Dumbassary. Garry is also a very good friend and has been a mentor of mine over the years. Welcome, Garry.
Garry Ridge
[00.00.45]
G’day, Kelly. How great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me along.
Jim Ponder
[00.00.49]
Yeah. It’s great. Garry and you built something so special at WD 40 that you’ve continued on and you’ve talked a lot about in your book, and I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a highlight of how you came to have this idea of creating a tribe inside the organization, which has clearly paid great benefits.
Garry Ridge
[00.01.11]
Well, Jim, as you well know, and as you, you know, have taught and shared amongst your clients, one of the biggest desires we have as human beings is to belong. We all, you know, belong to families. We belong to groups. We belong to church groups. We belong to, you know, whatever and belonging. If you think about Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization, you know, the first two rungs are, you know, can I survive and do I have enough to survive? And the next one is love and belonging. And, um, people in organizations want to know they belong to something. And tribal culture is about belonging to something with a just cause. And our just cause of WD 40 was a group of people that came together to protect and feed each other. So belonging is a foundation of culture.
Jim Ponder
[00.01.49]
Well, that’s fantastic. And I just one of the favorite stories and you write about this and you and I have talked about that, but how you were on that plane and you were reading, I believe, Dalai Lama. And could you share a couple things that really struck you?
Speaker 3
[00.02.17]
Yeah, it was 1998. I’d been CEO for about 18 months. I knew with the help of the great people that we had at WD 40, how we were going to establish the brand globally, which was our goal. Our goal was to take that little blue and yellow can with a little red top to the world. What was always on my mind, though, and because I had experienced it in Australia, being on a different time zone and the sun being up or down at a different time is, how do you create a culture where people don’t have to wait for someone to wake up or wait to quack up a hierarchy, to get a, um, to get an answer or to be able to move forward. So, I was on a Qantas 747. I was flying from Los Angeles to Sydney, 38,000ft above the South Pacific Ocean, at 2 a.m. in the morning, the light shining down from the light above. And as you do when you travel, you read stuff. And I read that quote from Dalai Lama, which was our purpose in life is to make people happy. If you can’t make them happy, at least don’t hurt them.
And I thought, duh, what an interesting kind of concept that would be. But then I also read something from Aristotle, who was born in 384 BC, and Aristotle said, pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. And I went, I’ll double duh. If people really enjoy what they’re doing, obviously they are going to do a better job. I still didn’t know how to do it. I got back to San Diego and shortly after I read an article in the local paper, the Union Tribune, and it was about a master’s degree in leadership at the University of San Diego that was created by Doctor Ken Blanchard, the one-minute manager, the guru of servant leadership and the university. So, I thought, well, I’m going to go find out about that. There was an information session. I went to it, and Ken spoke and he said, you know, most leadership programs get people in their heads. We’ve got to start getting people in the heart. And I went, wow. So here I am, already CEO of the US Public company. I decided to go back to school, so I enrolled in the master’s program, and for the next two years I went to school every month, learning from great professors like Ken Blanchard and others. The elements of servant leadership and then putting it to work within the organization. So that was the foundation.
Jim Ponder
[00.04.37]
Well that’s great. And Garry, I believe you ultimately ended up being a guest lecturer and a participant on the teaching side of that program.
Garry Ridge
[00.04.47]
I actually taught in that program for 16 years. I taught a class in the program on Creating Great Cultures in Organizations.
Jim Ponder
[00.04.57]
You and I were talking recently just about this whole concept of why culture matters. And you’ve heard me talk. I believe you’re like you are the culture king and my and my humble opinion. And I’d love to know from your standpoint if you just kind of narrowed that down, you’ve got a CEO that comes to you and just says, Garry, why does culture matters? It’s all about the bottom line. I got to push my people, you know, I’m being pushed by my board and being pushed to all of these other performance measurements. Why should I pay attention to culture?
