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Welcome to The HOW Institute for Society's podcast, HOW Conversations, where we talk with courageous and authentic leaders about how we can build and nurture a culture of moral leadership throughout society.
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What does it mean to be a moral leader today? Who has moral authority in our society? What should we expect of our leaders during a crisis, and what are the moral leadership frameworks our leaders are using to navigate through these challenging times? These are just some of the nuanced questions our hosts cover in their discussions with CEOs, military generals, educators, philanthropists, and other leaders about the importance of moral and ethical decision making, and now here's the HOW Institute for Society Senior Distinguished Fellow, Brigadier General Dana H. Born, United States Air Force retired.
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Well, welcome to another How Conversation on Moral Leadership. We're in for a great treat again today. For our listeners, we have with us as a guest James, Jim W. Keys, who's the former CEO of both Blockbuster and 7-11, and a nonprofit called Education is Freedom. Traveling around the world right now, but with us today virtually, Jim, welcome.
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We're so looking forward to jumping into this conversation with you.
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Thank you, Dan. I'm excited to be part of it.
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Here we go, because you are education is freedom. You have a nonprofit that is, by that name, transforming the lives of students and their families that are from middle school through high school and beyond, providing a really good start to comprehensive college planning and career readiness services.
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It gets people started, and we're going to get at how that got you started soon because we know that's part of your purpose and passion. But it's also documented in your book, 2024 Education is Freedom. The same name. What a wonderful read.
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We'll recommend this to our listeners because it's the future is in your hands, and that's for all of us. And it explores the what, the why, the how of learning, and it highlights the importance of education for humankind, both here in the U.S. or abroad, and the power to change our world and the wisdom to unlock personal freedom and preserving democracy. You yourself are a lifelong learner. You're a pilot with more than 40 years of flying both fixed-wing as well as helicopters, an accomplished sculptor, painter, musician.
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We're looking forward to exploring moral leadership, what it means to you in this era that is going so fast, it's so uncertain, so unpredictable, so much disruption. Jim, let's jump right into it.
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And I keep trying to learn new things. One of you says I'll find something I'm good at. But...
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Well, that humility and being a humble learner that will come through, I'm sure, in our conversation.
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Where does that come from? I think maybe we can start with that question. We all kind of looking back, we can kind of see a little bit as we look forward where our passions come from, where our values come from, and maybe you can share with our listeners and and with me a little bit more about your upbringing, maybe what helped shaped your values and maybe your leadership framework as well.
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Sure, I'm gonna I'm gonna shock you with a quote from someone that you wouldn't think I'd be you you wouldn't think I'd be quoting Snoop Dogg, but I'm talking about about values. But I heard him do a commencement speech recently, and in the commencement speech, he said I made a really powerful statement. He said, "You know, when you come from nothing, you appreciate everything, and that gratitude really is something that has has propelled me. But I also learned, he said, as as background, I I grew up in a three room shack in central Massachusetts with no running water and an outhouse, and that was the least. The poverty was the least of the challenges mom left when I was five. My my house was condemned when I was 10. My father passed when I was 12. So I had all kinds of you know horrible changes occurring in my life. But today I look back on it and I realize that that very adversity that I faced as a child is my superpower today.
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It is what propelled me. It's what gave me the resilience and the drive, and the realization that, as the subtitle of my book, as you as you read, the future is in your hands, and I took charge as a child. And said, "Hey, future's in my hands. Buzz Aldrin can walk on the moon, so can I. Fell a little short of that goal, though.
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Was there a moment where that hit you, where all of a sudden there was maybe an epiphany of, "Gosh, this adversity that this is actually this is a launch point.
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For some reason, literally, it was looking back that helped me understand. Wait a minute, no, that I wasn't a victim at all, and and and it really wasn't victimhood. And in many ways, the circumstances that I had to deal with were such great learnings and built in me confidence and and and determination and resilience that I don't think I would have had if I had it if I had an easy path.
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Your leadership philosophy and and you talk about this in your book and also in your interviews, grounded in what you call the 3c's, where you focus on change, confidence, and clarity. Which of those do you think are most that we, as leaders at various levels, often underestimate in how these principles help organizations navigate these headwinds, navigate the the lightning, navigate you know being transformative in in this era.
