From Any Dumbass Can Do It to Leadership Wisdom | Garry Ridge | Episode 341

Scott McCarthy [00:06:11]:
Hey, sir. Welcome to the show. So good to have you here today.

Garry Ridge [00:06:14]:
Good day, Scott. It’s good to be here.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:17]:
So so happy to have you on. Former CEO, author, and, now I guess enjoying the semi retired life, are you?

Garry Ridge [00:06:26]:
No. Not at all. I’m, I’m not retired. I’m refired. I’ve done my twenty five year apprenticeship and leadership. Now it’s time to put it to work.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:37]:
Oh, I love the reframe on that one. Awesome. So let’s just go back and let’s you’ll go back to, I guess maybe the beginning and, like, what drew you down this path in the first place? Like, what got you go, I wanna get into business and not just business, but, like, leading an exceptionally large company in the end.

Garry Ridge [00:06:59]:
Well, I think it’s a progression like most things in life. You know, you go from one opportunity to another and, you know, the opportunities are there. It’s a matter of whether you take them. So I, you know, I was in Australia. I’m an Australian. Worked for the w d forty company, licensee in Australia. That’s how I got to know the company in The US. And in 1987, they decided to open a subsidiary in Australia.

Garry Ridge [00:07:25]:
So, I was fortunate enough to be asked to join and start that organization, which I did, and did a lot of my work then up in Asia because I I had done a fair bit of work in Asia as we were wanting to build out the brand. And then in 1994, I was invited to move to The United States to head up our global expansion program. And then in ’97, the CEO retired, and I got invited to be CEO, and the rest is history. We went on the journey of taking the blue and yellow can with a little red top to a 76 countries around the world. And on that journey, I really did learn that organizational success is a combination of two things. Number one, you certainly need to have a clearly defined and executable strategy. But really, it was all about the people. And how did we build a culture that, not only did people feel like they belong, they were treated like they belong, and they also felt like and and were treated like they matter.

Garry Ridge [00:08:29]:
They had an opportunity to learn and grow, and that’s what we did. And we were very successful because of that, and that’s why I wrote my new book, Any Dumbass Can Do It, because I believe that if you understand the ingredients that need to go into building a great culture, if you execute that consistently, you can really develop a place where people go to work every day, they make a contribution to something bigger than themselves, they learn something new, they’re protected and set free by a compelling set of values, and they go home happy. And why that’s important is because happy people build happy families, Happy families build happy communities. Happy communities build a happy world. And particularly where we are right now, I don’t think anybody would, not would disagree with me that a little happier world would be a better thing.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:23]:
That was such a great, I guess, foreshadow of what this conversation is about to be because that was a heck of a answer for a very, mundane question to argue. Before we dive into, like, deep into it, I wanna say, thank you for everything you did. As a semi handyman, I’ve probably put forth, you know, fractions of a penny to your salary back in the day, and you using your products here up in Canada.

Garry Ridge [00:09:51]:
Thank you.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:52]:
But but, you know, let’s talk about the culture. In your book here, you you talk about four pillars of a friction free culture. I’d love to dive into what they are. How can us as leaders, you know, implement them? What is you know? So if you can start on that foot, let’s and then we go from there.

Garry Ridge [00:10:13]:
Sure. So the four pillars are care, candor, accountability, and responsibility. And the first one being care and, you know, as in my new book, the first chapters is titled, are you okay? And and really the definition of caring is we love and care about our people enough, not only to reward them and applaud them for doing great work, but we’re brave enough to redirect them when they’re not playing for an a, not protecting our own comfort zone at the expense of other people’s development. Many years ago, I wrote another book with my dear friend, Doctor Ken Blanchard, the famous for many books in particular, The One Minute Manager. But the book we wrote together was called Helping People Win at Work. And the byline was, I’m not here to mark your paper, I’m here to help you get an A. So, as leaders, our job is to care about our people and make sure we’re clearly defining what does an A look like. The second pillar is candor.

Garry Ridge [00:11:15]:
No lying, no faking, no hiding. I believe in business, most people don’t lie. I believe they fake and hide, and the reason they fake and hide is because of fear. And if we can reduce the level of fear in an organization, we’re going to increase the psychological safety. And in a in an organization with high psychological safety, there is a higher degree of entrepreneurialism, there’s a higher degree of responsibility. So we decided that we were not going to make mistakes. We would call our endeavors learning moments. Now, there’s a real story to that as well.

