The L3 Leadership Podcast with Doug Smith

Integrating Love Into Your Leadership with Joel Manby

July 14, 2020 L3 Leadership | Joel Manby | Doug Smith Season 1 Episode 260
The L3 Leadership Podcast with Doug Smith
Integrating Love Into Your Leadership with Joel Manby
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, you’ll hear Joel Manby talk about how to integrate love into your leadership.


4 Key Leadership Insights:

1. What did I do to “get out of the pile” or get noticed as a younger leader? 

  • Certainly, the following characteristics helped: skillset, intuition, the anticipation of the next steps, but more than anything… work ethic. “I may have not been the smartest, I was the most hard-working”. “I did the very best job that I could in everything that I did.”

2. What does loving people in an organization look like?

  • There has to be processes and systems put in place to hold up your organizational values. These are systems that reward and correct according to your values and desired culture. 
  • Leading with love is not a soft thing or just a “Christian” thing. Leading with tough love is often the case. Leading with tough love means holding people accountable and having difficult conversations in order to uphold your company’s vision and values. 

3. A rule of loving leadership: Praise in public, admonish in private. 

  • A simple cadence that I’ve followed when offering this tough love is: Praise them for their strengths, admonish them specifically and briefly, and put them right back on the horse. 

4. Your guests will never rise above the enthusiasm and interest of your employees.


About Joel Manby:
Joel has been the CEO of major corporations for over 25+ years leading organizations such SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, Herschend Enterprises (the largest family-owned theme park and entertainment company in the United States), Saab Automobile USA, and  Amazon’s car selling partner, which was sold to CarsDirect.com in 2001. Joel summarized these leadership principles in my book Love Works detailing how to integrate “love the verb” into the leadership ethos and philosophy of any organization. 


Joel is currently the non-executive Chairman of Orange, a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and distribution of student, youth, and next-generation curriculum to over 9,000 churches in 40+ countries. In addition to his duties as chairman of Orange, Joel consults and speaks on Love Works, crisis leadership lessons, and other leadership topics designed to fit the needs of an audience.


Episode Links:
https://joelmanby.com/

Love Works

Joel’s Blog

Need a laugh? Check out Joel’s Folsom Prison parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wCICnvRszU

More L3 Leadership Podcast Episode:
l3leaderhsip.org/podcast

Joel Manby:

Most people misunderstand, leading with love. Most people even I did, when I first heard about it, it does feel soft. And therefore we think, well, I don't want to be that kind of a soft leader or that's just for bunch of Christians. We're a Christian organization. That's the farthest thing from the truth. This is the

Doug Smith:

All L3 Leadership podcast, episode number 260, The podcast family. And welcome to another episode of the L three leadership podcast, where we're obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host and today's episode. You'll hear me interview Joel Manby if you're unfamiliar with Joel, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Joel has been a CEO of major corporations for over 25 years. He's been the CEO of four different companies. One. He was the CEO of SeaWorld. He was the CEO of Herschend enterprises, which is the largest family owned theme park and entertainment company in the U S he was the CEO of Saab automobile U S. And he was also the CEO of Amazon's car selling partner, which was eventually sold to cars, direct.com. In 2001, he wrote a book called love works, which answers the question. Can you actually make a profit in business and still love people? And he argues that you can. And it's a phenomenal book. It's actually how I first heard about Joel. Andy Stanley interviewed him on his podcast probably about 10 years ago when the book first came out. And so I picked up a copy of the book, read it. It was phenomenal. It's a must read for business leaders, church leaders, nonprofit leaders, and another fun fact about Juul is he was also an undercover boss. And so while I read the book, I also watched the episode. It's a lot of fun to watch. I encourage you to watch it after the interview as well. So that's all you need to know about Joel and the interview. We talked about a ton of different things. We talk about business. We talk about transitions. We talk about his book, love works. And of course we take them through our lighting round, which you're going to love. So enjoy the interview with Joel. But before we dive into that, here's a few announcements. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Beratung advisors, the financial advisors at Beratung advisors, help educate and empower clients to help make informed financial decisions. Find out how Beratung advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future. Please visit their website at beratungadvisors. That's beratungadvisors.com, securities and investment products and services offered through Waddell and Reed, inc member FINRA. And SIPC Beratung advisors, Waddell and Reed and L3 leadership are separate entities. Hey leader. We tell you all the time here at L three leadership that you should never do life alone, but in community. And that's why I want to challenge every single one of you to become a member of L3 leadership. When you become a member of L3 leadership, you all have access to our community of leaders who are willing to encourage you, support you and hold you accountable for after your goals. You also have access to monthly live webinars that we do with nationally known leaders, monthly Q and A and hot seat hours for our members where you can troubleshoot the issues that you're having with your goal and get live real time feedback on them to help you develop a plan to overcome those issues. You'll have access to every course that we ever create. You'll have access to every L3 One Day talk we've ever had and so much more. And all of this is available for just$25 a month. In fact, we believe so much in the product that we are willing to give you your first month for just$1 that's right. If you sign up today@lteleadership.org, your first month of membership is just$1 leader. Don't grow another minute without having a community of leaders to what you can go to and grow with. Sign up today@l3leadership.org. And with all that being said, let's dive right into the interview. Enjoy the interview with Joel Manby. Hey Joel, thank you so much for being willing to do this interview. As we were just talking, I first connected with you when you're on the Andy Stanley leadership podcast many years ago, and got to watch your episode on undercover Boston. So that's the joy to sit down with you and I'm anxious to learn from you, but why don't we just start off with you telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Joel Manby:

