Overcoming fear in business leadership, with Joe Hart, Dale Carnegie

Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talked with Joe Hart, president and CEO, Dale Carnegie and Associates Inc. In this interview, Hart talks about the Dale Carnegie course program, leadership, overcoming fear in business, and resolving conflicts.

Since 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has helped millions of people and businesses around the world improve their performance. In over eighty countries and in more than thirty languages, the company applies Dale Carnegie’s founding principles to inspire individual and organizational transformation, excellence, and success by tapping into each person’s potential.

Hart is also the co-author of the just-released book "Take Command: Find Your Inner Strength, Build Enduring Relationships, and Live the Life You Want " co-authored by Michael Crom, the grandson of Dale Carnegie. Take Command offers powerful tools and time-tested methods to help you live an intentional life by transforming how you approach your thoughts, emotions, relationships, and future.

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Transcript

Erin Manning  0:02  
Welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau. The Dead Pixels Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing and IP Labs.

Gary Pageau  0:18  
Hello again, and welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Joe Hart, the President and CEO of the Dale Carnegie organization. Hi, Joe. How are you today?

Joe Hart  0:29  
Terrific, Gary, good to see you.

Gary Pageau  0:31  
So most people have heard the phrase Dale Carnegie or heard of Dale Carnegie training or something, but most people don't understand it's probably the longest-running personal improvement training program in existence. Can you talk a little bit about the history and why it's still applicable today?

Joe Hart  0:51  
Yeah, it's pretty incredible. When you think about, you know, today in the different companies that are in the space. To my knowledge, I think, to our knowledge, Dale Carnegie was the very first or a company was founded 100 111 years ago, this this this year, by Dale Carnegie. And I mean, he was an incredible innovator. He understood people he understood, you know, human relations, and he wrote the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which has been a best-selling book for 87 years. So really, almost even to your question about, you know, relevance, you'd have to ask us why what is it about a book, any book that would make it a best seller for 87 consecutive years? Why is it a bestseller today? And it's because Dale Carnegie really understood and outlined in how to win friends, you know, how to build enduring relationships, how to connect with people how to deal with difficult people, how do you build trust, I mean, a lot of the things that we think about in terms of just foundational, even in leadership, or relationships, and so forth, he outlined those things, and those things are truly applicable today. So today, we have 200 operations as a company in 86 countries. We deliver training and 32 languages, we offer our Dale Carnegie course, which is the course that he had designed and innovated on presentations, programs, leadership, sales, a whole range of things, and we work with large companies, small companies, individuals, really anyone who's looking to improve or enhance their their performance.

Gary Pageau  2:17  
One of the appealing things about the Dale Carnegie course is it's also very local in the sense,  there are local teachers in a community who are offering the course it's not someone who is going to be you know, parachuting in to do a course in a Holiday Inn somewhere, something who's actually in the community.

Joe Hart  2:35  
That's exactly right. In fact, it's one of the huge competitive advantages, I think we have a global franchise network so so if you're in Lansing, Michigan, or if you're in New York, or if you're wherever you are in the country of the world, you've got someone who knows the community is active in the community speaks the language knows everything about, you know, what's happening, and really is able to connect, and also to network and to connect people who take our programs to others in the community and that type of thing. So it's not let you know, some of these people, other companies, you might say, Oh, can you do training and such and such? Oh, yeah, we'll send someone out there. Okay, that's fine. But it's, it's an advantage to have someone who's local, who knows, you know, it might know your company, build a relationship, that type of thing.

Gary Pageau  3:23  
Amazing, a company, that teaches building relationships, actually building relationships, and how they work. It's crazy, crazy. So the Dale Carnegie program, like you said, has a lot of different facets to it, you can do the classic program, which I've been through. And then of course, there's sales and certain other programs. But part of that is kind of the aura of that I think is includes leadership. And that's something that your new book is about. Can you talk a little bit about leadership being so important in today's society?

