Kyle McDowell, Author of Begin With WE

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Kyle McDowell, author of the best selling book Begin with We, welcome.

Kyle McDowell: Hey Lee, really great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn about you and your book. But before we get into that, can you share a little bit about your backstory?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, absolutely. I spent nearly 30 years in corporate America, leading at the end of my journey, leading tens of thousands of employees at, at, uh, household names here in the States. And I was really privileged to, to have a really successful run. And I usually use air quotes when I say successful. But, you know, by most standards, I had the fancy titles, the Cool corner offices, uh, great compensation, and, you know, a pretty big sphere of influence. But what I found the last decade or so of the career of my career was with each new kind of step of growth and taking on bigger and bigger operations, I found myself becoming more and more apathetic to the whole engine. Like so many of us. You know, I started my my career with a lot of passion. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to find fulfillment. I wanted to do big things. And and I was able to do a lot of those, a lot of, you know, fulfill a lot of those expectations and hopes. But I also, um, never really took the time to ask at what cost. So I found myself just completely disconnected from the very environments that I was responsible for creating, which is a really tough thing to swallow. So I stepped away from it all 2019 and, uh, felt like I had an opportunity to, to, to share a message that I had seen really, really impact several, several organizations in to these concepts that I created called the ten wise, their principles that I use to create a sense of belonging and inclusion and really transform cultures inside of, of of big organizations.

Kyle McDowell: When I left, I was at a crossroad that I want to I want to put this book together and get it out to the public. Or do I want to go back into the corporate world and lead another organization? And I just felt like my purpose was bigger. So I wrote the book and became a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller. And now I just spend my time, uh, working with leaders and, and companies alike to, to help them get out of their own way, to help reconnect them with their, with their passion and, and try to find fulfillment and man, maybe in some ways get them to. Lose the Sunday scaries and not necessarily hate work, but try to find a way to thrive inside of it because, as you know, will we? We spend a good portion of our life doing what this thing is called work, like 100,000 hours, as a matter of fact. So it’s my mission to, to to rid the world of that toxic stuff that I was a part of and help people find real fulfillment, genuine fulfillment.