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Yeah, I think change is probably well all three, but I'll take you quickly through all three. Change is inevitable, as I said. I could have been born into any other different circumstances, and I could have faced any number of good or bad things that happen. You can't control what the universe will deal, but you can control your response to it, and and that's such an important lesson for a leader because we're all going to face some form of adversity in our personal life and our career, and it's the way we respond to it that is far more important than whatever the challenge we face could be. And then the the trick to being able to deal with change is confidence, and that's the that's the obstacle because we go, oh yeah, I can deal with change, sure, and then it happens, and we we flip out. And as a fellow pilot, you know that in the cockpit we learn confidence. None of us are born confident in the pilot. I don't know about you, but I was terrified when I first started flying. And then the third is is clarity, and we tend to overcomplicate any everything.
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As a as a pilot, you're very in very early training. We learn first fly the airplane, right?
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Because you could have five or six warning lights flashing at the same time for different catastrophic things, but the first thing you have to remember is fly the airplane. That's the clarity of the moment that has to come through, and and those three things: dealing with change, having the confidence to do something, and then having the clarity to simplify, and to focus. I think yes, it works in the cockpit, but it's just as important in the boardroom. I I don't know if you remember the cadet that we were working with at West Point, but she whispered to me a beautiful thing I've been using. I told her I'm just gonna I'm gonna steal this. It was something her dad had told her that it's not the will to win that matters; it's the will to prepare to win.
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So that was wonderful, and so much a part of our lives right now - change, disruption, fear. So when people look at you and and look at the fact that you have been a CEO for 7-11 and Blockbuster. They often focus, particularly with Blockbuster, on the outcome rather than the complexity of the moment. Maybe as a leader and for all of us navigating unprecedented disruption, what did that experience teach you about how leaders should show up when the future is not clear and when the stakes are so high.
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Yeah, it...there's so many lessons in Blockbuster that I could share, but probably one of the most important to reflect on is it's easy when, especially with 2020 hindsight, to questions the decisions that someone made, I had no choice but to take the company through a restructuring, and people could say, "Well, blah blah blah, yeah, and for a whole host of reasons, say you didn't keep up with technology, or you didn't do this, you didn't do that. It's easy to judge the decisions someone's made without. Knowing the choices they had at any given time, and that's when when leadership really has to be able to, as you said, simplify with all of the choices. We had so many things coming at us at Blockbuster at the same time. We had Netflix, of course, but ironically, that was the least of our worries, we had Redbox chipping away at some of our sales with vending machines. Right here's this massive thunderstorm that we're now in, with troubles all around us, and that you can't solve for all of them. So one by one, by one, I would pick them apart. So I'm I'm at Bill Gates' house for a CEO summit that Microsoft would hold, and it was a star-studded cast. CEOs, you know, Bezos and all these people were there, and I was a little starstruck at some of my peers, and even though they were my peers, it's like, oh well, here's this person, that person, and Warren Buffett was there.
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And he said, "So what are you doing now, Jim? He knew I had left 711, but he didn't know I was at Blockbuster, and I started playing the victim. Me, Mister Confident, right? I started saying, "Well, Warren, you know, financial markets have collapsed. We've got a billion dollars of debt. You know, that presses all over me. I just had my picture show up with a Pinocchio nose in the New York Post, which really hurt because you try to work on your integrity and try to do the right things, and here they're accusing me of lying about, you know, not having to file for bankruptcy and all this kind of stuff. I said, I I don't know what I should do. I'm I'm probably gonna, I may leave. I don't know. I'm I'm thinking about my options. And Warren looked at me and said, Would you rather be on the bench watching somebody else in the game. It's exactly what I needed to, because no, no, I did not want to be on the bench. I wanted to be in the game. I chose to be in the game, and I was in the game, and I had it. I I had the opportunity, as he said, dust yourself off, get back at the plate. It was not personal, but I needed someone like Warren Buffett to remind me it's not personal. Get back in there and do what you do best.
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Thank you for sharing that story because I think you're not alone. When we're feeling like we're under attack, we we tend to get defensive, and I I love how you shared in your book too the Roosevelt you know get in the arena and I want to share with our listeners a quote that goes back to something you said earlier in our conversation but it's really our response to the change not the change itself that makes all the difference why do you think many of us individuals and organizations struggle so much to respond to change, and what distinguishes leaders who adapt in ways that create opportunity rather than this natural fear that we all have.
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Well, there's something I've been reading about called metacognition, and and it's just the ability to understand one's thoughts and and to to intercept that natural tendency to revert back to fear.
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The fear is there to to keep us alive, and it served a good purpose when we had natural predators, but it's not very responsible in the boardroom, much less the cockpit. Certainly not the cockpit. You don't want fight or flight in the cockpit.
