Podcast appearances and mentions of barry wehmiller

The term "influencer" has really become a marketing term. It's a job. People are paid on social media to influence behavior, usually toward certain products. But there are real influencers in our lives -- intentional or unintentional -- that have a much greater effect on our behaviors, in positive or negative ways. We've long held at Barry-Wehmiller that your leader is one of the most powerful influencers in your life. Many years ago, I was told that the person you report to at work can be more important to your health than your family doctor. A few years ago, Forbes published a study that said 69% felt their leader had the greatest impact on their health, on par with the impact of their partner.  Bob Burg is the best selling author of the classic business parable, The Go-Giver. Another book in that series, The Go-Giver Influencer, is a book that describes the characteristics a  leader should have to exert a positive influence on others. Key among them is listening. It's written, as are his other books in the Go-Giver series, as a parable, and it has a powerful message. When it was released, our CEO, Bob Chapman wrote a blurb — or recommendation. In it, he said, "If you do nothing more than read and follow the lesson in chapter seven, you will have given yourself a life-changing gift." Here's a quote from the book about that chapter that explains what he meant: “The next time you listen to someone speak, imagine you're using the back of your neck to hear… It's like listening not only to what a person says, but also to what they don't say. What they mean. What they're feeling, behind the words and facial expression.” On this podcast, we talk to Bob Burg about what it truly means to be an influencer.

Here's something our CEO Bob Chapman recently wrote in a post on our Truly Human Leadership blog:  The people our leaders lead, they do not “report to” that leader, they are within that leader's span of care. Just that simple deviation from the normal way of phrasing things completely changes the dynamic of the relationship. Per a Google search, the literal definition of “report to” someone is “to work under the supervision of or take instructions from someone who is in a higher position. It implies a hierarchical relationship where the person reporting is accountable to the individual they report to.” But when you talk about being within a leader's span of care, it helps to change the way leaders think. It suggests the sense of responsibility a leader should feel to those they lead. Our children do not “report to” us. Our spouses certainly don't. When we invite someone to join our team, we are bestowed with the awesome responsibility to provide the care and inspiration and support that that precious human being needs to become everything he or she was meant to be. As Bob says here, just a simple phrase like “span of care” can change our perspective as a leader. And this takes us to our conversation today. Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop, and equip their leaders. On this podcast, Ben Huebner, a Senior Consultant at Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is going to talk to a couple of leaders from Metlife, who I'm sure you've heard of. Since 1868, MetLife has been of the world's leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individuals and institutions around the world. Ben's conversation is with Anna Lavery, Vice President, Market Enablement and Andrea Douglas, Vice President, Regional Business Service & Implementation. The three talk about the work Chapman & Co has done with Metlife for a few years now, mainly with what Chapman & Co calls Truly Human Service and Truly Human Language. Notably, you'll hear the impact using the phrase “span of care” has made in their organization.  

Barry-Wehmiller's Chief People Officer, Rhonda Spencer, was recently recognized by the St. Louis Business Journal in their 2025 HR Awards for Innovation in HR. This was a long overdue recognition of Rhonda's leadership, but also the work of the BW Global People Team and everthing they've done to help all of our people, all over the world, feel like they matter. Rhonda has been with Barry-Wehmiller since before the development of our Guiding Principles of Leadership and was one of the major voices in its creation. She was our first Chief People Officer and it's her primary responsibility to be the steward of our values and make sure that light shines to the furthest reaches of our organization. Recently, Rhonda took part in a webinar discussion with Mike Budden, one of the partners in our Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop and equip their leaders. You can learn more about them at ccoleadership.com. On this week's podcast, we want to showcase an edited version of that discussion. It's an interesting conversation as Mike and Rhonda discuss what it means to scale a Truly Human Leadership culture globally. They talk about the processes and systems we've developed to try to make that happen and there's a lot of insight to apply to your own organization.

Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO, Barry-Wehmiller Kyle Chapman, President, Barry-Wehmiller In this episode of M&A Science, Kison Patel sits down with Bob Chapman and his son Kyle Chapman to explore how Barry-Wehmiller built a $3.6B global business through 140+ acquisitions—by putting people first. Bob, known for pioneering the "Truly Human Leadership" philosophy, and Kyle, who co-founded BW Forsyth Partners, share how culture, transparency, and stewardship shape every deal they do. They dive deep into how Barry-Wehmiller evolved from a broken family business into a global leader in capital equipment and engineering services—and why their approach to M&A prioritizes care for people over financial engineering. From pre-close transparency to post-close adoption, this episode is a masterclass in using M&A as a force for good.   Things You'll Learn Why cultural alignment is more important than revenue synergies in M&A How “Truly Human Leadership” became a core differentiator in their acquisition strategy How to build a scalable M&A machine rooted in values, not just valuation Tactical guidance on structuring buyer-led deals with long-term success in mind _______________ What is the Buyer-Led M&A™ Virtual Summit Only two weeks left to register! This half-day event brings together corporate development leaders and M&A experts to explore Buyer-Led M&A™, showing how you can take control of every stage of the deal. Register Now: DealRoom.net/Summit ________ Episode Chapters [00:00:00] Introduction to the mission behind M&A Science [00:01:30] Barry-Wehmiller's origin story and early business model [00:07:00] Pivot to M&A as a growth strategy after financial struggles [00:10:00] Use of EVA (Economic Value Added) in valuation of private company equity [00:14:00] Building a strategic advantage through people-first culture [00:21:00] Cultural assimilation during acquisitions and why legacy matters [00:27:00] Tactical integration planning with transparency from day one [00:30:00] The evolution from distressed to underperforming acquisitions [00:36:00] Why Barry-Wehmiller doesn't rely on cultural due diligence [00:44:00] Advice for first-time acquirers—what to look for and avoid [00:51:00] Kyle's journey from private equity to leading Barry-Wehmiller [00:54:00] The future vision for Barry-Wehmiller and global impact

