Full Transcript for Former Walmart VP Keith Wyche: The 4 R's That Decide Whether Change Stick

00:03:40.982 --> 00:03:50.644 I find when you're going through change and transformation, you need to over-communicate because absence of communication, people will make up in their own minds, you know, what it is that they're doing. 58 00:03:50.844 --> 00:03:52.764 And the last R is robustness. 59 00:03:52.844 --> 00:03:53.865 Is this change too much? 60 00:03:53.885 --> 00:03:55.245 So I see companies right now with AI, 61 00:03:56.355 --> 00:03:57.336 And I see three different things. 62 00:03:57.377 --> 00:03:59.919 I see companies who are saying, hey, let's pilot this stuff internally. 63 00:04:00.260 --> 00:04:06.087 But then there's always that company that wants to go full board, just go all AI, kind of leading edge, bleeding edge. 64 00:04:06.387 --> 00:04:14.637 And in my experience, change needs to be and transformation needs to be structured in such a way that you're evolving instead of just all of a sudden trying to go full board. 65 00:04:15.643 --> 00:04:20.125 So let's talk about, as I look at one of the examples and there are many, so please tell me if there's something else. 66 00:04:20.445 --> 00:04:39.152 As I look at your experience of super value, you know, an industry that is notorious for having razor thin margins and a lot of challenges, you not only increase same store growth, sales, and increase even a margin through that, that doesn't happen by accident without kind of divulging any company secrets. 67 00:04:39.172 --> 00:04:45.034 Can you take us back to what it meant to kind of move that forward towards that transformation? 68 00:04:45.521 --> 00:04:46.542 Anthony, that's a great story. 69 00:04:46.562 --> 00:04:51.164 And what makes that story even more interesting is I had no grocery background prior to getting that role. 70 00:04:51.865 --> 00:04:54.166 I'd come from Pitney Bowls and IBM and AT&T. 71 00:04:54.646 --> 00:05:00.890 And so the simplicity of it for me was, okay, most people shop within a two-and-a-half-mile radius of where they live. 72 00:05:01.430 --> 00:05:05.133 So the first thing we did was look at a demographic search of what does that community look like? 73 00:05:05.573 --> 00:05:06.593 Is it African-American? 74 00:05:06.613 --> 00:05:07.374 Is it Latino? 75 00:05:07.494 --> 00:05:08.815 Is it of a certain age group? 76 00:05:08.855 --> 00:05:09.795 Is it large families? 77 00:05:10.176 --> 00:05:11.977 And then we tailored each store. 78 00:05:12.777 --> 00:05:15.060 the merchandising to match that store. 79 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:19.745 And so if it was a highly Jewish community, we made sure we had enough kosher items. 80 00:05:20.386 --> 00:05:25.372 If it was Latino community, we made sure that we had products and services and the fruits, the things that they liked. 81 00:05:25.932 --> 00:05:30.438 And the other thing we did was we understand that most of the folks who work for us live in that same community. 82 00:05:31.058 --> 00:05:32.679 And so making sure we take care of them. 83 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:38.341 So in one of our Hispanic stores, we decided to have overhead announcements to be made both in English and in Spanish. 84 00:05:39.041 --> 00:05:48.244 And in doing those small things, along with a thing I have called GOT, greet, offer, thanks, make sure that every customer comes in, get greeted, offered assistance and thanks for their business. 85 00:05:48.565 --> 00:05:50.505 That was really the simplicity of moving the needle. 86 00:05:50.665 --> 00:05:54.827 And so what's interesting about that, again, we're talking about things that are uncommon. 87 00:05:55.307 --> 00:05:56.928 you see these trends in business. 88 00:05:57.028 --> 00:06:03.592 You've been leading teams, leading organizations since early 90s, 80s, they're not gonna age you or anything. 89 00:06:03.952 --> 00:06:04.753 But if you look at, 90 00:06:06.579 --> 00:06:10.282 to standardization, right? 91 00:06:10.442 --> 00:06:17.868 And building that, and then you did across 112 stores, like as a lot of people, you said, not that. 92 00:06:18.409 --> 00:06:22.512 How do those conversations come about in the boardroom? 93 00:06:22.772 --> 00:06:24.493 How do they come up with the managers? 94 00:06:24.554 --> 00:06:29.117 And you talk like over communicate, over communicate, but how did you get people on board with that? 95 00:06:29.177 --> 00:06:31.499 Did they see the benefit of doing it? 96 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:36.163 Or was it like dragging people uphill to get them on board with this idea? 97 00:06:36.637 --> 00:06:39.299 No, it was rooted and grounded in the facts. 