Sure. Thanks, Doug. It's good to see you again, and it's great to be on your show. I appreciate what you do. In a nutshell, I'm married to Shannon have father of four wonderful children and, career wise, I've done, I've been a t the 25 y ears CEO with four different companies. And from that just a lot of learning experience that I I'm in retirement mode to some degree, but I really w ant t o focus on leading with love and how to help other people and companies do that. And so that's mostly how I spend my time. I'm also chairman of orange, which is a large nonprofit t hat's s ervices churches, and that that's, u h, that's where my passion is as well. So that's a really short answer.

Doug Smith:

Yeah. You've clearly had a very impressive career. We have a lot of young leaders that listen to this podcast and I'm just curious, you know, people see what you've been able to accomplish in 25 years in a CEO role. What do you wish people knew about your leadership journey that they may not know?

Joel Manby:

Well, one is that I never set out to be a CEO and I, I do think I get troubled sometimes when I hear young people, like that's their goal. You gotta be careful what you wish for sometimes because the tension between home and work and the time that that's needed to be a CEO is intense and I don't care what, what size company it is. So I'd be careful what you wish for a little bit. I just, um, I did the very best job in every situation I was in. And I think that that's how I got to where I was and always over-delivered, but, um, it wasn't something I sought out.

Doug Smith:

Wow. Uh, and I'm curious to, along those lines and you talked about, what prices have you had to pay to yourself throughout your journey to get, to even get to that role. And again, not focusing on the destination, but I'm just curious, what do you think made you get out of the pile so to speak?

Joel Manby:

Yeah, I think from a, from a skill set, same, I answer that two ways. One is skill set and one's kind of work ethic from a skillset standpoint. Uh, you know, I did, I did have a good education that held no doubt went to private school and then Harvard for business school, it doesn't hurt. But on the other hand, I think where I separate myself is ability to see the future a little bit and to also very intuitively read situations and have a good anticipation of what's gonna go wrong. Um, and a good level of modesty that I don't have all the answers. And I do think a lot of leaders get in trouble, especially entrepreneurial autocratic type leaders can get lot trouble thinking they always have the right answer. So that's from a skillset standpoint, from a time standpoint, I, I wasn't always the smartest person in the room, but I was almost always the hardest working person in the room. And as you know, starting your own business is very difficult. Leading any organization is very difficult. And so you have to be willing to commit the time and the effort to do so. So those two are our big, um, big differentiators and not to play off of the main topic of my book, which is love works is that I did care about my, my team, my employee, I really sincerely do in my heart care about their life at home, their life at work, because I know that the level of the enthusiasm of our own company will never be higher than the enthusiasm of that worker. And so that that's very, very important differentiator in just how I lead compared to what I've seen in some other leaders.

Doug Smith:

Yeah. I want to get into the book in a minute and actually, I want to ask you a question that I, that I withdrew from the book, but, you know, you talked about be careful what you wish for, and you talked about the time that's needed to actually lead it at the CEO level. And, y ou said at some point in the book, a t some point in your career, you a sked yourself two questions that I thought were so revealing. You said, it seems like the harder I work in the higher I'm promoted, the worst life gets. Is there any hope of balancing my career goals with family goals? And then you went on to say that my self esteem is tied up in the performance of the companies I run. Do I really want my emotional highs and lows to be based on quarterly profit reports? And I guess when it comes to leadership, you know, we have a lot of young leaders who do aspire, even if it's not a C EO r ole, they want to go as far as they can. And in your experience, is it possible to go to go that route and keep your family? Is that actually a possible thing? Or what would you d o?

Joel Manby:

It absolutely is. And when I asked myself those questions that you quoted, it was really part of my journey that I didn't mention earlier. The first 20 years of my career, Doug, I was very disenchanted. I was working in the auto industry. I was a believer, I had my faith, but I didn't see it able to be played out in the workplace. And I always had this disenchantment or what I'd call almost a cognitive dissonance. And it wasn't until I went to Hershey entertainment, switched careers from autos to theme parks and worked with a Hirschman's that I saw that leading would love was possible in a business. And by the way, it, it, it had tremendous results from business standpoint. And I learned that when top leaders and owners feel that way, they also support your family and they support your family time. And there was just a very strong family oriented culture there that was driven by the senior leader. So yes, it's possible. And I would even argue that, you know, a exhausted leader is not a great leader, a leader who has problems at home problems with their kids. They all that all distracts from being a great leader. So it absolutely is possible, but I will say for 20 years of my career, I didn't think it was possible. And that's part of the reason that I did, uh, write the book as part of the reason that under cover boss, I think, caught on with so many people and resonate with so many people that a lot of people feel that disenchantment and that anger, that dissonance that I talked about.