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Matthew Lee, research professor at Baylor University and co-leader of the Global Flourishing Study—a longitudinal project spanning 22 countries and nearly 200,000 people. They discuss what it means to flourish as whole human beings and how education can support not only academic success but spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being. Dr. Lee shares insights on how flourishing is not just about individual happiness or wellness, but about contributing to the greater good—what he describes as "ecosystem-wide flourishing." He and Eckert explore how love, hospitality, and compassion can shape the culture of schools, drawing from research and real-world examples, including organizations like Barry-Wehmiller that center care and community in their leadership. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Be encouraged. Mentioned: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara Christian Caregiving: A Way of Life by Kenneth Haugk Connect with us: Baylor MA in School Leadership EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership Jon Eckert LinkedIn X: @eckertjon Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl     Transcript: Jon Eckert: All right. Today we get to welcome a good friend and colleague at Baylor University. So Matt Lee is here with us today, and his work all revolves around flourishing, which is the ultimate goal of all education and one of the most intrinsically human things that we think about. So Matt, if you just give us a quick intro as to why you're at Baylor and kind of the 30,000-foot view of what you do here at Baylor. Matt Lee: Well, thanks, Jon. I'm delighted to be here at Baylor, and I would say part of the reason that I'm here is that the Global Flourishing Study is a joint project of Baylor and Harvard, and this is a five year, 22 country survey to understand the forces that affect flourishing for about 200,000 people globally. And we've got nationally representative samples in each of these countries. So we're almost able to generalize to all humanity, which is unusual for a study. And to have this longitudinal approach enables us to follow up over time, look at changes. We've got the time ordering nailed down, we've got some statistical techniques to address robustness. We're almost able to make causal claims that generalize to all humanity. So that was one of the reasons. The other thing is I just really appreciate Baylor's mission and ability to combine really rigorous research with a Christian commitment. And so I think that is a special strength of Baylor University, not to go into a commercial for Baylor right now. Jon Eckert: Oh no, we're all for that. But it's one of the reasons why our work overlaps, because we work with education leaders in over 45 countries and all 50 states and the stated goal of education since Aristotle has been for the flourishing of human beings. And so there's obviously a school component of this. You're looking at all of humanity. Again, that's not probably something I'll ever be able to say as a researcher that I've able to generalize findings to all humanity. But I'm curious to hear how you all think about words like flourishing in love and operationalize those for educators. What does that look like in whatever school you're called to? Obviously, we're here at Baylor and we can have a faith component to what undergirds everything we do, but a lot of our educators that we serve are in public schools, and there's secular humanism there, and there's all different kinds of kids with all different kinds of backgrounds. So what does flourishing and love look like universally, in the way you would define it? Matt Lee: Well, I would frame it as a dialogue. And so we are contributing to a dialogue. And I remember there was a chaplain at Harvard who used to just observe that Harvard tends to treat students as though they are just a brain on a stick or maybe a neocortex on a stick. And of course, there's more to human beings than that. And so when we think about flourishing, we think about multiple domains. We're flourishing in terms of our physical health, we're flourishing in terms of our spiritual health, our emotional health. And so there's all of these different domains at the individual level, but it's sort of meaningless in a sense if we're not contributing to the greater good. And for most people, particularly in the United States, the greater good is going to be largely defined in terms of a sacred narrative. So if we're not honoring that need to serve the greater good in terms of a sacred narrative, then we are dehumanizing people by definition. And so if we care about the inherent dignity, the infinite value of every person, that we need to attend to all of the domains of flourishing across levels. So flourishing is different than well-being and happiness and wellness and some of these other constructs because it really is not just about the person, it's about the person in their context. And their context might include a sacred context. Their context certainly would include a political and economic context. It's knowing we have the skills in order to make a meaningful difference in this person's life. We're not trying to fix anything. We know that that doesn't necessarily work, but we can be present with loving awareness in a way that is itself healing, and then we can get people the help that they need if we can't provide it. But it's not one person's responsibility to do that. So oftentimes when we think of love or compassion, we think of one-on-one, but this is actually something that you find at the level of groups. And Brian Wellinghoff, my co-author on the one article about Barry-Wehmiller, he's a senior director at Barry-Wehmiller. He said in the article, what we've found over these couple of decades is that when love is present, it promotes the conditions that are required for flourishing. It's not just that love is present at the level of one-on-one interactions, it's that it's now that love is part of the culture. Love is part of the context, and that enables everything that they do. And they help encourage that by promoting skills like listening and the practice of gratitude and regularly celebrating people, not just employee of the month where you get a nice parking spot and everyone hates you for the month or whatever. But like a culture of celebration where it actually is joyful to celebrate the people that you care about and you want to do that and you appreciate it when they do it for you. And you know it's going to happen because you can see your love, make a difference on a daily basis. You know that you're contributing, you know that you're engaged. And I remember asking Bob Chapman, again, the CEO of that company, "What do you do about free riders?" When I went to Harvard, I thought, "I'll never see any free riders," and there's free riders everywhere, and how do you do that? And so he said, "Well, we want everyone to get on the bus, but they're not necessarily going to get on at the same stop, but we have faith and we're committed that eventually everyone's going to get on the bus." So there's some mercy and there's some grace. And then there's the tough conversation. There's the tough love. It's not just the warm hug, it's the powerful love that says, "Look, I'm going to speak truthfully to you about your contribution as a co-creator of this culture," he calls it a culture of caring, but I think we could also call it a culture of love and compassion. Jon Eckert: So couple of things that came to mind when you were talking about that. I like the term sacred hospitality, but the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara came out just a few years ago. He ran Eleven Madison, and they became the best restaurant in the world based on not their service, but on their hospitality. And he differentiates service from hospitality. And it's absolutely a culture that gets created. It can't just be one person. It's how the whole team views the experience they're creating for diners. And it's a remarkable book that it's hard to replicate in schools because that is an elite experience with lots of money behind it, and public schools aren't functioning in that world. But how do we have that kind of an attitude about how do we see whole human beings and reach out in a hospitable way, not just in a service way? So I wonder if you have any... Are you familiar with Unreasonable