98 00:06:39.359 --> 00:06:44.283 And so the facts are in almost every grocery store, 85% of what people buy is going to be the same. 99 00:06:44.423 --> 00:06:45.324 So it's going to be Tide. 100 00:06:45.364 --> 00:06:46.145 It's going to be Cresk. 101 00:06:46.205 --> 00:06:48.026 It's going to be, you know, those products, right? 102 00:06:48.427 --> 00:06:51.629 But 15% of that should be tailored for that audience. 103 00:06:52.230 --> 00:06:57.394 And so we did things like, and you're going to chuckle out of this, we went to an African-American community in Minneapolis and, 104 00:06:57.932 --> 00:07:04.576 And I went to the hair care section and none of the hair care products in that section fit that community. 105 00:07:04.596 --> 00:07:06.157 So there was dust on top of the boxes. 106 00:07:06.237 --> 00:07:10.500 And so, you know, taking board members with me to do these tours to see, hey, here's what's happening. 107 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:14.923 Similarly, Thanksgiving, went to a store, again, heavily African-American community. 108 00:07:14.983 --> 00:07:17.585 They had tons of pumpkin pie. 109 00:07:17.605 --> 00:07:18.926 They had no sweet potato pie. 110 00:07:19.486 --> 00:07:20.787 And so we did a little litmus test. 111 00:07:20.807 --> 00:07:23.829 We said, hey, let's put 50 of each out, same price, see what sells. 112 00:07:23.889 --> 00:07:27.071 We come back

the next day, you still get about 25 or so pumpkin pies. 113 00:07:27.515 --> 00:07:28.677 All the sweet potato pies are gone. 114 00:07:28.997 --> 00:07:41.717 And so it's really just focusing in on the buying habits of the customers and helping those leaders see that at the end of the day, if you take care of the customer, they can shop when they want, where they want, and what they want, they'll come back to you time and time again. 115 00:07:42.877 --> 00:07:49.441 So let's, so no grocery experience, but what the heart of it is, is making sure that it's tailored to people. 116 00:07:50.101 --> 00:07:56.205 And then what you did to move the change forward was allow people to bring that first R, the relevance. 117 00:07:56.245 --> 00:07:57.466 You know, this is relevant. 118 00:07:57.486 --> 00:07:58.426 Here's why you're relevant. 119 00:07:58.626 --> 00:08:00.027 You brought the facts in. 120 00:08:00.387 --> 00:08:08.072 And I think that responsiveness, you know, both on both ends of things, like being a connector to help other people kind of discover it for themselves. 121 00:08:08.652 --> 00:08:09.834 Something you want to add? 122 00:08:09.854 --> 00:08:13.819 Yeah, the other thing that helped is that I looked at everything through the lens of the customer, right? 123 00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:15.261 And let me give you what that looks like. 124 00:08:15.281 --> 00:08:19.927 You know, from the moment I got to the parking lot, was the parking lot clean or was there trash everywhere? 125 00:08:20.928 --> 00:08:22.850 When I went to the vegetable, were there carts there? 126 00:08:22.891 --> 00:08:24.793 Were the carts all scattered over the parking lot? 127 00:08:25.173 --> 00:08:29.059 You know, when I went to the meat department, did the meat look fresh or was there brown meat? 128 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:31.942 And so I was always looking at it through the lens of a customer. 129 00:08:32.023 --> 00:08:34.206 Is the pricing where I can see it and understand it? 130 00:08:34.326 --> 00:08:35.968 You know, is the product where it needs to be? 131 00:08:35.988 --> 00:08:40.454 And so everything I did was really through the lens of the customer to enhance and improve 132 00:08:40.734 --> 00:08:45.536 The customer shopping experience, even down to self-checkouts versus man checkouts, right? 133 00:08:45.556 --> 00:08:47.596 Doing those things to say, okay, this is a young community. 134 00:08:47.616 --> 00:08:49.097 It's right next to the University of Minnesota. 135 00:08:49.457 --> 00:08:50.597 These kids want to get in and out. 136 00:08:51.577 --> 00:08:54.919 Maybe the predominant would be mostly predominantly self-checkout. 137 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:57.879 Here's another community in another part of the city. 138 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:01.461 Elderly people don't really want to weigh their potatoes and their bananas. 139 00:09:01.741 --> 00:09:05.902 And so making sure, again, everything fit that community, but looking through the lens of

