Are you leading with executive influence or just holding a title?
What if the secret to lasting leadership success is not about performance metrics, but something totally unexpected?
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence, coach, godmother, and strategist.
And by the end of today's conversation with legendary Ken Blanchard's biographer, Martha Lawrence, you'll know why catching people doing something right is more than just feel good advice.
It's a strategy for building organizational vitality.
And you're going to learn how Blanchard's concept of servant leadership can help you grow influence without chasing titles.
And you'll be inspired by real stories about how intentional culture and people first leadership drives results in high performing companies.
All right, everybody.
Today we're going to talk about a legend that some of you may not be old enough to remember, but when i was in college, there was a man named ken blanchard who wrote the one minute manager, and that was.
It's hard to overstate the impact because we didn't have social media at the time, and it was a bestseller.
It was the book.
I studied business in college, among other things, and I got my MBA and his voice.
He was a good person.
Like he was teaching people to be good, to catch people doing things right.
He was teaching servant leadership.
And if we listened to him better back then, we might have avoided some of the messes that we've made since then.
But anyway, his biographer is Martha Lawrence.
She worked with him for 22 years.
And guys, I want Martha to bring you up to snuff with Ken Blanchard and how his approach to management leadership, communication can help you listening to get some more tools in your toolbox, because not everybody is still aware of Ken Blanchard.
So welcome to the show, Martha.
Hi.
Laura, thank you so much for having me on.
It's wonderful to speak up on the Speak Up podcast.
So much value here.
And yes, for your listeners who may not be familiar with Ken Blanchard, I'll just give a little intro.
Ken Blanchard, he's a guy who was told in college that he couldn't write.
And, as Laura pointed out in the intro, he ended up co-authoring a book called The One Minute Manager that sold tens of millions of copies around the world.
It was on the New York Times bestseller list for three years straight and on and off the list for decades.
Yes.
Hard to explain the impact that book had.
Everybody had that book.
You know the thought leader, Brene Brown.
Somebody handed her a copy of that during her first management job at ATT, and catching people doing things right guided everything she knows about love and leadership.
Simon Sinek calls him the OG.
So that's one thing.
He was a college professor who wanted to go into university administration and he was told that he really basically wasn't bright enough, that he didn't have enough academic interest, and yet he goes on to co-develop one of the most influential leadership models in the world, which he did with Dr Paul Hersey situational leadership.
By his own admission, he couldn't even balance his own checkbook.
He was a college professor and a speaker and he gave a talk at a YPO, a Young Presidents Organization conference, And he was so charismatic and so compelling that the organizers of that event rushed up to him afterward and said what are you going to do next?
He said, I'm going to go back to college and teach.
And they said, you can't do that when you're hot, you're hot.
You've got to start your own organization.
And he said, start my own organization.
How am I going to do that?
I can't even balance my own checkbook.
And they said, we'll help you.
And they became his advisory council.
So you know Ken Blanchard, He really for a whole generation kind of set the stage of what management could be.
Before Ken Blanchard, we're so accustomed to reading business books on this.
They're breezy and they're easy to read.
At the time Ken published The One Minute Manager, business books were like long and boring and dry.
A business book section.
It was just kind of nonfiction, right?
And along comes Ken and he writes this little hundred page book about a young man who's looking for an effective manager.
It was really, it was a parable, right?
It just turned business management on its head.
And suddenly people realized, oh, I don't have to be strict and mean to the people I'm leading.
I don't have to act like I know everything that I'm doing.
I can praise them.
I can sit down with them and set goals with them.
Right.
And you don't have to be intimidated by people who went to Harvard or that have more credentials than you.
I identify because he made it to the top when people were telling them that, you know, he didn't, wasn't smart enough or wasn't academic enough or wasn't financially savvy enough.
And yet he did it.
Exactly.
His life is the lesson.
Yeah.
Yes, it is.
So I think of the catch people doing things right.
So explain like.
Obviously, it means catching people doing things that they're supposed to be doing.
And some of our listeners may be saying hey, but Martha, obviously they should be doing that right.
That's their job.
Why is it necessary or good to compliment when people are doing what they're supposed to be doing?
So the reason it's called Catch People Doing Things Right is because somebody once asked Ken of all the things you've taught, and he's the author of, or co-author of, 70 books.
So there's a lot of intellectual property out there.
And it's more than just this simple message.
Somebody once asked him, if you could only take away one teaching, what would it be?
And he said, it would be catch people doing things right.
Because as leaders, I think sometimes we're so caught up in results and are we doing a good job?
And it kind of becomes about us instead of about the people we're leading.
And we forget that people need acknowledgement.
And so this is about praising.
As human beings, we tend to filter for the negative.
It's called a negative bias.
You know, It's programmed into our DNA.
That's how we survived as a species.
We looked out at the savanna.
What's going wrong?
Let's jump on it and kill it before it kills us.
So we're wired.
We're hardwired to catch people doing things wrong.
But a lot of managers.
I think even if you know better, it can be easy to be quiet until something goes wrong.
And so it's just a reminder that you know you want to be alongside someone and be their cheerleader.
And that's just one of many things.
And of course, it's not just saying, attaboy, attagirl.
You have to do the praising right.
You have to make it real.
You have to go wow, let's say, somebody did a report that really fundamentally changed the way you were able to do a presentation to senior leadership.
And you say to that person I want you to know that when you turned in that report and I was able to rely on all these facts, it really empowered me.
It made me feel so relieved.
I feel so fortunate to have someone like you on my team.
Whatever it is, you have to make it real.
Right.
That's being specific, being real, and connecting to the impact.
So how would you connect Ken Blanchard's many teachings to the topic of influence?
It's so interesting.
I'm thinking, Laura, about we just had this big book launch event.
The book just came out last week and Ken is now 86 years young.
So he was able to be in the audience and I was interviewed by somebody and presenting talking about the book.
And during the Q&A, we had the opportunity to hand the microphone to Ken.
And I have to say, as passionate as I am about the book and knowledgeable, when Ken spoke you could hear a pin drop in the room.
The influence is because he's so resonant with his message.
I think it has to do with leadership really isn't about you.
It's about the people you're leading.
And he just lives from that.
And so...
You mentioned servant leadership at the beginning and I think a lot of people have a misconception about servant leadership.
And Ken talks about this.
He says it sounds like an oxymoron, like inmates are running the prison, right?
How can you be a leader and a servant at the same time?
And he said that's because people don't understand there are two parts of leadership.
There's the setting the vision and the values and really giving people something to aim for.
And then there's the implementation of that vision.
Well, during the vision and values phase, that's when you're in the leadership position and you really take charge.
But then you turn that hierarchical pyramid upside down and then you are at the bottom, after the vision and values are set, and you are helping and serving others as they implement that vision.
He says, if you're in a leadership position, your purpose is to serve, not to be served.
And people just forget that.
They just forget that.
The strategies and the tools that I teach are to help people get out of themselves and get that idea into the world, because they tend to be perfectionist and these just super high performers so focused on getting the job done or getting their team to do the actual results that they feel like maybe it's a waste of time to compliment somebody for doing something.
And just today, I was talking to someone who coaches me and he was telling me to slow down.
Yeah.
And I was thinking ah, those of us who are like the go-getters, sometimes we need to slow down so we can notice things.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Ken used to say, I said, Ken, what's your favorite part of the day?
And he said, I love interruptions.
Oh, really?
I am that perfectionist who wants to, I'm a writer, I'm an editor.
Yes.
I catch what's wrong, right?
I'm like, Ken, I hate interruption.
When people interrupt my work, he looks at it as an opportunity to connect with somebody and to serve somebody.
And I'll tell you a story about this.
So he was meeting in his office one day with a guy named Mack Anderson who founded he was the CEO of a company called Successories.
They made these posters and They used to be up in every boardroom, you know, inspiration, courage.
And Mac had come to see Ken about co-authoring a book.
And they were meeting and there was a knock on the door of the office and it was the widow of an employee who had passed away.
And Ken.
Rather than saying oh, I'm in the middle of an important meeting with a potential co-author, he said come on in.
He said, Mac, I want you to meet.
And he introduced her.
Now, how much time do you have?
Do you have a little time today?
And Mac said, sure, I have the rest of the afternoon.
He said, let's go over to the warehouse where this employee used to work.
And let's take this.
And Ken pulled out his tape recorder.
He used to always carry a cassette tape recorder.
And he went around and talked to all the colleagues of the employee who had passed away, saying tell me about this guy.
Tell me some funny stories.
Remind us about him.
Share your memories.
And captured all these memories.
Took about 40 minutes.
And Mac, I interviewed him.
This is a story in the book.
And he said I was just blown away that Ken was so present for that woman and so wanted her to understand what her husband had meant to the company.
And then at the end, he gave her the tape and he said, here, keep this as a memento.
And then he thanked Mac profusely for allowing him to interrupt.
That's a servant leader.
What's his job?
His job is to lift people up.
There's a quote I read. in your book about always be expecting something really great to happen.
I was like, what?
And since we think that we know what's going to happen because we have it all planned out, then the interruption might be the vehicle through which that amazing thing happens, right.
It is so true.
Ken learned leadership lessons from his parents.
Yes.
He had a fantastic father who retired as a rear admiral in the Navy and a wonderful mother who told him that when hardships arise, don't look down at your shoes and mumble and complain.
Keep your head up and look for opportunities.
For example, when he was in graduate school and he had those terrible recommendations in his file and realized he wouldn't go on into university administration, he networked with people and found an opportunity to go to Ohio University and teach.
And so that is actually where he met Dr. Paul Hersey and that changed his life.
So that interruption, right?
It's the old lemons into lemonade.
You never know.
You know Ken and Margie, his fabulous wife Margie who we can talk about the power behind the throne.
Yes.
Brilliant, brilliant executive.
They lost their house in the witch fires in 2007.
Their house burned to the ground.
Now, a lot of people would, you know, she lost.
She was an amateur photographer, lost tens of thousands of photos.
He lost thousands of books, priceless mementos, but actually had they reframed that experience for the positive, because they ended up moving across the street into a bigger house with a better view for less money.
So it's just really how you frame things and that reframing for the positive interruptions can lead to great things.
Yes.
And like you said, I mean, we all know, I want you to, if you're all listening, think about it.
I'm sure that there's been somebody that you met who, And that person presented to you at some point an amazing opportunity.
And then you're mentioning his wife, Margie.
And I want to remind everybody I have this theme cooking in the back of my mind about invisible support, although Margie was not invisible.
But we all have and we are for other people's supporting structures.
And we have other people who are our supporting structures that help us to be more patient when we need it or to be more confident when we need it.
It could be that you're that supporting structure for the people that work for you.
Ken would be the first to tell you.
Margie is far more intellectual than he is and has the brains and the strategy.
But your point is well made.
It gets to something that Ken also teaches Laura, which is Leadership is not about having a title.
And so if your listeners out there are like, I don't have the right title.
Ken learned this message in seventh grade.
He was a leader from the beginning, from the get go.
He came out one of those kids that was always popular and he ran for the president of his seventh grade class.
And of course he won and he went running home.
Mom, dad, I'm the president, you know, and his dad pulled him aside and said, son, that's great.
We're so proud of you.
But now that you have that title, don't ever use it.
People follow leaders not because they have a fancy title, but because they trust and respect them.
And Ken took that message to heart.
It's not about the title.
And that's one of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that it has to do with the title.
Leadership is an influence process.
And if you look back on the people in your life whoever's listening to this who are the people who had the most influence on you?
For me, it was my second grade teacher, Mrs Matthews, who recognized that I was a writer and encouraged that.
In second grade, that's beautiful.
But it's not because somebody has a title.
It's because they really get through to you and they make you a better person.
Okay.
Okay.
So I'm going to Put your feet to the fire, Martha.
So let's say, let's pretend it's me and I'm in a company and I get great performance reviews, but I feel like I'm just the workhorse, that I'm just getting stuff done and I'm getting positive comments on that.
I've been in my position a long time and my perception is that I have no influence.
So what would you say?
Well, just a reminder that I'm a biographer and a scribe and not a leadership expert.
But I would say that have you communicated, or do you have a clear vision of where you want to go and what you want to be?
And what is your plan?
Why do you want that position?
What are you going to bring to that position that you're desiring?
And have you communicated to others that that's what you want?
And have you communicated your rationale there? for why that's needed.
Nobody asked me to write this biography.
Ken does not have an ego.
He had no desire to have a biography written of him.
I wanted to tell his story because there are so many leaders or well-known business people in the world.
I'm thinking people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Welch of GE.
You know all these people who had a major impact.
Yes.
Story needed to be told, but they're not necessarily great leadership role models.
And I wanted to tell Ken's story, because here's about a guy who achieved success not by pushing and shoving to get ahead or saying look at me, look at me, but by lifting other people up and being a nice guy.
So if you want to be a leader, what is it?
Why is it that you want that leadership position?
I think the power of observation is underrated in leadership today, generally speaking, because it's like the computer age has forced us to focus on these defined KPIs or OKRs, and as if that is the whole thing.
And it's definitely part of it, but it's the drive to measure everything.
How does that fit into, say, a performance review?
Because how do you measure influence or lifting up others?
That's a very good question.
What's interesting is that Ken has a son who is now the CEO of the Blanchard organization.
He calls himself the son of the one-minute manager.
And Like any good kid, he played the doubting Thomas of everything his father taught, right?
It sounded too mushy.
He went to business.
Does this stuff really even work?
And he actually did some research.
He found a researcher to get some hard data.
They published a paper that shows that Organizational vitality that's what they called it organizational vitality.
When you take care of your people, it generates organizational vitality, and that ends up strengthening the bottom line.
So Ken always talks about that.
It's not about ignoring results.
We all need results.
That's what we're in business for.
But relationships drive results.
You take care of your people.
They take care of your customers or your clients.
That takes care of your bottom line.
It's a whole system.
They all work together.
But if you don't take care of your people and you just focus on results and cracking the whip, that's not a way to inspire people to good performance or loyalty or anything like that.
Even I think you want to work with people who value you.
There's a saying, be where you're, what is it?
Be where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated.
That's it.
Oh, I love that.
I love that.
You know Laura, I've heard you talk about I think I listened to a podcast about well, you talked about the perfectionism and not being so uptight about how you speak and not being afraid to make mistakes and stuff like that.
And I just wanted to mention.
It just crossed my mind that Ten was recognized as one of the great speakers when he was out on the speaking circuit.
You know he was one of those people who was making a lot of money on the speaking circuit, got the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters and distinguished this and that.
Oh, yeah.
He was the who's who.
He was it.
Right, right.
He's the who's who.
But what's interesting... is that he wasn't a flawless speaker.
It wasn't polished.
And he would stumble and bumble.
And, as somebody said when I interviewed them, that when Ken made mistakes it kind of gave you hope for the rest of us.
He had this ability to connect with people in the 60th row.
But it wasn't about being flawless and being perfectly articulate.
I mean, sometimes he'd use the wrong word.
So it doesn't have to do with being perfect.
It has to do with the intention of what you're saying and the integrity of your message.
This has been so wonderful to get to the end to sum up these wonderful nuggets.
I'm going to share some of my big takeaways, and then I want you to tell our precious, super attractive hardworking, smart audience the thing that I should have asked you or the thing that we didn't get to.
So one of the things is to value interruptions.
And I know some of you that we share this extreme focus on getting things done.
That's our superpower in a way.
Nevertheless, serendipity, unexpected good things come through interruptions.
And if it's something bad, it's better to know now than later.
Another super important takeaway for you, listening is, is that people do not follow you because of your title.
Your title, I know you want it.
You want the next title because you feel like you've earned it, that you're doing the work.
And it will come, absolutely.
But that will not make people follow you more.
It will increase the size of your paycheck, which is great.
But you can start being that vice president right now.
And by focusing more on other people, because...
Thinking too much about how you're perceived is what causes the perfectionism and causes you not to speak up.
But leadership is influencing other people.
So think about how you can lift up others.
Think about organizational vitality as a way of adding value to your organization.
So those are like five.
What else?
Excellent.
And I would just add to that, that in its essence, if Ken had to sum it up, leadership is love.
It's about loving your mission.
It's about loving your people.
And it's about loving yourself enough to get out of the way so that other people can be magnificent.
Oh, my gosh.
I cannot say anything better than that.
That's awesome.
Thank you so much, Martha.
This has been amazing to the people listening.
You're welcome.
And we will catch everyone on the next episode.
I love the reminder about catching people doing things right.
And that's a time where you want to be so specific and That's a place where you can grow your influence massively.
Also, what hit home for me was reframing interruptions as the foundation for true executive influence, because I'm you know, I control my time and when people interrupt.
But I really have opened up, loosened up, relaxed a little bit and reframed interruptions since that interview.
And it has been very helpful.
If you're seeing opportunities for yourself to improve your executive presence through servant leadership, catching people doing things right.
And the other Ken Blanchard jewels that Martha shared with us.
I suggest you get access to the executive presence scorecard, which will assess your strengths and opportunities in the four pillars of executive presence.
The link for that is in the show notes.
I hope you have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