Hospitality at all? Matt Lee: I've not read it, no. Jon Eckert: Okay. But does that align with sacred hospitality as you're considering it? Matt Lee: Well, one conceptual resource that I found helpful is from a book called Christian Caregiving, and this is written by the founder of the Stephen Ministries. This is the laypeople in a congregation who provide care to others in the congregation. They're not trained as psychologists or counselors, but they've been given a set of skills and they know their boundaries. That's the most important skill is knowing what's yours and what's for a professional and what's for God. And so when you think about the critical distinction in that book, it's between servitude and servanthood. And so when we are living into our vocation, that's servanthood. And when we are forced to do something that we wouldn't want to do in a way we wouldn't want to do it, then we're talking about servitude. And so when we imagine education and we think about a system that is perfectly designed to get the result that it gets, what is our system getting? It's perfectly designed to get disengagement. That's what we see from the Gallup data. So as you progress through your journey, you start out highly engaged in kindergarten, and then you're less engaged in middle school, less engaged in high school, and it just continues. It's a nice linear downward trend. Jon Eckert: That's not a nice trend, Matt. Matt Lee: Well, it's not nice, but from a research standpoint- Jon Eckert: It's clean. Matt Lee: It's very clean. So what are we doing systematically there? Well, we start out in kindergarten, we're sitting in a circle with our friends holding hands, finger painting the alphabet, singing songs. The creative arts are infused into this container of friendship. And we're learning our core material in that kind of container. And then we systematically start pulling all that stuff out. No more recess, take art maybe once in four years in high school. Jon Eckert: Elementary school, on average now, get 27 minutes of recess a day in the United States. Matt Lee: Oh, so we're- Jon Eckert: It's devastating. Matt Lee: We're doing it even younger than when I was a kid. Jon Eckert: Yes. Yeah. Matt Lee: I started doing this UN class called Love and Action at the University of Akron, and I said, "Rather than reading about this, why don't we practice it and then come back in a community of friends and share what are we learning?" And it just felt more like kindergarten to me. Let's sit in a circle and let's sing some songs about what we're learning. And I remember saying, "Well, do we even need exams at some point in these UN classes? Maybe there's a different way to be in relationship where we don't need the exams." And some of my colleagues would say, "Well, that's dangerous. You're going to have all these free riders." I had so few free riders in that context, and it's sort of like Barry-Wehmiller company as well. There's so few free riders because you empower people to be what they were created to be. Jon Eckert: Seeing data coming out on what leads to flourishing and mental health and what doesn't. But we're always looking for the things, what's working. I don't have time to spend a lot of time on the things that aren't working. I do like Bob Chapman's belief that everybody will eventually get on the bus. I don't believe that is true. I believe some people need to find another bus. But I think eventually you need to get the people that need to be on the bus, on the bus, and they'll get there. And they may choose there's another bus route that's better for them, and that will lead more to their flourishing. And that's great. But with 12,000 people in that company, that's not going to be 12,000 people that are on the right bus all the time. Matt Lee: Well, and I think maybe it's not everyone, but you go after the lost sheep. Jon Eckert: That's right. Yeah, you do. You do. That is fair. That's fair. And teachers definitely do that. And you can run yourself ragged. This is the last part of the time, and this is always the hardest part for me. I would be terrible at this, but you have four questions, four sentences. So one sentence for each one. So in all of your flourishing work that you've done, what is the most obvious finding that you're like, "That's kind of a duh, we all knew that and now we have empirical evidence that says that's true." Matt Lee: Better to give than receive. Jon Eckert: Okay. Well, there you go. Some ancient wisdom. All right, second. What's the most surprising finding that really jumped out? Like, "Oh, didn't see that coming"? Matt Lee: Yeah, I don't know that it was really surprising. It was just surprising to see it so consistently that groups that so obviously prioritize financial material stability, have the lowest flourishing on all the other domains. At the country level, at the group level, even within particular organizations. So we find in a paper that I've just... This is more than one sentence, but I'll give you an example. Jon Eckert: That's all right. Matt Lee: So I'm co-leading a paper on showing love and care to another person, and this is using the global flourishing study data. We find a fairly strong negative correlation with GDP. Countries that have higher GDP have people who show lower levels of love and care. Jon Eckert: Wow, okay. And I'm not- Matt Lee: So I'm not totally surprised by that, but it's still kind of shocking to see it so reliably surfacing in all of this work. Jon Eckert: I'll keep this short, but my daughters went down to the Dominican Republic to do some work there with a lot of high school and college students this summer. And they had an amazing experience because of the joy of the people that they were with in the Dominican Republic. And so the joy that they exuded through... Some of them had very little, but the joy was there and it made a fundamental difference I think will mark my daughters for the rest of their lives because they recognize, "Oh, really, joy is not tied to what we have." Matt Lee: Yeah. I had a group from Spain consult me a couple of years ago, "We're going to this impoverished country and we're going to help them with their flourishing." And I said, "Oh, really? You might find that they help you with your flourishing." Jon Eckert: 100%, right. So the last two questions. What's the biggest challenge you see globally or in the US, take your pick, that's inhibiting flourishing right now? Matt Lee: Yeah. I think that the way we understand flourishing or love or leadership is really just a small part of what those words represent. And so I think if we understood flourishing as ecosystem-wide flourishing, we would have the appropriate North Star. But if we keep doing it as, or understanding it as, a kind of subjective experience of wellbeing for an individual, I think we'll never get out of the crab bucket. Jon Eckert: That's good. And then what's your biggest hope for flourishing, globally or in the US? Matt Lee: My biggest hope would be that we would learn from the positive outliers who are already doing it everywhere in the world. And I think I remember some years ago... So I'm bad at one sentence. Jon Eckert: I know, I am too. This is a challenge. Matt Lee: I have to immediately support it with evidence. Jon Eckert: That's good. Matt Lee: So let me give you just one example of evidence. I was chair of the section on altruism, morality, and social solidarity of the American Sociological Associations. That's a lot to remember. But as part of my role as chair, I was also editing the newsletter, and I was approached by a member of the section who had done some research on concentration camps, Nazi Germany, and he found in his argument... I'll just cut to the chase. His argument was, most of the Holocaust museums focus on the narrative of victimhood. But what you saw in the camps was incredible heroism, incredible sharing under pain of death of your last crumbs and incredible, just inspiring altruism. The human spirit was soaring, even as the body was being destroyed by this evil regime. And so people who have never had their names in the history books have done incredible things. And Holocaust museums around the world could tell that story too. Not just the victim story and not to the exclusion of the victim story, but tell the story of empowerment. Jon Eckert: Wow. That's a great place to end. Thank you for taking the time, and thanks for the work you do, Matt. Matt Lee: Thank you.  