the customer. 140 00:09:06.706 --> 00:09:07.687 Well, I think that's something. 141 00:09:07.707 --> 00:09:17.376 So, you know, as you're listening, you know, most of you, many of you senior leadership people, you're on board and you have a view of the entire organization. 142 00:09:17.436 --> 00:09:22.160 Your SVPs, your VPs, your other senior leaders, they have a lot of functional things. 143 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:30.248 But, you know, my invitation coming out of what I'm hearing Keith say is, you know, zoom out on the entire business, but take the lens of your customer to look at that. 144 00:09:30.688 --> 00:09:33.150 Yeah, the other thing is listen to your frontline associates. 145 00:09:33.230 --> 00:09:48.719 Anthony, every time I go into a store, I would ask my frontline associates, not the management team, the hourly workers, tell me three things I'm asking you to do that make no sense at all to you, and tell me three things or three products that if you had this product or if we did this, we could sell more of it or sell it. 146 00:09:49.299 --> 00:09:56.223 And I got more information and knowledge and intelligence out of those conversations of things that we were making them do that added no value. 147 00:09:56.283 --> 00:09:57.504 Maybe it made a report change. 148 00:09:57.784 --> 00:10:00.706 to me looked good, but it was taking time away from them serving the customer. 149 00:10:01.266 --> 00:10:09.712 And so just listening to that frontline associate to say, hey, we have these big oranges, but my customer likes the mini oranges more or whatever that might be. 150 00:10:09.752 --> 00:10:13.655 And so listening to that frontline associate was also part of that equation. 151 00:10:14.321 --> 00:10:17.043 So let's talk associates, you know, no grocery experience. 152 00:10:17.083 --> 00:10:22.046 Then you find yourself in Walmart responsible for 30,000 associates. 153 00:10:22.066 --> 00:10:27.329 You know, the Walmart greeter is, you know, now synonymous with Walmart. 154 00:10:27.349 --> 00:10:29.551 I don't know if you created that or if that's came through. 155 00:10:29.591 --> 00:10:30.291 No, that was there. 156 00:10:30.751 --> 00:10:31.292 Before there. 157 00:10:31.372 --> 00:10:31.572 Okay. 158 00:10:31.792 --> 00:10:34.014 So was it more of the same? 159 00:10:34.054 --> 00:10:40.798 What was the difference moving from the previous organization into Walmart, which was obviously a much, you know, larger scope? 160 00:10:40.958 --> 00:10:44.040 What was it like leading teams in that organization? 161 00:10:44.561 --> 00:10:51.109 You know, what I loved about Walmart was that almost everyone from the CEO down started as an hourly associate. 162 00:10:52.250 --> 00:10:58.638 And so they understood the business from, you know, unloading the truck, stocking the shelves, you know, sweeping the parking lot perspective. 163 00:10:59.179 --> 00:11:04.265 The other thing I did as part of my onboarding for the first 90 days is I actually worked in stores. 164 00:11:04.805 --> 00:11:05.786 I changed oil. 165 00:11:05.846 --> 00:11:06.927 I changed tires. 166 00:11:07.007 --> 00:11:08.468 I fried chicken in the deli. 167 00:11:08.668 --> 00:11:16.734 I stopped trucks because I wanted to understand primarily from a general merchandise perspective, you know, how this is different. 168 00:11:16.994 --> 00:11:19.356 The beautiful thing about Walmart is that they had this book. 169 00:11:19.456 --> 00:11:20.497 It was called One Best Way. 170 00:11:20.517 --> 00:11:21.117 It wasn't a book. 171 00:11:21.137 --> 00:11:21.878 It was a process. 172 00:11:22.218 --> 00:11:23.939 This is just one best way to do everything. 173 00:11:23.999 --> 00:11:29.203 So the way we bake bread in Philadelphia was the exact same way we bake bread in San Francisco. 174 00:11:30.010 --> 00:11:32.412 The way you frost a cake was the same. 175 00:11:32.432 --> 00:11:43.018 And so because we had these standard operating procedures and a long history of tenured people in place, it was very easy to kind of come in and understand how Walmart moves and shakes. 176 00:11:43.418 --> 00:11:46.620 The challenge at Walmart was that they were trying to move from brick and mortar 177 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.981 to e-commerce, which was something that was not their strong suit. 178 00:11:51.021 --> 00:11:55.302 The whole machinery was built around coming into the store brick and mortar. 