Lee Kantor: Now, just, um, before we get too far into things again, I want to share a little of my background, my background. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Always had small, uh, businesses. My wife, on the other hand, had a corporate career. Um, not exactly like yours, but involved in, you know, super large enterprise organization and kind of worked her way through. So I’ve had a chance to get a glimpse of what that corporate kind of life and mentality is. And then I’ve experienced firsthand this kind of small business entrepreneur grind. Uh, obviously there’s a lot more people like me on the planet that are doing a small business kind of grind, rather than working in a large enterprise level organization. Can you talk about kind of how you view that lens of your career has primarily been through these large corporate enterprises versus kind of the. The entrepreneur. That’s kind of grinding on on Main Street, not on Wall Street.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, man. What a what a really, really important question. Because after spending those 28, nearly 30 years in the, in the, you know, big, big settings, uh, you know, for some context, my last role I had, I, I led a team of 15,000, um, had a PNL in the multi billion dollar range, um, switching that, switching that, that, that, that kind of, um, paradigm from big, big organizations to going the entrepreneurial grinding route. It could not be more eye opening. It could not have been more of a of a shock to the system. Um, now, the common element between the two scenarios is just people is trying to connect with people and and help people. And I genuinely believe, at least for me, I can speak for myself. Right? During during my corporate America run, most of that time was focused on me and not on those around me. When I discovered the principles and started to cascade them and evangelize them as who I am and how I wanted to lead the whole. My whole paradigm shifted, and my emphasis and focus was on people and the we, the people around me and developing them. And I’ve managed to keep that through the entrepreneurial journey. The grind is different. The way I spend my days is wildly different than it was in the in the corporate days. But at the end of of of everything, it’s really about the people and those that I work with and try to help.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your book, uh, I believe the first we is do the right thing, um, and do the right thing always not that’s not that’s kind of a non-negotiable. Now, in the corporate world, um, do the right thing is that in the context of do the right thing for me and my career, to get to the next rung of the ladder or do the right thing for humanity, or do the right thing for my shareholders, or do the right thing, uh, you know, for my employees, I mean, who are we doing the right thing for? And who’s our true north?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. So I, I walked the reader through kind of a decision tree in the book that that helps. And and before you react, just hear me out because I love the way you framed that. I’m like, am I working? Am I helping myself and doing the right thing for me and getting to the next rung? But here, here’s that filter. If I’m struggling with a decision or need to to to make, uh, or choose a path for, for the team, by the way, or for my organization more broadly, I like to think of it through three filters. The first is, and this is where I ask you to hear me out. The first is, am I doing the right thing for the company? Because this just end. If there’s no company, there’s no client. And that’s the second cohort, the three keys, by the way, the company, the client. And if there’s no client, there’s no crew, there’s no team. So my goal has always been to make a decision or choose a path that checks all three of those boxes. I’ll live with two, and if I have to, I’ll sacrifice and just live with one. But you notice what’s missing me. There is no scenario where I should prioritize myself and my own well-being as a leader. When I’m struggling with doing the right thing now we can disagree with the right thing is we can argue about it. We can go on and on because it is a very subjective depending on the scenario and the environment. But at no point should should I prioritize my well-being in that decision. Hard pill for some to swallow, but it really does show in how we approach our leadership game.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your model, you don’t include the C being the community. Um, like the where you’re located, the people around you that aren’t part of the company but are part of the ecosystem that the company is part of.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, fair point. But I do believe if I focus on those three cohorts, the company, the client and the crew, by definition, if I’m with an organization that cares about the people, the crew. Yeah. Um, there will be some payoff for the community. We’re going to be providing jobs. We’re going to be providing opportunities. And of course, we want to be in a situation where we’re giving back to the communities in which we operate. So I think it’s inherent in those three C’s.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re talking to people about this concept and having them not focus on themselves, is this something that people are like, hey, Kyle, where have you been all my life? This is a breakthrough. This is eye opening, you know? Tell me more. How do I get more of this? Or is it something that like, dude, you’ve gone through this? Yeah. It’s easy for you to say. Don’t worry about you. You’re set.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, yeah. Really? Another great question, Lee. The, um. And I would say it’s split. Um, um. The principles. I am the first to admit the ten we’s, the principles that are outlined in the book, and where I spend almost every waking moment trying to evangelize. They are incredibly simple. You just touched on one. We do the right thing. No one’s going to. No one’s going to disagree that, hey, I want to be a part of a team that does the right thing. It’s very, very simple. But simple is not easy. Um, so the split is those that say, ah, yeah. And I even say this on stage and hopefully you can bleep this out. It’s like, no shit Kyle. This is this is so elementary and fundamental. But it’s not easy. It’s not easy to live it every single day. It’s not easy to walk it every single day because you’re faced with challenges that our natural reaction is to go into self-preservation mode and do things that benefit ourselves. The other side of of the coin, the other cohort that that I hear from is like, this makes so much sense. I’ve never had anybody put it in writing and say, this is who we are, and be as discreet and and succinct about how these rules and I call them they the rules that govern our behavior, how we treat each other behind the scenes. So it really falls into those two camps. And I’m prepared to work with either candidly.

Lee Kantor: Now, another one of your, um, wheeze, uh, is the we of we measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity. How how can you measure yourself on outcomes when so much of outcomes are really outside of your control? I mean, you can you can you can measure yourself on doing the work, the process, doing all of the things that could possibly lead to an outcome. But the outcome, a lot of times there’s nothing you could do. It just, you know, sometimes the fate is not working for you today or all of a sudden there’s a pandemic there when there wasn’t a pandemic. So all your numbers are going to not work out because something dramatic happened that was outside of your control.

Kyle McDowell: Well, I think once in a century scenarios notwithstanding, like a pandemic, which presented a number of challenges that no one had ever faced before, you know that that aside, what we’re talking about here, when we say outcomes over activities starts even before we have, uh, before, whether we judge if we have achieved an outcome. And that starts with expectations. So every person theoretically, and I’m sure there are exceptions, but at least in my experience, every person on the team has a series at least one of outcomes for which they have been assigned or to which they’ve been assigned. Right? So it’s on their annual appraisal. It’s on their, uh, evaluation. Like whatever those metrics are, those are the outcomes we’re talking about. And if there are scenarios or hurdles that step in the way of us delivering those outcomes, that’s fine. But we have to talk about it. What we’re trying to avoid is mindless activity, meeting after meeting that are not connected to the outcomes that we’ve been assigned to deliver. So if I know what’s if I if if my leader and I have aligned on what the expectations for me are throughout the course of the next quarter, the next year or whatever.