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So metacognition is that ability to step back, and I think that's what good leaders have-that ability to catch themselves before they fall back into that trap of reacting, and instead take a deep breath. I know Navy SEALs do it with box breathing, right? Calm down, focus. You've got this, and and I think that is how. That's the first step in being able to turn change into opportunity. But as you know, I've coined that expression in the book "Change equals opportunity. When I first wrote down those three words, I stepped back and said, "Huh, look at that, CEO change equals opportunity. Duh, you know, it it is the role of leadership. It is the role of a chief executive, whether you're on the battlefield in the cockpit or, or in the boardroom. It's the chief executive that has to be able to anticipate change, deal with change, and instead of reacting negatively out of fear, reverting back to that caveman.
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It's up to the chief executive or the leader to be able to say, "All right, how do I? I can't do anything about what just happened. I can do everything about my reaction, my response to it. And besides, I've got a whole team here following me, and they'll either follow me down the victimhood path. Are they going to follow me to chase the opportunity?
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So let me go into a playbook that develops over time as a leader.
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You've built yours over a career across multiple different ways that you have served. It's usually a set of principles, our values, practices that kind of pressure test us to be our best selves. So when you look across your life and your career, transforming 711, navigating the disruption-I'll use that word of blockbuster-what became the non-negotiables for your principled leadership, your moral leadership, and your playbook? And how did these principles, your principles, shape the way that you made difficult decisions?
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The answer might surprise you. You know, some people could say, "Well, my faith, I, you know the Bible, my upbringing, blah blah blah. I I have a lot of that, of course, in my background and person of faith. I I think that foundation, faith foundation, help help to shape me and to establish those values, but it doesn't teach you what to do about certain circumstances.
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That lesson, ironically, came from the Boy Scout handbook, and I know it sounds crazy. Here's how I discovered this because I never knew this at the time, but I was asked to speak in front of a council of all of the various scout leaders from around the country, they were all coming to Texas for a meeting, and so they asked me to come speak about leadership. And I thought, what am I going to say to a bunch of scout leaders from all over the country? This is a tough group because they're all leaders. And I dragged out my old Boy Scout handbook for some ideas, and as I reflected back, and I hadn't touched it probably in 40 years or more, and as I reflected back and I started reading, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent-all of those things that, as you can see, is still on the top of my of my head. They taught those fundamental principles of leadership as a child. Do a good turn daily. Be prepared. Those things were so ingrained into me as a scout That they carried, they established a foundation for values that I carried throughout my career. And if you step back and you think about it, who wouldn't want to have a person with those attributes as their leader, right?
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And you have lived this right throughout your life and your leadership journey. You've been described as someone who advances a pathway to freedom and opportunity. And in this world that we're in, thinking globally, technology, constant change, what responsibility do leaders have to foster learning?
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Not just as a business imperative, which it is, but as a way to elevate humanity or unlock human potential.
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Yeah, I think I I think learning too often will grab a book, and you know, you and I have both read 2030, books on leadership, right? And almost across the board, people will define it as a thing, you know, do this or do that. But here's the reality - leadership is not static; it's dynamic. When I joined Blockbuster, I joined it to lead the company in a transformation. Six months, 12 months in, I had to pivot completely, put the transformation aside, and lead it through survival, and and a restructuring. Completely different leadership skills needed for that shift from when I started. But if I stuck to one leadership practice, one leadership principle, I would have not been able to pivot, and that's the reality. As leaders, we have to be able to adapt to change ourselves, and respond to it in a proactive fashion. It's about when you're made a leader, you now have a license to learn, but you have to keep learning as a leader every single. Day that you're in that leadership role to be able to continue to respond effectively to change, so it's a license to learn.
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I like your learning and curiosity, and you have embraced that. And you also have like this sparkle about you always, and people probably want to know, you know, why are you smiling? What makes you sparkle during these difficult times and the times that you've even fallen into feeling victim, which you're human? What is you're a purveyor of hope, and that is something that moral leaders have a calling to do.
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What is giving you hope right now?
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Um, I guess I am a glass half full guy, right? Um, and right now one could look at the world and say, "Man, we're in deep trouble. There is so much negativity out there.