179 00:11:56.382 --> 00:12:02.584 And so what I had to do, for my team at least, was to create a story to talk about the relevance as why we needed to make that change. 180 00:12:02.964 --> 00:12:05.744 And I dug back in my history, Anthony, to my time at Sears. 181 00:12:05.904 --> 00:12:07.665 I was an intern at Sears in the late 70s. 182 00:12:08.625 --> 00:12:11.089 And I said, guys, who was the number one retailer in 1978? 183 00:12:11.529 --> 00:12:12.250 Very few people knew. 184 00:12:12.270 --> 00:12:12.851 It was Sears. 185 00:12:13.332 --> 00:12:14.834 I said, here's what was unique about Sears. 186 00:12:15.075 --> 00:12:20.442 Sears was both Walmart and Amazon at the same time because they had the brick and mortar like Walmart. 187 00:12:20.943 --> 00:12:22.986 But like Amazon, they had these catalogs. 188 00:12:23.907 --> 00:12:28.330 where you could order from the catalog for Christmas or back to school, what have you. 189 00:12:28.430 --> 00:12:30.351 It could be delivered to your home or you could pick it up. 190 00:12:30.871 --> 00:12:38.275 I said, so if they were able to be basically both companies at once in the late 70s to non-existent today, why? 191 00:12:38.995 --> 00:12:40.836 Because they didn't change with the times. 192 00:12:40.876 --> 00:12:42.917 They didn't change with the customer buying habits. 193 00:12:43.317 --> 00:12:48.720 And once we kind of shared that story, that created the platform for them to say, hey, we need to change. 194 00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:51.702 But we took it one step

further because people want to know what's in it for me. 195 00:12:52.760 --> 00:13:05.304 And so we had this story about, hey, we did some research that if a customer had a great shopping experience, Anthony, all the way through the self-checkouts or the checkouts, they liably will come back and they'll add one more item to the basket the next time they shop. 196 00:13:06.165 --> 00:13:16.128 If you say $5 is average unit retail in Walmart times a million customers that come through there, it creates more revenue, but it also creates more hours for that worker. 197 00:13:16.268 --> 00:13:21.790 Because most workers at Walmart and any other retail establishment, the coup de grace is how many hours can I get? 198 00:13:22.310 --> 00:13:22.530 Right. 199 00:13:22.850 --> 00:13:28.174 And so once they saw the connection of, you know, hey, cashier, you're the last line of defense. 200 00:13:28.535 --> 00:13:33.418 If she has a great customer shopping experience and a quick checkout experience, she's going to be happy and come back. 201 00:13:33.558 --> 00:13:37.401 Conversely, she can have a great shopping experience, but the lines are long. 202 00:13:37.441 --> 00:13:38.301 You're mean and nasty. 203 00:13:38.321 --> 00:13:42.865 And so connecting the people to the vision where they could see themselves really made a difference. 204 00:13:43.485 --> 00:13:53.614 And that's why it's interesting because it's the kind of the one best way plus this whole new way and being able to merge those, especially with folks that have been with the organization. 205 00:13:53.914 --> 00:13:57.778 You know, I've been at Walmart for 20, 30 years. 206 00:13:58.038 --> 00:14:03.663 You know, this is a whole new way for them and getting them to connect it to what's important, what their drivers are, I think is important. 207 00:14:03.683 --> 00:14:05.144 Yeah, and you had to work with them. 208 00:14:05.164 --> 00:14:09.748 You know, we had meat department managers who were used to saying, hey, this is how many steaks I need to put out. 209 00:14:09.848 --> 00:14:15.453 Well, we had documents through One Best Way that said, well, given the buying habits and the time of the month, this is how much. 210 00:14:15.493 --> 00:14:20.057 And so it was a trial and error there, but they learned to trust the data, and it was a wonderful experience. 211 00:14:20.157 --> 00:14:21.398 One of the best companies I've ever worked for. 212 00:14:21.958 --> 00:14:22.459 That's amazing. 213 00:14:22.519 --> 00:14:23.339 Okay, so let's talk. 214 00:14:24.797 --> 00:14:28.381 especially with Walmart in this case, everybody has been there. 215 00:14:28.441 --> 00:14:29.582 You got your hands dirty. 216 00:14:29.602 --> 00:14:30.643 You did all that stuff. 217 00:14:31.044 --> 00:14:39.572 Now in your work as an independent director, currently at the time of publishing Internet Sciences, Brinks, and I'm sure more, you're a director. 