Garry Ridge
[00.05.34]
Well, because culture is the thing that drives the bottom line. I mean, you can have the best strategy in the world. Let’s write a great strategic plan. You and I can do that, Jim. Or take in some smart professor. We’ll ask the professor to mark it up. His great strategy 70 out of 100 on your strategy. But if only 30% of your people are going to work every day and are passionately executing against that culture, you’re getting a 30% result from that wonderful strategic plan. But if 80% of your people are going to work every day and they are passionately executing against that culture, you’re getting 80% of value out of that strategic plan. So simply. The results are the will of the people, times strategy. And if you’re not getting the will of the people to a level where they are passionately executing, then you are not maximizing your strategy. And we all know profit is the applause of people doing great work.
Jim Ponder
[00.06.35]
Now I love that. And what do you say to because we certainly hear this with our company is, you know, we don’t have time. You know, we don’t have time to pay attention to our culture or we don’t have time to do leadership development or help our people rise up because we we’ve got other fish to fry, so to speak. What do you say to people who have that type of comment?
Garry Ridge
[00.06.59]
Well, they do have time. They’re just not allocating it to the right thing in time. Everybody has time. It’s how are you spending it? And I would say that if that’s happening, then they’ve probably got leaders who are micro managers who want to have their fingers in everything. Um, you know, they need to be clear about what do we want to achieve, what are the goals we want to achieve? How are we going to measure those results? How do we get rid of roadblocks, and how do we have open conversations, conversations about all those things in the organization? That’s why, you know, I as you know, I have a great little respect for your P.A.C.E program because it helps people manage or if you will, allocate time to the things that really matter.
Jim Ponder
[00.07.41]
Well, I appreciate you bringing that up. And for those listening to this, um, Garry’s talking about the software we created under the P.A.C.E framework. And Garry, we thank you because you were instrumental in how we put the idea of a P.A.C.E checkpoint as opposed to a performance review together, how we created learning moment conversation. And what we’ve found is for companies that are embracing this, it’s a complete game changer for them.
Garry Ridge
[00.08.10]
Oh, totally. I mean, let’s throw that stupid annual review out the window. It’s not worth what it’s worth with the paper it’s written on. You know how silly is it for us to think that at the end of the year, we’re going to sit down with someone and talk about what they did in the past? Why aren’t we talking forward about where we are and here’s where we want to get to by the end of the year. You know, I often tell the story, you know, Jim comes in to have an annual review with Garry. He sits down and says, well, Jim, here’s a few of the things that I think he could have worked on this year. And Jim said, we’d say, why didn’t you tell me about that 300 days ago? And then we could have worked on it together and we would have had a better outcome. So, and it’s really the basis of the book that I wrote with Ken Blanchard. As you know, the book is called Helping People Win at Work. And the sign is, I’m not here to mark your paper. I’m here to help you get an A. So our role of a leader in an organization is to make sure we’ve been very clear about what an AA looks like. How are we progressing against that? And that you as the leader, what are you doing to help the person step in to the best version of their personal self to get that? A that’s what leadership is all about. It’s enabling others to perform their most personal best.
Jim Ponder
[00.09.23]
Well, I think that ties in really to the idea of, you know, people getting an A. It ties right into to Garry. I believe that you didn’t have managers, you had coaches. And you talk about that in not only in helping people with work, but certainly any dumbass can do it. And can you share a little bit of that concept of being a coach?
Garry Ridge
[00.09.45]
Yeah. So the number one responsibility of a leader is to be a learner and a teacher and a great teacher as a coach. So why do we want to call people managers. You don’t manage people. Like, you know, I’m going to say I’m going to manage you. Does that feel enabling? No way. But what if I say to you, my role here, as in this, in this relationship, is to be a coach and a great coach is committed to helping the player get it. A great coach is brave. They don’t protect their own comfort zone at the expense of someone else’s growth. And what I mean by that is they’re willing to have that redirecting conversation. They know the game and what it takes to win. Here’s the real rub. On this they do not run onto the field and take the ball. I would say to you that some of the people who are telling you that they don’t have time is because they are continually running on the field and taking the ball from the player. In other words, being a micromanager instead of taking the time to have the player be the best player and they spend time on the sideline watching the play. They add value to the player with feedback on how to improve the play. They never, ever go to the podium and steal the prize, and a lot of leaders will do that. They’ll go and steal the winning prize from the person who actually scored, and they spend a lot of time in what I call the stinky locker room. And that’s really in the business. Listening to their people, talking to their people.
