Good People: The Only Leadership Decision That Really Matters

269 Pages·2017·4.14 MB·English

by  Anthony Tjan

“Thought-provoking and genuine, Good People is a must read for anyone
interested in creating prosperous, wholesome, and resilient teams and
businesses.”
—Beth Comstock, vice chair of General Electric
“This book reminds us of what really matters in life: the goodness we find in
ourselves and the goodness we pass on to others.”
—Shep Gordon, Hollywood talent manager and “Supermensch”
“Good People reminds us that good business and human fulfillment really can
go together, that goodness and productivity aren’t enemies, that being whole and
being successful are one and the same. This book is a manifesto for twenty-first-
century business and also a wake-up call to all of us to be fully alive at work
with our colleagues, in silence within ourselves, and in friendship with those we
love.”
—Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics

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Image credits
Tables here from Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co., Inc., 1962.
Images here, here, here, here, here, and here by Hilario Bango/Martian Arts.
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-3995-6215-0
E-book ISBN: 978-0-39956217-4
International edition ISBN: 978-0-7352-1679-2
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other
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Version_1
Dedicated to the Memory of Kaming Ng
For your creative wit, relentless stubbornness, and beautiful intelligence
For being a true cofounder, a true friend, and a true human being
And yes, for being one of the very good people
I’ll always remember, and dearly miss
CONTENTS
• • • • • • •
PRAISE FOR GOOD PEOPLE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PART ONE
INTRODUCING GOODNESS AND GOOD PEOPLE
1 • A FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH GOODNESS
2 • A NEW FRAMEWORK AND LANGUAGE FOR GOODNESS
3 • THE FOUNDATION: TRUTH
4 • THE HUMAN FACTOR: COMPASSION
5 • THE ULTIMATE QUEST: WHOLENESS
PART TWO
BALANCING TENSIONS TO ACHIEVE GOODNESS
6 • PRAGMATISM VERSUS IDEALISM
7 • SHORT-TERMISM VERSUS LONG-TERMISM
8 • VULNERABILITY VERSUS CONVICTION
9 • IDIOSYNCRASY VERSUS CONNECTEDNESS
10 • GRIT VERSUS ACCEPTANCE
PART THREE
THE IMPERATIVE TO PUT GOODNESS INTO PRACTICE
11 • BEYOND ORDINARY MENTORSHIP
12 • BECOMING A BETTER JUDGE OF PEOPLE
13 • WRAPPING IT UP: IT’S ALL UP TO YOU
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
PART ONE
• • • • • • •
INTRODUCING GOODNESS AND
GOOD PEOPLE
I
n 1953, industrial chemist Norman Larsen and his staff of two at the fledgling
Rocket Chemical Company set out on a mission: to create a formula for the
booming aeronautics industry that could coat space missiles and protect them
from water. It took extensive trial and error to perfect the formula, but on the
fortieth attempt they nailed it. Thus was born Water Displacement 40, better
known today as WD-40.
WD-40 has a unique place in history and pop culture. It was first used on the
Atlas space rocket, but then consumers began clamoring for it. Salesmen literally
sold the now-iconic blue-and-yellow cans out of their car trunks. Today, WD-40
is a household name. Annual sales exceed $350 million, and the company is
valued at more than $1.5 billion. WD-40’s meteoric success makes it easy to
overlook the most unique aspect of the company: the people who work there.1
WD-40 has managed to retain its staff at three times the national average.
Ninety-seven percent of employees report that they love—not just like—to tell
people they work at WD-40.2 The company’s CEO, Garry Ridge, is unequivocal
about the source of WD-40’s remarkable success: “It’s about people, it’s about
learning, it’s about our culture, it’s about our tribalism,” he explained to me.3
Obviously, WD-40’s results aren’t just the effect of organizational
competencies. They reflect something deeper and more meaningful about the
people at WD-40.
Under the leadership of Garry Ridge, who has been at the company for thirty
years and has served as its CEO for twenty, there has been no question that the
firm’s first priority and most valuable asset is—well above anything else—its
people. The WD-40 tribe espouses and leads with the people-first philosophy
that Ridge and management guru Ken Blanchard describe in Helping People
Win at Work: “Don’t mark my paper, help me get an A.” The primary core value
of the WD-40 organization is “doing the right thing”—helping the people at
WD-40 truly succeed.
In fact, at WD-40 mentorship is not just one expectation among many
competing tasks; it is an imperative. The approval ratings for supervisors at WD-
40 are through the roof, consistently around 96 percent. “The number one
responsibility of a ‘tribal leader’ or coach at WD-40 is the success of his tribe
members. Full stop,” says Ridge. It’s a simple concept for goodness, but one to