218 00:14:39.993 --> 00:14:41.915 You're looking at people in the organization. 219 00:14:42.275 --> 00:14:43.717 How do you balance that 220 00:14:44.692 --> 00:14:56.695 getting the right people, the right people on the bus, the balance between kind of new blood and experienced people, and then managing those perspectives as they all come to work together. 221 00:14:56.715 --> 00:14:59.695 I hope my question makes sense, but- Yeah, sure, sure, sure it makes sense. 222 00:14:59.735 --> 00:15:02.376 I mean, you know, the board role is a governance role, right? 223 00:15:02.416 --> 00:15:07.957 You know, and I always have to remind my fellow board members sometimes, you know, we don't run the business, we govern the business, right? 224 00:15:08.637 --> 00:15:10.559 you know, nose in, fingers out. 225 00:15:11.640 --> 00:15:15.664 But I also make sure that we stress that it's all about the top talent and having top talent. 226 00:15:16.344 --> 00:15:24.552 And so working with the CEO and executive leadership teams to make sure that, hey, you know, let's do an assessment and do a regular assessment of the talent we have around us. 227 00:15:24.892 --> 00:15:33.200 And it could be, you know, Keith's in this role as CFO and he's okay, but would he be better suited, you know, being at the comptroller or the treasurer? 228 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:38.301 and let's go find a global CFO with this type of experience. 229 00:15:38.361 --> 00:15:43.143 We look to say, from a talent standpoint, do we blend young with new? 230 00:15:43.183 --> 00:15:46.304 Right now, AI, cybersecurity, all those things are hot topics. 231 00:15:46.324 --> 00:15:46.844 Well, guess what? 232 00:15:47.184 --> 00:15:51.185 The subject matter experts in those spaces are in their 30s and 40s at best, right? 233 00:15:51.286 --> 00:15:55.787 And so you have to maybe realize, hey, there's going to be a young person on your leadership team 234 00:15:56.607 --> 00:15:58.669 because you need that expertise. 235 00:15:58.829 --> 00:16:07.455 And then making sure that there's healthy conversation where people are free to share their, you know, disagreeable ideas but in a very agreeable manner. 236 00:16:07.475 --> 00:16:10.417 You know, respect for the individual, those types of things. 237 00:16:10.977 --> 00:16:12.058 And we manage that. 238 00:16:12.198 --> 00:16:19.303 And from there we put the best people on the field and we overlook, you know, govern and work with senior leadership to make it happen. 239 00:16:20.574 --> 00:16:29.857 What's clear to me is everything that you do, trust, integrity, focus, performance, and like people, human centered. 240 00:16:29.877 --> 00:16:34.178 It sounds like that's the MO for how you approach leadership and how you approach your roles. 241 00:16:34.258 --> 00:16:35.379 Is it fair to say? 242 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:36.019 You're spot on. 243 00:16:36.059 --> 00:16:38.319 In fact, I have an equation for trust. 244 00:16:38.800 --> 00:16:40.080 And trust is character. 245 00:16:40.975 --> 00:16:44.377 times

competency, times consistency. 246 00:16:44.917 --> 00:16:53.062 And you need all three of those to be an effective leader that develops trust because you can have character and competency, but if you're not consistent, it's problematic. 247 00:16:53.463 --> 00:16:57.665 You can be consistent and have character, but not competency, still problematic. 248 00:16:57.685 --> 00:17:05.710 And so I find if you marry the three of those, again, character times competency, times consistency, you develop trust in organizations and with people. 249 00:17:06.392 --> 00:17:11.336 Okay, so let's talk about, I want to build on that equation, and I want to talk about the book. 250 00:17:11.797 --> 00:17:20.003 Let's say you've got a CEO, they're not going through change, let's say, but they are trying to build their organization for the future. 251 00:17:20.304 --> 00:17:32.094 You know, what are some things, and as a, again, board member experience person, what are some things that you'd have them either think about, consider, whether that's the equation as the place, and then tell us a little bit about the book. 252 00:17:32.114 --> 00:17:33.855 So two questions in one, I'll let you run with it. 253 00:17:33.915 --> 00:17:34.155 Sure. 254 00:17:34.195 --> 00:17:39.437 The first thing I tell any leader, not just a CEO, is don't be afraid to surround yourself with individual talent. 