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Inspire Club EP #19 - Lance Secretan
11 Plays4 years ago
In this episode we talk with Lance Secretan, CEO & Founder of The Secretan Center.
Dr. Lance Secretan is the world’s top authority on inspirational leadership, a trailblazing teacher, advisor and expert on corporate culture, whose bestselling books, inspirational talks, and life-changing retreats have touched the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. He is the author of 21 books about leadership, inspiration, corporate culture and entrepreneurship as well as an award-winning memoir, A Love Story. His latest book is The Bellwether Effect.
In his chat with Matt, Lance highlights what the most important trait for leaders is, what drives motivation, why it is opposite of inspiration and how to make the world a kinder place.
We hope you enjoy it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Inspire Club Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Inspire Club the podcast brought to you by Inspiring Workplaces.
00:00:12
Speaker
It's almost one year since we were born as a new entity, IW, and I can't think of a better guest in this moment in time for us to have on Inspire Club. I got
Meet Dr. Lawrence Sequitin - Leadership Expert
00:00:26
Speaker
delayed by a week because of my bandwidth issues in my home office, but this person is the world's top authority on inspiring leadership, author of over 21 books.
00:00:39
Speaker
One aptly named Inspire, a former MD of manpower, was even a child actor in some very big films. If you're talking about inspiration, there's only one person's name that comes to mind. That is Dr. Lawrence Sequitin. And welcome. Welcome. How are you? Good. Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me. Whereabouts in the world are we talking to you today, Lance? I am in a rural part of Ontario about
00:01:08
Speaker
an hour and a half, two hours outside of Toronto. Oh, wow. That sounds absolutely heavenly compared to where I've been for the past 15 months. Well, I apologize. It's much the same for both of us. You've probably been looking at four walls like I have.
00:01:23
Speaker
Very good point. Four walls can be the same anywhere in the world. But rural Ontario sounds absolutely divine, as I say. I was supposed to spend a lot of my honeymoon travelling through Canada, which we didn't get to do, obviously.
00:01:43
Speaker
hopefully in the next year or two we'll have our delayed honeymoon. I'm not saying when I swing by and knock on your door, Lance, it's okay, but we might have to visit some rural Ontario too. No, absolutely. Be sure to do that. I look forward to seeing you. So our
Learning from Bad Leadership Experiences
00:02:00
Speaker
first question of Inspire Club, it's the only rule of Inspire Club, is to share a story of someone who's inspired you at work along the way. Have you got someone in mind?
00:02:13
Speaker
I do. I'm not going to mention his name, because I don't want to get him into trouble. But I worked for a man for about eight years before I was the CEO of Manpower Limited. And when I was, there were two men in my life that really made a difference. One was called Jim Scheinfeld, whose name I will mention. He was one of the leaders at Manpower. He was the guy who saw in me
00:02:42
Speaker
potential of actually running a business. Now, bear in mind, I was 27 years old and knew daily about anything. So I arrived on the scene, Jim Scheinfeld, who had faith in me. But then I wondered, well, how am I going to lead? And I'm telling you that the guy whose name I will not share with you that I worked with for eight years, he was the boss from hell. And
00:03:08
Speaker
The only thing I can think of is I'm going to do the exact opposite of what he did. And so we built this amazing company from scratch to 72,000 employees based on all of the opposite things that I had experienced in the previous eight. So he made a major difference in my life. He didn't know it. It gave me a lot of pain, but it was useful in the end. And you know, as the Buddha says, our enemies are here to teach us. So there we go.
00:03:36
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, thank you to Jim Scheinfeld for seeing something in you, which he's been proven very, very, very right. And thank you to the man that shall remain nameless for inspiring you by doing everything wrong. I have to agree, you know, some of my biggest lessons in life have
00:03:59
Speaker
or like the North Star, I suppose, for a lot of the things I do as being, I don't want to do it like that, or I don't want to feel like that person made me feel so I won't make somebody else feel that way. And it's very, very true that you can learn a lot from that. What was the quote from Buddha, his lesson? Our enemies are here to teach us.
00:04:24
Speaker
Our enemies are here to teach us. Thank you very much. I will take note of that. Another regular
Inspiring with Dreams, Not Mission Statements
00:04:31
Speaker
question on the podcast is to actually find out what your purpose is, whether it be outside or inside of work. You know, what gets you up in the morning? What drives you? One of the things that we do in our work is that we replace crummy, old fashioned, retro mission statements
00:04:52
Speaker
and create instead a dream. So every large organization that we work with, we work with big companies all over the world, we help them to create a dream. Now a company with a dream is a powerful and passionate idea. And so we too in our business have a dream and our dream is to make the world a kinder place. How do we do that? How do you do that? How do you go about doing that?
00:05:18
Speaker
There are lots of ways, but one of the ways, we did some research some years ago to ask people what they did not like about followers. Now, you notice I'm using the same lessons that I learned from the boss whose name is Heather. Let's go and find out what people do like and see what they say. And here's what they said. We don't like cowards.
00:05:41
Speaker
We don't like people who are phony. We don't like people who are selfish. We don't like people who lie. We don't like people who rule with fear. And we don't like idiots, incompetent people. So we said, well, then why don't we just do the opposite? And the opposite
Introducing CASEL Principles
00:05:57
Speaker
is courage, authenticity, service, truthfulness, love, and effectiveness. If you would string those together, that's an acronym, CASEL. And we call these the CASEL principles.
00:06:09
Speaker
So how do we create a kinder and more inspired world, which is what our dream is all about, by being courageous, by being authentic, by serving others, by telling the truth, by being loving and effective. We do those six things. We will inspire an entire world. Fantastic. And do you think that sits at the senior leadership or is that something we as humans should aspire to be ourselves and write throughout an organization and society?
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, I don't see any difference.
Integrating Life and Work & Redefining Competition
00:06:41
Speaker
I don't see this separation between work and the rest of our lives. We're just human beings in different places. And actually, the pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons about that. What's the difference between you going out and looking after your dog and getting a coffee and being on the internet? I mean, it's all one thing, right? And we don't sort of say, oh, I'm not at work now. I'm patting my dog. Oh, I'm back at work. I'm sitting at my computer. That doesn't make any sense, right? That's stupid.
00:07:07
Speaker
That life isn't just like that. It's all integrated. So it just one whole thing. So of course, the council principles, the reason they're so powerful, I can tell you lots of stories about the power of this because they use all of the world. But we love people who are courageous. We love people who are authentic. We love people who serve others. We love people who tell the truth. We love people who are loving. And we love people who are affected. Well, that's true everywhere.
00:07:35
Speaker
Where do you think it went wrong? When did we start being somebody different at work? Why did we have to become different to what we were with our family and friends outside of work? When did that happen? Has it always been the way? There's one word for that. It's called greed. And I think that's where we ended up, unfortunately. Along the way, we're a very competitive society, all of us in the Western world. And you know, the Latin,
00:08:05
Speaker
from which the word competition originates is competer. And competer in Latin means to strive together. So what we've actually done is taken the meaning of that word and turned it upside down. And the result of that is, and you can see this in politics, for example, many politicians feel it's more important to win a competitive game against the opponent than it is to look after the best interests of the nation.
00:08:37
Speaker
And so we end up with that kind of model everywhere in all parts of our lives. So taking competition at work, it should be striving together to deliver against that organization's purpose and dream, rather than trying to get that promotion above each other. Yes. And some organizations do this. So, for example, you would take the London Philharmonic
00:09:02
Speaker
You know, I don't think they're going to say, OK, folks, as we get up in the morning, let's destroy the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. That would be ridiculous. Why would they do that? The only thing they actually need to do, they should get up in the morning and say, let's make the best music on the planet, because there's room for all kinds of symphony orchestras on the planet if we make good music.
00:09:24
Speaker
Going back to the castle principles, how do you acknowledge them? If somebody
Measuring CASEL in the Workplace
00:09:30
Speaker
is courageous, do you just, in that moment, congratulate them for showing courage? I'm just trying to work out how you can apply these throughout an organisation and make sure people are aware that they're doing good in the world and within the workplace.
00:09:48
Speaker
Well, you know, Matt, I'm not just a guy that twiddles my thumbs and comes up with theories. So we've got a whole bunch of tools and instruments that measure this. And of course, that's what we do. That's the heart of our consulting work with clients. But we can measure immediately whether an employee feels that they are able to be courageous, that it's safe to be courageous,
00:10:09
Speaker
company is courageous, that they're courageous with their customers in the outside world, and the courage is generally accepted as a universal way in which we run the organization. It's part of the culture, in other words.
00:10:24
Speaker
I've fallen in love with the caste principles in the sense that just thinking of the past year, the people that have shown courage and try and drive social justice inside and outside of work, and the people that have stuck alongside them to become allies. I think that reaction has been just thinking about it now.
00:10:45
Speaker
People do love people with courage and it takes a lot to stand up for what's right. And when you think it could be dangerous to do so and you have so much to lose potentially. So I think that courage that's been shown around the world has been then replicated in kind by everybody that's standing up alongside them. And
Courage and Love in Leadership
00:11:02
Speaker
I really do hope that that's something that we push forward with.
00:11:06
Speaker
Things happen in the moment and can sometimes be seen as tokenism, but I'm really hoping that there's something we just continue to push forward in the days, weeks, and years to come. And I understand that better after your explanation of receiving for courage.
00:11:24
Speaker
We're going to get back to our normal questions, but you can tell everybody that Lance is just a source of inspiration and knowledge, so you have to check out this man and his books and his work. I know he's got some recent YouTube videos as well, so please do check him out because we're not going to have nowhere near enough time to have the conversation that we want that we should have. What's the best advice you were ever given and who was it from?
00:11:55
Speaker
The best advice I've ever given, well, I think the best advice has not been given to me by people, but by heroes, if I can put it that way. For example, Gandhi. I didn't really understand Gandhi beyond the idea that he was fighting for freedom, as it were. But the thing I learned from Gandhi was nonviolence.
00:12:24
Speaker
And that has shaped who I am. So it's by far the most powerful thing I've ever heard or learned. And non-violence, I even mean this in every dimension of the spectrum. So even from the little ways we use language. So for example, Matt, I would say I would kill for your fancy hat. But when I use the word kill,
00:12:52
Speaker
I am creating all kinds of stress hormones in your body and literally making you sick. And if I were to say, man, I love your hat. I also create all kinds of hormones in your body, but they're different ones. In the first case is cortisol and adrenaline. And in the second case is oxytocin. So they're different chemistry. So I could do a month's swab on you.
00:13:19
Speaker
right now, a mouth swap. And I'd be able to tell, are you motivated? That's fear. Or are you inspired? That's love. There's a difference. And great leaders know the difference. There aren't many of them, but the ones that do understand that are the inspirational leaders that we love.
00:13:38
Speaker
Well, I'm a huge believer in the saying that words matter. And you've just taken that to a whole new level now that actually words can make you ill. And I didn't know that motivation was driven by fear and inspiration from love. So thank you very much for teaching me that as well. Yeah, this will be quite a tough question, I think, for you.
00:14:05
Speaker
But I'm interested to know the answer. What do you think is the most important quality in a leader, having studied them and being one yourself? Love. Fantastic. I think we should leave it there without question actually. And what's your go to productivity trick?
00:14:22
Speaker
You know, I'm simply not committed to that way of thinking. I like to follow the energy, and I get distracted all the time, but that's the only way I can be creative. I'm a creative person. I invent new things. I don't majorize or copy other people's stuff. My work is original, and I can only do that in a pretty chaotic kind of place. My productivity methodology might be to go for a walk, for example.
00:14:50
Speaker
Or it might be to meditate. Or I'll go for a kayak ride, I don't know, or ski. I mean, there's all kinds of places in my life where I have brainstorms and then I have to rush back and write them down or do something with it. Thank goodness for the smartphone, because I have a little smartphone with a pen in it now that I can actually write these crazy ideas wherever I am. But I'm productive all the time. And for the reasons I said to you before,
00:15:14
Speaker
I don't separate work and life. It's all one beautiful thing to me. So I could be doing this anytime 24-7. So I'm pretty productive. It's just I don't have a...
00:15:25
Speaker
I agree with you on the, thank goodness for the smartphone. In a previous world, I was aspiring to be a comedy writer. Essentially, a comedy writer is part of a team. I felt the collaboration around a table would be fantastic, like Seinfeld and shows like that.
00:15:47
Speaker
But you had to be a stand up to get to the writing stage. So I tried to stand up for a little while and very, very briefly. And so the comics team writing was put to one side. But what I did learn on that short journey I went on,
00:16:05
Speaker
was comics always have a notepad and probably a phone now in their pockets because you never know when a joke or a stroke of inspiration will hit you. So they wake up in the middle of the night and roll over and write down whatever they've been dreaming about or out the shower quickly and write it down. So I am constantly writing things on my phone. Like you say, I think that's probably the first inspiring workplaces was probably a little
00:16:35
Speaker
were on a train somewhere and wrote it down on my phone. So I think that's a great tip because you could be productive anywhere. Don't have to be productive at your desk.
Teaching Love and Compassion in Teams
00:16:45
Speaker
And if you're a teacher, which you are, I think in a lot of respects, what would you teach? The same answer. We don't understand this concept. We think we can we think we can kick ass and motivate people with fear.
00:17:02
Speaker
and try and twist them into a Pavlovian kind of response, which is how we build our organizations. Our organizations are fear-based, and they're all about punishment and reward. We try and get people to make their budgets and targets and so on by thriving. And we're even doing that, excuse me, we're even doing that now with the vaccine. We're bribing people to take the vaccine. I mean, we haven't learned anything since Pavlov.
00:17:29
Speaker
And so the whole idea of working in a team where you love each other, where you're compassionate, I've just run a session for an organization, 10 of their top executives. Every week we meet for one hour. I use the Spirit of Work app, which you can download from the internet, from the Apple store or iTunes store or Android store. And we use this app. Now they were having the worst year in their history.
00:17:57
Speaker
13 weekly one-hour sessions later, they were having the best year in their history. And what was the difference? The only difference was they fell in love with each other. They didn't know each other. One person had been working for the company for a year and hadn't even met the other people because of the pandemic. They didn't have that connection. They didn't understand each other. They didn't know who the others were. They didn't know what their aches and pains and dreams were. But when you know that, when you spend 13 weeks together doing that, becoming one team,
00:18:26
Speaker
an inspired team, then they're calling each other saying, Hey, how can I help you? What are you working on? And so on. Oh, I've got some information that you could find useful. Your back stuff doesn't normally happen. But when people love each other, then it happens. Very, very powerful. Okay. So quick personal questions as we always switch up in the podcast now, that they're not too they're not too deep, but early bird or night owl.
00:18:56
Speaker
Um, depends who's in bed with me. Okay.
00:19:04
Speaker
Favorite album? Well, I've got many favorite albums. I think just about anything that Eric Clapton does, including Way Back to Cream, but past that as well, he's done some amazing, amazing things. I don't care what he does, I'll buy his album. Yeah, old slow hand. Yeah, I love Eric Clapton too. So I'm wondering whether this might be tied up now, but if you have to put a song on to inspire you, fire you up, what song would that be?
00:19:34
Speaker
Old time rock and roll. Bob Seger. Yeah, fantastic. Night Moves is my Bob Seger go to song, but I love the end of that song. Old time rock and roll. That is now going to be on the inspire list on Spotify, everybody. So please go check out that list. It's got some absolutely cracking songs on there. What's something you've done that will never do again?
00:20:00
Speaker
Let me see. Well, not by choice, but I would be having children. I'm a bit past that now. So I've done it, but I'm not going to be doing it again. I've flown airplanes. I'm never going to do that again. I used to fly quite a bit. I used to fly all over England, actually, because when we started manpower, what I would do is I'd take an airplane and I would take pictures of where the traffic
00:20:27
Speaker
was flowing at lunchtime and at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, because then I could see from an aerial perspective like Ants, you know, on Ant Hill, where everybody was congregating. That's where the intersection of those lines was. That's where we put our offices. So the offices you see in manpower all over the country now started in my plane photographs.
00:20:49
Speaker
Fantastic. What a little tip bit that is. Wow. Okay. Best place in the world you visited. And if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?
00:21:06
Speaker
Well, I have no longing for that because I am in the best place in the world that I would like to be. And I have a home in Colorado, which is another best place. And then I have a little cabin in the woods up north. So that's another wonderful place. One certainly one of my favorite places on earth is Sedona, Arizona. And I love the Alps in Europe too. And I've traveled a lot. So I love South Africa greatly as well. South Africa is a wonderful, wonderful country.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, all fantastic places. Yeah, the Alps is a special place in my heart. My little French godson is in the foothills of the Alps in the Giro, and it's a very, very special place.
Future Guest Suggestions: Steven Pinker
00:21:46
Speaker
I'm hoping to live there at some point in my life.
00:21:50
Speaker
And so, last question. Thank you so much. I wish we had more time, and I'd love to explore ways of getting your awesomeness out in front of people for longer, in front of our Inspiring Workplaces movement, so maybe we can have a chat another time. But for now, one last question for you, Annette. Who do you think would be an awesome guest for the Inspire Club? Who should we go ask and be honored to have them on our show?
00:22:20
Speaker
Oh, that's a great question. I'm trying to remember his name. I think it's Steven Pinker. Am I right? Is that the right way to say his name? He's written a book about how amazing the world is, basically. We're talking about everything that's broken and doesn't work and so on, but he's taken the opposite approach and he makes some really highly researched ideas.
00:22:51
Speaker
That would be I think a guy that could be very, very interesting. Thank you so much.
00:22:58
Speaker
And he writes so many too. So thank you so much. As I say, if you haven't heard of Lawrence before, you do now. I'm amazed if you didn't, please go check out everything he does and has done as you've heard an absolute inspiration. And I think the theme from this podcast has been love.
00:23:20
Speaker
And what a great theme that is to have on our one year anniversary. So thank you so much for your time, Lance. And if there's anything else you'd like to share, please share it. Well, I am grateful that you've invited me and I look forward to connecting more. We'll talk about some of those ways in which we can synergize and perhaps listen courses that we run, we certify people, we have coaching programs, all of those kinds of things, the possibilities that we could
00:23:51
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, and thank you to everyone who is listening and we'll be back with another episode next week. So take care. Bye bye.