which it is difficult to fully commit. But this is what makes WD-40 a paragon of
a good company and its employees paragons of good people.
• • • • •
“Good people”—it’s a phrase we hear all the time, both in the office and out of
it. What do we really mean when we say those words? When we say that
someone is good? We recognize that quality when we’re around it, and we can
feel goodness when we experience it, but to really describe it, specifically and
fully, is challenging to say the least. Certainly we don’t understand goodness to
the degree it deserves.
“Good” and “goodness” are words so embedded in our everyday colloquies
they’ve almost lost their meaning. They’ve become what my late neighbor, the
illustrious intellect and MIT professor Marvin Minsky, termed “suitcase words”:
overused, overstretched phrases or expressions that have next to no practical
meaning. Even formal definitions fall short. Merriam-Webster’s Online
Dictionary’s definition of “good,” for example, is “something virtuous, right,
commendable.”4 This is not incorrect, but we must build upon it and make it
more concrete and understandable so that we may practice it in our daily lives.
If we take on the burden of creating a practical, actionable definition of
goodness and putting that goodness into practice, we need to acknowledge that
the topic has been a core question and source of inquiry for the world’s greatest
philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual leaders for millennia. As we can see
from Aristotle’s relentless quest to better understand the human condition and
human spirit, from twentieth-century psychosocial explorations of different
stages of desire and development by the likes of Abraham Maslow or Erik
Erikson, and from many faiths’ common principles of kindness, it is a near
universal assumption that we should all live our lives striving to be good people.
But how can we think of goodness and good people as concepts that can be
practically applied in the business world and understand their far-reaching
benefits? First, we need to confront the ambiguities in the way businesses use the
term “good.” There are two sides of the word. When hiring employees and
managing teams, we often use “good” as a synonym for “competent.” But
“goodness” is far more than a person’s competencies; goodness is about people’s
humanity, their values, the qualities inherent in their character, and other
intangible traits. We therefore need to distinguish goodness as competency from
goodness as values, and we need to understand that the latter ought to take
greater priority.
What makes WD-40 a special place to work is something that transcends the
talent of its employees—which I am sure is great, but not far superior to the
talent of competitors’ employees. WD-40’s greatest competitive advantage is its
culture of good people. Its leadership has created a company that its employees
believe in authentically. They genuinely find meaning both in their work and in
their coworkers. And thus, WD-40’s incredible results, year after year.
Despite the massive success of companies like WD-40, many people still
believe that there’s no place in the business world for “soft” concepts like good,
goodness, and good people. Business is business after all, right? These people
assume that leading a good business means focusing solely on getting results.
But the truth is, now that prolonged competition, greater availability of
information, and technological advancements have created a more level playing
field, people matter more than anything else. They add value at every point in
the organization. The best companies aren’t just machines to maximize profits;
they create widespread, positive change in their employees, their communities,
and their industries. When good people imprint good values and qualities onto
others, and they in turn do the same, they create enduring value and forward
progress in businesses.
And even if you only care about maximizing profits and returns, goodness
and good people benefit the bottom line as well.
This book is an attempt to explore the hard truth about soft matters. By
putting the meaning back into the “suitcase term” of “good people,” we can
elevate ourselves and the people around us—and change the face of business,
perhaps even whole societies and the entire world. After working in and advising
organizations both good and not so good, starting a few companies of my own,
and investing in about fifty others, I’ve come to believe that pursuing goodness
in yourself while surrounding yourself with good people is the only leadership
decision that really, truly matters. When we ask ourselves why we admire
leaders (or for that matter, people in general), the answer is predictable: they put
people first and understand and practice the values that underpin goodness.
These leaders are committed to improving everyone around them just as much as