Garry Ridge [00:11:54]:
Those of you who know w d forty, if you don’t know how the name came around, in 1953, there was a company called Rocket Chemical Company in San Diego, and, there were some chemists that worked in that company. And, the they were working on solutions to stop corrosion and condensation in the umbilical cord of the Atlas space rocket. So they got together in their lab or the and they started to mix up solutions and solution one didn’t work and 10 didn’t work and 25 didn’t work and 32 didn’t work and 39 didn’t work and 40 did. So it was named WD, water displacement fortieth formula. So WD 40 is the, result of 39 learning moments. And if we’d stopped at 39, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. I’m pretty glad 39 didn’t work actually because I don’t think WD 39 sounds anywhere good as WD 40. And then the next one is accountability.

Garry Ridge [00:12:57]:
Are we clear? What do we expect from each other? What do I expect from you? What do you expect from me? And if we are helping each other get an a, what does an a look like? Then the fourth one is responsibility. Responsibility equals accountability and ownership. We put something together at the company called the MANIAC Pledge, which was our pledge of responsibility, which is a statement that empowers people. And the MANIAC Pledge, and I’ll share it with you, is this. I am responsible for taking action, asking questions, getting answers, and making decisions. I won’t wait for someone to tell me. If I need to know, I am responsible for asking. I have no right to be offended that I didn’t get this sooner.

Garry Ridge [00:13:42]:
And if I’m doing something others should know about, I’m responsible for telling them. So those are the four pillars of a friction free organization that are fundamental in in as a foundation to building a great culture.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:55]:
Those are awesome. What I wanna say out of the gate is thank you for confirming the story of the name of the company. Because I heard it, but I wasn’t a % sure it was the actual truth. But now I I think I can trust my source on this one.

Garry Ridge [00:14:11]:
Totally.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:13]:
But let you know, let’s dive into I love care, candor, accountability, and responsibility. These are things which we talk about here at the podcast quite regularly. You you frame them each amazingly well. I think we want the leaders out there would love to know is, like, and you hit responsibility. Great. But for the other ones, like, how do we actually go about implementing those in our teams? Like, what are some really tangible things that the leaders listening to this show can take right now? You know, okay. I’m gonna show care this way. We’re gonna do candorless.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:43]:
We’re gonna do candidly this.

Garry Ridge [00:14:45]:
Well, let’s go back to care. You know, one of the basic, elements of care is is the feeling and the behavior that show people that they actually belong. One of the biggest desires we have as human beings is to belong. And belonging means, you know, respect for each other, showing each other appreciation, showing each other they matter. So how are leaders, you know, acting in their organization to really reach out to people and sincerely show them that they belong, and that the leader cares about them? You know, instead of that that question of why didn’t you get your sales target this month, maybe the question is, I noticed you didn’t get your sales target this month month. Are you okay? What’s on your mind? Is anything getting in your way? So, you know, if things are not being achieved or not happening the way you want, there’s a reason behind it. So instead of accusing someone, dig into, you know, what may be going on behind the scene that you that the leaders should know about that they can help with. As I said with candor, you have to reduce fear.

Garry Ridge [00:15:55]:
So the one thing they can do which is absolutely magical is take the word failure out of your organization and start talking about learning moments. And the definition of a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. So if you have people in your organization that are doing something and it’s successful, amplify it through the organization. Other people could use that learning. If there’s something that didn’t quite work out the way you wanted it to, amplify that. And that will help those that maybe have a similar situation, not have to go through the the the process of relearning something. So open communication. Communication always and always.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:44]:
No. Those are fantastic. Absolutely love them. I can’t, you know, I can’t stress enough and be with you enough to say communication, communication, communication. Like, it’s whenever I walk in or talk to a team and, like, hey, you know, or talking with a leader, like, you know, what what what troubles do you have right now? Where where are you, struggling? And the first thing, like, most often I get is communication, yet it’s the thing we as human beings do the most, and it just boggles my mind of how communication you know, we struggle so much with it at that, you know, within this leadership and organizational role. Yeah. It’s the thing we do the most as human beings. Just boggles my mind.

Garry Ridge [00:17:28]:
Yeah. And, well, there’s a difference too. You know? Are we listening to people, or are we just hearing people? Are we listening, or are we just hearing?