Kyle McDowell: And we have agreed, even even gone as far to like, shake hands that this is this is the list of things that Kyle must achieve over this, over this defined period of time. Then that’s what I got to chase. And I really need to eradicate all activity that is not connected to those. I say very plainly, if you can’t draw a straight line from something in which you’re engaged, whether it be a series of meetings or whether it be, you know, you pick whatever the activity is, if you cannot draw a straight line from that to an activity or an outcome, rather that you have been assigned or that you’re chasing, it should be scrutinized. And that’s the point. Sure, things will get in the way and you’ll have you’ll have unexpected, uh, scenarios. But the point of a we oriented culture is when those things arrive or arise, we talk about them openly and we share. Okay, boss, this is something that might stand in the way of me delivering that outcome. And then we rally to come up with a different outcome. But it’s really about weeding out the mindless and unnecessary activity.

Lee Kantor: And it’s the, um, honest and transparent communication. Amen.

Kyle McDowell: Amen.

Lee Kantor: Because a lot of, at least in my opinion, a lot of corporate issues are because somebody doesn’t want to tell somebody bad news. So that’s true. They’re they’re true. They’re maybe that’s.

Kyle McDowell: Why one of the ways is, is what it is. We number five is we own our mistakes. I want I want my teams to understand if if they stumble or make an error or even a giant blunder. I tell a story in the book about a guy on my team who made a $10 million mistake. We’re still great friends many years later, but owning our mistakes is is essential for recognizing improvement opportunities for us to avoid repeats of those same mistakes and ultimately satisfy those we serve externally, our clients. But, uh, this fear mentality, uh, and fear of retribution for making a mistake, it’s all over the news lately with Boeing and the CEO testifying in Congress. Is is a scenario that I just can’t be a part of. And I don’t want my teams to live that way.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And our organization, we have a rule, uh, bad news fast, you know? Amen. Yeah. We just want to let this come out now so we can proactively deal with it rather than be surprised by it, you know, next quarter. Yep.

Kyle McDowell: Yep. And that’s you know, that’s why I also created we number six is we pick each other up. So if I’m brave enough to raise my hand and say, hey boss, I blew it. Or, you know, there’s something that I’m really struggling with. Everyone around that person, peers, leader, even members of that team, if they lead another, another team, they need to say, okay, Kyle, it’s okay, I got you. My hand is extended. What can I do to help? Uh, and when we have that, that environment owning up to mistakes, that it becomes so much more natural.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you role model? Um, kind of that combination of being vulnerable and authentic but also confident and competent. Right. So you have to your team has to believe that you know where where you’re going, but you also have to kind of. Sometimes tell them that this is a best guess here. You know, I’m. There’s no guarantees.

Kyle McDowell: I don’t know that it’s a balance as much as just you use a couple of words that I think are super powers for leaders. Uh, vulnerability, uh, was one that was one that stuck out. That is absolutely. Um, uh, something that I think more leaders must get comfortable with. There seems to be this positioning that so many leaders more appropriately, bosses take that they must have all the answers. Um, and I believe, you know, the foundation of all leadership is trust for for my definition, for me to be a leader, I’ve got to have followers, and no one’s going to follow me if they don’t trust me. And I think trust is the outcome of authenticity and relatability. So authenticity plus relatability. You’re going to land on trust. So when my team knows and I practice this in my business today, um, in a couple of different businesses, my team is well aware when I’m uncertain, they are well aware when I don’t have the answers because I tell them. And the goal is for us to align on the approach to something. And if we fail, we’re going to fail together. And if we win, we’re going to win together. But we will not have dissenting opinions once we’ve made that decision. So I just believe in being incredibly open with with my concerns, my fears, because they have the same. And if I’m not, that relatability component is lost and therefore trust is lost.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your kind of temperature on this upcoming cohort of young leaders? Are you bullish or bearish?