Joe Hart  3:59  
Yeah, I actually leadership may be more important now than it ever has been. And part of the reason I say that is because we look everywhere we look, there's a crisis of leadership, you've got, you know, whether it's, you know, companies imploding, or government officials who are untruthful or whatever it is, you know, I mean, we've just got people who are in positions of leadership, we say, Are these people representing our values? Are they you know, standing for the things that we would want? Are they high integrity, you know, some people certainly amazing leaders, and at the same time, there's an opportunity for greater leadership. Dale Carnegie has been focused on leadership long before anyone else. And and this is something that we really teach in our Dale Carnegie programs. It's also something that we thought was really important to focus on and build on in art. You know, the new book that I co authored with my friend and colleague, Michael Crom, it's called Take command, and it's about taking command. How do you take command of your thoughts and your emotions? First of all, I mean, it's the first part of the leadership. I can't leave anybody if I can't leave my Self if I, you know, if I am stressed and worried and anxious and edgy, and I've got someone who reports to me or someone I'm working with, and I'm barking at them all the time, it's like, hold on a second before you you're even trying to lead someone else? How do you develop that inner strength so that you can become, you know, a more effective person at managing your emotions, being more courageous, being more resilient and self-confident and not being insecure whatnot. The second part, though, of this book is about taking command of your relationships. And if you're leading people, that that's all about relationships, how do I connect to people? How do I do people trust me? Do they do? Am I someone that they want to follow? Do I do the things that I say I say that I'm going to do? How do I deal with difficult people, whether I'm the difficult person or somebody else's? So and then the third part, which is a huge part of leadership is vision, you know, take command of your future. What's the vision you have for yourself? What are your values? What's your purpose? What are the, what's the impact you want to make? So in many ways, what we've tried to do is to build on Dale Carnegie's proven principles, principles that are 100 years old. And we've brought in just dozens and dozens of stories from people all over the world, who are experiencing success through following these principles. So the story is that the story really sells the principle, you're right

Gary Pageau  6:23  
in the center is a crisis and leadership, but seems to be the same, especially in the business world where there does seem to be a disconnect with people's personal character and their business character. Right. And that is something that, you know, the Dale Carnegie program kind of focuses on, if there's a disconnect there, your people are probably not likely going to follow you.

Joe Hart  6:46  
That's right. I mean, so often that disconnect can occur when we have blind spots, you know, depends. So I might, you know, we often see ourselves in a certain way we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, we do something we say, well, you know, Gary understood why I did that. He knows I'm a good guy or whatnot. But the way people judge us and evaluate us is based on what they see and what they hear and how we act and all these different things. How do you bridge that gap? How do I identify my blind spots? What are the things that I'm doing as a leader or not doing as a leader that undermine my ability to connect with other people? So that's certainly one of the things if you take a Dale Carnegie program we really focus on, on helping people discover some of those things on really bringing out their greatness so that they can connect with people. And that's also something we talked about pretty extensively in take command. 

Gary Pageau  7:34  
Is the book part of a course or is it a standalone publication that kind of builds on the classic Dale Carnegie book? 

Joe Hart  7:43  
Yeah, it's really more of the latter. Let me just give you maybe Gary would be helpful. Stephen, explain kind of where this came from. Because this was born, this book was born for me out of suffering, if you will, and what I mean is, it was March of 2020. And at that time, our business or Dale Carnegie business in January 2021, the earliest signs of COVID were hitting around the world. Our business was 95% in person face to face, if you went to the Dale Carnegie program, we might be coming to your company or might be going to a classroom, you know, but in January 2020, I was watching our China operation started to go into lockdown, and then all of Asia and Europe by the time March 2020, came even though I had been very steeped in a lot of the principles of Dale Carnegie, I still found myself just the humanity that we all have finding myself stressed, I was waking up I remember when one morning, three o'clock in the morning, waking up every day at three o'clock in the morning and just my thoughts were just go into the, you know, all the worst possible places. And I picked up Dale Carnegie's book, How to Stop Worrying and start living and most people have heard of how to win friends, but How to Stop Worrying and start living, also phenomenal book. And in that book, I'm flipping through the pages Gary and I see this chapter where Dale Carnegie someone asks him about the most valuable thing he'd ever learned. And he said, it's really about how you think, you know, if I know how you think I know how you are I know your life. I know who you are. And he quotes Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, someone who said, our lives are what our thoughts make. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, read 15, I'm sitting like, like a walk in closet off of my bedroom, because I just don't want to wake anyone up. And I start thinking about this. And all of a sudden, my thoughts start to shift. And I start to think about opportunity, and what do I need to do to lead more effectively, and that was a galvanizing moment for me. I worked with our franchisees and we're fortunate to have phenomenal franchisees all over the world. Dale Carnegie team members all over the world. And so we really flipped our entire business, and frankly, came out of COVID Stronger, more agile, more competitive, both Online in person, tremendous results from our online programs. So what we've been able to do is to go through that crisis and to come out it much, much stronger. But that all starts with people, whether it was me or our team members who are facing change and dealing with fear of what was happening with COVID. So the invitation really was and that's Michael and I were talking about all the struggles that people in the world were going through, we said, you know, what? How do we introduce Dale Carnegie's principles to people who maybe don't know them, maybe it's a younger audience, you know, with stories of younger people from all over the world who are applying these principles and seeing great results. So let's write this let's write take command. And that's really where it came from.