Scott McCarthy [00:17:38]:
Yep. I always say, you know, are are you listening to respond, or are you listening, to understand? Right? And, it it’s it’s tough when you’re on that first one because, I’ve been there, on both ends, on the spectrum of, you know, sitting and talking to someone, and they’re just listening to respond and and whether I’m a subordinate or superior, and it’s just extremely frustrating. So great words. Great words, sir. Moving on, I would like to change gears a little bit, and let’s just talk about our our our people. And and you talked a bit about hinted at it there in, you know, getting everyone to get that a. And did you have a difficult time in changing that kind of mindset or as you took over, was that mindset already there, w d 40? Or was that something you had to bring in to say, alright. But, you know, we’re not we’re not going after failing people here, but rather we want a’s here.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:40]:
Everyone to get an a. Was that something difficult, or is that something that you kinda fell in on?

Garry Ridge [00:18:46]:
It wasn’t difficult once we solved the problem. And the problem was, as leaders, we we are very, very poor at describing what an a looks like. So most people, Scott, let people down because there’s not clarity around what we expect from each other. We don’t, you know, we don’t spend the time to define what the a looks like. So the way to start is do we have we clearly defined what our expectations are of each other? What is it we expect to do? When do we expect to do it by? And what is the the desired outcome of whatever we’re deciding to do together. And that was it. And it is it is actually, Scott, that simple, because if you don’t know what you want to achieve, there’s a big, big opportunity that you will let each other down.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:45]:
That’s, you know, that’s a great point. Like, I don’t know how many times I’ve been with leaders and they were just like, I want this, but they’re not a % sure exactly what that is. Now is there an was there an exercise that you guys did that you went through to figure that out? Or did you lock yourself in your office for, like, three weeks and, like, bash your head against the wall? Did you, you know how did you actually go about understanding and figuring that out?

Garry Ridge [00:20:12]:
Well, it’s it’s the simple questions. Doing what you’re supposed to do, when are you supposed to do it to the standard you’re supposed to do it to? So the question would be if, you know, if we’re looking at a a task, a strategy, simply ask those questions and don’t, you know, proceed until you you feel very, very confident that all of those who have input into that have clarity around those three simple questions. Doing what we’re supposed to do, when we’re supposed to do it, to the standard we’re supposed to do it to.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:46]:
Yeah. Those those are yeah. That’s pretty simple. Sweet.

Garry Ridge [00:20:49]:
Any dumbass can do it. Any dumbass can do it.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:53]:
Well, you know what? Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe this is the point. Maybe we’re overcomplicating things from time to time. And hence hence the theme of your book. Right? Any dumbass can do it. Absolutely.

Garry Ridge [00:21:04]:
I totally believe we we camouflage issues with confusion to make out how smart we are sometimes. So we really need to get back to making things simple to understand, simple to communicate, and, you know, treating people exactly the same way.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:23]:
Awesome. Now I’d like to, skip forward here, and you you got a section in your book here called our purpose in life is to make people happy. I’ve been told I don’t know how many times my superiors, I’m not your I’m not your parent here, I’m not here to make you happy. Quite literally the opposite. So I’d love to know where this, you know, this the idea for this section of your book came from, and what are some of the key lessons that have come out from your what your life experience that that aid in it?

Garry Ridge [00:21:58]:
Yeah. So I I put that in context around business, and it’s a quote that I read many years ago from the Dalai Lama. And it’s our purpose in life is to is to make people happy. If we can’t make them happy, at least don’t hurt them. So you’ve got to put the bottom line on that. And I think making people happy in an organization is twofold. One, are we creating an organization where people are and do have the the opportunity to be continuous learners, so we’re providing a platform of learning. Everybody wants to learn.

Garry Ridge [00:22:32]:
And then two, are we providing a platform where, in that learning environment, we’re creating an organization that has the elements that get people to understand that they belong and they matter. And and I think it’s it’s again, it gets back to something as simple as as that. You know, happiness in an organization, and a lot of people get this this thinking out of step, happiness is not ping pong tables and pizza parties and margaritas. You know, sure, that’s fun, but happiness is am I working somewhere where I am being fulfilled as a human being? That’s what happiness in an organization is. And the reverse is don’t hurt people. And unfortunately, there are a lot of leaders out there, and you would have read about Alec, smart Alec, the soul sucking CEO in my book, who create these toxic cultures where people, don’t feel, like they belong, don’t feel like they matter. And if you think about Alec, Alec has some, leadership behaviors that are I’m gonna share them with you because I think people should think about this. You know, Alec has an ego that’s so big.

Garry Ridge [00:23:49]:
So his ego eats his empathy instead of empathy eating his ego. And this could be Alice as well, so it’s not gender specific. This this sucking soul sucking leader is a micromanager. They wanna be micromanaging everything. They think they’re corporate royalty. They love a fear based culture. They love to be in control. They’re a know it all.