Kyle McDowell: I tell you, man, I think I’m bullish by the way. I’m bullish. And there’s a story that I’ll tell, a really brief story that highlights this for me. I gave a keynote in South Florida not long ago, and I was checking into the hotel and, um, I live in Tampa, so I actually drove down. I had a, I had a box of books in my trunk, and, and I was checking into this hotel. The trunk was open to grab my luggage out of the back, and the valet walks up, and the valet couldn’t have been more than 18 years old. Um, and he, um. Tattoos on his face like he was. He was a rough looking fella. Like you would not would not be the kind of guy that would proceed to do what he did. He looks. He looks inside my trunk and he sees this box, these boxes. He said, are you an author? And I said, yeah, man, I’m an author. He said, you write books. I go, yeah, well, I wrote a book. He said, no kidding. He said, um, where can I buy your book? And I said, well, first of all, I said, what’s the book about? I said, leadership, you know, trying to thrive inside of your work life and not just, you know, bear it.

Kyle McDowell: And he says, uh, well, where can I buy the book? I said, well, I’ll give you I’ll give you a book. I have a bunch right here. Let me give you one, I said, but I have one condition. I said, I you have to promise me you’re going to read the book, and then promise me you’re going to get back to me on what you thought about it. And he said, of course I will. I said, you give me your word. He said, yeah, of course. So I actually took a picture of me signing the book and he signed it, as well as his commitment to get back to me. And this again, probably 18, 19 years old, uh, wouldn’t, you know, a couple of weeks tops. Maybe a week and a half went by. I get an email from him telling me he started the book. He’s loving the content. My point is, sharing the story is if we judge an entire generation or profile of people in that, uh, you know, that their, their approach to work, um, all the, all the descriptors you hear in the media today, if we if we approach an entire generation or profile with that negative mindset, we’re going to get exactly what we expect we’re going to get.

Kyle McDowell: Garbage feedback. We’re going to get garbage results. I’m not naive. The workforce is absolutely changing the profile, the expectations, the work ethic, absolutely changing. But at everyone’s core, there’s a degree of humanity that I think can be reached. It just has to be reached in a different way. That’s where I think we’re at, this inflection point where we’ve got baby boomers aging out of the workforce. We’ve got Gen X that is also kind of getting up there. And as they approach millennials, um, it’s a different approach. Um, for, for decades, if not centuries, all employees had to conform to the way the organization operated. That’s that’s no more. Uh, there are too many opportunities. There are too many. With work at home being what it is with gig, the gig economy, there are chances for people to do so many different things, far more than they ever could in the past. So now I think it’s important for the leader in the organization to find ways to reach the employee, to get the most and best out of them.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal reader of this book? Is it just people in corporate America, or is it going to be anybody?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. It’s really and I and I mean this with sincerity. It’s not a, it’s not a play to sell books. Um, because I didn’t write the book to make a bunch of money and. Good thing, um, although, you know, I have to share. We’ve just passed 15,000 units sold, which is a mind bending number to me, but it is for anyone who is tired of the old. Tired of the old leadership playbook. Someone that wants to lead in a way that they’ve never been led, or be on a team and participate as a team member in ways they’ve never been asked or allowed to participate in the past. The other thing that has been so heartwarming to me, and a completely unexpected byproduct and I heard it. I hear it a lot, actually, lately, is the impact that the principles can have on one’s personal life. So these are rules for life. They’re there. They’re principles, which is let’s let’s just level set. A principle is a fundamental belief. It is a it is a system of beliefs, a foundation for a system of beliefs. And if we align around these ten keys or any one of these principles, we’re going to be better off in the workplace and out. Um, and I just I am really, really, uh, optimistic that there’s a place for these principles much broader than the corporate world.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to take advantage of, uh, principle number four, we take action. And by the book, where can they go? Uh, do you have a website or do you. Is just Amazon. Where should they go? What you did.

Kyle McDowell: There? Lee it’s available essentially wherever books are sold. Um, Amazon seems to be the easiest and quickest for most people, but it’s also an audible, um, there’s an e-book as well. Um, Barnes and Noble target, you know, basically anywhere books are sold.

Lee Kantor: And then if somebody wants to connect with you, do you have a website or LinkedIn? What’s the best way to, uh, kind of follow you?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. You bet. So really simple. Kyle McDowell Inc.com is the website and my social, uh, for all platforms essentially is, uh, Kyle McDowell Inc as well. So LinkedIn, uh, Instagram, TikTok everywhere. Always. Kyle McDowell Inc.

Lee Kantor: Well, Kyle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kyle McDowell: Well, Lee, you are as well man, and thank you for the platform to share to share the message. I’m very grateful.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.