Marcel Schwantes is a speaker, author, acclaimed executive coach, and an Inc. Magazine Contributing Editor. Marcel writes and delivers presentations, workshops, courses, and coaching programs about the human side of business and how cultures of care, connection, and belonging power companies to thrive and outperform the competition. Marcel also hosts the popular "Love in Action" podcast, on which our CEO, Bob Chapman has been a guest. Marcel has a new book that just came out, Humane Leadership: Lead With Radical Love, Be A Kick-Ass Boss. There are a lot of parallels in Marcel's writing with what we talk about at Barry-Wehmiller. In his book, Marcel draws on personal experiences, case studies, and compelling research to reveal how leaders can transform organizations by embracing genuine care for their people.  On this episode, we talk with Marcel about how he defines "Humane Leadership" by exploring what he calls the five principles of effective leadership: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness. explains the five principles of effective leadership: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness.explains the five principles of effective leadership: patience, kindness, humility, advocacy, and trustworthiness.

Ein Jahr Zoomer meets Boomer. Danke, dass ihr uns begleitet! Angeregt durch einen Artikel über die Kultur bei Netflix, in dem die Familienanalogie als nicht sinnvoll dargestellt wurde („Wir sind ein Team, kein Familienunternehmen“), haben wir uns gefragt: - Ist der Weg, ein Unternehmen wie ein Sport-Team zu führen, der neue / beste Weg? - Oder geht es auch anders? Michael hat daraufhin ein Unternehmen ins Spiel gebracht, das seit Jahrzehnten ganz bewusst auf das Familienprinzip setzt – und wirtschaftlich extrem erfolgreich ist: Barry-Wehmiller. Dort werden Übernahmen als „Adoptionen“ bezeichnet, es wird nicht entlassen, sondern entwickelt, und es gibt sogar eine eigene Unternehmens-Universität. - Was kann man aus beiden Modellen lernen, als Führungskraft, als Mitarbeiterin oder Mitarbeiter oder einfach als Mensch in Organisationen? - Wie viel psychologische Sicherheit braucht Leistung? - Und: Ist Loyalität ein Wert an sich, oder eine Gefahr für Innovation? Zwei Perspektiven, ein Gespräch: Oskar bringt den Blick aus der Gen Z mit und seine Erfahrungen aus Forschung zu Familienunternehmen. Michael mag eigentlich Analogien aus dem Leistungssport, und er ist trotzdem nicht sicher, ob Netflix den richtigen Ton trifft. Gemeinsam versuchen wir, eine gedankliche Brücke zu bauen, zwischen Vertrauen und Verantwortung, Sicherheit und Exzellenz, Innovation und Tradition und Fragen uns, wie könnte die perfekte Unternehmenskultur aussehen? Was meint ihr: - Seid ihr eher Team Familie oder Team Sport? - Oder habt ihr eine ganz andere Führungs-Analogie im Kopf, die noch besser passt? Schreibt es uns in die Kommentare oder teilt die Folge mit Menschen, die sich für moderne Führung, Unternehmenskultur und den Dialog zwischen Generationen interessieren. Wenn euch die Folge gefällt, freuen wir uns wie immer über 5 Sterne bei Spotify oder Apple Podcasts, und wenn ihr Zoomer meets Boomer weiterempfehlt, freuen wir uns noch mehr. Danke fürs Zuhören, und auf viele weitere Folgen! #Leadership #CorporateCulture #Family #Team #FutureOfWork #NewWork #Podcast #ZoomerMeetsBoomer LinkedIn: michaeltrautmann64 oskar-trautmann96

This podcast features a story from Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop, and equip their leaders. You can learn more about Chapman & Co. at ccoleadership.com. Chapman & Co. has a dedicated branch in South Africa which has worked with Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages on leadership development for a number of years. Peninsula Beverages is the largest Coca-Cola franchise in South Africa with 1300 team members. To date, more than 60 percent of their organization has taken the Listen Like a Leader class, which is Barry-Wehmiller's groundbreaking empathetic listening training. Mike Budden is a partner at Chapman & Co. and the managing partner of their Cape Town South Africa office. On this episode, we're going to feature a conversation between Mike and his friend and colleague, Bryn Morse, Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages HR Leader. Mike and Bryn talk about their journey to bring Cola-Cola Penn Bev's company culture to another level. They talk about the difference it has made in the company and why the journey was important. And they talk about the importance of Barry-Wehmiller, our CEO Bob Chapman and Chapman & Co to that journey. They talk about a trip to a Barry-Wehmiller facility in Phillips, WI and a lot more.

Kristen Hadeed hadn't turned 30 and she was already the CEO of a successful company and well on her own leadership journey. Through her company – Student Maid, an all-student cleaning company – she was able to touch the lives of hundreds of college students and hundreds more clients. She has helped these students work their way through school, but she also created a culture that helps them develop important life and leadership skills. Today, Kristen spends her time helping leaders, teams, and organizations around the world embrace their humanity. She has worked in just about every industry,in almost every U.S. state and several other countries, and in hundreds of virtual meeting rooms. Whether she is delivering a keynote talk, multi-day workshop, or facilitating ongoing development, her goal is always the same: to ignite the kind of human leadership that builds trust, belonging, and wildly engaged cultures. Her work has been featured in news outlets including PBS, FOX, Inc., NBC, TIME, and Forbes. Her first TED Talk has more than three million views on YouTube. Kristen has long been a friend of Barry-Wehmiller and she wrote about her leadership journey in a new book, Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing Almost Everything Wrong, that has sold more than 50,000 copies worldwide. Kristen was previously a guest on our podcast for a profound conversation about the Millennial generation. She returned to talk to us around the time Permission to Screw Up was released.

Our friend Donna Hicks, a Harvard professor, world peace negotiator and author of the book, Leading With Dignity, was recently in St. Louis to participate in an event co-sponsored by Barry-Wehmiller at St. Louis University. It was a roundtable discussion on a subject of which Donna is an expert: dignity. We also brought her to Barry-Wehmiller to have a discussion with our senior leadership team. Donna has appeared on this podcast before, but while she was in town we wanted to sit down and have a conversation to talk about her work in defining and characterizing the importance of the concept of dignity. We also wanted to talk with Donna about how Truly Human Leadership and the work Barry-Wehmiller is doing to influence leadership and business honors dignity.    

We've all heard about those organizations who have a dynamic and powerful leader who brings everything to new heights of success and notoriety. But then, when the times comes where that leader moves on, things are never quite the same. Other able and competent leaders left because they never received an opportunity to grow and use their gifts because the organization so relied on that one dynamic leader. So, after his departure, the organization flounders, or worse, ceases to exist. This is a scenario that Barry-Wehmiller has seen a time or two in our history of acquiring or, as we say, adopted companies and brought them into our family to hopefully give them new life. One of the most caring acts of leadership and one of its greatest responsibilities is to provide a safe and stable living for those people who are in our organizations, who are within our span of care. That's why the subject of today's podcast is so important. We're going to talk about succession planning, or strategic workforce planning. You may think you understand what that means, but after this discussion, you'll truly understand why it should be a high priority of caring organizations. Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. Succession planning is at the heart of what Chapman & Co. does, helping those organizations identify, develop, and equip their leaders. Today's discussion features three Industrial Organizational Psycologists from Chapman & Co. — Melinda Bremley, Andrea Cornelius and Jenny Morton Eagen — and is moderated by Chapman & Co's Jessie Turner. As Melinda says during the discussion, "Succession planning requires people to stop and think more strategically about 'what are we looking for, what is needed now, what is needed in the future.' And that front-end piece of the process really is kind of the game changer for having a more strategic mindset."