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People are at each other's throats. Our our politics has never been such a contact sport, and what's going to happen to us? And then throw on top of that the uncertainty with technology and AI, and what's it going to do? And the machine's going to eat us, or you know, are we going to be okay? That's the the. There's a lot of glass half emptyers out there who would look at that sort of gloom and doom scenario and say we're we're done. It's just a matter of time. I look at it and say, any time humanity has ever faced this much change, the invention of the modern modern printing press, going back a couple 100 years, created crazy response.
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It was technology of the day. I believe that the tools exist today. That we, if we harness those tools and are not afraid of them, that we can elevate human learning at the same rate that we elevate machine learning. Now, how did we do that? Well, when books first came out, people were afraid to give a kid a book. You can't just turn them loose with that book. Lord knows what they might do with that, right? They might learn the wrong thing. And then what happened? That technology changed to the point that we used books to advance learning, and we advanced it pretty dramatically. Today, the new technology is digital, but we have people saying, and a lot of people believe this, and I understand their fears. Get those devices out of the hands of kids, but the adults in the room, us should be recognizing the device itself is like a book. It's just a, it's just a distribution point. What we put in that device is what's important. The content is what's important. So why don't we take charge instead of throwing away the book or throwing away the device, why don't we take charge of managing the content so that we can distribute learning in a more efficient way? And that's what my objective is to say any company, any CEO in this country looking at our public school system with 13,000 independent school districts, each doing its own thing, would say we need an operating system, and with an operating system now we can have data, and we can be more effective locally, and more effective nationally. So that's what I'm out advocating for, and I think we have a chance to change to elevate human learning. Why should America have 70% of our kids in the fourth grade unable to read at a fourth grade level? With the tools available today, no excuse. 100% literacy in America. Why not?
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Oh, why not? And you started by saying I'm an optimist, and and I I know that you're definitely not a pessimist, but I I know that Dov Seidman talks about moral leaders actually don't say the cup half's empty or half full. They find more water, and you're you're more than an optimist. I'd say you're a moral leader who finds more water, and that is you know how do we not get held back, but we launch forward into what we do and and seize the moment of change. And you talk about that in terms of coming out of the pandemic and not getting discouraged by how few had access to studying online, but actually how much work there is to do, and we can do this to have it more accessible to more people, and especially our youth.
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Exactly, you know.
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And if you think about it, Dana, if you step back from this and you say, "What is the best chance of humanity ever achieving peace in the world? I mean, traditionally, it has been a strong military, you know, and and defense. Well, possibly here's a crazy idea, but a better offense might be imagine a world where we have 100% literacy across the globe, because the need for war and the need for defense comes from fear of what's that other person going to do, and that other person is afraid of you, and fear leads to ignorance, ignorance leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. Very negative cycle. But if we could educate the population, Starlink today could light up every corner of the globe. Virtually every kid in Africa has a cell phone, and if we could light up those phones with a literacy tool and an AI tutor that helped every child on this planet learn to read, could we elevate humanity to the point that we behave more rationally and put that caveman behavior on the back burner, perhaps, perhaps we could really achieve a more peaceful planet and productive planet.
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What a beautiful launch point! And you can hear still your gratitude and your humility, which is also a virtue of service. I hope our listeners got a little bit of that bug from this conversation. It's certainly I do here in conversation with you. I want to say you know your education is freedom, and the future is in our hands. It's in your hands.
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Really does resonate with this really calling for moral leadership and more how in this world, and so I love how you also say freedom to fly. This conversation I hope gives our listener the freedom to fly, and we thank you so much for living your passion and purpose and sharing it with us and paying it forward and inspiring us to pay it forward as well.
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Well, thank you. I'm grateful for the opportunity because I do think the work that you're doing and the work that HOW is doing puts a really important light on the possibilities on helping people find the water because the glass is potentially full.
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And we are so grateful to have you as a friend and a partner in the journey together. So let's go make some more waves.
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I like it!
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Alright.
00:00:00.689 --> 00:00:15.449
Welcome to The HOW Institute for Society's podcast, HOW Conversations, where we talk with courageous and authentic leaders about how we can build and nurture a culture of moral leadership throughout society.
00:00:15.449 --> 00:00:52.289
What does it mean to be a moral leader today? Who has moral authority in our society? What should we expect of our leaders during a crisis, and what are the moral leadership frameworks our leaders are using to navigate through these challenging times? These are just some of the nuanced questions our hosts cover in their discussions with CEOs, military generals, educators, philanthropists, and other leaders about the importance of moral and ethical decision making, and now here's the HOW Institute for Society Senior Distinguished Fellow, Brigadier General Dana H. Born, United States Air Force retired.