Kelly Mayberry
[00.11.16]
It’s funny, I went through your book. I read it when you first gave me the copy and I went through and I’ve written my notes all through it. I have my post-it notes sticking out. And one of the things that I really love, I mean, you talked about, you know, being a coach, not a boss. And then what also really stuck with me was you have to be candid and caring, meaning, you know, you’re tough minded but also tender hearted with your and also giving the managers the tools that they need to get to that leadership role.
Garry Ridge
[00.11.48]
Absolutely. And to me, candor is no lying, no faking, no hiding. I believe most people in organizations don’t lie. They fake and they hide. And the reason they fake and hide is because of fear. Now, fear comes from a number of things. One is this fear of failure. And that’s why we said we don’t make mistakes. We have learning moments. The other thing about fear is fear of the unknown expectation. What do I mean by that? It means do I really know what you expect of me in this organization? So unless you’re clear about clearly identifying what an A looks like, then you could have this fear of a failed expectation, which really cuts people down and doesn’t help them at all deliver what they need to deliver.
Kelly Mayberry
[00.12.37]
Yeah. And one of another thing that I really love was when you talked about acceptable failures and people knowing what, understanding what that is and that kind of that ties to that, the physical and emotional safety for someone within their role at work.
Garry Ridge
[00.12.54]
And that’s the acceptable failure is the learning moment. And the definition of the learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. So are we promoting learning moments in the organization, or are we creating this environment where people are afraid of admitting something didn’t quite go the way they wanted it to, and not letting the organization benefit from that learning? And there’s a beautiful example of that, and it’s really WD 40. Back in 1953, in San Diego. There was a fledgling company called Rocket Chemical Company. It was in the space industry making products to stop corrosion in the space program. And there was a problem with condensation and corrosion in the umbilical cord of the Atlas space rocket, and Conair was the contractor. They went out to industry and said, can we help us solve the problem? So, the chemists got together and started to formulate stuff. So, formula 1 2 10 15 25 35 39 formula 39 didn’t work. So had 39 learning moments. Formula 40 work WD 40 was born. So, you know, that product was the outcome of having those learning moments, because each learning moment was a step closer to success, and that’s how we should think about it. In organizations, each learning moment is a step towards a new success.
Jim Ponder
[00.14.27]
You know, thank you for that. And Garry, you recently you know, we’re heading towards the end of the year. We’re working with a lot of our customers on a strategic plan and those that are truly thinking about finishing strong. But also, how do I enter 2026 and what does that look like, and what should companies be doing now in order to set themselves up for success?
Garry Ridge
[00.14.52]
Well, you know, in the post I talked about, are we really showing gratitude for the people around us? And are we taking time to thank people and set them up in a mindset that, you know, it goes back a little bit to, you know, the title of my book, which is any, you know, any dumb ass can do it. And a lot of people have asked me, why did I call it any dumbass can do it. And the word ass in the title is not referring to anyone’s posterior or bottom. It’s really talking about a donkey, and there’s a story behind that. You know, donkeys get a bad rap. People think they’re just stubborn or slow, but there’s a there’s here’s the truth about donkeys a steady. They’ll keep going long after others give up their loyal companions. You can count on them when the when the road gets tough. They’re practical, not flashy. They know how to conserve energy and get the job done. And while they might not always rush into things, that caution often helps keep them safe.
So when I say any dumb ass can do it, what I really mean is you don’t have to be brilliant to be a great leader. You just need a bit of courage, a lot of care, and the humility to keep learning. Because like the donkey, leadership isn’t about showing up. It’s about carrying the load. Sticking with the journey and helping others get where they need to go. So I think what we should be doing as we prepare for the next year is, are we helping carry the load? Are we clear about the journey we want to go on, and are we helping others get where they need to go because there will be success?
Jim Ponder
[00.16.26]
Well that’s great. And speaking of, any dumbass can do it. Do you have any dumbass moments you could share?
Garry Ridge
[00.16.35]
How many, how many days do you have?
Jim Ponder
[00.16.36]
Well, we all have them, Garry, that’s for darn sure. But I wondered if you had a particular 1 or 2 help for a learning moment.