255 00:17:39.457 --> 00:17:41.658 They may know more than you do in a given area. 256 00:17:42.379 --> 00:17:46.440 You know, I want my CFO to know more about the financials of the P&L than I do. 257 00:17:46.580 --> 00:17:51.422 I want my HR leader to be very deeply rooted and grounded in HR. 258 00:17:51.482 --> 00:17:54.644 Don't be afraid to again, because you're the conductor of that orchestra. 259 00:17:54.864 --> 00:17:57.545 You don't have to play the trombone as well as the best trombone player. 260 00:17:58.105 --> 00:17:59.606 And so surround yourself with talent. 261 00:17:59.627 --> 00:18:01.668 Don't be afraid to surround yourself with talent. 262 00:18:02.209 --> 00:18:04.251 That really eclipses your knowledge in certain areas. 263 00:18:04.271 --> 00:18:05.111 So that's the first thing. 264 00:18:05.752 --> 00:18:09.976 The second thing is you can elevate both performance and people at the same time. 265 00:18:10.616 --> 00:18:19.364 One of the things that I think really kind of hurt a lot of businesses and people is the focus on short-term results or that quarterly return. 266 00:18:19.624 --> 00:18:23.748 People make short-term behaviors to get the results without respect to the people. 267 00:18:24.629 --> 00:18:27.372 And whenever you make people the pawns in the equation, it's problematic. 268 00:18:27.512 --> 00:18:33.460 I think the most valuable asset on anybody's balance sheet is the human capital, the people that do the work. 269 00:18:34.422 --> 00:18:39.829 And so the book is really one of those books that says, hey, let's get back to creating environments of trust. 270 00:18:40.537 --> 00:18:45.940 Let's get back to an environment where we have people who are focused on the people. 271 00:18:46.840 --> 00:18:53.404 Because, again, too often we move from servant leadership to self-serving leadership many times. 272 00:18:53.724 --> 00:18:57.186 And I think the movement is, hey, let's get back to what leadership should be. 273 00:18:57.826 --> 00:19:04.930 I don't have to tell you, particularly in the States, you turn on any television any day and you'll see characters acting badly from elected officials to 274 00:19:05.631 --> 00:19:07.453 faith-based leaders to business leaders, right? 275 00:19:08.395 --> 00:19:12.361 And they're setting an example for that next generation of leadership that we need to correct. 276 00:19:12.622 --> 00:19:15.526 I'm trying to... 277 00:19:16.289 --> 00:19:19.990 I praise this because you said it, you know, like self-serving versus self-leadership. 278 00:19:20.410 --> 00:19:26.091 And I think in some cases it's maybe easy to lose your way, assuming it's not malicious, right? 279 00:19:26.111 --> 00:19:28.172 You know, sometimes you're trying to figure it out. 280 00:19:29.032 --> 00:19:38.474 Is there anything you want to like check yourself before you wreck yourself as leaders to say, hey, like just take maybe if you're listening to the episode, just pause and say, hey, am I focused on the people in my organization? 281 00:19:38.874 --> 00:19:40.674 Or am I focused on something else? 282 00:19:40.734 --> 00:19:43.115 Is there anything you've done for yourself if you've ever lost? 283 00:19:43.755 --> 00:19:44.395 You're spot on. 284 00:19:44.415 --> 00:19:50.678 And the first thing I would tell you is to examine yourself, because as a leader, everything about you sends a signal and people will watch you. 285 00:19:50.738 --> 00:19:58.042 Something as simple as this, Anthony, when I go into a grocery store to tour with my team, if I see trash on the floor, I bend down and pick it up and throw it away. 286 00:19:58.442 --> 00:19:58.742 Why? 287 00:19:58.942 --> 00:20:03.184 Because if I don't do that, I've just told all the folks working with me that it's OK to have trash on the floor. 288 00:20:03.524 --> 00:20:05.225 So you'll have to walk the talk yourself. 289 00:20:06.097 --> 00:20:07.177 And just evaluate yourself. 290 00:20:07.217 --> 00:20:14.739 One thing that we don't do, particularly when we get the egos that are big as most leaders, you tend to have no one who wants to tell you that you have no clothes. 291 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:20.181 And so also have people around you who you give the right to say, hey, have you thought about your behavior this way? 292 00:20:20.201 --> 00:20:21.101 Have you thought about that? 293 00:20:22.142 --> 00:20:27.083 And above all, have your own value system in place of what you will and will not do from an integrity standpoint. 294 00:20:28.497 --> 00:20:31.758 I mean, that's where it starts and ends there.