Doug Smith:

Yeah. So let's talk to the leader. So that, that's why you wrote this book. And the first version came out in 2012 and it blew up and I read it. It was extremely impactful. And I think for the first time, a lot, a lot of leaders did realize I can lead with love. And you just came out with a new edition, with two additional chapters where you talk about some raw things in your leadership in life that I think add a lot of value to people. And I'm just curious, you know, talk about the book from an 80,000 foot view, and then we'll dive in, but why, why did you write the book and what impact has it had on the leaders that have read it?

Joel Manby:

It's a great question, Doug, at a high level, it started with that dissonance. You know, that I, I had it. And then I finally didn't because the Hirshhorn's modeled it for me, but what really triggered the book is when I was on undercover boss, I thought that I might've been the only one feeling that way, the only closet Christian in the secular world who didn't feel I could lead it lead the way I, I loved and felt well when undercover boss happened, 20 million people saw the program. And I literally have books, books, and books filled notebooks filled with notes and letters and cards from people saying they had the same feeling. I did the same desire to see stronger leaders who cared about them. So then that caused me to write love, works, and then was able to speak on it and help probably, I don't know, 50, some companies implement the same kind of culture. So it all really started from, from undercover boss and then writing the book.

Doug Smith:

Yeah. And can you talk about what loving people actually looks like you've trained essentially leaders to love each other? What does that look like in a tactical level, from a company standpoint?

Joel Manby:

Well, uh, it's, it's not easy to implement. It's easy to understand. And because most companies, 90 of the companies out there, Doug, they have their values listed on a chart, on a wall, on a plaque. And I call it and Cheryl bachelor as well says, there's a plaque problem out there because people don't ask it. So the important thing that's in the book, that's not intuitively obvious is there has to be processes behind it. You have to define the words, whatever they are. They don't have to be the words of love. That's what was in our book. And it's all about it's taken from Ephesians of 1 Corinthian, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians 13 and the verse on love, but you have to define it. Then you measure it top down, bottom up surveys. You talk about the values and we even put paid plans that reinforce it. Um, you got, you got a better raise if you adhere to the values, as well as hitting your more tactical numbers. What I call, do goals versus beagles. And we can talk about that later if you want, but it's, it's, that is so important. And that's where only 10% of the companies are trying to have culture change or even a home. If you're trying to have a culture change in your home, if you're leading anything, the only way that's going to happen is with these processes, put in place to kind of put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

Doug Smith:

So if someone's listening to this, whether they're an employee or employer and saying, this is the exact opposite of, of the company that I'm currently working for currently leading, would you encourage them to be like, Hey, if it doesn't already exist, it's going to be too much. If you're a leader it's too much of an uphill battle, just go find a culture and same thing with employee. Like, would your, I guess, would your encouragement be to go find a company that lives and leads their people through love or try to change the culture that they're in that may be toxic?

Joel Manby:

That is a great question. And I, the answer is very first of all, even if you're, if you're in a supportive environment with the right leaders, the right owners, and you're trying to change a culture as part of the team is going to take three years. So first of all, be patient and the results that the Herschend or SeaWorld received from, from leading with love. When we went into turnaround situations, it did take three years and we can go into that more. Um, however, if you're part of an organization and the senior leaders, the owners just don't believe in it and don't back you on it. My honest answer is to go elsewhere and I didn't use to say that, but that's what happened to me at SeaWorld. Um, you know, I went in with a plan and the board supported it and we were making great progress. In all regards. It was a very, very difficult turnaround, but a new board member came in who got control of the company. And he didn't, he didn't agree with that part. He just wanted the numbers only, and he wanted them fast. And so he didn't want to wait anymore. And so we got into a, I waited too long to leave and I didn't leave on my own accord. It was a mutual decision and I don't want to paint an incorrect picture, but I tried too long and I got much gray hair and, um, too much stress. And so even though every person can play a big part in the culture, I would also say life's too short. And I learned that when I was 40, I would have said, stay and make, make a difference wherever you are. But if it's toxic or if it's completely dysfunctional and you're not getting your best delivered, I would, I would seriously think about moving to a different spot when, when the timing's right.

Doug Smith:

And you mentioned that in a good culture, it would still take three years. It's interesting. You use that exact, that's very precise. Talk more about that in, and I'm just curious why three years?

Joel Manby:

Well, if it's already a good culture, it'll be less time, but I'll just give it a good example. Cause it's easier to understand a store, right? Um, we went in first of all, high level, this is an interesting stat. Gallup has measured for 50 years, employee engagement at, at most companies, many companies, the average engagement score on the top score on the survey is only 30%. So only 30% of workers feel they're totally engaged in the work, which is a horrible figure. It's been pretty consistent for 50 years when Hirschman would go in and buy a property. And it was sometimes as low as 18% top box or not 30, we consistently took that number to above 70% engagement at every property. And that's, world-class, that's like Marriott, Apple they're in those kinds of ranges. And what we did is basically exactly what I said earlier. We would go in and they would be taught the values. We'd measure them. We talk about them. We had to make changes. Leaders had to go, but, but we put our money where our mouth is and if they were delivering the numbers, but doing it in a way that was driving low engagement and high turnover, those people would end up bleeding. And that's why it takes long. As it always comes down to leadership, a good leader, a bad leader, and it takes some time to weed through that, right? You can't replace everybody at one time. You don't have time to do that. So that's really why it took the time to kind of transition to the right leadership team.