Garry Ridge
[00.16.44]
Yeah, well, you know, I think I one of some of the things that I learned and one of them was, um, Becky, early in my leadership career, I was tempted to add too much value. And that’s one of the traits that’s talked about in Marshall Goldsmith’s book. What got You here won’t get You there. So as leaders, we tend to want to add a little bit to something. So someone comes to us with a with an idea and it’s pretty good.
You know, I often used to say I’m probably wrong and roughly right in most circumstances. So, you know, the idea is pretty good. But we’re tempted to say, well, you know. Why did you just do this at this little bit? And we’re adding about 0.5% of value to the effort, whatever that person is trying to achieve. But what we’ve done is we’ve taken their motivation level down by 50%. So my guidance to folks is is it worth it? You know, how often do you ask yourself, is this worth the words I’m about to say? Or is it just playing with my ego? And you know, you’ve met this person before? Alec, the soul sucking CEO of Fear Incorporated, and Alec is one of those leaders that have behaviors that are really not good for culture.
Their ego, his ego. It’s his empathy instead of his empathy eating his ego. He’s a micromanager. It could be a she could be Alice. They’re corporate royalty. They’re not spending time in the sticky locker room. They want a fear based culture. They’re a master of control. That’s why they’re so busy. They want to control everything. There are no at all. They don’t value learning because they think they have all the answers. They think they must always be right. My goodness, don’t ever want to share feedback with them. And they don’t keep their commitments. But on the other side of that, there’s the true servant leader that you and I and Kelly talk about often.
They’re the leaders who love and involve their people. They’re always in servant leadership mode. They’re expected to be competent, and they love learning. They’re connected. Spending time in that stinky locker room. They love learning moments. They have a heart of gold, and they have a backbone of steel as well, because. This leadership thing is a balance between being tough minded and tenderhearted, the champions of hope.
They know that micromanagement is not scalable. They do what they say they’re going to do, and they treasure the gift of feedback. So my learning moment to those with us today is don’t be Alec or Alice, the soul sucking CEO. Be the servant leader who really does use those attributes as a way to build great cultures in an organization.
Jim Ponder
[00.19.26]
Now, Garry, I was with a national leadership team last week for a couple of days, and they were really struggling with vulnerability-based trust. They were really struggling with that as a team, which, you know, permeates down through the organization. And what I shared with them is if you can’t get there, if you can’t get to the vulnerability-based trust and you can’t get to these basic fundamentals that you just talked about, it was a pretty bold statement. But I said, that’s a team destined for failure at some point somewhere. And it’s always amazing. And you and I have talked about this, of the amount of CEOs who will talk about they’ll talk the game, but they won’t do it. They don’t live there, they don’t actually live their values, but they’re feeling good because their bottom line performance is acceptable. And I’m always asking the question, but what could it be? What would happen if? And I remember many, many years ago you shared with me and I’ll get this wrong so you can correct me. Um, but it was a letter to the shareholders, and it essentially started out something like, if we take care of our people, they’ll take care of the share price. And that’s always struck with me. And so when you’re talking with a CEO who’s just performance-minded and isn’t really paying attention to some of these key things we’re talking about. What are the words you use with them, or how do you react to that?
Garry Ridge
[00.20.53]
Well, first I’d say, do you know what the will of the people is? Have you actually gone to and tested and said, what is the engagement level in your company? Now, if the engagement level is what it is in most companies, which is around 30%, you’ll lose your leaving 70% of your potential on the table. So you might have really good results right now. But what would happen if more people in your organization were going to work every day and passionately executing against your goals? Now, when this really matters is when we go into hard times and then, you know, I’ll use Covid as an example.
You know, we went into Covid with a 93% employee engagement level. 98% of our people said they love to work at WD 40 company. And when the going by tough, the tough got going. We were tough in our with our culture and we came through that in the best line colors we possibly could because we went in strong. You know it may be. It’s easy to be have great results when things are good, but when things are tough, you better have a very dedicated, highly engaged, respected and honored group of people in your organization to carry you through.
Jim Ponder
[00.22.12]
Kelly, do you have any other follow up questions?
