THREE
My Leadership Point of View

YOU MIGHT ASK why I want to share my own leadership point of view, so allow me to explain. In the Master of Science in Executive Leadership (MSEL) program at the University of San Diego, Ken and Margie Blanchard teach a course titled “Communicating Your Leadership Point of View.” This is where I learned about the research done by Noel Tichy.¹ It shows that:

Effective leaders are particularly willing to share their leadership point of view with the people with whom they work. It’s my hope that this part of the book will stimulate you to think about your own leadership point of view.

My leadership point of view is best expressed by what people can expect of me, what I expect of people, and where in my background those beliefs about leading and motivating people come from. As I do that, you will see why this whole “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A” philosophy is so core to my own thinking.

Caring also means that I am more interested in serving people than in having them serve me. As a result, I do anything I can to help tribe members see and achieve their personal A and, in the process, realize their magnificence. If one of my tribe members is struggling to get even a B, I go out of my way to help. They should expect the “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A” philosophy to be engraved in me.

I want and expect every tribe member to win. I expect confidence without arrogance—champions who are not cocky.

Where did those expectations come from? They came from my life experiences—my background.

From an early age, I had an interest in people. I cared about people. This undoubtedly was stimulated by the attention I got from my brothers and sister. They took me to places and events where people fussed over me. They seemed to care about me. This gave me a feeling that I was important and made me realize that everyone needs to be special and recognized by important people in their lives.

I got my character and doing things the right way from my dad and my persistence and determination from my mum.

My dad had a tremendous work ethic. He worked for the same company for fifty years. When he retired, I was only sixteen. This meant that as I started my work life journey, Dad was available as my business mentor and coach. That became very important to me. Why? I was not a great athlete as a kid; I never really played on any sports team in school. This meant that I wasn’t a big hit with the girls. So while my mates were out on the sports and social scene, my interest in learning outside the normal school system grew through my work in a variety of jobs—delivering milk, selling papers, washing cars, and working at the local dry cleaners, hardware store, or sports store.

As I got fascinated by business, enter my dad. I can still hear him say, “Garry, it’s a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. You should always do your best for the people and company who hired you. You need to be reliable. You need to be sure you keep your commitments. You don’t need contracts in life, Garry. You just need a heart, a handshake, and a commitment.”

My mum was the real persistent driver. She gave me priceless advice that impacted the rest of my life. She told me, “You can be anything you want to be and do whatever you want to do. Just hold your head up high and never give up.” I am sure my sometimes-blind determination to do and be the best comes from her. Mum is in her late nineties today and still has that determination. She is a “climb any mountain” type, whereas my dad was more the other side—“You’ve got to do it the right way.”

What I learned from my family was augmented during my teenage years by three businessmen who cared enough to allow me to learn from them—Jack Lambert, Warren Knox, and John Eckley. They owned the sports store, hardware store, and dry cleaners in my area. I would work for them after school and during the holidays. Each gave of himself to share what he had learned over the years. They taught me vital things about business. At a young age I learned key lessons:

For example, Jack Lambert used to repair tennis rackets. I remember one day watching him regut and restring a racket. It took him hours to do this one racket. I said to him, “Mr. Lambert, why do you spend so much time stringing one tennis racket?” He said, “Garry, someone will play an important game with this racket. They’re depending on the quality of my work for the result they get.”

I remember when I worked in the hardware store, how the store looked was really important to Mr. Knox. He would say, “If you expect people to come in and shop at your store, it’s got to be appealing and inviting. It’s got to provide a warm and attractive atmosphere.”

As for John Eckley, the owner of the dry cleaners, he treated every shirt, jacket, and pair of socks as if they were his own.

These three gentlemen gave me a playground on which to practice business. They let me do things. If I didn’t pay attention, they didn’t scold me; they coached me. They said, “Hey, how would it be if we tried it this way?”

I remember when Warren Knox’s father died. He left me alone to take charge of the store for two days. He just turned over the keys to me and said, “You know what to do.” And I did. I ran the store for him during those two days. I opened the store. I made sure the product was out. I handled the money. When he came back and I gave him his keys, he didn’t question anything. He taught me how to get an A, and he knew I would be an A player when he was gone.

Many times I reflect on the tremendous influence my family and these three businessmen had on me and my success in business. Later in life, their caring mentorship motivated me not to let my work life stop me from being a good mentor for my son and daughter in the early years of their business lives—as well as others who might need some coaching.

Being around adults all the time made me comfortable interacting with and talking to a wide range of people. As a result, I have never had a problem communicating up and down the age ladder.

As I progressed through life, I became more and more curious about why things were the way they were. I remember a TV show called Why Is It So? A professor, Julius Sumner Miller, would ask a question and then provide the answer. I also took a real liking to the TV character Columbo, who asked a lot of questions in a simple way. He never let complexity or confusion get in the way of the obvious. This character and the professor fueled my desire to understand as well as learn.