00:00:58.409 --> 00:01:24.299
Well, welcome to another How Conversation on Moral Leadership. We're in for a great treat again today. For our listeners, we have with us as a guest James, Jim W. Keys, who's the former CEO of both Blockbuster and 7-11, and a nonprofit called Education is Freedom. Traveling around the world right now, but with us today virtually, Jim, welcome.
00:01:24.299 --> 00:01:26.340
We're so looking forward to jumping into this conversation with you.
00:01:26.579 --> 00:01:28.709
Thank you, Dan. I'm excited to be part of it.
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:51.719
Here we go, because you are education is freedom. You have a nonprofit that is, by that name, transforming the lives of students and their families that are from middle school through high school and beyond, providing a really good start to comprehensive college planning and career readiness services.
00:01:51.719 --> 00:02:07.319
It gets people started, and we're going to get at how that got you started soon because we know that's part of your purpose and passion. But it's also documented in your book, 2024 Education is Freedom. The same name. What a wonderful read.
00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:49.710
We'll recommend this to our listeners because it's the future is in your hands, and that's for all of us. And it explores the what, the why, the how of learning, and it highlights the importance of education for humankind, both here in the U.S. or abroad, and the power to change our world and the wisdom to unlock personal freedom and preserving democracy. You yourself are a lifelong learner. You're a pilot with more than 40 years of flying both fixed-wing as well as helicopters, an accomplished sculptor, painter, musician.
00:02:49.710 --> 00:03:01.229
We're looking forward to exploring moral leadership, what it means to you in this era that is going so fast, it's so uncertain, so unpredictable, so much disruption. Jim, let's jump right into it.
00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:05.370
And I keep trying to learn new things. One of you says I'll find something I'm good at. But...
00:03:05.909 --> 00:03:12.870
Well, that humility and being a humble learner that will come through, I'm sure, in our conversation.
00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:38.310
Where does that come from? I think maybe we can start with that question. We all kind of looking back, we can kind of see a little bit as we look forward where our passions come from, where our values come from, and maybe you can share with our listeners and and with me a little bit more about your upbringing, maybe what helped shaped your values and maybe your leadership framework as well.
00:03:38.939 --> 00:04:45.060
Sure, I'm gonna I'm gonna shock you with a quote from someone that you wouldn't think I'd be you you wouldn't think I'd be quoting Snoop Dogg, but I'm talking about about values. But I heard him do a commencement speech recently, and in the commencement speech, he said I made a really powerful statement. He said, "You know, when you come from nothing, you appreciate everything, and that gratitude really is something that has has propelled me. But I also learned, he said, as as background, I I grew up in a three room shack in central Massachusetts with no running water and an outhouse, and that was the least. The poverty was the least of the challenges mom left when I was five. My my house was condemned when I was 10. My father passed when I was 12. So I had all kinds of you know horrible changes occurring in my life. But today I look back on it and I realize that that very adversity that I faced as a child is my superpower today.
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It is what propelled me. It's what gave me the resilience and the drive, and the realization that, as the subtitle of my book, as you as you read, the future is in your hands, and I took charge as a child. And said, "Hey, future's in my hands. Buzz Aldrin can walk on the moon, so can I. Fell a little short of that goal, though.
00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:21.240
Was there a moment where that hit you, where all of a sudden there was maybe an epiphany of, "Gosh, this adversity that this is actually this is a launch point.
00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:51.720
For some reason, literally, it was looking back that helped me understand. Wait a minute, no, that I wasn't a victim at all, and and and it really wasn't victimhood. And in many ways, the circumstances that I had to deal with were such great learnings and built in me confidence and and and determination and resilience that I don't think I would have had if I had it if I had an easy path.
00:05:52.410 --> 00:06:24.389
Your leadership philosophy and and you talk about this in your book and also in your interviews, grounded in what you call the 3c's, where you focus on change, confidence, and clarity. Which of those do you think are most that we, as leaders at various levels, often underestimate in how these principles help organizations navigate these headwinds, navigate the the lightning, navigate you know being transformative in in this era.