Kelly Mayberry
[00.22.14]
No, I love that. And really, at the foundation of that, you have to have trust. You have to have trust in your team. You have to have trust that you’re going to be taking care of throughout any good or bad time. So I really love that a lot. And it also, you know, it talks. You mentioned the P.A.C.E framework, performance, alignment, clarity and execution. And I feel like all of that ties in really well there as well.
Garry Ridge
[00.22.38]
Well, let me finish with a little story that proves that. It’s January 2021. Well, one year into Covid, um, we had done our employee opinion survey in the March prior, just before Covid. The numbers were really high. I said to the leadership team, I want to make sure that we’re not draining cultural equity. Um, we’d been doing everything we could to keep the team together. We were having virtual meetings. We’re having a lot of fun doing it, too. We did fun stuff. We had cooking classes online. We brought in a magician to do magic tricks. We had, you know, 4:00, you know, happy hours virtually. We’re doing everything we could to keep people engaged. But I said, I just want to be sure. So we went out and we did a pulse survey in January 2021. Now, remember January 2021, we still didn’t know whether the world was going to come to an end. I mean, there was talk about a vaccination. What was this thing that we were dealing with? So we went out and we did the survey. The numbers came back.
They were all very much similar to the march before, except for one number. And this number went to 97%. The question was, or the reaction was, I am excited about my place in the company’s future. And I went. This can’t be right. How can anybody be excited about their place in the company’s future, when we don’t know if the world’s going to come to an end? Um, go out and check the data. And they came back and said the date is correct. I said, find out why. So we went out and we found we asked, and we this was the moment in my career which would for me be a mic drop. I could have walked out then and said, we did it. And the people in the organization came back and said, I feel safe in our organization. If there’s any place I want to be right now, I want to be here because I feel safe. We were living our just cause of a group of people that came together to protect and feed each other. That’s we’ve tested this thing of culture now, by the way, we have the most successful year in the company’s history.
Jim Ponder
[00.24.36]
It’s incredible and it’s always amazing to me and Garry. I know I shared this story with you, but I was coaching a CEO of a very large company, and he would fly all over the world in the company jet. And until we started working together, he would fly in, have his meetings and fly out. Would never take the time to go talk to the people, maybe go walk through the offices, say hi, and as we work together for 6 or 8 months and that started to happen. His response was, I didn’t know what I was missing. It just and I said, 30 minutes, an hour. That’s all I’m asking of you, but just go and talk to people and simply ask them, how are they doing? Anything I can do to help you. And that that Garry came from mentoring from you. And I deeply appreciate that.
Garry Ridge
[00.25.31]
Yeah. Thank you. Well, you know, the first chapter of my book is titled are you okay? Yeah.
Jim Ponder
[00.25.36]
And it strikes me you mentioned Covid when we were during Covid, every time you would get on a zoom or a team’s or whatever call you were on, first thing people would ask, how were you doing? And they meant it. And you look at today, the vast majority of calls we get on, there’s none of that. There’s none of how are you doing? Um, well, this is this has been so fantastic having you before we drop off. I’d love to know from you, Garry. What’s the legacy? Garry Ridge wants to leave.
Garry Ridge
[00.26.12]
I help leaders build cultures of belonging where love, forgiveness and learning inspire a happier, more connected world. That would be the legacy I would like for them.
Jim Ponder
[00.26.22]
Well, I will tell you, you are well on your way. And this is this has been an absolute pleasure. Any questions you have of us before we drop off?
Garry Ridge
[00.26.30]
No, I just want to thank you for the work you do. And it’s, you know, it’s organizations like yours that are, you know, going out there and being brave enough to, you know, get in the face of some of the leaders and actually, you know, the mirror and say, you know, this is what we really need to do in organization. So, thank you to you and Kelly for what you do. I appreciate you.
Jim Ponder
[00.26.49]
Well, and thank you for that. And if you have not read any dumb ask and it is absolutely a must read. And if you are a people manager, you own a company. You need to take a look at helping people when at work. I recommend both of the books highly. We recommend them all the time. We give them out all the time. And Garry, thank you so much. We’ll look forward to next time.
Kelly Mayberry
[00.27.16]
Yes, thank you so much. I always learn so much from you. I appreciate you very much.