Gary Pageau  10:44  
At that time, there was so much uncertainty in the world. And that's where I think people, you know, kind of looking back. I mean, I think in some ways people have a short memory in the sense where they kind of forget the trauma and the uncertainty that was in that time that did create a lot of negative mindsets at the time. Did you get any pushback from people who were kind of wed to the traditional Dale Carnegie platform? Because a lot of the value of the Dale Carnegie class is the in class participation. And the, you know, fact you really have to go, you know, I mean, to get your certificate, you got to go to every class, what was the response from people when you said, Listen, we need to move some of this online? was the idea that you're going to try and find a way to increase the interactivity to reach that level of Dale Carnegie expectation? Or what was the thought process there? 

Joe Hart  11:39  
Yeah, it's a great question. Because you're right, we forget kind of what was happening in those days. Here's the thing, our programs, as you have experienced, and you said, highly, highly interactive. I mean, so these are not lectures, you're going to sit in a classroom. I mean, these are about, you know, discussion about breakthroughs, individual breakthroughs, it's about interacting with other people, it's about developing self-confidence and, and communicating more effectively. So, you know, for 100, and whatever was seven years, that had been all pretty much face to face. Now, we did have a unit that was doing virtual instructor-led training online very, very well. But it was a very small part of our business. So So in March 2020, in certainly in the United States, when we were talking to our franchisees, the first thought was, well, you know, this COVID thing, hopefully, it'll be gone. And we'll shut our classrooms down for a couple months. And we'll be back up up by June. And I remember thinking, you know, based upon what we were having a global view, I don't think so. I don't had I didn't have any ideas as long as it was, but it certainly, so we needed it, we need to retool. So it was a change management, even for people who are teaching change management going through the change, or it's sometimes it's like, you know, it's like, Doctor heal thyself. You know, I mean, so it was, it was hard, but I credit, you know, our franchise owners and our team members who said, you know, let's give it a shot. And so the question is one thing, one of the things we teach in Dale Carnegie, is not to ask, Can we do this? What can we do this implies? Well, no, we can, what you say is, in what ways can we write so in what ways can we take the most interactive, powerful in person longest enduring training program ever, and bring this online in a way that is as engaging as it possibly being and they did that. So the scores that we were getting from a customer standpoint, the net promoter scores and voice, the customer scores were just about as high as they were in person. And in fact, many of our clients today are still doing a lot of online training. They're doing it online versus in person, some, in many cases, their workforces are remote. So it doesn't make sense to bring people back in person in many cases, or it's hybrid, or whatnot. Or sometimes they'll have one division that's in person and one division. So we work with people around whatever they want, but that change management, all this. There's a great quote, that I love, and I think about often, which is that everything we want is on the other side of fear. Right? Everything you want is on the other side of fear, meaning that often I don't want to change often, I'm afraid of what something means. But if I don't confront it, if I don't face it, I'm not going to be able to get to the other side of what to get to those things that I want. So you're listening listeners, probably right now. There are probably people right now who are struggling with a change. There's probably something right now that they're afraid of they're say, should I should I take this chance or not? Should I seek this? This promotion should at whatever it is my encouragement that's why I think the goal for take command for this book, The goal offer a Dale Carnegie, Christopher Fidel took a Dale Carnegie course one major goal is to give people the inner strength so they can make the tough decisions that are important to them, they can have the courage to face that challenge. And, you know, for me, the Dale Carnegie values and principles in the course that I took a long time ago. It's powered me through quite a bit.

Gary Pageau  15:21  
Now in the photographic industry, a lot of the fear and change comes from a technology standpoint, things happening externally to the industry, right, there was, for example, the transition from film to digital, right, that was, you know, the traditional film industry didn't say, Wow, this is great if our primary engine of our business went away in the course of about seven or eight years, and we replace it with something where people don't necessarily have to print. Now today, there's this the the AI piece is coming into imaging, and a lot of people are very concerned about that. Right? What is going to happen to photography in general? So what's your advice to a business owner who has to take on this sort of external concern, where something maybe technology or business process or something has changed outside of their control, but they still have to run their business?