Doug Smith:

So if I'm reading between the lines most more often than not, it's really just getting the wrong people. The people that shouldn't be in your company out of the company, and that takes time, is that, is that pretty consistently just, Hey, there's people that are toxic to the culture, they bring it down. And if they're as long as they're in the organization, no matter what you do, that level of engagement for everyone else is never going to be able to rise. Like, is that pretty consistent with your experience?

Joel Manby:

That is pretty consistent, you know, I'm, I'm painting it maybe more black and white than it always is because there's other things, right. It takes time to put the processes in place and that takes time. It takes time to people to understand what do those seven words of love mean? But to give you an example, l ike one of the words is patients, we would have three or four values behaviors of what patients really m eant. So it means admonishing and private a nd, and, and praising in public, it means being very specific with your praise etc.. It takes time to learn that, right? So yes, the wrong leaders, the easy one answer, but I would also say it's time to train and put the processes in place.

Doug Smith:

Yeah. I want you to talk about admonishment and maybe even firing people because you know, people here love works and it's like, Oh, that sounds really like cushy. Like you must just treat everyone fairly and nicely and no one ever gets fired or in trouble. I don't think that's the kind of love you're talking about. Can you just talk about how you viewed admonishment and even how you executed that in the companies that had such a high, highly engaged culture?

Joel Manby:

Well, you you've hit two really important points that I want to make. If you don't mind Doug, the first, I'm glad you brought it up. Most people misunderstand, leading with love. Most people even I did, when I first heard about it, it does feel soft. And therefore we think, well, I don't want to be that kind of a soft leader, or that's just for a bunch of Christians or a Christian organization. That's the farthest thing from the truth. I've led both ways. I've led in the General Motors world for 20 years. That was strictly what I would call the Do goals. And that's just hitting your numbers, hitting the sales, the margin, the profit, but the Be Goals, that's the seven words of love. And what kind of leader do we want to be leading that way? And holding people accountable is difficult and it's hard to, you have to have difficult conversations. The other reason people misunderstand it and they think it's soft is, um, you know, we only have one English word for love. And you said, you read the book a while back. So sorry for the repeat. But you know, in the Greek language, there are four different words for love. It's a very complicated word. And most Americans think of love as eros, the erotic, wherever the word erotic comes from, it's an emotion. That's not what we're talking about at all. The, the word is agape is a Greek word and it means behavior is unconditional. You just love somebody. Don't matter how they treat you. You forgive them, you treat them with trust and respect and dignity, and that's what ends up having great, great results. So that that's very important that people misunderstand that. And I wanted to spend a few moments on that for your listeners. It's not soft. Love is tough. Love if you want to put it that way. As far as admonishment. Um, I did say a couple of important points. You'll praise in public and admonish and private, but I think more specifically, um, when we admonish what I have learned the hard way by doing it incorrect a lot in the early part of my career is first of all, the brief in the admonishment, the very specific, the biggest mistake I see other leaders make is they generalize people. They put them into a category, as opposed to in this situation you made this specific mistake. And then the third point I'd say is build them back up with some, some heavy praise and then put them right back into the situation again, right back on the horse in the, in the movie, Gettysburg, I love that scene. It's an old movie, but when general Lee admonishes, Jeb Stewart, and he does it very specifically, he reinforces them. And the next day he's leading in battle again. And I thought it was a perfect example of how we should image people. But I would say it's probably one of the weakest things that most leaders have in their repertoire is the ability to confront people, tell them the truth about the situation, but that's leading with love. If we're not doing that, we're not being a loving leader. That's what, that's what I would say.

Doug Smith:

And to follow up on that, I'm just curious, you know, once you admonish someone, if someone's not working out, clearly you talked about getting rid of people who are toxic to the culture. How long would you, will you give someone generally before? It's just like, Hey, this isn't working. You've got to go. Is it, you know, do you let them go for three years or three days?

Joel Manby:

Yeah. That's the tough question. And I there's, no, there's no rule of thumb, honestly, in my experience of doing it way more than I ever wanted to, if it's a character issue, i t, it happens very quickly. If it's a competence issue, it happens pretty quickly. C ause you figure it out, the chemistry p art's harder, you know, it's just not working for some other reason. But one thing I would say to all leaders is always do it in a way that you would want it done to you, you know, do unto others as you would have it done o n t o you. So you need to be able to look. We all need to be able to look in the mirror the next morning after it happens and say, I feel I did everything I could, the person wasn't surprised they had been talked to about the issue. Hopefully it had been documented. They were given an opportunity to succeed and it just didn't happen. Whether it's the Do Goals or the Be Goals, neither one of them were, one of them was not being hit. And u m, but trust me, that comes from doing it the wrong way for one t oo many times before I learned a lot about the right way.