00:06:25.019 --> 00:07:43.439
Yeah, I think change is probably well all three, but I'll take you quickly through all three. Change is inevitable, as I said. I could have been born into any other different circumstances, and I could have faced any number of good or bad things that happen. You can't control what the universe will deal, but you can control your response to it, and and that's such an important lesson for a leader because we're all going to face some form of adversity in our personal life and our career, and it's the way we respond to it that is far more important than whatever the challenge we face could be. And then the the trick to being able to deal with change is confidence, and that's the that's the obstacle because we go, oh yeah, I can deal with change, sure, and then it happens, and we we flip out. And as a fellow pilot, you know that in the cockpit we learn confidence. None of us are born confident in the pilot. I don't know about you, but I was terrified when I first started flying. And then the third is is clarity, and we tend to overcomplicate any everything.
00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:56.069
As a as a pilot, you're very in very early training. We learn first fly the airplane, right?
00:07:56.069 --> 00:08:48.059
Because you could have five or six warning lights flashing at the same time for different catastrophic things, but the first thing you have to remember is fly the airplane. That's the clarity of the moment that has to come through, and and those three things: dealing with change, having the confidence to do something, and then having the clarity to simplify, and to focus. I think yes, it works in the cockpit, but it's just as important in the boardroom. I I don't know if you remember the cadet that we were working with at West Point, but she whispered to me a beautiful thing I've been using. I told her I'm just gonna I'm gonna steal this. It was something her dad had told her that it's not the will to win that matters; it's the will to prepare to win.
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So that was wonderful, and so much a part of our lives right now - change, disruption, fear. So when people look at you and and look at the fact that you have been a CEO for 7-11 and Blockbuster. They often focus, particularly with Blockbuster, on the outcome rather than the complexity of the moment. Maybe as a leader and for all of us navigating unprecedented disruption, what did that experience teach you about how leaders should show up when the future is not clear and when the stakes are so high.
00:09:26.220 --> 00:11:07.620
Yeah, it...there's so many lessons in Blockbuster that I could share, but probably one of the most important to reflect on is it's easy when, especially with 2020 hindsight, to questions the decisions that someone made, I had no choice but to take the company through a restructuring, and people could say, "Well, blah blah blah, yeah, and for a whole host of reasons, say you didn't keep up with technology, or you didn't do this, you didn't do that. It's easy to judge the decisions someone's made without. Knowing the choices they had at any given time, and that's when when leadership really has to be able to, as you said, simplify with all of the choices. We had so many things coming at us at Blockbuster at the same time. We had Netflix, of course, but ironically, that was the least of our worries, we had Redbox chipping away at some of our sales with vending machines. Right here's this massive thunderstorm that we're now in, with troubles all around us, and that you can't solve for all of them. So one by one, by one, I would pick them apart. So I'm I'm at Bill Gates' house for a CEO summit that Microsoft would hold, and it was a star-studded cast. CEOs, you know, Bezos and all these people were there, and I was a little starstruck at some of my peers, and even though they were my peers, it's like, oh well, here's this person, that person, and Warren Buffett was there.
00:11:07.620 --> 00:12:30.179
And he said, "So what are you doing now, Jim? He knew I had left 711, but he didn't know I was at Blockbuster, and I started playing the victim. Me, Mister Confident, right? I started saying, "Well, Warren, you know, financial markets have collapsed. We've got a billion dollars of debt. You know, that presses all over me. I just had my picture show up with a Pinocchio nose in the New York Post, which really hurt because you try to work on your integrity and try to do the right things, and here they're accusing me of lying about, you know, not having to file for bankruptcy and all this kind of stuff. I said, I I don't know what I should do. I'm I'm probably gonna, I may leave. I don't know. I'm I'm thinking about my options. And Warren looked at me and said, Would you rather be on the bench watching somebody else in the game. It's exactly what I needed to, because no, no, I did not want to be on the bench. I wanted to be in the game. I chose to be in the game, and I was in the game, and I had it. I I had the opportunity, as he said, dust yourself off, get back at the plate. It was not personal, but I needed someone like Warren Buffett to remind me it's not personal. Get back in there and do what you do best.
00:12:30.659 --> 00:13:14.279
Thank you for sharing that story because I think you're not alone. When we're feeling like we're under attack, we we tend to get defensive, and I I love how you shared in your book too the Roosevelt you know get in the arena and I want to share with our listeners a quote that goes back to something you said earlier in our conversation but it's really our response to the change not the change itself that makes all the difference why do you think many of us individuals and organizations struggle so much to respond to change, and what distinguishes leaders who adapt in ways that create opportunity rather than this natural fear that we all have.
00:13:15.629 --> 00:13:34.350
Well, there's something I've been reading about called metacognition, and and it's just the ability to understand one's thoughts and and to to intercept that natural tendency to revert back to fear.