Joe Hart  16:16  
Yeah. So that's, that's very real. And some of the technology changes, certainly in the photography space are daunting, I'm sure. as we as we look at this, and it's incredible what some of this AI is able to do. The thing I would say is, and you know, the thing that powered me kind of got me through those early stages of COVID. When that I talked about that night in March 2020. There's a saying, you know, there's a principle in physics that every opposite every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Right? You know, so So what that must mean, then is for every crisis, and we know that the opposite of crisis is often this opportunity, where's the opportunity? So this is the chance then is, where is the opportunity for your business? Where is the opportunity for you personally, you know, and it might be to really think in a way that you've never thought before. And this is something else, just again, going back to this taking command of your emotions and your thoughts. If you are stuck in this quagmire of just negativity and fear and emotion and depression or being down or whatever, you're it's hard to think creatively, it's hard to think constructively. It's hard to see opportunities that can be right in front of us. So, you know, first, don't panic, you know, get excited about what might be possible. And even the best. One last thing here, I'll say, Gary, is that we've done a lot of global research as a Dale Carnegie, we've got, we do surveys all over the world and research and analytics. And one of the things that we've looked at is resilience. And people who are resilient, tend to be confident and optimistic. And that doesn't mean that they've got rose colored glasses or whatnot, they deny kind of the the challenges that but they have a belief system that says I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to make something happen. And what that belief system does is it leads to better results than if we are just stuck in the fear in cash, can I do this, I don't know, I don't know, maybe you can't, I can't, I can't do this. So we've got to be able to challenge those thoughts. So that we can unlock the ability to see opportunity where it exists.

Gary Pageau  18:35  
Now a business owner also has the double challenge of dealing with this fear, and becoming resilient, and then communicating that to the people they work with. Can you talk a little bit about that, because that's really something I think you talk about in the book a little bit about, you know, building relationships with not only your peers, but the people work for you.

Joe Hart  18:57  
100%. So, one thing that business owners and leaders may not always realize is the impact of their words, their emotions, their kind of presence on other people. You know, if the business owner if the leader is nervous, anxious, edgy, people see that they respond to it, that can be contagious. On the other hand, the business owner is the leader. I mean, you know, you gotta get results. And you can do that and be encouraging, you can do that and be supportive, you can do that and say, Look at Gary, you know, we've got a real challenge here. I'm not gonna I'm not going to kiss you about it. What do you think we can do? What are your ideas about how we get there? You know, what's one thing that we can do right now that would make a difference? So so the opportunity for the leader is to bring out the best in the other people with whom they're working, and to help get results that maybe you couldn't get by yourself. So that first depends upon number one, you know, I've got to I've got to be able to take myself And then I've got to be able to connect with the leader of the people and do it in a way that that brings out their best. And just one other point here, if I may, a person I admire one of the greatest leaders, I think living leaders is a man and animal ally. Allen was the former CEO of Ford, he was the CEO of Boeing, he's gonna be a dear friend and a mentor to me, I he is he has helped me learn a lot about leadership. And he came at Ford to Ford a time when it was just, it looked like it was clearly going to go bankrupt. And he turned the whole thing around. And he, and he did that, you know, by this process of getting people to work together and focusing on the culture of the organization, right? And saying, you know, we're gonna have values that respect each other, value each other that are working together, we're gonna create transparency. And so he changed the culture. And I was in India, at one point, talking about Alan Mulally and Dale Carnegie and leadership, and so on. So we know there are leaders who are very successful, who can be very difficult. Why can't you do that instead? And I, you know, my thought is, you know, there are people and Steve Jobs was an example that came up again, it was very difficult, it was brilliant. So people were able to maybe endured certain things. But if you can get phenomenal results, and bring out the best in people at the same time, why not do that, in fact, the opportunity for us as leaders to become better leaders, when we can handle our own emotions, and then work with other people effectively.

Gary Pageau  21:32  
And one could argue in the case of Apple, that Tim Cook has actually exceeded Jobs's results by taking more of a supportive approach with his top people in his, in his view, because almost like, you know, Tim Cook is probably considered probably the anti Steve Jobs when it comes to managing a workforce. Now, what's interesting about that is from what I understand, and Tim Cook's place, you know, he did not have a personnel background, he came up through supply chains, and accounting and business numbers. So this approach will work on basically anyone's business background. It's not just the people, people, not just the sales people, not just the marketing people, but it's actually everywhere in the business can use these skills.