A huge Learning Moment was moving to the United States in 1994. Coming from Australia, I was given a free pass. People would say, “He wouldn’t know. He’s from Australia.” Soon the value of not knowing—or just being brave enough to admit I didn’t know—was real to me. It was hard at first, because we all want to show how much we know, or we’re embarrassed to admit we don’t know. After a while, though, I got comfortable with those words, “I don’t know,” and developed the courage to use them.

I remember when I was a paper seller in Australia at the age of ten. I sold papers not because I needed the money. The money was hardly worth getting up at five o’clock on Sunday mornings or getting home at seven or eight o’clock each night after pushing a paper cart miles and miles. I wanted to make a difference.

The first difference I made—I can remember it quite clearly—was in delivering papers to people who depended on me for their source of news. Many of them were elderly, and I was the way they got their daily news. One of the most rewarding times was delivering the paper to Mrs. Peel, one of my older customers. Because she was in poor health, I always took her paper to the front door. She always opened the door with a smile. She showed her appreciation by giving me a big bag of lollies (candy) every Friday. Mrs. Peel showed me I made a difference.

This concept—making a difference—has followed me through my life.

Then one day Peggy Womersley, the mayor of the city, approached me about another possibility. The city had invested considerable money in developing a local radio station. The station was to serve two purposes. First, it was to be a community base to broadcast radio shows for groups ranging from religious organizations to special ethnic programs. Second, it was to be a training base for communication students.

The station was well behind its plan both financially and functionally. The council was considering abandoning the project. Peggy asked me to take on the job of chairman of the board of the station, even though I had no radio experience. If I accepted the position, I had six months to raise enough funds from the community to be viable and get the station on the air.

I recognized this as an opportunity to make a difference. Although the station had debt and there was infighting within the volunteer group, I saw this as challenging, worthwhile work. The goal was clear: be on the air in six months. Within that time frame, we not only had the station on the air, but I was doing a three-hour radio program every Sunday morning—and having fun doing it. Programs were being produced and aired for six different ethnic groups, plus many other special-interest groups.

Today, seventeen years later, the station is still going strong. With great pride, I have hanging on my wall the Baulkham Hills Shire Council Outstanding Community Service Award. It’s a wonderful reminder of this leadership learning experience.

At the age of twenty I got a job as a traveling salesman for an auto parts and accessories company in Sydney. The owner of the company, Wally Ryan, had convinced me I should leave Waltons—the retail chain where I had just completed my three-year management training course—and join his company to help develop his business.

On the day I arrived at the office, I was greeted by Wally, an aggressive Irishman, who informed me I was about to get an education on how important it was to get results. He showed me my new company car—pretty nice for a guy of twenty to have a company car—and then handed me a suitcase full of license plate frames.

In Sydney, there is a famous highway called Parramatta Road, which runs from Parramatta to the city, about twenty-five miles. Parramatta Road was famous in those times as the road of car dealers. Every good, bad, and indifferent car dealer was located on Parramatta Road. My mission was simple: start at one end of the road and work toward the city. Come back to the office on Friday and bring the orders.

Selling license plate frames to car dealers was not fun; Wally had thrown me into the deep end. He had confidence I could swim, he gave me the chance, and all I needed to do was paddle like hell. Determined not to let him down, I worked twelve hours a day selling my way up Parramatta Road.

At the end of the week, when I brought back my orders, I had outsold all the other salespeople.

When you do what you love, you lose track of time. To that I would add: and having fun doing it!

Having fun to me is seeing people develop along the path to our shared vision. I get some of my biggest rewards when I see people excel, especially those with whom I’ve had the opportunity to share experience and learning. Having fun is helping others understand what they want to become and then helping them achieve their dream—which is not necessarily the dream I might have for them.

Having fun is the reward of a true servant leader—one who leads with love and is not afraid to encourage trust, respect, and confidence.

Does your company reach the WD-40 gold standard? To get a “good on ya,” here are the questions you should answer for your organization. Our tribe members call it “Garry’s Top 10 + 1.” If you can answer all of these in the affirmative, give me a call—we’re mates!

1. Do you have a clear, meaningful, and easily understood vision/mission?

2. Do you have the right people in the right seats on the bus?

3. Do you have a meaningful BHAG (big hairy audacious goal), and have you communicated it to your people?

4. Are your values driving the behavior you want in the organization?

5. Are you creating a culture that increases employee engagement?

6. Are you cultivating a spirit of internal and external learning?

7. Do your people know what an A looks like, and are you supporting them to get that A?

8. Are your products/services creating lasting, positive memories for your customers?

9. Do you have the best, most timely data and information to help your organization make good business decisions?

10. Are your key performance indicators the right ones, and are you measuring what matters?

11. Do you celebrate success?

2. I learned from Drea Zigarmi and Susan Fowler at the University of San Diego that a value is something that I hold dear, a lasting belief that a particular end or means is more personally acceptable than another, something that is chosen freely from among alternatives with an understanding of the outcome, and something that must be publicly prized and acted on. Zigarmi is coauthor of Leadership and the One Minute Manager and The Leader Within. Fowler is coauthor of Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager.