KEN BLANCHARD’S 70h BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION—May 5 – 7, 2009
I was blessed this past week to have been invited to a celebration of Ken Blanchard’s 70th birthday. The meeting was based on the theme of “Simple Truths.” One year ago Ken, the co-author of The One Minute Manager, the best selling business book of all time, invited all of his co-authors to a special two and a half day party to celebrate his seventh decade and to share the “Simple Truths” we had learned since we had written a book with him.
Forty of us arrived at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego on May 5, and that evening Ken and Margie hosted a Cinco de Mayo party in their home. The next day was spent in meetings with interviews, summaries of Ken’s body of work, video tributes to Ken, and discussion groups. On the last morning Ken interviewed me as one of the current thought leaders on personal development, employee motivation, and service. What an honor that was! Another highlight was a lovely black tie dinner at the Inn on May 6, Ken’s actual birthday.
I was privileged to spend time with Don Shula, the “winningest football coach in history and Hall of Fame member; Paul Hersey who founded Situational Leadership; Colleen Barrett, the CEO Emeritus of Southwest Airlines; Wally Armstrong, a famous golf pro and tournament winner; Harry Paul, one of the authors of “Fish,”; Spencer Johnson who wrote “Who Moved My Cheese;” Garry Ridge, the CEO of WD-40; Tim Moore, the CEO of Pearson Publishing, the largest publisher in the world; Stephen Piersanti, the CEO of Berrett Koehler Publishers, Ken and Margie Blanchard, and a number of other people whose work has made a huge difference in this world. What an awesome privilege it was to be in the room with so many caring, committed, wise and impactful people!
Here are some of the nuggets I took away from those meetings:
• One of Margie Blanchard’s sayings is, “Keep your ‘I love you’s’ up to date.”
• When Ken’s mother asked him why he never wrote a book alone, he answered, “I already know what I know. I want to find out what someone else knows.”
• The mission statement of Chick-fil-A is “To glorify God and use the talents He has given to make a positive difference in the world.” Truett Cathy, the founder, is one of Ken’s co-authors.
• “Letting people in is about not expending the energy to keep people out.” Hugh Prather
• Some of the characteristics we all value most in leaders are: Openness, Authenticity, Simplicity, Storytelling, Heart, Humility, Generosity.
• Ken was described as “the #1 advocate for human worth in an organization.” He sees the gifts each person has to bring to the world. (I pray that those attributes might be seen in me as well.)
• When talking about the California fire that completely destroyed their home several years ago, Margie Blanchard said she discovered that “what you give away, what you share, always stays available to you.” What an amazing lesson!
• She also realized that later when she discovered things that she missed, it was like a “pin prick” of pain – Ouch! And then she could move on. We can handle the small pricks if we think of them that way rather than focusing on everything at once.
• Another learning was to GET OUT OF THE STORY and observe what is going on around you.
• After the fire, they held a Memorial Service for their home, asking people to share and remember the good times they had there. That became a kind of closure for them.
• John Ortberg suggests in “At the End of the Game, It All Goes Back in the Box” that one should take post-it notes to put on every item in their homes with either “Important Forever” or “Temporary Stuff” written on them. What we all discovered is that most of what surrounds us is temporary.
• It was so touching to hear Ken tell stories of how different people had impacted his life, particularly his parents. At one point he shared how Bill Hybels had called him and asked, “Ken, do you believe in free speech?” When Ken said yes, he replied,”Then I want you to give one!” 😉
• Over and over we kept coming back to the question, “Of what SERVICE can I be?”
• “LOVE is the biggest thing”. We put it into different situations in different ways. The Inaugural poet had a line that said, “What if ‘LOVE’ was the mightiest word?”
• Ken, in his book, You Are the Beloved, the story of his faith journey, said that, “KNOWING you are the beloved allows you to relate to others with open arms.”
At one point in the morning, Ken interviewed three leaders who were there – Don Shula, Colleen Barrett, and Gary Ridge, the CEO of W D 40. Don, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, shared the following wisdom:
• He always used the “24 Hour Rule:” After every game, you can either celebrate or moan for 24 hours, and then you must come back to reality and move on.
• “Success isn’t final. It is just a celebration of your latest success.”
• “Failure isn’t fatal.”
Garry Ridge from Sydney, Australia, shared the following reasons why he feels he has been successful as a leader: Caring about people, Being candid (“I’m here to help you get an ‘A’.”), and Doing the right thing.
• He described WD-40 as a TRIBE. He also described himself as “listening with the intent to be influenced”. He also discussed the power of “I don’t know” as a leader.
• I loved these words he uses as a kind of mantra: “Believe in yourself. Never give up. Take one day at a time. We all have something significant yet to do.”
Colleen Barrett wears a HEART every day as a reminder of the whole foundation of the “LUV” airline. She is known as the “Mom” of Southwest Airlines and has a passion for customer service. Her bottomline leadership style is to “Go with your gut”, and her openness and authenticity were a delight to behold. All three of these leaders affirmed for me my work in helping people understand they can make a difference, no matter what their job is, if they truly focus on people as human beings with worth and value.
Other thoughts from the meetings:
• So many people, including Ken, mentioned their parents. We kept exploring the thought of how we know ourselves – who taught us to be who we are?
• Leadership is a transformational journey that starts with self.
• Peter Drucker: “Nothing great happens by accident.”
• “What an endorphin rush to have someone see more in you than you see in yourself!”
• Employ “generous listening.”
Mark Muchnik talked about leading with the younger generations:
• Keep it REAL. They demand authenticity. However, authenticity is different for everyone – Be your real self and claim your greatness!
• Stay socially and emotionally connected (social networking; viral marketing)
• They demand efficient engagement – instant tasking
• Values transcend generations – integrity, partnership, affirmation
Drea Zigarmi of the Ken Blanchard Companies shared his new thoughts and research on leadership:
• Leadership is contextual – requires different skill sets : 1 to 1; team; organizational; alliance. We need to be CONSISTENT across contexts.
• Emotions influence engagement. Affective measure (feeling-based) precedes cognition (thinking-based).
• Decisions are based on who we are and what we see in the environment—first emotionally. (This affirms my belief that our job as leaders is to win people’s hearts to WANT to make a difference.)
• Fairness (lack thereof) is the #1 reason people leave an organization!
• Employ human beings. Systems have to be fixed to make it possible for them to give their best.
• All motivation is intrinsic. The extrinsic is not working!
• What people want: meaningful work, autonomy, sense of growth, fairness, reward, connection with boss, connection with colleagues, collaboration.
Finally, Tim Moore and Stephen Piersanti talked about the future of publishing. There are currently 300,000 business books available, and Barnes and Noble stocks 1500, so other avenues are the wave of the future, especially electronic. The average book sells 1400 copies. B&N sell 25% of all books and Amazon sells 98%. These were some of their thoughts:
• Must have a unique idea and tell an engaging story.
• Create short pieces of content to be available on a need-to-know basis
• Audio and video will be embedded in products
• Perhaps release one chapter a month for 9 months
• Impact of kindle and iphone apps
I am deeply grateful to have had this amazing experience of sharing, thanks to my dear friend, Ken Blanchard. He is certainly a special gift to this world!
To learn more about Barbara’s work and her book with Ken Blanchard, go to www.barbaraglanz.com