Doug Smith:

You made a statement in the book and actually I don't, I I've heard Andy Stanley say this, so I don't know if it originated with you or him or vice versa, but I love this. I use this all the time, but I would love to hear you expand expound on it. The whole statement of some things aren't necessarily problems to be solved. There are tensions to be managed. Can you just talk about that?

Joel Manby:

I don't know who originated it, Andy. Yeah.

Doug Smith:

For today, we'll give you credit. So Andy Stanley stole that from Joel Manby for everyone listening.

Joel Manby:

Well, I think one thing I stole from you, for sure, we, for one, what you wish you could do for everyone. And you know, I think so many times that this is true, Doug, isn't it in a life that for some reason we feel like tension's a bad thing and we feel like life should go smoothly when really there is no example of that. Certainly not in the Bible. I mean, look at what happened to the leaders in the Bible that just even if they were believers in God or Christ, they were followers of Christ their lives didn't go well. And so we have to manage that tension and just understand that it's going to happen. And I think the way you manage it is really truthful communication and it's trustworthy communication. So we have to be trusting in how we delegate to people. And I would say those are the two biggest, important things.

Doug Smith:

It's very clear through our conversation that you're a person of faith and you're a Christian and I'm just getting, you know, the books even based on 1st Corinthians. Right? And so I'm just curious and a lot, and a lot of times in corporate, it's like, Hey, you have to leave your faith at the door. Don't bring that in here. I'm just curious. Has that been your experience and how have you lived out your faith in the corporate sector

Joel Manby:

To some degree, it has been the case. You certainly can't proselytize and this is a, this is you've hit on something really important. This is why I'm so passionate about love works as a concept. Doug is because if we think of being Christian as the great commission that we have to basically minister other people by converting them or getting them to believe in God, you know, only the stats say only 2% of Christians actively evangelize. So that clearly isn't going to hit the spot for most people. But when you think of the number one commandment of loving other people, and that still gets good results, that's something all of us can do in any environment. And we don't have to talk about our Christianity. We have to live it out. And that just means following those words of love, in my opinion. And when I shifted my mindset in those first 20 years, I kind of was thinking, A, it's not possible. And B, it's all about sharing my faith with people when I converted to, I am sharing my faith by loving them. And then the faith questions come out of that. And they often do. Then my whole perspective on that question changed, I would just really encourage the young leaders to, to think more about the Be goals, which are the words of love and less about the Do goals. I, I feel like that's really where true contentment comes from and when I have failed and failed and on the character side, it had devastating ramifications and it, it sticks with you forever. And, and so I would just encourage people to look at the Be Goals as the definition of success. And I think that will help eliminate that aspect of being in the secular world, because we need Christians in all areas of life that God knows that. And, um, so that's the best answer I can give there.

Doug Smith:

You were in the entertainment industry for a long time and, obviously it's all about the guest experience. Talk to us about creating great guest experiences. What have you learned? Well, it's, I

Joel Manby:

Mentioned it earlier, but I have to repeat the phrase because it's so key when you're in any kind of entertainment or frontline business like that, anything that has guest experience, the level of enthusiasm of the, of the guest never rises higher than the enthusiasm of your own employee. And when Jack told me that it was like bells went off everywhere. I actually never quite saw it that way in the auto industry, the frontline was especially at dealership level was treated so poorly. So it all went, it kind of reversed the org chart that the front lines, the most important they need to be supported. They need to be loved. And that is absolutely key in making a great guest experience that's worth repeating. I know it sounds simple, but I am shocked by how many companies I go into or consult, whether I'm on the board of that, they don't start with what's happening at the front line. They don't start with what their customers are going through. It's always much more theoretical and financially driven and that's always shocked me. So it's an important point.

Doug Smith:

Tell me about Thank you Notes and leadership.

Joel Manby:

No, that's one of the great things I learned from Jack is he, he writes notes all the time. He, I still get them, even though I left and went to see where we remain, good friends, I still get notes from Jack. And it's a, it's a lost art today, right? Because of email and texting. And I know I sound really old school in saying this, but I would encourage everyone on this phone to break through the clutter and start writing handwritten notes of things to people. It will be a gem for them. They'll keep it forever. My kids still have every note. I wrote them because they told me in there in the boxes. But the thing that people don't understand, how it's intuitive to see what it'll do to another person, right. It'll encourage them. And none of us get enough encouragement. But if you start the day thinking of yesterday and writing down what happened and thanking people for things you saw yesterday, it puts you in a good frame of mind, puts you in a mine of positivity and you enter the day that way versus what do we usually do? We pick up the phone, texts, emails, things, pressures, start to hit us. I just think it's a great way to start your day in a more positive fashion.

Doug Smith:

Can you talk about, I'm just curious your view on leadership versus management. I had an executive tell me once to like m id management is the path to leadership. Like you have to go through management. I'm just curious are the two different. And what would your advice be to young leaders on, on getting, yeah, I just w ant t o hear you talk about it.