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The fear is there to to keep us alive, and it served a good purpose when we had natural predators, but it's not very responsible in the boardroom, much less the cockpit. Certainly not the cockpit. You don't want fight or flight in the cockpit.
00:13:50.669 --> 00:15:02.549
So metacognition is that ability to step back, and I think that's what good leaders have-that ability to catch themselves before they fall back into that trap of reacting, and instead take a deep breath. I know Navy SEALs do it with box breathing, right? Calm down, focus. You've got this, and and I think that is how. That's the first step in being able to turn change into opportunity. But as you know, I've coined that expression in the book "Change equals opportunity. When I first wrote down those three words, I stepped back and said, "Huh, look at that, CEO change equals opportunity. Duh, you know, it it is the role of leadership. It is the role of a chief executive, whether you're on the battlefield in the cockpit or, or in the boardroom. It's the chief executive that has to be able to anticipate change, deal with change, and instead of reacting negatively out of fear, reverting back to that caveman.
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It's up to the chief executive or the leader to be able to say, "All right, how do I? I can't do anything about what just happened. I can do everything about my reaction, my response to it. And besides, I've got a whole team here following me, and they'll either follow me down the victimhood path. Are they going to follow me to chase the opportunity?
00:15:26.070 --> 00:15:34.470
So let me go into a playbook that develops over time as a leader.
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You've built yours over a career across multiple different ways that you have served. It's usually a set of principles, our values, practices that kind of pressure test us to be our best selves. So when you look across your life and your career, transforming 711, navigating the disruption-I'll use that word of blockbuster-what became the non-negotiables for your principled leadership, your moral leadership, and your playbook? And how did these principles, your principles, shape the way that you made difficult decisions?
00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:49.049
The answer might surprise you. You know, some people could say, "Well, my faith, I, you know the Bible, my upbringing, blah blah blah. I I have a lot of that, of course, in my background and person of faith. I I think that foundation, faith foundation, help help to shape me and to establish those values, but it doesn't teach you what to do about certain circumstances.
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That lesson, ironically, came from the Boy Scout handbook, and I know it sounds crazy. Here's how I discovered this because I never knew this at the time, but I was asked to speak in front of a council of all of the various scout leaders from around the country, they were all coming to Texas for a meeting, and so they asked me to come speak about leadership. And I thought, what am I going to say to a bunch of scout leaders from all over the country? This is a tough group because they're all leaders. And I dragged out my old Boy Scout handbook for some ideas, and as I reflected back, and I hadn't touched it probably in 40 years or more, and as I reflected back and I started reading, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent-all of those things that, as you can see, is still on the top of my of my head. They taught those fundamental principles of leadership as a child. Do a good turn daily. Be prepared. Those things were so ingrained into me as a scout That they carried, they established a foundation for values that I carried throughout my career. And if you step back and you think about it, who wouldn't want to have a person with those attributes as their leader, right?
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:41.039
And you have lived this right throughout your life and your leadership journey. You've been described as someone who advances a pathway to freedom and opportunity. And in this world that we're in, thinking globally, technology, constant change, what responsibility do leaders have to foster learning?
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Not just as a business imperative, which it is, but as a way to elevate humanity or unlock human potential.
00:18:47.220 --> 00:20:10.140
Yeah, I think I I think learning too often will grab a book, and you know, you and I have both read 2030, books on leadership, right? And almost across the board, people will define it as a thing, you know, do this or do that. But here's the reality - leadership is not static; it's dynamic. When I joined Blockbuster, I joined it to lead the company in a transformation. Six months, 12 months in, I had to pivot completely, put the transformation aside, and lead it through survival, and and a restructuring. Completely different leadership skills needed for that shift from when I started. But if I stuck to one leadership practice, one leadership principle, I would have not been able to pivot, and that's the reality. As leaders, we have to be able to adapt to change ourselves, and respond to it in a proactive fashion. It's about when you're made a leader, you now have a license to learn, but you have to keep learning as a leader every single. Day that you're in that leadership role to be able to continue to respond effectively to change, so it's a license to learn.
00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:39.299
I like your learning and curiosity, and you have embraced that. And you also have like this sparkle about you always, and people probably want to know, you know, why are you smiling? What makes you sparkle during these difficult times and the times that you've even fallen into feeling victim, which you're human? What is you're a purveyor of hope, and that is something that moral leaders have a calling to do.
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What is giving you hope right now?