Garry Ridge [00:24:12]:
They have all the answers, even the wrong ones. They don’t value learning. They must always be right. They hate feedback, and they don’t keep their commitments. If you are using those behaviors, you are not creating a place where people are happy. You are hurting them.

Scott McCarthy [00:24:29]:
Ego is the killer of leadership. Full stop. I have a former US Navy SEAL on the show here, and, he talked about, Ego and the, basically being the leadership killer, and that’s pretty much the title of his book. So I I totally agree with you in all that. I’ve been in in situations where, you know, we’ve had note all leaders in charge of us, and all kinds of what you just described. And and one in particular, the origin story of the motto here, lead, don’t boss, is of one particular leader who took over. So by day, I’m a senior Canadian army officer. And when I was a junior captain, we had a senior leader take over our organization, and it basically overnight went into a mach five nosedive of morale and output and everything else that you can imagine.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:32]:
So, yep, I I’ve seen it and experienced it. So let me tell you, you are absolutely right, sir.

Garry Ridge [00:25:38]:
Well, let’s let’s go back to the other thing that I think is really important too, Scott Mhmm. Is let’s get rid of the word manager. Now Right. You know, I come in and I you’re a new person working in my organization. I say, good morning, Scott. Welcome aboard. I’m your manager. How does that feel? But if we change that word to coach, it’s good morning, Scott.

Garry Ridge [00:26:01]:
Welcome aboard. I’m here. I’m your coach. And as a coach, I am committed to helping you. And a great coach is committed to helping people and the player get an a. They’re brave. They’re not protecting their own comfort zone at the expense of someone else’s growth. They know the game and what it takes to win.

Garry Ridge [00:26:21]:
They don’t run on onto the field and steal the ball. That’s micromanagement. They spend a lot of time on the sideline watching the play. They add value to the player with feedback on how to improve the play. They never ever ever go to the podium and pick up the prize in place of the player, and they spend a much time in the stinky locker room building trust. So in in organizations and those that are listening to us today, throw out the word manager and let’s commit to we are here to be coaches, and coaches help the team members play their best game. And if the team members are playing their best game, the team plays its best game, and voila, the team wins.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:08]:
That’s a great perspective and one I haven’t, you know, directly thought of it. Just, you know, getting rid of the, term manager and bringing in the term coach. Would would you just, you know, one day walk in and, you know, operations manager is no longer operations matter, but just operations coach? Or how would you go about doing that?

Garry Ridge [00:27:28]:
Yeah. We just changed. You know, on the from the outside world, what you have on your business card doesn’t matter. But in the inside the organization, everyone was called a coach. So if you were referring to who may have been called your boss before, you would say, well, Scott’s my coach. I’m gonna talk to my coach about that. My coach is here to help me. So, yeah, everybody was assigned the role of coach.

Garry Ridge [00:27:56]:
So that’s what we were. And once you’re assigned that role, it comes with responsibility. Think of the two words. I’m gonna manage you, or I’m gonna coach you. You I’m gonna help coach you to play the best game you can. And that’s my job.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:10]:
That’s a really interesting yet powerful perspective. Because I I’m trying to figure out how I’m gonna implement that ideology now once I get back to my day job. By the way, that’s something which they both love and hate. I do these podcast interviews and take the lessons learned back, to work and god. Good for you. Just stop. Good for you. Stop.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:32]:
Well, you know, I gotta this is my education. This is my front row education. I firmly believe the day that we stop learning is the day we become, irrelevant to our organization.

Garry Ridge [00:28:44]:
Yeah. Once you stop learning, throw dirt dirt on you. You’re dead.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:49]:
Or that. Try not to go that, that, catastrophic. So, moving forward here, I see here we talked a bit about earlier. You talked about, hey, are you okay? But later, you got into, are we okay? What’s the idea back behind that there?

Garry Ridge [00:29:09]:
So as a as a leader or a coach, people are depending on you and looking at you for, you know, what is the condition of our business? How are we looking forward? And that was a lesson I learned, during, the February and, August, so called. I was traveling around the world visiting our offices, and I realized that that I was getting asked the question more than I’ve ever thought realized before. Gary, are you okay? And I’m thinking, why are they why am I getting asked that more than ever before? And I was in my hotel room and it dawned on me, they weren’t asking me whether I was okay. They were asking me really were we okay as an organization. They were looking for my, commitment that, you know, we were we were going to be okay. Were we going to be safe? Is everything all right? So I think, you know, as a leader, when you’re out there, people are gonna be watching you all the time. You’re on stage all the time. And that’s the other thing that I think is important.

Garry Ridge [00:30:25]:
You know, you’re gonna interact with a lot of people during your day. You do not take your leftovers to the next person you’re you’re going to meet with. And what I mean by that, you know, you could be having I could be having a meeting with you, Scott, and we could be talking about, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is. I may have it may be a really good meeting or it may be you know, I might be tired now, and now I’m gonna go and meet with the next person. I I need to refill my plate because the next person I go to be with deserves the full plate, not the leftovers from my meeting with Scott. And, and I think that’s really important. In fact, I have a little notebook, and I have it here with me. And on on my little notebook, I have a little little handmade sticker on the front of it, and it says, am I being the person I want to be right now? And then I ask myself, who is that person? Who is the person I want to be when I think I’m at my best? And I say, I wanna be grateful, caring, empathetic, reasonable, a listener, fact based.

Garry Ridge [00:31:34]:
I wanna have a balanced opinion. I wanna be curious. I wanna be a learner, and I wanna throw sunshine not a shadow. Now, I’ve been carrying that little list around for I don’t know how many years, and I read it very often. Why do I need that list? Because I need to remind myself who the best me is because the world will take that away from me if I let it and don’t remind myself of it. So my message to leaders out there is don’t think that you have to have it all in your head all the time. Be prepared to, you know, question yourself and have little reminders because we all forget, or the world around us takes it away from us.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:18]:
Or they remind it, you know, of us for, you know, for ourselves per se. But that’s that’s definitely powerful and especially, you know, basically what I hear from that is, for the leaders out there, you know, take some time as you go about your day going from, you know, probably some sensitive, topic to another sensitive topic to make sure you’re not bringing, you know, basically trash to the one to the other. And if Absolutely. If you’re, you know, if you’re if you’re an introverted leader, maybe that means you you take a ten, fifteen minute break. You you schedule that in. You make that one meeting a bit longer just to take that pause.

Garry Ridge [00:32:56]:
Absolutely.

Scott McCarthy [00:32:57]:
But as a extrovert, much like myself, maybe not necessarily take the energy from one into the other, because you might been into a a tough meeting, and then you’re going to go into something that’s supposed to be, you know, uplifting. You don’t wanna bring that negative energy with you.

Garry Ridge [00:33:13]:
That’s a very important point too, Scott. The here’s the here’s the the point. You know, you may be an extra burden. Many of us have done these analysis of where we sit, you know, whether you’re on the disc profile, a d, or an I, or an s, or a c. But I’ll give you an example is that, you know, you need to understand how the person you’re you’re leading accepts information and what motivates their thinking. So that you’re not pouring into them with things that they really have no way of absorbing. And I think that’s really important.

Scott McCarthy [00:33:50]:
Absolutely. Gary, sir, this has been fantastic. I feel like we cover a lot of ground. Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you think would be super, relevant or interesting to the audience today?

Garry Ridge [00:34:01]:
Well, we could talk about it for hours. There’s a whole lot

Scott McCarthy [00:34:04]:
True story.

Garry Ridge [00:34:06]:
Here’s something that I’d I’d where where people can, carry forward with some more information. I actually have a quiz on my website that if they go to my website, which is wwwthelearningmoment.net, And on the top banner, it says quiz. And it’s the dumbass quiz. So take the quiz, fill in the questions, and you will get a scale of what is your dumbassery superpower. But when you enter your email address, I will send you a playbook with the four things you can start thinking about in your organization to start building a culture where, you know, there’s a high will of the people.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:47]:
Definitely appreciate your candidness, especially here as well as the the candidates of your book. Gary Bufra, it’s been an honor. It’s been a pleasure to have you on. You kinda hinted at it just then, but we’re gonna dive deeper now and, like, where can people find you, follow you, be part of your journey? How can they can they reach out to you, find the book, etcetera?

Garry Ridge [00:35:07]:
You’ll find me on LinkedIn. Please join me there. I also have the a group on LinkedIn called the School of Dumbassery. If you wanna join that group where we share our learnings across different organizations, my website is www.thelearningmoment.net. Take the quiz, and I’ll send you a free playbook to get you started. And you can get out my book on Amazon. So, you’ve got plenty of places to go.

Scott McCarthy [00:35:33]:
And for you to listen, as always, it’s easy. All the links are there in the show note. Just go to leaddon’tboss.com forward /the episode number in digits, and you’ll be taken right to the show notes of this episode. So, again, Gary, thank you again for taking time out of your busy schedule. Thank you for doing everything you do. It’s fantastic.

Garry Ridge [00:35:51]:
My pleasure, Scott. Thank you for doing what you do.