295 00:20:32.638 --> 00:20:35.058 And so I love that that's a great place to finish. 296 00:20:35.118 --> 00:20:36.979 Keith, where can people connect with you? 297 00:20:36.999 --> 00:20:37.899 Where can they get your book? 298 00:20:37.919 --> 00:20:39.659 Where can they learn more about your work? 299 00:20:39.699 --> 00:20:43.040 And if there's anything else you want to add that I didn't ask you, please share it. 300 00:20:43.060 --> 00:20:45.100 No, you've been a generous and gracious host, Anthony. 301 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:47.621 I would say reach me at keithweich.com. 302 00:20:47.641 --> 00:20:50.742 That's K-E-I-T-H-W-Y-C-H-E.com. 303 00:20:51.302 --> 00:20:55.442 I'm always on LinkedIn and you can follow me on Instagram at TheRealKeithWeich. 304 00:20:55.863 --> 00:20:58.063 My book is available online at Walmart 305 00:20:58.703 --> 00:21:01.505 Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com and wherever books are sold. 306 00:21:02.206 --> 00:21:02.786 Excellent, Keith. 307 00:21:02.866 --> 00:21:04.067 I super appreciate it. 308 00:21:04.087 --> 00:21:12.632 Thanks for being on the show today and just thanks for being the person that you are for literally tens of thousands of people have benefited from your leadership and I wish you nothing but the best moving forward. 309 00:21:13.193 --> 00:21:14.213 Thank you so much, Anthony. 310 00:21:14.233 --> 00:21:14.714 Same to you. 311 00:21:15.294 --> 00:21:16.775 Folks, my guest today, Keith White. 312 00:21:17.315 --> 00:21:19.577 You know, one of the things I encourage you to do coming out of this episode 313 00:21:19.877 --> 00:21:21.318 You know, just listen to it with your team. 314 00:21:21.459 --> 00:21:23.260 Like, stop, have a meeting, look at this. 315 00:21:23.921 --> 00:21:29.526 And what I get from Keith is just really about the standards, like setting the standards, having those non-negotiables. 316 00:21:29.586 --> 00:21:31.028 You know, I hate this. 317 00:21:31.108 --> 00:21:32.029 I thought I hate this reference. 318 00:21:32.049 --> 00:21:32.809 I use it all the time. 319 00:21:33.030 --> 00:21:34.851 The Migos, you know, you got to walk it like you talk it. 320 00:21:35.132 --> 00:21:38.715 And so if you don't do that, people are going to know and people are going to see it. 321 00:21:38.975 --> 00:21:40.437 And it's a hard enough job. 322 00:21:40.937 --> 00:21:45.618 build a great team around and that's what's really uncommon about great leadership. 323 00:21:45.798 --> 00:21:47.799 So I hope you got a lot from today's episode. 324 00:21:47.819 --> 00:21:54.400 Please share with some folks that'll make a difference because it'll make a difference in the lives of your people and that's obviously what today was all about. 325 00:21:54.460 --> 00:21:57.341 So my guest today, Keith White, you can connect with him online. 326 00:21:57.801 --> 00:21:58.701 My name is Anthony Taylor. 327 00:21:58.721 --> 00:22:02.382 This has been the Strategy and Leadership Podcast and as always, until next time.