00:20:42.210 --> 00:20:54.029
Um, I guess I am a glass half full guy, right? Um, and right now one could look at the world and say, "Man, we're in deep trouble. There is so much negativity out there.
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People are at each other's throats. Our our politics has never been such a contact sport, and what's going to happen to us? And then throw on top of that the uncertainty with technology and AI, and what's it going to do? And the machine's going to eat us, or you know, are we going to be okay? That's the the. There's a lot of glass half emptyers out there who would look at that sort of gloom and doom scenario and say we're we're done. It's just a matter of time. I look at it and say, any time humanity has ever faced this much change, the invention of the modern modern printing press, going back a couple 100 years, created crazy response.
00:21:49.890 --> 00:23:55.529
It was technology of the day. I believe that the tools exist today. That we, if we harness those tools and are not afraid of them, that we can elevate human learning at the same rate that we elevate machine learning. Now, how did we do that? Well, when books first came out, people were afraid to give a kid a book. You can't just turn them loose with that book. Lord knows what they might do with that, right? They might learn the wrong thing. And then what happened? That technology changed to the point that we used books to advance learning, and we advanced it pretty dramatically. Today, the new technology is digital, but we have people saying, and a lot of people believe this, and I understand their fears. Get those devices out of the hands of kids, but the adults in the room, us should be recognizing the device itself is like a book. It's just a, it's just a distribution point. What we put in that device is what's important. The content is what's important. So why don't we take charge instead of throwing away the book or throwing away the device, why don't we take charge of managing the content so that we can distribute learning in a more efficient way? And that's what my objective is to say any company, any CEO in this country looking at our public school system with 13,000 independent school districts, each doing its own thing, would say we need an operating system, and with an operating system now we can have data, and we can be more effective locally, and more effective nationally. So that's what I'm out advocating for, and I think we have a chance to change to elevate human learning. Why should America have 70% of our kids in the fourth grade unable to read at a fourth grade level? With the tools available today, no excuse. 100% literacy in America. Why not?
00:23:56.309 --> 00:24:42.269
Oh, why not? And you started by saying I'm an optimist, and and I I know that you're definitely not a pessimist, but I I know that Dov Seidman talks about moral leaders actually don't say the cup half's empty or half full. They find more water, and you're you're more than an optimist. I'd say you're a moral leader who finds more water, and that is you know how do we not get held back, but we launch forward into what we do and and seize the moment of change. And you talk about that in terms of coming out of the pandemic and not getting discouraged by how few had access to studying online, but actually how much work there is to do, and we can do this to have it more accessible to more people, and especially our youth.
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:45.180
Exactly, you know.
00:24:45.180 --> 00:26:09.720
And if you think about it, Dana, if you step back from this and you say, "What is the best chance of humanity ever achieving peace in the world? I mean, traditionally, it has been a strong military, you know, and and defense. Well, possibly here's a crazy idea, but a better offense might be imagine a world where we have 100% literacy across the globe, because the need for war and the need for defense comes from fear of what's that other person going to do, and that other person is afraid of you, and fear leads to ignorance, ignorance leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. Very negative cycle. But if we could educate the population, Starlink today could light up every corner of the globe. Virtually every kid in Africa has a cell phone, and if we could light up those phones with a literacy tool and an AI tutor that helped every child on this planet learn to read, could we elevate humanity to the point that we behave more rationally and put that caveman behavior on the back burner, perhaps, perhaps we could really achieve a more peaceful planet and productive planet.
00:26:10.259 --> 00:26:37.740
What a beautiful launch point! And you can hear still your gratitude and your humility, which is also a virtue of service. I hope our listeners got a little bit of that bug from this conversation. It's certainly I do here in conversation with you. I want to say you know your education is freedom, and the future is in our hands. It's in your hands.
00:26:37.740 --> 00:27:00.240
Really does resonate with this really calling for moral leadership and more how in this world, and so I love how you also say freedom to fly. This conversation I hope gives our listener the freedom to fly, and we thank you so much for living your passion and purpose and sharing it with us and paying it forward and inspiring us to pay it forward as well.
00:27:00.990 --> 00:27:20.490
Well, thank you. I'm grateful for the opportunity because I do think the work that you're doing and the work that HOW is doing puts a really important light on the possibilities on helping people find the water because the glass is potentially full.
00:27:21.660 --> 00:27:27.299
And we are so grateful to have you as a friend and a partner in the journey together. So let's go make some more waves.
00:27:28.349 --> 00:27:28.890
I like it!
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Alright.