Often on this podcast, you'll hear Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman, other BW leaders or other thought leaders talk about the waycaring leadership or Truly Human Leadership impacts the lives of people in our workplaces. However, on this episode, you're going to hear from some of our team members within Barry-Wehmiler. A few years ago, we started a video series called “Better Work, Better World” that you can find at trulyhumanleadership.com or on our social channels. The series is a way to feature our team members' stories and recognize them for their contributions. On this podcast, you'll hear from five team members from our BW Packaging platform of companies, namely BW Integrated Systems and BW Flexible Systems. You'll hear them talk about how they came to Barry-Wehmiller, what their roles mean to them, how Truly Human Leadership affects their roles and why they refer to BW as a family. 

    In S5 E 16 I am delighted to welcome Mr Bob Chapman to the podcast. Mr Chapman "The People's CEO" is Chairman and CEO  of St. Louis, MO-based Barry-Wehmiller, a $3.6B global capital equipment and engineering solutions company with more than 12,000 team members. Mr Chapman became the senior executive of Barry- Wehmiller in 1975 at age 30 when the 90-year-old business had $20 million in revenue, outdated technology and a very weak financial position. As you will hear in this conversation despite the obstacles, Chapman applied a unique blend of strategy and culture over the next 45+ years in leading Barry-Wehmiller through more than 130 successful acquisitions.  Over the past two decades, a series of realizations led him away from traditional management practices to Truly Human Leadership--a people-centric approach where his team members feel valued, cared for and integral to the company's purpose. At Barry-Wehmiller, they have a unique measure of success: by the way they touch the lives of people.       Chapman's experiences and the transformation he championed were the inspiration behind his 2015 WSJ bestseller Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. The book is co- authored by Raj Sisodia, founder and co-author of Conscious Capitalism. . In 2016, Harvard Business School released a case study featuring Barry-Wehmiller's unique approach to business, which is now taught at 70+ business schools around the world.      In 2013, Bob and his wife Cynthia launched a nonprofit, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, to bring the company's groundbreaking Listen Like a Leader training to communities. And, in 2015, the Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute was founded to bring Barry-Wehmiller's trademark culture transformation and leadership training to for-profit organizations.      I am joined here by special guest co-host Dr Chris Edmond ( S 5 E7) and together we have the opportunity to explore the leadership, strategy and culture which define the Chapman and Barry-Wehmiller organisational approach today. Mr Chapman himself credits his success in the face of adversity over the years to the combination of the core tenets of common sense, creativity and a positive attitude.  His story, journey and work are testament to what is possible at the intersection of great business strategy and profound care for people.  He wants everyone to see that caring for people and giving them meaning, purpose and fulfilment through their work is not in disharmony with creating value.  If the key mission and work of this podcast is to mine for the pockets of excellent leadership and practice so that we can all learn and evolve, then we have certainly struck gold again here. Thank you Mr Bob Chapman for generously sharing your time, expertise and wisdom . Links/ References:To Read https://www.barrywehmiller.com/outreach/bookTo Listen https://www.barrywehmiller.com/blogTo Learn and Support https://www.chapmancommunities.org/our-story/https://www.ccoleadership.com The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about their service or donate today at www.mbansw.org.auDisclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or other official organisations.

A while back, we asked followers of Barry-Wehmiller on social media to send in questions for CEO Bob Chapman to answer on our podcast. We were overwhelmed by the response! We appreciate the time and thoughtfulness of everyone who submitted their questions. There were so many, the answers will be spread across multiple episodes of the podcast. Bob enjoyed the dialogue with you all so much, we will probably do this again in the future. In this time of Thanksgiving in the U.S. we are very thankful for all of the Barry-Wehmiller teammates around the world who are a daily inspiration and we're thankful for you, loyal readers and followers, who help spread our message of Truly Human Leadership.

In Episode 125 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA CEO Jim Roddy talks ethical capitalism and leadership with Bob Chapman, the Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a $3.6-billion global capital equipment and engineering solutions company. Among Chapman's accolades are being named the CEO of the Year by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the #3 CEO in the world in by Inc. Magazine, and a Top 10 Social Capital CEO by International Business Times. Chapman is author of the Wall Street Journal best-selling book Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family.  “The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org.  The RSPA is North America's largest community of VARs, software providers, vendors, and distributors in the retail, restaurant, grocery, and cannabis verticals. The mission of the RSPA is to accelerate the success of its members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections. The organization offers member-to-member warm introductions, education, legal advice, industry advocacy, and other services to assist members with becoming and remaining successful. RSPA is most well-known for its signature events, RetailNOW and Inspire, which provide face-to-face learning and networking opportunities. Learn more by visiting www.GoRSPA.org. 

BW CEO Bob Chapman met Dr. Anita Sanchez a few years ago through a mutual friend, William Ury. Since then, Anita and her husband, Kit Tennis, have become great supporters of what we're trying to do at Barry-Wehmiller, spreading the message about the power of Truly Human Leadership. As is described on her website, Anita's book, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times,  is a guide "in living as whole, joyful human beings in our modern lives. Through a series of breath-taking, up-lifting stories drawn from experiences of leaders in business and communities around the world as well as from her own amazing journey, the author inspires us to discover and trust our gifts showing us how to become the life-giving connection to all: People, Spirit and the Earth." The principles Anita writes about and their connection to her heritage align closely to the similarities Bob has identified between leadership and parenting. When we lead others, when it comes to building teams, having a connection – like a family – is so important. Sometimes, as leaders, we need to reconnect with the idea of what a family is to be able to connect with others. Anita's book is filled with the wisdom to try to do that in order to move toward a world where people feel like they matter.  

About the Guest:Say hello to Bob Chapman, CEO of the internationally renowned Barry-Wehmiller, a machinery industry company with over 12,000 employees in over 100 countries. Bob's first title at the company was “Somebody He Could Trust”—meaning he was tasked with helping his father (the owner) make business decisions. But all did not go as planned. “I worked with my dad for six years, was put in the position of VP of finance, and I think it was October of '75, he had a severe heart attack and died. The next day I was president of the company at age thirty, and the first people I met were the bankers, who immediately pulled our loans.”Bob goes on to detail the many ups and downs of the company after his sudden rise to the top. He says he went from “phenomenal success to traumatic decline and then a phenomenal recovery.” And phenomenal it is. Today, Barry-Wehmiller is a $3.6 billion company. Bob attributes that to many factors, including his creative approaches, his tenacity in the face of crisis, and his focus on people as the main drivers of success. What You Will Learn:Strategies into how common sense, creativity, and a positive attitude can replace book smarts and accoladesInsights into why we need “leaders, coaches, and mentors,” not “managers, bosses, and supervisors.”Lessons in why it isn't enough to get people on the same bus; the bus needs to be able to support the people getting on itStories of the quick rise, epic fall, and monumental comeback of the Barry-Wehmiller CompanyJoin Joe Hart and Bob Chapman as they discuss weathering the ups and downs of business while always keeping people front and center. More than anything, Bob wants leaders to understand the importance and responsibility they have as business leaders to give employees a “grounded sense of hope,” meaning “they can decide to raise a child, buy a home, educate their kids, or save for their retirement. That is your fundamental responsibility.” Learn more about how to fulfill your responsibilities as a leader when you tune in to this insightful episode. Please rate and review this Episode!We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

Dr. Ken Druck has been a trusted advisor through the years, personally to Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman, and also to the leadership of BW during some of our tough times. After the loss of his daughter, Ken decided to dedicate himself to helping others find their way through grief. He founded the Jenna Druck Center in his daughter's honor and went on to be a source of hope to families affected by the tragedies of 9-11, Columbine, Katrina and Sandy Hook. A few years ago, we invited Ken to Barry-Wehmiller corporate headquarters in St. Louis as part of our Leadership Speaker Series. We at Barry-Wehmiller often talk about how listening is key to helping people feel valued, but that must be accompanied by empathy and compassion. In his talk, Ken spoke not only about how he processed his own grief, but he also talked about how to be a good friend and encourage those who are experiencing grief. But, the things that Ken discusses in this podcast can not only be guidelines to be compassionate to those experiencing grief, they're good things to think about when approaching people in everyday life. Especially during stressful or tense times. Our friends, family, teammates and acquaintances. In our workplaces, our neighborhoods and our homes.  

Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop, and equip their leaders. You can learn more about Chapman & Co. at ccoleadership.com One company that Chapman & Co. has a long relationship with is Meijer, a midwestern chain of grocery stores that currently has about 270 stores with 70,000 team members. On this podcast, Barry Kirk, one of Chapman & Co.'s partners, has an indepth conversation with Dave Lopez and Josh Barber of Meijer. They talk about why Meijer began working with Chapman & Co. and share some of the results, as well as how they are trying to sustain those results. They also talk about a fascinating aspect of training that incorporates gamification. But most importantly, they share how they were able to let their leaders be leaders.

Traditional management uses "carrots," like bonuses, and "sticks", like Performance Improvement Plans, to motivate employees. But are humans really built that way? In this episode, Jacob Stoller and Andrew Stotz dive into the myth surrounding that approach and talk about what actually motivates people at work. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.7 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Jacob Stoller, Shingo-Prize winning author of The Lean CEO and Productivity Reimagined, which explores applying Lean and Deming management principles at the enterprise level. The topic for today is myth number four, the myth of sticks and carrots. Jacob, take it away.   0:00:46.2 JS: Thank you, Andrew, and great to continue our conversation. Yeah, it is widely believed that people are motivated by threats and rewards. And to demonstrate that, all you have to do is go into an HR department and look at the job descriptions and the reward programs. And it's all assumes that people are motivated by externalities, right? And that goes back, actually, it's a very, very old way of looking at the world, that there's a term, it's a bit of Latin here, homo economicus. And it's the idea that humans are sort of goal seeking creatures. They seek what's better for them, and it's all material. They'll seek their material gain, and they will behave in very predictable ways, according to that. So you can set up external motivators, mainly money, and you can regulate the way people will behave.   0:01:38.2 JS: So that's the assumption that many businesses are built on. But science has proven that that's not the way human humans work. There've been a number... And starting really in the 1950s, a number of scientists have sort of poked serious holes in that thinking. One of them is Edward Deci, who talked about motivation and did a number of experiments to see that, to find out that people, you know, their motive for doing tasks really kind of transcends rewards. Often they'll do something, for the satisfaction of doing it, in spite of the rewards being greater. We have Frederick Herzberg who developed something called Hygiene Theory. And that's really that... He determined in an organization that money can't actually be a positive motivator. It can't motivate positive behavior, but lack of money can motivate negative behavior.   0:02:49.6 JS: So, you know, and a number of experiments to support that. And then we have, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, hard to pronounce, who talks about joy at work and really did experiments and kind of proved that joy at work isn't just some kind of fancy idea that somebody had. But it's actually a scientifically proven principle. Whereas when people have joy at work and they're fully engaged in their work, they do much higher quality work. So that's kind of the background really here. So what we want, when we manage, is we want people to be intrinsically motivated so that they do their best work. And Deming principles are very, very, I think representative of that. I think Dr. Deming understood that people are motivated when they feel a part of something, when they contribute, when they feel that their team members around them are supporting them. And so that's what we try to do. And Lean eorld tries to do that, and we try to do that with Deming principles.   0:04:06.8 AS: You know, when I start off my discussion on this with students and people that I teach in seminars and the like, I always ask them, you know, which, do you believe in, a carrot or a stick? Do you think more people are motivated by rewards or punishments? And it's a great...   0:04:18.1 Jacob Stoller: Oh, okay.   0:04:24.1 AS: Way to kick off a conversation. But, you know, obviously we're gonna get some people that say, I want people to be feeling, you know, positive rewards and feel positive. And then you have the other people that... What I invariably find is that people who are running large companies with lots of employees, it's sticks. Yes, because...   0:04:40.4 JS: Interesting.   0:04:41.8 AS: It's overwhelming. And then when I think about where it's easiest to do joy in work, and where it's easiest to get the intrinsic motivation is, you know, smaller companies where everybody's close and they're really working together. And that's a dilemma that I never really have had a great reconciling of, but I'm interested to learn more about it from the direction that you're coming. So continue on. But that's just something I have in my mind when heard you talk about it.   0:05:13.1 JS: It's tough to do with a big company, but I wanna tell you a big company story. And actually I'm gonna read, a page or two of the book just because it's, I don't want to, it's a complicated story and I wanna make sure you get all the...   0:05:32.5 AS: Well, you've it written so well. So might as well do that.   0:05:36.1 JS: Well, like, gosh, let's hope so. Let's hope so. But, anyway, this is actually by coincidence. I just, what appeared, this morning on their podcast, so, of this company called Barry-Wehmiller. So, but the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller is a gentleman named Bob Chapman. And he's become quite well known in the Lean world and outside of the Lean world because as a pioneer of what we could call human-centric leadership. So he believes in treating people in the company like family members. But he didn't start out that way. He started with a very traditional background. He took over his father's business and he had a typical MBA background with accounting. And so he grew that company in a traditional way. You know, it started, as one company, and it started really by acquisition.   0:06:25.5 JS: He got very, very good at finding undervalued companies and developing them. So the company grew and it became a sort of a multinational, diversified manufacturer of various kinds of machinery. And so he was a huge success. I mean, he was written up in Harvard Business Review, all this kind of stuff, but he had a feeling, he was very much a family man too, and he had a feeling that something wasn't quite right in the companies that he was running. And he's a... Bob is a very... He watches people, he's very sensitive about body language. And he told me of a time he was in the cafeteria of a company, and it was sort of basketball season, you know, March Madness. That's when the university teams, you know, have their finals and all that, and everybody's betting on them, you know, it's a big deal.   0:07:21.9 JS: So he remembers being in there, and the people in the cafeteria all just having a great time and watching them chatter. And then, he watched the... When the clock sort of moved, so it's a few minutes to having to go back to work, he said the body language changed, all of a sudden they just weren't that happy. You know, it just, all the joy kind of drained out of them. And then they went off to their jobs. And Bob said, you know, this is wrong. You know, that it shouldn't be this way. And he was a family man. He said, I wouldn't want my children who I care about to be working in this kind of environment. So how can we care for the people and how can we actually make that work? So here's what I'm gonna start to read, because here's where it gets complicated.   0:08:08.6 JS: "Chapman vowed to change how people were led at Barry-Wehmiller. His business background, however, didn't provide any help for this. 'When I was in business school, I was never taught to care,' he said. 'It was about creating economic value. It was all business models, market cap, market share. I don't remember in my undergraduate in accounting or my graduate school ever learning to care or inspire the people I had the privilege to lead. And I never read, never was told, never heard that the way I would run Barry-Wehmiller would impact the way people go home and treat their families and their health. But the biggest thing we've learned is that the way we learn impacts the way people live.' Working with a group of team members from across the organization, he developed a set of principles called the Guiding Principles of Leadership, or GPL, which put caring for people as front and center to the job for all leaders in the company.   0:09:05.2 JS: "But the question remained, how do we organize the work in a way that gives workers the experience of working in a caring environment? It happened that Barry-Wehmiller had recently acquired a Baltimore based manufacturer of corrugated paper machines called MarquipWardUnited the company had implemented a number of Lean tools and practices under the leadership of Jerry Solomon, who was also the author of several books on Lean accounting. In Chapman's first meeting with Solomon, he introduced him to the Guiding Principles of Leadership and Solomon immediately saw a connection with the challenges companies face when trying to create a Lean culture. Most companies practicing Lean, he noted, never get to the culture piece. The same concern that caused the Shingo Institute to revise its model in 2008." And by the way, I have to interject here. That was covered in a previous chapter, how Shingo Institute found that they had left out the people and the caring part.   0:10:14.4 JS: And that had caused a lot of companies that had adopted Shingo principles to actually, and had won Shingo prizes to actually fall off the ladder, so to speak. But that's another story. Anyway, "Solomon," Jerry Solomon, this is the, from MarquipWardUnited "felt that what the company needed was what he called a delivery mechanism to integrate the Guiding Principles of Leadership with the company's day-to-Day operations. How, for example, does a supervisor in the shop floor interact with the people doing the work? Solomon felt that Lean and GPL were an ideal fit. Chapman was skeptical, though, 'cause he'd heard that Lean is purely about reducing waste and increasing profits, but not about leading people ... passed.   0:11:06.2 JS: And the group that was working on it, this company in Green Bay, actually was ready to report on some of their results. So they invited Bob Chapman and Jerry to come, to fly in to see the report. So what they got was a sort of a typical consultant's report. They said, well, we've implemented this thing and we've got, we've shortened the lead time, we've reduced the defects, whatever. And Chapman's reaction was actually different than what you would expect. He was very, very upset. 'Cause he said, this is supposed to be about people and Guiding Principles of Leadership. That's what you told me Lean was about. But here all I hear is a bunch of numbers. So he was quite upset. He left the room, actually. And they sort of calmed him down, and they said, Bob, please give us another chance.   