Joel Manby:

Well, it's, there's a lot that's been written on that. I actually think they are very different things. Leadership to me, you have to take the responsibility of the vision and where the company or the organization or your family is headed. I think management is more making sure you're hitting the day to day numbers, but leadership has the trajectory of five to 10 years out. And that, that is how I look at it at differently. Um, many people are managers, but I think leaders, um, are fewer and farther in between. I do think it can be taught, but I also think a lot of it is, is to kind of genetic or at least you see it early in life, right? I mean, leaders usually are also captains of their sports teams or they led the, the class government at their school. So I think there is a difference, but it's more that vision looking forward. That's the differentiator

Doug Smith:

He talks about leading your family. And we've talked about it earlier in the podcast of asking this question, can I keep my family and still, you know, be in an executive role? What have you learned about leading your family wealth throughout the 25 years you were at an executive?

Joel Manby:

Well, um, I've learned there's two distinct answers to that and it says also, Oh, I was gonna talk about my quiet time because it's interrelated, but when I've been on my game and I've been proud of who I am, meaning I'm honoring God. And, um, I start with the quiet and I, and I start with looking at those seven words of love and that's defining who I want to be throughout the day. And when I'm doing that, I definitely put my family in the right priority. I don't make some mistakes, but when I got, when I'm off my game and I got into some really difficult situations, what I write about in the book about SeaWorld is, um, just the tense and intensity is so high and the demands on time are so great that then I would stop the quiet times. I would get away from focusing on Be goals, focusing too much on do and, and what success might look like and afraid of failure and all the feelings we go through. That's when I get off my game, that's when I get out of balance, that's when I've made the mistakes and I would just encourage people. You don't have to live out of balance like that, but the routine that keeps you in balance, like for me, it was my quiet time. Just find a way to stay on top of that. Um, and I also had an accountability group that I would go to a certain issues and that helped a lot as well to be truthful. But when I've made my mistakes is when I wasn't truthful to all people

Doug Smith:

Question that I always like to ask leaders, especially that have been in an executive role before. I just want to hear you talk about what you've learned about money throughout your career. I believe if I read correctly, like your, your family growing up did not have a lot of money. And so, um, you're kind of a first generation executive and having the roles you have, that's correct. But talk to us about what you've learned about money.

Joel Manby:

I've learned that it's not as important as we think it is. I drove way too much to have money because did grow up poor. I've asked myself this question a hundred thousand times, I made so many decisions of where to work or whether to go to another opportunity just because it was more money because every fight, every argument in my household growing up was about money. And so I was so bent on not living in my dad's footsteps of not being able to provide enough that causes tension. And so I having looked back, I made too many decisions based on that. And yeah, you could say it's easy for some people could say, it's easy for me to say because I've been CEO for a long time. So obviously I've built some net worth. I would say, though, in the end of the day, um, it has nothing to do with happiness. It has everything to do with, um, going after the wrong thing. It is the root of all evil. If you look at it, I don't think money in itself is evil, but if it becomes your focus, it could become evil in a hurry. And, um, that's, that's the best I can say on it.

Doug Smith:

So as you reflect on that, I'm just curious. Would you do anything differently if you could start you over your career over today?

Joel Manby:

No. Interestingly enough, I'd still say no, probably not. Except, I might've stayed a S aab longer. I think I ran from Saab because I was, my wife was putting up the red flag of,"Hey, you're not home enough, you're traveling 80% of the time". And I think I s hould h ave worked harder to make that work, but that wasn't, that really wasn't a monetary issue. I t was more just, I was too rash and too rushed and leading sob to go someplace else to fix a problem that maybe I c ould h ave fixed if I c ould w orked harder within the company,

Doug Smith:

But I want to start to transition to the lightning round. But before we do, is there anything else you want to tell leaders about the revision of the book or anything about what we've been talking about?

Joel Manby:

I think just that if, if they, any of them feel that anxious that I talked about or they desire to lead in a different way, I think it would be a fun, fun read for them. Um, all the royalties go to help a nonprofit, which, uh, either helps employees in need or orange, which is the ministry I talked about and just would appreciate any support on it. But, uh, I encourage them cause it's certainly turned my life around

Doug Smith:

And we'll include links to all of that in the show notes. So with that being said, let's dive right into the lightning round. Again, just a bunch of fun questions that I love asking all leaders. And the first one is what is the best advice you've ever received and who gave it to you?

Joel Manby:

Well, it was really was Jack Hirschman on the difference between do goals and be goals, but it was also my mother when she, she told me that every time I come into contact with somebody, I have a chance to make their day better or worse. And she trained me to make people's day better. And it's just served me really well in my whole life. Why leave people feeling down, leave, leave them feeling up if possible.

Doug Smith:

If you could have put a quote on a billboard for everyone read, what would it say?

Joel Manby:

It would say love others.

Doug Smith:

What's the best purchase you've made in the last year for a hundred dollars or less?

Joel Manby:

Oh, geez. Um, actually it's going to suck but it was just buying one of these lights for all these zoom calls so that I, because I'm in my basement and it was so dark, I could never see, but they're a great invention. They're a great invention. It's not a very good answer.

Doug Smith:

Do you have a book that you give away most often, or that has impacted you the most deeply,

Joel Manby:

Other than love works? You mean other than love works? That was, that was bad. Um, no, that's great.

Doug Smith:

They'll buy it. Everyone go buy it.

Joel Manby:

Yeah. It's uh, certainly the Bible from a book I've actually given the most away, but as far as the leadership book, I would say, um, anything from Jim Collins, especially one that's not as popular called how the mighty fall is a short read. And it basically says companies die more from indigestion than from a kind of lack of ideas from starvation. And it's just a really good read for leaders who are trying to do too much.

Doug Smith:

If you listen to podcasts, do you have one or two go-tos?

Joel Manby:

No. I do listen to Andy. We joked about handy and, uh, I listened to Bernay Brown and I think she's fantastic. And also a guy named Les McKeown. Um, I don't know if you've heard of him, but he's really good on stages of the companies and dealing with visionaries and that kind of thing. So he's, he's really a unique,

Doug Smith:

What are you dreaming about right now? And what risks are you taking?

Joel Manby:

I am o n a pure entrepreneur now, and then I started Joelmanby. com y ou k now, had to invest o n the website. Like you had to do all that years ago and I'm doing some speaking and writing and so paying people to help build out that network. And so I'm taking that risk and paying people. I don't have cashflow from it yet other than, y ou k now, book sales. And I find it really, really fun. It's not something I have to do, but I really love it. And I love engaging with people. So I'm trying to build t hat out and we'll see, we'll see where it goes.

Doug Smith:

Do you have a favorite failure in your life that led to a success in the long run?

Joel Manby:

You mean my own personal failure or other people's?

Doug Smith:

Yeah. Yours. We can go the other one if you want to.

Joel Manby:

I was actually thinking about 3M, how the failure of this glue ended up getting put on Stickam notes and ended up being huge profitable product. But from that personally, um, I haven't talked about it, but my, my biggest failure that turned to success was really SeaWorld. Um, you know, it, a few months after I left the numbers had gone through the roof because they became public. And thank goodness I was able to get out with, with, with myself either physically and emotionally, because look, what's happened now with the coronavirus, you know, that all those companies are on the brink of bankruptcy or are they even going to survive. And so at the time it seemed really difficult, but now it was a blessing and they, and you know, the numbers did turn for awhile, but now with Corona, nothing's going very well.

Doug Smith:

You get to spend time with a lot of high level leaders. And I'm just curious, do you have one or two Go to questions that you always ask when you get a meeting with someone,

Joel Manby:

You know, honestly, your questions are fantastic. I'm going to take your list, cause they are really, really good questions, but I, I think, u h, if I had t o a nswer t he one, it would be, what did you learn from failure? So many things are given on a nd f ocused on success. And I think my biggest learnings were from f ailures. That's w hy I l iked the question you just a sked. And that's what I think every leader needs to know is we're all we all f ail e very d ay. We just have to learn from and keep moving forward.

Doug Smith:

What is your biggest leadership pet peeve?

Joel Manby:

You know, it is, it is lack of clarity and most people don't give it like they think they get it and me included. Right. And the second would be lack of truthfulness. I think every mistake I've made is when I haven't been truthful with someone or myself and that's, that's my biggest pet peeve. Uh, especially entrepreneurs have a hard time letting go of things and they need to be clear what the decision making is and who's doing what, and that helps a lot.

Doug Smith:

Aside from your family, when you were an executive, what's the greatest investment of your time, I'm just curious or money. Where, where did you spend your time that gave you the biggest ROI?

Joel Manby:

Yeah, within my leadership piece, as far as making me distinct from other leaders I've seen and observed and watch it is the time I spent focusing on the people's side, focusing on making sure they felt included. They felt part of the team. They knew where we were headed and to sometimes to my detriment and, and yet that's where I would invest. So if you want to say it was investing in leading with love or the love works principles, that's really where I over-invested versus other leaders that I've seen. And I'm not saying they're wrong and I'm right. I'm just saying for me, it worked out fine.

Doug Smith:

Do you have any unusual habits and enabled you to be successful throughout your career?

Joel Manby:

I do tend to have really odd hours. Like my most creative time Doug is when I'm kind of 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM.

Doug Smith:

Well, yeah. Will is shaking his head. What was that? Yeah, I'm in bed for like three hours at 11:00 PM.

Joel Manby:

Yeah. And, uh, but that that's, I'm never been a morning person. I hate mornings. I don't, I don't start meeting still at 10 usually because I'm just not on my game yet. So that's unusual. And I, and I think, like I said earlier, the ability to see the future and understand how things are going to go poorly and anticipate that is a pretty good skill set that's that's served me well

Doug Smith:

And ask him for what my next question is. Do you have a morning routine, but it doesn't sound like it.

Joel Manby:

But true. But honestly that, that, that quiet time point is, I know it's sounds cliche, but as a 60 year old, who older than most of the people on your podcast, I'm sure if I had to go back and do anything differently, it would be never varying from that and never bearing from those seven words of love. And when I did, I've gotten in trouble and it's hurt me. And now I write about that. I don't want to go into a long story, but I don't want to overstress that. I can't overstress that.

Doug Smith:

Do you have anything that you've crossed off your bucket list or an experience that you believe everyone needs to experience in their life?

Joel Manby:

You know, for me, it's just me. Right? But going to Italy and driving a Vesper between villages, when they have like for 10 year olds, you get a free glass, you get a glass, you can just go to these different vineyards and taste their wines. And it's so romantic and wonderful. I think Italy is the best country, uh, from a bucket list standpoint. But, um, I still, I have a few bucket list items I haven't done, which is, I still want to write a song. That's not a parody. I need to write my own song. And I literally want to perform it live somewhere like playing a piano bar. I play the piano and I've just never my brothers and I had a band and we played small band concerts or, you know, like dances, but I really want to get in a real legitimate place and draw a paycheck doing that once before I get fired from it,

Doug Smith:

Or until your legitimate, we were talking before we got on this interview, tell people about the video you just made during COVID and we'll provide a link. So people have context.

Joel Manby:

Yeah. If they go to YouTube, um, there's a video that I did a Johnny Cash impersonation and did his song, Folsom Prison would call the COVID prison. And it's a parody on this craziness. We're all living through, um, um, uh, the code virus. So if people want to laugh, it's only three minutes, go to YouTube and look, I think that's under my name or under a Covid or under Johnny Cash. Hopefully they find it. I'll get you the link and we'll make sure it's there.

Doug Smith:

Well, we'll find it. We'll find it. If you could go back with and meet with 20 year old, Joel. What would you tell them?

Joel Manby:

I would tell them almost get emotional on that one. I would tell t hem not to worry so much, not to be so stressed and full of anxiety, which people look at my success sometimes. I think, you know, it's a, there's still a lot of mistakes, a lot of worrying, a lot of long nights that I probably in the big picture just didn't need to happen because none of it really matters in the end of the day, the closer you get to the end of your life, you know, kind of the fall of your life, the more you realize it's it is the Be goals. You know, it's the character part that you can't get back. If you'll lose it with a friend or a relationship, or whereas the business stuff just comes and goes, it's all dust i n the end of the day. It really is. And I know that sounds harsh, but I'm focused on the beagle. And I love the fact that you have your bride behind you as a picture. I mean, I didn't, I didn't have enough of that in my life. So that's what I would say.

Doug Smith:

And you talked about, you know, at the end of the day, at the end of your life, what matters, I'm just curious, what do you want to be remembered for at the end of yours?

Joel Manby:

Well, the good news is there's well, I want to be known for the quality of my character, which I have some work to do with some people because of mistakes I've made. I want to be known for the quality of my work. And I want to be known for the quality of my friendships and the, the, the, the thing I would say to encourage people is when you make a mistake, you can't fix it, but all you can do is fix it. Moving forward. All you can do is learn from it and change going forward. And everyone on this call listening, including you probably will make mistakes and we'll make mistakes that we wish we had never done. You can spend unnecessary time groveling in the pit of despair, which I did for about five years, or you can move forward and focus on who you can be moving forward. And that's the biggest encourage that I make to people who may be in a tough spot right now, or maybe I've made mistakes. If they're having a hard time overcoming, you have to forgive yourself first before you can expect anybody else to forgive you. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Doug Smith:

Well, Joel, this has been very, very rich. And is there anything else you want to leave leaders with today?

Joel Manby:

I want to encourage you, Doug. I think, you know, the fact that you're a young leader and I look at your program, I love the L3 structure and how you do it and just keep doing what you're doing because you guys are the next generation that has to take this world in a much more positive direction than we have been going. It seems like we have a little bit of work to do a little, do a little bit of work, but you know what it's going to get better. It's going to get better. So I appreciate what you do and just want to encourage you.

Doug Smith:

Thanks, Joel. This has been phenomenal. So hopefully we'll get to do it again someday. I'd like to thank our sponsor Henny jewelers. They're jeweler owned by my friend and mentor John Henney, my wife, Laura and I both got our engagement and our wedding rings at Henny jewelers. And we absolutely love them. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, they give every engaged couple of books to help them prepare for their marriage. And we just love that. And so if you're in need of a good check out Hennyjewelers@hennyjewelers.com, I'd also like to thank our sponsor. Babb, inc. Babb is an insurance broker, a third party administrator and consulting firm led by my friend and mentor Russell Livingston Russell was extremely passionate about developing the next generation of leaders, which is why he's partnering with us on this podcast. And he's also opened up his office is here in Pittsburgh to host our monthly leadership events. And we're extremely grateful for that. The nonprofit that I work at light of life rescue mission started using Bob as our insurance broker around three years ago. And we've had an unbelievable experience with them and we highly recommend them. So if you or your organization has any insurance needs, please check out and learn more about babbins.com. Well, Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to our interview with Joel Manby. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. You can find links on ways to connect with Joel and everything we discussed in the show notes at l3leadership.org/260 as always, if this podcast added value to your life, it would mean the world to us. If you would share it on social media and let us know what you're taking away from the episodes, and also leave a rating and review on iTunes, it really does help us grow our audience organically. So thank you in advance for that. And as always, I like to end every episode with a quote and today I will quote John Maxwell and he said this, he said"the function of leadership isn't to gather more followers it's to produce more leaders. So leader are you producing followers are leaders. If you're not focused on developing leaders, what are you doing? Get out there and start developing leaders". Thank you so much for allowing Laura and I to come into your life. We appreciate you so much, and we will talk to you next episode.

Speaker 3:

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