Joe Hart  22:19  
100% Yeah, it's not like you'd say, the people, people, the salespeople, the marketing people, people who are outgoing or whatever the stereotypes of people in those spaces. Any one of us, it really comes down to So what are the values that we have as it relates to other people? And how consistent Am I in living those values? And do people see that? Do I demonstrate integrity and trustworthiness? And, you know, we follow the Dale Carnegie principles in Dale Carnegie's Golden Book, which I know you have, you know, but But do I appreciate people that I respect people? Do I listen to people, I value people that I think people you know, all those kinds of things that any person can do, you don't have to have a degree in friendliness. To do that, and but by the way, I think it's important to say to the to, you know, you look at Tim Cook, or you look at another person who has built a culture of Satya Nadella at Microsoft, same kind of thing. You know, you can, you can elevate people, you can bring the best out in them. And we also have to get results, right? So this is not this is not just a kind of a empathetic, soft form of leadership. You know, you look at Alan Mulally or Tim Cook or Satya Nadella. I mean, these are people who've gotten real results, but they've done it in a way that has empowered others instead of broken them down.

Gary Pageau  23:44  
And especially in the tech sector these days with the layoffs coming and things that are happening there, which, again, it's it's it's difficult right now in to manage abroad workforce like that. So managing conflict is actually one of the pieces of the book that you talk about. Now, I know I spend a lot of time on the difficult people piece, but there are times when you're just not going to connect. What can you do in those times?

Joe Hart  24:17  
Well, the first thing is, I'd say assume positive intent. A lot of times something happens, someone says something someone does something in our mind automatically goes to assuming that the person's intent isn't positive. Right? I've had plenty of times where I have made that assumption and it's been wrong. It because there could be misunderstanding, you know, and so the first thing I would always say is assume positive intent. The second thing is and have a conversation. Sometimes people are afraid to have a conversation I think you can have if you know how you can have a conversation with anyone you could say anything if you say it in the right way. You know, I might come to you and say, Gary, you know, you and I have been working together for X number of years. I really appreciate Did you know so many of the great things you're doing, I can ask you a question about something? You know, the other day you said this, or you sent this or you did this? I interpreted it as this. How did you mean it? You know, is that what you intended? Or how can you help me understand, you know, but you give the person a chance. Another thing is, so you assume positive intent and be willing to have the conversation. A third thing is to make sure you've got boundaries, you know, do you have boundaries, people will treat us often how we allow ourselves to be treated. And there's a great story in the book about Michael, who was working with someone who was just really the person was a hothead. And at one point, you know, Michael basically said, you know, I want to have this conversation with you, and I want to work with you. One of my boundaries is I will not be spoken to, you know, in in a disrespectful way. And when you raise your voice, I that means to me that that's disrespect. So if we're going to have this conversation, I'm going to ask you to please not raise your voice. If you do, then this conversation is going to be over. You know, and so having boundaries and communicating boundaries are another thing. And I think, you know, the last part though, and I, it's always important to bring this up around the concept of difficult people, you know, if there are there are toxic situations, there are people who violate our values, there are people who we should not be connected to at work or personally. And you know, if none of those other things are working, one of the solutions might be just to separate and to say, you know, what, I can't work here, or I can't work with this person, or I, whatever, you know, but certainly, if we're in any type of an environment, where there's any kind of emotional or other kind of abuse, that's like, you know, maybe it's just I need to be out.

Gary Pageau  26:47  
Well, the book is called Take command, find your inner strength building during relationships and live the life you want. Where can people go to get more information about the book and the Dale Carnegie program?

Joe Hart  26:59  
Thanks for asking Gary Dale carnegie.com is where you get, I mean, we've got tons of information, if people wanna take a program, if they want to download a white paper, if they want to listen to I've got a podcast, they can listen to podcast. The book, tick command.com is where it gets some information about the book. It's available pretty much anywhere books are sold Barnes and Noble Amazon Walmart books, a million. It's available in hardcover, in audible and also in Kindle electronically. Yeah, I hope people check it out. And I hope that they really has a huge impact in their lives. And I'd invite them please let me know. They can follow me or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter, which is @josephahart.

Gary Pageau  27:43  
Oh, thank you, Joe. Great to see you again. And best wishes for continued success with the Dale Carnegie program and the book.

Joe Hart  27:51  
Thanks, Gary, you too.

Erin Manning  27:54  
Thank you for listening to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.thedeadpixelssociety.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai