When you meet somebody you always have three questions.
One, who are you as a person?
Is this about you? Is this about I versus we?
Is this about me versus service?
The second question is, you're the leader.
Where are we going? Where are we going?
What's that strategy? What's the VPR?
What's the creating value roadmap?
Then you have the third question there, Shane.
Do you see me? Do you see me?
Welcome to the Knowledge Project.
I'm your host, Shane Parish.
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Today, I'm speaking with Alan Malali.
Alan has an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Kansas.
His accomplishments at both Boeing and Ford are legendary.
He took over Ford in 2006 when Ford was in a downward spiral.
The stock was $1 and the company was on pace to lose $17 billion, which is the worst year in its 103-year history.
I wanted to speak to Alan because I wanted to know how he turned the company around.
We discuss where his formation of leadership comes from, his working-together principles, the working-together management system, creating a culture of love by design, the role of the leader, what happens when people choose not to be a part of the working-together system, and how those conversations go, and how he uses the system in his family and so much more.
This is one of my favorite conversations ever.
It's time to listen and learn.
Alan, let's just dive right into this.
You've served your family, Boeing, Ford, and communities around the world in such a positive way over the years.
How did you end up with this formation of leadership, and can you share your service journey with us?
Absolutely. Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be with you.
I think that really is a good way to start.
I grew up in the Midwest in Lawrence, Kansas, also where the University of Kansas is.
We had pretty modest means, but we had a lot of love in our family from starting with our parents' love of us.
Over the years, I can remember very clearly the lessons that they shared with me and who they were as a person in addition to what they did.
Every morning, one of my parents would say, these lessons to me, just to make sure that I was remembering them and understanding them.
One day, my mom would say, now remember, honey, the purpose of life is to love and be loved.
I'd say, oh, mom, that's great.
I remember. I think that's good.
She said, but remember, in that order.
Okay, thank you. Then next day, my mom or my dad would say, again, I was getting ready to go to school.
Well, now, to serve is to live, honey.
Thank you, dad. That's great.
Then next day, one would say, seek to understand before you seek to be understood.
I'd go. That's good too.
I remember that. And one that really stuck with me over the years is, it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Thanks, dad. And then the one that probably impacted me the most chain was when they said, by working together with others, you can make the most positive contribution to the most people.
And then, of course, they would discuss lifelong learning and continuous improvement and respect everyone.
We're all creatures of God and we're worthy to be loved.
And then one that really was meaningful to me as I got married and started our family set, is to develop one integrated life to deliver your life's work.
So those are the things that my formation was based on.
And of course, I was a normal child growing up.
And so I wanted to fit in.
I really have a mass means.
I really wanted to pair a Levi's and some Ouija shoes.
So I decided that, and I can remember deciding this, that if I were going to be able to get those jeans or maybe get a car and go to the University of Kansas someday, that the service to live was going to be my strategy.
So I started my service work with the TV guide routes, newspaper routes, a lawnmowing business.
I was a bagger, a checker, and then a night manager at the Dylan's grocery store.
I was a carpenter and a ranch hand and a farm hand.
And then when I started school at the University of Kansas, I also, for the entire time I was there working on my degrees in there, not a national engineering, I would continue to work and serve the engineering department at the University of Kansas.
I followed that with joining Boeing and then also later at Ford.
And the thing, Shane, that really I learned was that I just love this serving.
I love that looks on the people's face I was serving.
I like, I'd ask them for their suggestions for improvement.
And somebody told me I was the only person as a checker in the Dylan's grocery store that actually got a temp.
And I remember asking the person that was coming through the line, and they were actually tipping me.
I could understand that when I was a bag boy.
And they said, well, first of all, you took care of us.
You asked us if we found everything that we needed.
Did we have the coupons for the IMSA discounted?
Work was always a service and it was just fabulous.
I felt good about it. I wanted to be better at it.
And of course, I also included all of the stakeholders because I knew that if I did that, including my parents and family and the leaders in the areas that I was serving, that we would actually come up with even a better plan to serve our customers and serve each other and all the stakeholders.
That's my formation. Then my further development at Boeing and Ford, especially at Boeing initially, was I was joining a company that was world-class at project and program and business management.
So I combined those personal values and beliefs and behaviors with the learnings of large-scale system integration and business.
Creating businesses are probably growing for the good of all stakeholders.
So that's how I became who I was.
I took the same, or I am, I took the same lessons to when I was asked by Bill Ford to join Ford to help Ford.
I want to talk a little bit more about the story of how you ended up at Ford in a second.
One of the things that you said that stood out to me was you have to build an integrated life to deliver your life's work.
What does an integrated life mean?
I found that to be so useful.
And one day, my parents made a drawing and they have a circle.
And inside the circle, it had smaller circles.
And the circles would be your work life, your family life, your spiritual life, your community life, all your different lives.
You could have put as many lives in there as we each have.
And then on the top of the circle, it said one life.
And then underneath the bottom of the circle, it said life's work.
And remember work to me and my parents was the same as service.
So my life's work is service.
And I'm going to integrate all of those components.
And people ask me a lot of times, well, how do you, how do you do that?
I said, well, you first of all, you decide what's really important to you, each one of those circles.
And then also look at your calendar in the morning, look at your calendar at night.
When people are managing their work life balance, they might think that, oh, well, I have something planned with the family next year.
So I got that one covered.
No, I think you're going to have to think about that every day.
So the idea of an integrated life is that you decide what's really important to you and very honest with yourself.
And also you're looking at your calendar near and longer term.
And are you paying attention to the things that you really believe are important in your life to serve?
I like the term integrated because so often we sort of forget about these other components, right?
And then we sacrifice our relationship with our community or, you know, part of integration could be your overall health.
And we sacrifice that in pursuit of a myopic sort of focus on one part and then inevitably it crumbles.
Exactly, Shane. And I think that you can see how fast you would get, this would be a disciplined process.
If you look at that drawing and you look what you have put down there is what's important to you.
And you look at that each day and just reflect on how it's going near and long term.
You get to a place where you really get clear about your activities and having an integrated set of activities.
I remember when we, when the kids were young and we'd have our family meeting and we'd sign up for the different things we're going to do to help each other.
And I would take my items back to Boeing and my assistant would put that on my calendar.
And some days I would just disappear in the middle of the day for an hour to go to a parent teacher conference or something else.
And everybody knew where I was and they knew I'd be back.
I think that it's a very reliable process, but you have to follow the process as my would be my advice on that.
I want to talk about the decision to join Ford because when we talked before you said you originally were actually not going to join Ford.
So can you walk us through that decision, how you ended up joining Ford and sort of some of the immediate cultural differences that you felt between Ford and Boeing.
And then after that we'll dive into some of the principles and working together management systems.
Oh, sure. Clearly I love, I love for, I love Boeing and I always have, I was on the design team very Boeing airplane.
And I realized very quickly that at the time airplanes were the first internet because we were actually connecting people around the world.
And people could find out that we had more in common, they were different and we then choose to work together for the greater good.
And so I never thought I was going to ever leave Boeing and I had a lot of opportunities along the way.
One day Bill Ford called.
I'm going, Bill's Ford, the great grandson of Henry Ford.
And I had a Ford vehicle when I was growing up and I just, I followed Ford a lot because as I learned more about history and World War Two and Ford and Boeing working together.
I'm just always very interested in it.
So I knew I was in trouble when I was talking to Bill because I wanted to know more.
I kept asking him all these questions about why they were in the situation they were in and he shared the whole story with me.
And they've become a house of brands and purchased Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo.
And still 70, 80% of the business was Ford.
And as you know, you can't be world class too many things at the same time.
And so they, they were going to do $17 billion.
And he said the biggest issue he had was getting people to work together around the world to use all these fantastic as smart and talented people.
I thought about it and talked about it as a family and, and I initially called him back and said I was going to stay at Boeing.
And a couple of the kids, we have five kids in the United Mary for 52 years and and Nikki and two or three of the kids were outside my little office listening to this because they really want, they were encouraged me to go.
Come on, dad. We know all about airplanes with all your friends here and you want to drive a Mustang and see everybody else.
And so they walked in the room and one of them said, so dad, we listen to this and we're going to Ford our way.
And I said, we are. And the lesson learned out of that I've learned over the years on you have to is you think about it and you look at it from every possible angle.
And at the end of the day, you decide, but the most important thing is that when you say it and you start to act on it, you really need to think about, about how you feel about it.
And when I went through that process, I knew that this is where I wanted to serve next.
And people ask me a lot. Why would you choose lead Boeing?
You're that you're the CEO of Boeing commercial airplanes.
You've been on the defense side.
You love your work, you're an airplane desire.
You love the business. And at the end of the day, I felt like I was serving second American and global icon to really important companies that have made such a difference to the United States and the people around our world.
I felt like it was the all time I was being asked to serve to save the second American and global icon.
It's incredible. I mean, what you did at Ford was no short, like it was one of the biggest turnarounds in history.
I think they were on pace to lose 17 billion when you took over and nearly bankrupt.
And then the transformation over the next decade was just astonishing.
And in researching and talking to people who worked with you, you're known for these working together principles, practices and a culture of hope I get this right.
And I think that's the essence of love by design.
What specifically are those principles and practices?
Super, super question.
And it's the essence of working together in my life and service.
There are a few of them and I'll touch on on on each of them.
So these are to your point, these are principles and practices that create a culture of love by design, meaning that it's is demonstrating your love.
For what you're doing as an organization, it's also demonstrating your love and how you feel about all the participants and their contribution.
And it's also by design.
So you're creating not only the principles and practices, but also a reliable process and expected behaviors of all the participants as you work together to deliver your compelling vision, whether it's at Boeing or Ford or a specific airplane or specific car.
And so the first one, and these are written down.
People have them on the car.
They carry around. They're in the offices.
And one of them, the first one is people first love them up.
And the reason is that these are talented people that are that are working on these programs.
Not just use the triple seven airplane is an example of a major program project in business.
Hundreds of thousands of people that are working on this airplane to design it all around the world.
They're talented. They're motivated.
They believe in the vision of getting people together so they can work together around the world.
So appreciating them as a human being and appreciating their talent and thanking them and including them.
So every one of these things I'm going to share with you to your point is a demonstration or an element of showing your love for all the participants.
So the second one is including everybody.
So when you're designing the airplane, we include not only the airlines, but we include of course all the employees, all the suppliers, all the certification agencies around the world, all the cities in which the airplane is going to be used, and all the investors and all the bankers, all the people that are participating, they're actually represented on the leadership
team. So their voice and their thoughts and their suggestions are included in the development of the strategy and the plan and the accomplishment of the objectives.
So include everybody. The next one is coming together around a compelling vision, a comprehensive strategy, and a relentless implementation plan.
So the power of that vision, as we all know, is really, really important.
Is it meaningful? Is it a purpose?
Is it going to serve not only the stakeholder, but the greater good?
And you can imagine how that was at Boeing and at Ford because our whole life is dedicated to safe and efficient transportation and having a comprehensive strategy for the product, for the process, for delivering it, for all of the people, including the working together strategy, then a relentless implementation plan.
And that's the business plan review, which we'll talk about, which gets a lot of attention over the years where every week we meet with all of the stakeholders.
And we go through an hour and a half, two hours.
We go through every element of the strategy for accomplishing our objectives.
Also, the status of that, we actually color code, all of the team members color code, their strategy plan on how it's going, red or green.
It's on plan, yellow, they have an issue, but they have a solution.
And red, they have a new issue, but they're still working on the solution for it.
And that next one is having clear performance goals and one plan.
Most companies have many plans and most people are trying to figure out what the plan is, as we all know.
Facts and data, really important.
We care what you think. But we also want to know what are the facts and data that you're looking at to draw your conclusions?
Because as we go forward, especially on working on a yellow or a red, we all want to know those facts and data so that we together can work together.
Can turn the reds to yellows to greens.
I then move to that, some more demonstrations of love.
So expect the unexpected and expect to deal with it.
And so we're going to share the reality of our situation every week so that everybody knows what the opportunities are, but also what are the issues that we need to deal with.
And that everybody knows the plan, the product to process the people that work in the other plant.
They know what the status of it is and also shame they know the areas that need special attention.
So think about what that respect for people means when you share these things.
I mean, made people many believers, if they have a red item, first of all, that embarrasses them.
They think they're not doing their job as opposed to that red item is a gem.
I clap when you have a red because you're not red.
It's your items red. Thanks for sharing that.
Now we all can work together to help you and us turn the reds yellows to green.
And then the attitudes are really the attitudes, the beliefs and the values are really important.
And what we really look at are the behaviors because that's what we can see.
And so we have these expected behaviors that that we have zero tolerance for violating them.
So a proposed and a plan being positive having a find a way attitude, respecting each other, listening to each other, help each other.
Appreciate each other.
You can see various sophisticated words, very sophisticated.
But we can see this and we can help each other in our personal development plans always be moving forward and growing in all of these behaviors the way we treat each other.
Then emotional resilience.
This is a creative process.
It's innovation. We're going to have issues along the way.
And so we're going to trust this process of working together and we're going to trust the process of turning the reds to yellows green.
And the last one that everybody absolutely loves is have fun and enjoy the journey and each other.
And as I mentioned, every day we'd wake up and every business party we get together and we'd say, you know, thank you.
How could I help? And then enjoy each other and also enjoy the journey of creating these phenomenal products and services.
Now there's one corollary to that chain that's really important.
And that is zero tolerance for violating this process of working the business plan review the creating value road map including everybody.
All stakeholders on the leadership team zero tolerance for violating that operating process and zero tolerance for violating these expected behaviors because we all can see each other.
We're together every week and you can imagine how seriously everybody takes the process and the behaviors.
And as we continue our discussion, I'm sure you're going to want to know, well, what do you do Alan when people are not committed to following the process and expected behaviors of working together.
But we can talk about that as you wish.
You said trust the process.
And that sounds great, but you're coming into Ford and you're implementing a completely different process than the cultures had before.
Sure. How much resistance did you get?
How do you get the buy in for people to actually trust the process?
You're an outsider coming in, right?
How do you corral the people to trust the process and then follow the process?
This is a really good question and everything you said, there's truth in that.
Absolutely. And so what do you think the one piece of paper that I brought with me from Boeing to Ford was this piece of paper that I just described to you.
And when in the first meeting when Bill introduced me to the team, I shared with them this one piece of paper and the looks on their faces were phenomenal.
They'd never seen words like this.
People first love them up if you make a mistake and you violate the process of behavior, just say you're sorry.
And so I could tell by the looks on their faces and from all around the world.
And I could tell on their faces that, well, I'm going to have to, it's going to be really important.
And I spent a lot of time sharing with them what these mean and about that zero tolerance policy and the commitment to commit to them.
So I spent a couple of hours a day for the first few weeks making myself available to the entire team and individually as they wish to answer their questions about these principles and practices.
And then I said, okay, here we go.
And we're going to learn about it because we're going to start.
And then we're going to pull together on the on the business plan.
We updated the creating value roadmap to restructure ourselves to match our production to the real demand and develop a competitive cost structure.
At the same time, we committed to develop a new product line, small, medium, large cars, utilities and trucks, everyone be investing class in terms of quality and fuel efficiency and safety and smart design and affordability.
And we also taken out a small home improvement loan of $23.5 billion to finance the restructuring, but also refinance the product development plan to support the customers and our growth.
Then the last one was work together as one team worldwide on our one forward plan.
And of course, the way forward was set up at the time, every forward was different in every country around the world.
So for the Henry Ford never thought that that would be the way it would end up.
But you can clearly see that we would never be competitive if we were trying to compete with all these different fords against these global powerhouses that we all knew.
So the biggest part of that strategy was we were going to pull together work together as one team.
And we're going to use all of our talents to work together to create this one one forward plan.
So we we developed the strategy.
We started the business plan review, selected the team from all around the world, which is relatively easy because everybody knows who the leaders are in each of the disciplines, whether it's engineering, a matter of fact, or procurement.
So I talked to everybody, looked at their performance, management, 360s and stuff.
And so we had the best of the talent all around the world, some of which had never worked together.
Started our business plan review, I'd always start the meeting.
And then each of the members and I'd go through the division strategy and the plan status at the at the company level, that every member would go through their area of responsibility and and share their contribution on the strategy and the plan.
And also, as we mentioned, they also show the status with their color coding.
So now here's the here's the essence of your question.
We started our process, the behaviors are getting really good.
We have about 300 charts with the entire team.
And and we've also shared with them now for the first time every 17 billion dollars and all 300 charts, Shane, were colored green.
All 300 charts. Why? So this is the essence of your point.
So here's this new person.
We shared a new culture of working together and transparency and timeliness and supporting each other and respecting each other.
And all 300 charts are green.
So I stopped the meeting a few weeks in a row and said, is there anything in any of your areas are responsible?
It's not going well, we are losing 17 billion dollars.
Of course, the eye contact goes down to the floor because they don't know me and they know that the culture that they were in is a few like a lot of companies.
If you brought an issue to your supervisor or your boss, the CEO, and you didn't have a solution, then you seem to disappear because a lot of cultures are you only bringing issue if you have an answer.
That doesn't allow working together the way we're talking about where you can move quickly on the issues.
So they didn't know what would happen if they should have read.
So finally, the leader of North America, they had an issue with the launch of the Ford Edge in Oakville, Canada with the actuator on liftgate.
And so he's having his meeting, his beefy arc before ours the night before and up comes that the the launch chart Shane and it has three columns for technical readiness schedule compliance and in financial impact.
And all of them were colored green and they just stopped production.
One of the biggest things you could ever do to cause it cause a lot of a lot of issues.
And so he says to the team, I think this is one of those red things Alan is talking about.
And that one of the members, one of the vice presidents said to him, well, good luck because you know what happens when you have a problem, you don't have a solution at Ford.
And he finally said, well, I think we need to trust the process.
I'm going to trust Alan.
And then the other vice president says, Shane, well, there's nice knowing you.
Take care. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll read it for you.
So red, red, red. So the next day we started the business plan review green, green, green, green and up comes this red chart on something really important.
A lot of a new vehicle. And so he explains it very succinctly that here's an issue that came up and we're working on it.
We don't have a solution yet.
And at that point I started to clap and I mean, all the eye contact went, went to the floor.
I could feel the air dissipating and they're kind of looking at me and they're looking at the floor and they're looking at the, at Mark, the speaker.
And then later they told me that they got that sign.
I clapped met the two large doors behind us in the Thunderbird room with the world headquarters.
We're going to open up two large human beings are going to come in.
They're going to extract Mark from the meeting.
Now we take care of that.
So the, so I said, so any, any initial thoughts from, from the team on how we can help Mark and their Cusack was leading engineering worldwide.
So I've seen a problem like that before we'll get you that data.
Betty Fowler, who was leading quality worldwide had a similar comment and Joe Hendricks, who was leading manufacturing worldwide said, you know, we're going to figure this out.
You're going to need some manufacturing engineers up an overall candidate.
I'll get them identified and get them up there.
So when we have a solution, we can switch out the parts and get the production going at a time of matter.
That took, you know, 10 seconds, 12 seconds.
We were on to the next chart green, green, green, green next week.
Only one red chart. And that was Mark's again.
And I was looking around the room and they're all looking at me and they're looking at Mark and they can't believe that Mark's still there.
And then I hadn't seen comment.
Thank you very much. And then that finally two weeks, two or three weeks later, they had a solution that turned to yellow.
Two weeks later, I think it turned to green and all the vehicles started flowing around the world.
So Shane, guess what the colors of the slides look like that following week?
Not all red, but they look like a rainbow.
And everybody then decided to answer your question that not only we're going to trust the process, but wow, this trusting the process would allow us to remove all the stress on our individual lives, be able to share what the real situation is, and also be able to count on this working together process to trust it, that we if we know what's going on, and we know that our
behaviors in our process allow us to deal with it, that we can turn reds to yellows to greens.
And at that point, Shane, I knew that no matter what happened at Ford, whether it was Jim and Chrysler going bankrupt, whether it was the tsunamis around the world, the competition, whatever.
I knew that we could use this working together process and create a near term and longer term value for all the stakeholders in the green again.
What stood out to me as you were saying that is just the consistency.
And if you were, if you were, if you had a lot of variation in your approach or how you handled it, I don't think you would have got the same results you did.
Shane, that is really critical.
And when we talk about the reliable process, the system for doing that, one of the biggest single principles is the discipline.
We're just, just imagine you're on the team and every week, 7am, 7am to 9am, everybody's connected around the world.
And we're going to go through this.
I've gone through my introduction, the vision strategy and plan for 45 years every week.
I think I maybe missed 10 meetings because wherever you are, you phone in or you link in.
And the kids used to link in with me before or somewhere because they just love watching the colors and watching them all change and watching everybody try to help each other.
And so that discipline of following the process and also to your question or your comment, the discipline of the behaviors.
So if somebody would go after somebody or act like they knew what the answer was or be rhetorical questions or whatever, anything that would cause an unsafe culture of love by design, where people felt like they're going to be a victim or be made fun of, then their commitment to sharing everything is going to go down.
And so it's a commitment and a discipline to the process and a commitment and discipline to the behaviors on how we're going to treat each other and how we're going to be treated.
I think that's what creates the psychological safety, right?
It's not only the commitment, but the consistency and then the discipline to keep following it up.
And let's go to your question now, which is how do you deal with people who either don't commit to the implementation of the working together system or choose behaviors that don't align with what's expected?
Great, great question.
And just one comment about your last comment, which is very important is that what happens so quickly is the confidence that's built up with all of the participants on the team.
Because you can imagine when you start solving issue after issue, because this is a creative process, you're creating something out of nothing.
And so you're expecting the unexpected, you're expecting to deal with it, and it's working.
And so you can imagine the confidence that you get in the team.
Plus, their stress levels go our way down now.
They sleep at night. They know that they know they're going to make progress.
And so I think that's really an important point because the minute that that's not a safe organization, then you're not going to be able to have this phenomenal working together success.
Okay, now, at the first, everybody's trying.
I also told them, you know, if you if you violate this or you go after somebody or you don't respect what they said, or just say you're sorry.
Well, they'd never heard the love word.
I got the forward, but they also had never word the sorry word hadn't heard that either.
So just tell you're sorry and then jump back on to the on the expected behavior.
So every once in a while, I'd have somebody that would go after somebody or or thought they knew more than the person and kind of attack them in an aggressive way as opposed to asking for a question for clarification or whatever.
So I'd follow up to their office.
And in one version of the other, this is what would happen.
Let's say now, would you think about your behavior today in the meeting or where whatever the situation was, and they'd make a comment about well, you know, I wasn't probably the best that I could be.
And I said, Well, no kidding.
And what do you think that meant to the team?
Did you watch what happened when people started to be a lot more careful to share?
And yes, I did. And and so remember, look at the same piece of paper on the principles and practices.
The reason we're doing this is that we need the hearts and the minds of every participant, every stakeholder.
And then the person would say, Oh, I know, but I don't know whether I can do that, Alan.
This is not the way I grew up.
That's not who I am. I know I'm command and control and I can be a little bit of a bully.
But I've done very well and for it's paid me well and more and more responsibility.
And I said, I know. And if if you don't want to commit or you can't commit to these principles and practices, it's okay.
And I look at their face and Shane, I could see what they were thinking.
They thought I meant, Oh, I mean, because I'm so important that I can start to treat people like I always have treated them and not move in this direction.
And so and even say that sometimes, well, thank you very much.
Alan, I said, No, what okay, what I mean by okay is it really is okay because you're making a decision to move on.
And, and it's okay. And remember that first principle, we still love you as human being your creature of God.
And if this doesn't work for you, respecting people, listening to each other helping each other, then it's okay and you're making a decision.
And if you want to commit to it, we can get your help and get your coach or dynamite person very knowledgeable.
But if not, we wish you the very best on and also, we all need to know what you're going to do.
And so I'd like you to go home tonight, think about it, talk about it with the people that you love and trust and let me know tomorrow whether you're going to commit to moving in this direction.
I know it's going to be different and long career.
And, and well, why have you told it all the rest of the team will agree on the two or three things that that if you improve those will move you a very positive direction into working together, and they will be supported and will help you.
So they come back the next day and one person would say, I've thought about it and I don't think I can do it.
And we would say we wish you the very best.
Have another person that always like to do rhetorical questions, which is not very healthy for working together.
Like you're trying to ask the question, you know, the answer so that you can show everybody how smart you are, not working together.
And so I had the same conversation with her.
She went home, came back and said, Alan, I'd like to, I'd like to move in this direction.
And because this is really who I am, I feel like I've been violating my true self for a lot of years.
And she became one of the most fantastic leaders I've ever worked with.
Because once you say that, and you say that to the team now, and you say it to me, because you remember they're not working for me now.
They're working for that vision of the company and the service that we're providing.
And they're working for all of the of their colleagues.
And so she just became one of the most fantastic and working together leaders that I've ever worked with.
So and again, it's their decision, because it is their decision, 80% of the time that it happened, they moved in the direction of staying and making a commitment and making great progress on working together.
Because it goes back to just basic fundamental human values that are that are that are powerful.
Two rabbit holes there.
The people who stayed after I love how you phrase it, you're choosing this behavior.
And if you're choosing that behavior, you're choosing to opt out.
The people that stayed, how quickly did that behavior change?
Like was the I can't imagine in my head, it's this overnight thing.
Oh, yeah, because remember that just keep remember, you're on the team.
And every Thursday, you're sitting around a round table.
And you're also looking at monitors inside the table of all the people that around the world.
And I have remember the teams there.
You've just gone through all your reds and yellows and greens that week before.
You would never, you wouldn't possibly be able to to have a red and say to the team.
Can you imagine saying, I know I was really busy this week, you all didn't have time to work on that to help with all of you.
I don't think so. Can you imagine what that conversation would be like out on the playground?
Because they're not working for me now they're working for what we're trying to accomplish.
And so what we'd see is when a person made a decision to move in this positive direction, they'd be first of all, they'd be a little more hesitant for offering their thoughts or questions, which is understandable because they're thinking this through.
How do I, how do I do this?
But I do it in a respectful and a way.
And then pretty soon after two or three weeks, they they're watching now the behaviors of other people that are doing this, they're getting comfortable with it.
And then they just start moving in that direction.
And every once in a while, because of the sorry thing, they'll say, can you imagine what happens when when a person would say, you know, that's not the way I really meant to say this.
You know, there's a little abusive, but I'm really sorry.
And then we all look at them and they know we're saying, well, start again.
And so yeah, so when you get this unbelievable support that you can really move in this direction, pretty decisively.
Of the people who decided to leave, did anybody ever at any point come back to you after they left and said, you know what, I really want to get on this boat.
I want to get on this ship with you.
We had a we had a few that as we were growing, we had opportunities that could use their skills.
And they approached me or one of the senior people.
And people tell me that those are some of the most phenomenal conversations they've ever had.
Because if somebody comes and does that, then we know it's going to be okay.
And yeah, 99% of the time it was.
Because when somebody gets to that place, they have really thought about it and reflected on who they are as a person and what they do.
And you know, what really happens in this Shane, you're really getting at it is who you are as a person is going to have more to do with your success.
And whatever you're choosing to do than anything else.
Marilyn just who I work asked me to work with her under her nominal book of the extraordinary power of leadership humility.
And she actually wanted to have a couple chapters in there about working together and how humility really supports that.
And in her book, she really did a phenomenal job of laying out a simple model for humility.
And what does that really mean.
And one of the things that she said was, we meet somebody you always have you always have three questions.
One, who are you as a person?
Is this about you? This is about I versus we is about me versus service.
Are you about what we're trying to accomplish here this compelling vision for the organization?
Where's it about you? The second question is, you're the leader.
Where are we going? Where are we going?
What's that strategy? What's the what's the BPR?
What's the creating value roadmap?
Then you got the third question is shame.
Do you see me? Do you see me?
And how many times have you been in a line reading somebody and by the time that they have reached out to shake your hand or eye contact has moved on even before they looked at you.
They don't see you. And I don't see you means that I respect you.
I care about you. I'm interested in you.
I want to thank you because we're going to do this together.
And together we're going to create a lot of value for the greater good.
It's almost like a presence feeling.
You can tell when people are present in a conversation and when they're not.
If you have your phone sitting on the table and you're talking to somebody, you're not fully present in that conversation because at any moment if that phone dings, you know that I'm just going to pick it up and read it.
But people feel it when you're present and they feel respected and they feel listened to and they feel heard all of these things that go into your culture of safety as well.
Right. Where what does everybody want?
They want to be loved. They want to be respected.
They want to be listened to.
They want to contribute to something larger than themselves.
And to do that we have to be consistent.
Now listen to what you just said.
You just described a working together culture of love by design.
It was designed this way.
I mean I'm an airplane designer.
It was designed because we wanted that culture where people felt everything that you just described.
And also to your point, when we're doing a business plan review, there are no devices.
If you pull out your device or you're looking at your computer, we just stop to mean and look at you.
Can you imagine how quickly you stop that?
Because everybody knows the principles and practices along the piece of paper.
They're sitting up there in front and you're choosing not to respect this organization and each other and you're not present because we need you.
We need everybody. So it's really cool you said that because you don't need to stop very many times for everybody to understand that doesn't work.
That you need to be present.
Within two months when I arrived at Ford, we were on our way.
The colors were all showing up.
The behaviors were getting just fantastic.
The stress was going down.
The issues we're dealing with were considered gems.
And we're going to solve them together.
And we did the clarity on the behaviors and the clarity on the process we're going to follow.
And then backing that up for zero tolerance.
And then appreciate that.
The banking people absolutely accelerates the implementation of the working together system.
It also and from the outside not working at Ford or never working at Boeing with you.
It strikes me that it almost creates like a transplant.
You either take it. It either takes or it doesn't.
But the body becomes the reinforcing mechanism or in this case your fellow your peers your colleagues become the reinforcing mechanism.
Absolutely. And so the role of HR in my head I would say the role of HR is changing.
Right. It's less about grievances and complaining.
Now it's about hiring and attracting talent and unleashing them because people know when they're not fitting in and the culture is such that it just forces you out.
Absolutely. And just another point about what you just said.
Part of the working together system that we'll talk a bit more about is continuous improvement.
And like lifelong learning and continuous improvement.
So our performance management our 360 process.
You now know exactly what that's about.
You're going to use all the stakeholders all your colleagues around that around table.
And every year we ask them about how we're doing including me and what would be one or two things that if I if I could improve that behavior that character or that skill it would help us help me individually and also help our team and our business.
And if I make an improvement on that.
So every year every member of the team had their one or two items that everybody else knew about that to your point everybody else is now supporting.
And so very easy then to say give somebody feedback because that we know what they're working on.
And we can give them an example.
And so people want the feedback now because they can they know it's facts that they're looking at.
So to your point a stakeholder set of coaching where you know up a Marshall.
I didn't know what those words meant until I met Marshall by knew we were doing stakeholders are coaching with our working together management.
And he thought that was the coolest thing is that we had a whole company led by the leadership team that would not only was leading with stakeholder center leadership because we're including all the stakeholders.
But also we were leading with stakeholder center coaching meaning that we were helping our colleagues further develop themselves individually and as a team and as a business.
You feel good about you feel good about it and you're you're getting more and more effective people are benefiting from it.
And you're feeling that satisfaction a meaningful accomplishment and smiles on their faces is just builds on itself.
It strikes me that we only receive or we only really want feedback when we feel safe and we only offer real feedback when we feel safe.
And the reason that I think that is not only from our conversation right now today.
But I'm thinking most people at a workplace you know what's holding your colleagues back.
You know the one behavior they do that undermines them every time or self sabotage self sabotage is done.
And I think you don't tell them in part because it's not because you don't love them or you don't want them to succeed.
It's because you don't feel safe telling them you don't feel safe in that relationship.
Absolutely. Shane think think about how this system deals with that because when you are this clear about the expected behaviors.
Well you have set everybody free right.
Yeah. Because if you're going to provide behavior somebody and you don't have clear expectations about what the behaviors are expected.
Well it's just that's really hard.
They don't know why you're saying it to them.
They don't know how that fits in.
And that's why when I look when we look at those expected behaviors that we just we described in the principles and practices.
The reason that they that's OK for us to take a stand that way is that those are so fundamental to respect the people's dignity and all the religions of the world.
Everyone has tried to describe these right.
And so and the reason that works is you're respecting people's dignity as a human being as a contributor and everybody knows that that results in that satisfaction of meaningful accomplishment with individually and as a team.
And so we've never we look at those behaviors all the time and we just to check one make sure we're not where that we think they're absolutely the right thing.
But I think it's because for thousands of years we've been trying we were all been trying to one way work to work to create this kind of environment.
And that's what we're doing with the working to do the management system.
So talk to me a little bit more about the working together management system.
I think we've come at it through a couple of different angles.
What piece it together for me in the sense of like the whole and then break down the parts that we haven't talked about.
That's a really neat way you said it to saying because they're they're elements of a system.
And you know as an engineer I my whole life is is around systems because there are lots of different pieces of a system and they all work together to contribute to that.
Do the greater good. And then think about a Venn diagram and another circle just like the one life life's work.
So you draw a circle and that's the working together management system is what's inside the circle.
So at the top put a circle and that says principles and practices.
Then put another circle going around to the right and put another circle and put governance process in there.
Then put go down a little further and put another circle and put leadership team.
Then go circling back up put another circle and assess creating value roadmap.
Then go one more. Your last circle then is business plan review in the bottom of the circle.
Put our culture and we'll put this diagram on the website for the show notes so everybody can just pop up and see it.
That's great that you're going to do that because it's a gift and we worked on it forever to describe it like this.
And so again when you look at these five elements and you can see how they work together to create this environment.
So we covered the principles and practices in the manage in that governance process.
That's the way we manage the overall business site includes our all the shareholders the stakeholders the board of directors the leadership team.
And then the process of the creative value roadmap and the business plan review.
Then when you look at the leadership team and remember the word leader is inside leadership.
So it starts with the leader because you can imagine if you don't have a leader that is actually committed to these this character and skills that it's going to be very hard to have this operating system and these expect behaviors.
So the things that are clear there is you're going to include all of the stakeholders you're going to coach and facilitate as opposed to tell everybody what to do.
You're going to be leading with humility and love and service and courage and discipline and resilience and civility authenticity.
Meaning that your behaviors are aligned with your beliefs and your values and also positive mindsets and you're going to be responsible for the working in the management system with zero tolerance for violating it.
So everybody's that's that's our job or these things and then your performance management and your continuous improvement in your lifelong learning.
Then when you move over to the creating value roadmap that's the strat for example the strategy of Boeing was to make a complete family of vehicles that can go point to point nonstop all around the world safely and officially to get people together or Ford.
Henry Ford was opening the highways to all mankind to compelling visions and now what's the strategy for accomplishing that that's so that deals with the product the process of doing it.
The people and the working together a strategy then going up to the business plan review.
Okay we have the strategy now we have the plan now every week we're going to go over the vision the strategy in the plan.
The Red DLs and Grease and the Harrison special attention then you're right back up to operating with those principles and practices.
I love it is self reinforcing and there's natural feedback loops in it.
What's the leaders role in that system.
The most important thing is to hold the team themselves and the team responsible and kept an accountable for following this process all five of those elements.
We just got to follow the process and so holding ourselves accountable for that.
On the other is leading by example I mean I started out as an engineer working on commercial airplanes and as you are asked to take more and more service as you move in that direction when I when I found just because of who I am and when I learned it going on on large scale projects and systems integration is is that you're going to move to the place where you're facilitating
and you're coaching because somebody has to keep getting us along.
Like if we have a new issue on the strategy well we need our special attention meeting to deal with that and so as you get to the place where you're on this leadership team at this level.
You have responsibility for a large portion of the organization like engineering and manufacturing procurement but you're really.
Leading with a line with the rest of the team and you're facilitating and you're coaching with your team.
I always have like maybe 12 or 13 people reporting to me which a lot of people always wonder how I did that but I had to have every discipline need to be on that team because if not then if you have the haves and have nots on the leadership team they got to keep explaining to the people you haven't around me what's going on as opposed to everybody's being there and now everybody
is leading with an example where everybody in the entire organization reports to one of those people so you're not leaving anybody at the out and if you follow this discipline it really doesn't make any difference how many people you have there because when you do a business plan review you run on a very tight schedule and you because you're going to be there again next
week so you're looking for the changes offers to help and you're going to be back together next week so that's the most important thing about the leadership team is to is the be and the do who you are and what you do you know anything about that Shane is that because this is so visible on the behaviors and the process is so reliable everybody keeps moving forward with their
beliefs and their values of things you can't see you can't see those you see their behaviors and and everybody tells me this that no matter how they arrived however they grew up with their training was that things that went well the things that were horrible in their life that once they joined this environment and you and you have these expected behaviors and the right
expected behaviors and you start acting this way and you start being this way so gradually your mind says and your beliefs and your values they all start to move this direction that's why that authenticity word is so big because if you look up the definition of authenticity three circles again is the alignment of who you are and what you do between your beliefs your
values and your behaviors now we can see that we can see the behaviors but when I when we see those behaviors and you're doing that over and over again and you're living that way well what happened to those values and beliefs they move in a really positive direction and that's what people tell me saying that like what they're off a program where they they they move on to
something else and when I see them they say that wherever they have gone if they can't see the fundamentals working together a system the process and the behaviors then they make a judgment call really quickly and and if they don't see a way is going to happen they move on because once you it's like you said earlier once you felt this way and once you are appreciated
this way you're never going to go back it's like you're never going to tolerate Grendel's mother or Grendel's extended family down there in the hit the swap once you went to you've seen the light once you felt the heat that warm of operating this way you're never going to go back makes sense yeah totally and to your point about the actions becoming who we are I mean we
are what we repeatedly do exactly there's something that you said earlier I want to come back to you which is you said everyone is a leader just by being who they are what did you mean by that well it gets back to the be and the do but especially you the are you see that with their behaviors like a hey let's just take humility for example I saw three questions that that we
asked so you can see that you know when you ask those three questions of yourself about who you're going to be right away that tells you who that person really is and how they and how they operate that's why we've always started always started with the behaviors and but having a process that you're following where you have to you have to exhibit those you can't hide
from the behavior and you can't just not participate so you have a mechanism now where you have to participate and now your decision is are you going to do it with these behaviors or not and if you don't you're going to meet some interesting people and you're going to get a chance to decide again so I think I think it that working in management system pulls together the be
part and the do part and everybody eventually gets to see both of those either aligned or not and the working together management system isn't just for organizations I believe you and your wife use a version of this at home can you can you tell me more about this how does it apply at home my wife just walked by and she walked by so they all the kids they all they all think
this is so so fun but Nikki and I have been married I mentioned for 52 years and we have five darling children and when they started to come along I was at Bowie not program management and and lots of people and I'm watching these seven people now and so I said to Nikki I mean you know this is in very more complicated with our size of our family we need to do a business plan review
every week and she goes Alan this is not Boeing this is our family I waited for a week to reflect on this and that all made sense and then so I said the next week okay what if we have a family meeting every week and she said well what would we do in the family meeting I said well my suggestions I welcome yours would be after we come back from mass on Sunday morning that we have an agenda for our
family meeting the first agenda I would propose is that all of us including you and me we go around the house we pick up all of our stuff we take them back to our cubby or back to our room because after a week with seven people living lives it looks like a bomb's gone off in the house and I didn't sign up for a compelling vision of picking up the house every every week and neither
did any of the participants she's okay I make sense I said she's a what next I said well then everybody ought to excuse me we'll go back to our room and we'll pick up the laundry and we'll take it down to the laundry room and with five children we usually always had two washers and dryers because you want to get that stuff done or that's all you're doing a whole week and that's
not a compelling vision again for our family so we do all the laundry together then everybody would bring the laundry down double it out of the kitchen table and they would all sort the socks and everything else because it's not a compelling vision to sit there by yourself and try to sort all these things for everybody I mean it's impossible plus it takes a long time
so that's done in like five minutes now then they take their laundry back to their room and then they come down with their calendar and saying the calendar little loosely notebook or wires down the end they're in kindergarten saying they're in kindergarten and they got the calendar and they sit around the round table and then we go around the room and every member
of the family describes what they're going to do this next week and also identify any things that they need our help with so they do they need a taxi cab service any cheerleading service are they got teacher parent teacher conferences whatever and so we all write down things that we can do to help and I take it back the things I'd sign up for I would take it back and give
it to my assistant boy she built into the calendar like we mentioned and so it's just my integrated life I've just integrated my life right along with the rest of those circles and the integrated life and then then so that was great and then the next agenda I know was we would just reflect on the behaviors that we've agreed to because we agreed to a compelling vision for the family
that has all growing and contributing and making a difference in service kind of like what my parents did to me and so we go through those any suggestions for improvement including the behaviors that was really interesting at the first because they were they got they were pretty aggressive when they were younger about what you you said that you were going to pick
me up after football or pretty soon and we also worked on the how you do how you say that how you give that feedback because you want to do it in a positive way and so they got really good at that but once you that and clarification there that was a family meeting and so every every time we're together and they're all grown now we'll get together once or twice a year and every
time we're together especially after a drink or two lesson will bring up things that happen in the family meetings and I mean they're so funny when you look back at the things that were going on and so we were like oh on the one of the family meeting at principles was if you're going to do something that could embarrass the family or make us really proud either way you
have to tell us ahead of time can you imagine that scene so they didn't share everything that they would do and so when we reflect on these when they got older oh my gosh it was so fun and so funny and sometimes I couldn't tell whether they really enjoyed it or where they thought this was a hassle and so I would say to them you guys if you didn't really enjoy the family meeting
why did you why did you always keep coming to it you never missed one never never and one of them says that you remember what the last agenda item was on our family meeting I said no I don't I said you handed out the allowances of course of course we had to come to the family meeting and now every one of them saying every one of them is running their version of a family meeting
this is plan review every week I love this I want to follow up with two specific questions one what are the other family principles you had one was sort of like if you're going to humiliate anybody we know in advance what else what are the other values and principles that you had together as a family that you held people to now now this is going to come as a news flash the same
ones yeah absolutely the same ones like on the chart that you see the two slides I sent you that you're going to share with everybody it has Boeing as a logo for Boeing and Ford you can also put on there a family reunion photo because it's the very same ones the kids I was talking with a peer the other day and using the office and I was doing a zoom call I look behind him had
the work and the other principles and practices that we just went to the office and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going
to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do
this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I
was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like
I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm
going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going
to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do
this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I was like I'm going to do this and I
was like I'm going to do this and I just want you to know that that I know you care about me.
I know you love me. You are very reliable.
I just want you to know I think that might be an opportunity to learn.
And the way, the apology that he made and his commitment and the apology he made and then his commitment to learn from this and be even better.
It wasn't just between those two.
I mean all seven of us were listening to this.
And so it affected everybody.
So when they were at first starting out, they'd be a little bit more aggressive because they just didn't know how to do it.
But one of the principles of practice is you treat people with respect.
You listen to them. You give their human beings.
So you don't yell at people.
You don't go after them and stuff.
And if you just share how you feel, share how you feel.
No one can argue with that.
So she was sharing exactly what was important to her.
What the commitment she thought she had and how she felt about that and being, and not, and being violated.
And so, and they're exactly that way today.
And you think of the people that you work with or are you with that operate that way versus, you know, telling you what to do or not saying they're sorry or whatever.
It's incredibly impactful, right?
Because we make commitments to each other.
And if we're not going to do it, that's going to grow and feel like we're really letting people down.
So we're going to develop this one where we're not going to let people down.
I like that a lot. I think I'm going to try to implement this after my kids.
But part of what I like about it is that you're all learning from each other.
And your role as a parent then goes from do this, don't do this to coaching almost and and facilitating and facilitating.
Exactly. See, look at this all coming together.
Shane, look at that. That's what's on that.
That's what's on them on the work together system.
You're coaching and facilitating.
It doesn't mean that you're not leading your summit.
You're selling said to me one time.
I love coaching CEOs and their teams on because they all want to know about this working together.
And in one of them said to me one time, Alan, are you telling me that the board of directors and the shareholders are going to pay me these big bucks as a as a CEO to facilitate and coach?
And my answer was they're going to pay you twice that if you're a good facilitator and a coach.
You're the leader now. You're the leader now.
You have all of this talent, all of which knows more than you do about their given subject.
This is this is Peter Drucker's knowledge workers.
And so we need the hearts and minds of all the knowledge worker in a safe and a healthy environment.
And so the biggest contribution you're going to make and the reason you should be compensated for it is if you can create this culture of love by design that is has a reliable process and behaviors to create value for the later good.
That's your unique contribution was zero tolerance for violating either.
I love that. I want to end with a specific question that we ask a lot of guests or I ask a lot of guests, I guess, but what is success for you?
How would you define that?
How do you want to be remembered?
That integrated life of service.
I, and you know, you had a lot of great, a lot of great leaders and and people on your on your show, which is I just like to come as this is fantastic.
I've, I've listened to many of them, especially one of the latest ones with Mars ghost by through the dear, dear friend.
At the end of Marshall loves to say this analogy, you're, you know, you get towards the end of your life and you're looking back on what you've done and not done.
And, and Marshall and as latest book, tried to share with everybody that you don't want to get to that place to have a bunch of regrets.
I mean, you can, you can deal with that now by the decisions you make.
It needs to be about something bigger than yourself.
And it's going to be the best that you can do as it, as opposed to it's always going to be anomaly successful, because you'll keep just getting better and better and better.
When I look at that, that integrated life drawing, I look at it every day.
I mean, just sit, it's in front of me.
I don't like sitting there studying.
I kind of know what that means.
But when I look at that, I just touch on all of those different pieces of my life.
And am I doing the things that I really believe in that I can really make a difference and, and sir.
And so, and then think about the work one, looking at the work one.
I mean, I, I've been on the design team for every Boeing airplane, 7072737475767.
I was asked to serve as the chief engineer for the triple seven airplane and then the 787 and 70% of the seats are flying around the world or on these fabulous Boeing airplanes, saving efficient transportation.
And the same thing at Ford.
I mean, I look at those plus the things in the community and stuff, and you go around your diagram like that.
I want to, I want to keep doing it.
I want to keep doing the same thing.
I want to keep, I want to keep helping out and filling in all the aspects of all those circles of an integrated life.
What an incredible impact you've had millions, if not billions of people have been impacted by you.
And I really appreciate you taking the time today to have this amazing phenomenal conversation.
And thank you so much. Shane, I, I just like to say one thank you.
And thank you for the opportunity.
And I've joined your organization.
I love, I love your work.
And I'm very, I'm very proud to be able to support you.
And you're really about something really important because there's so many people in our world in a very complex rapidly changing world.
There's so many people that are really working to serve.
And so the fact that you're capturing that for people, I think is absolutely fantastic.
So I just like to thank you for your service too.
That's very generous of you.
Thank you. Thanks for listening and learning with us.
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Until next time.