0:12:03.6 JS: And it so happened that, the next morning there was going to be a report out from people that were actually on the team that had made the improvements. So Bob says, okay, I'll give you another chance, but I want the people that were actually working on that project to come and report to the presidents. So, an incredible setup. You know, you can imagine, you have these people 7 o'clock in the morning. Well, that's not hard for you to imagine, with the hours you keep. But anyway, 7 in the morning, you have all the principals, presidents of these companies, and you have, a couple of, people in the team and a guy who's never presented to a group like that, getting up in front of a whole group of CEOs. So he had some notes, and he went through his presentation, which was very sort of, you know, what you would expect.   0:12:54.2 JS: It was, yeah, we've got the, pretty much what the consultants had said the day before, right? Yeah. We cut the lead time. We did this. And, Bob listened patiently. He said he listened for about 10 minutes, and then he says, and he says, I don't know where this came from. He stood up and said, Steve, that's the name of the guy presenting. How did this change your life? And there was a silence. And you imagine, right? All the CEOs and or the presidents. And then, and this guy who has never presented to a group like that. And Steve just sort of blurted out, my wife is talking to me more. And Bob said, help me, Steve. I don't understand. Please, please explain this. And Steve then went ahead and told, what Bob said was one of the most moving stories he'd ever heard, you know, and what Steve said is, well, Bob, you know how it is.   0:13:53.9 JS: You go to work and, you know, you punch in your clock. And then they give you some things to do. They give you a list of things to do, but they don't give you any support or anything, or they don't give you the tools you need, but you sort of figure it out. You know, you get through the day and you get nine out of 10 things, right? But then maybe that 10th thing you'll run into some problem. He said, and immediately what they do, they never thank you for the things you did right. They jump on you for the problem you have, that you confronted. They tell you, you didn't do things right. And then they complain about your salary and how they have to pay overtime and all these kinds of things.   0:14:41.6 JS: And he said, you know, at the end of the day, I wasn't feeling too good about myself. And I'd go home and I think it was rubbing off on me. I wasn't being very nice to my wife and she wasn't talking to me. But he said, now with this program we have, the Guiding Principles of Leadership with Lean, people, I'm part of something. I'm part of a team. We've worked on some things and I can see the results. And when I ask questions, these engineers are answering my questions. And when I say things, they listen to me. And, you know, we've got the satisfaction of this project where we see the flow now really working out in this area. So I go home and I'm feeling better about myself. And I think I'm nicer to my wife and she's talking to me. And at that point, Bob Chapman turned to Jerry Solomon and he said, we have a new metric for Lean's success. It's going to be the reduction of the divorce rate in America.   0:15:41.7 JS: So that's, I think, very, very central. That story to everything we're talking about here with intrinsic motivation. Because it's not about money. It's, you know, you've gotta pay people decently and then they have to be able to support their families. But it's about respect. It's about seeing yourself accomplish things. And this isn't just a frill, this is a basic human need. I think Dr. Deming recognized that. And he has a wonderful diagram in The New Economics where he talks about, he calls it Forces of Destruction. You know that diagram?   0:16:23.1 AS: Yeah.   0:16:27.5 JS: Yeah. It's the... How the school system and then the job environments just basically wear a person down, wear down their will and their enthusiasm. And, you know what, another CEO pointed out to me that, very interestingly, he said, we have a crisis in this country because people don't have purpose in their work. So they go from job to job when they don't like their job. It's, he said, it's like changing an app. Something goes wrong, they change it, but they got no purpose in their work.   0:17:03.3 JS: And this company, I should I call them out, 'cause he, mention his name is Mark Borsari. And it's a company that makes wire brushes in Massachusetts. But they do, you know... He said, you really have to find the purpose in the interactions of people. It's in the people and it's in the processes. You don't get people excited about wire brushes. You get people excited about being part of a work environment where your opinion is respected and where you can make improvements. So, he said, that's what people need in the workplace right now. And he said, the result is that people, you know, we have people just depressed and upset and, you know, it's a crisis that's perhaps underestimated, but really needs to be addressed. So that's why I feel maybe so passionate about this sticks and carrots myth, because I see how destructive it is to human beings. And I've experienced some of that myself in, you know, my early days in corporate life where you're kind of blamed and evaluated for things that often you have no control over. And it's, you know, you look at something like the Red Bead Game. There are people that actually live that.   0:18:31.0 AS: Just to highlight for the listeners and the viewers, the book that Bob Chapman wrote is called Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, very highly rated on Amazon. And it looks like it's also in audible form, which would be a fun one. And you also mentioned about Jerry Solomon, his book, Who's Counting is another one on the topic.   0:18:32.5 AS: But you know, I was thinking about this for a moment. And I was thinking, you know, I was kind of inoculated to this, I was vaccinated against negative thinking by two things that happened to me when I was young. The first one is, you know, I went into rehab as as a young guy with drug addiction. And I came out of that when I was almost 18. And from that point till today, I've been drug free, alcohol free. And so I had to kind of face all the demons that I had, you know, accumulated at that time, but I left it with a really positive outlook on life.   0:19:29.7 AS: Like I wanted happiness.   0:19:29.8 JS: Interesting.   0:19:29.9 AS: I wanted serenity. And then and then I went to work... I went studied, enjoyed that, I went to work for Pepsi, I really enjoyed it. And then I met Dr. Deming when I was, you know, 24. And and he told me, you know, we should have joy in work. And from that moment on, it's like, that's what I wanted in life. And so I never, I never got caught up in this idea when I worked at Big Bank, you know, Citibank and other places, I just never, nobody could ever convince me that, you know, I should be unhappy with what I'm doing.   0:20:05.5 AS: Like, I really, really enjoyed it. And then I was just thinking about how painful it is, if you haven't been inoculated from the beginning, to have to go through this, and then you end up with, you know, it's it's 9 to 5, it's painful work, it's called work for a reason, it's hard, you know. And I think that before I come to the next questions, you know, about the question we always get on the topic of carrots and sticks, what do we do instead?   0:20:30.6 AS: Before I talk about that, I think I really wanna highlight that what's important is getting your thinking right about this. Whether it's the thinking about I wanna treat people like a family, I want people to enjoy work, I want work to be a source of pride, I want people to wanna work here. You know, if you can get those thoughts right, the solutions to the carrots and sticks, and how do we evaluate and all of those questions, you know, can kind of, they wither away to some extent. What are your thoughts on that?   0:21:02.4 JS: Well, I think Jerry Solomon said it very well, actually. He said, you need a delivery mechanism. And Lean provided that, you know, it has a bunch of tools and organizing principles. So does the Deming's System of Profound Knowledge, right, and the various frameworks that Dr. Deming put together. So that provides that kind of framework. It's not easy to do. I think one of the big hurdles, and this is kind of central to my book is that you're dealing with a lot of unlearning. And they say that it's harder to unlearn something than it is to learn new skills. So we really can't afford to underestimate that.   0:21:51.1 JS: And I think when we have managers and leaders facing massive unlearning challenges, I think what's needed is compassion, you know, we shouldn't be putting them down for applying what they learned, we should be understanding about the changes. And I think Dr. Deming, you know, from the stories I've heard was very good about that.   0:22:00.0 AS: Well, he had something he would say, which was kind of one of his methods of compassions, but I remember him saying, how could they know? How could they know, you know, like, they were brought up in this system, as you've just said, and so, but it's based upon the carrot and sticks and all of these different things. But I'm curious, you know, which I think we at some point we'll get to in our discussion is the, there's listeners and viewers out there. It's like, okay, Jacob, totally agree with you. Andrew, totally agree with you. I want people to have joy in work. But you know, I'm constrained by, you know, the performance appraisals that I got to do.   0:23:07.3 AS: I'm constrained by the punishments and rewards that my company does. And or a leader of a company says, if I let these things go, we're gonna fall apart. How do you respond to that?   0:23:11.6 JS: Well, gosh, I mean, I think you have to just look at the case studies of people that have let that go. And that's why I emphasize I one of the points I emphasize in the book with advice for companies moving forward is a very first step before you do anything is go visit companies that have been successful. You know, go visit Bama Foods, where they have a great culture. Go watch how people interact with people. Go to some of the great Lean companies. All these companies understand that the best gift they can give their employees is to allow them to share what they've learned with other people. It's a great motivator for people. So it's a real win win. So I think it begins with that you've got to see it first. And then you can start to assess where you stand.   0:24:13.6 JS: But we're talking about a transformation here, as Dr. Deming said. We're not talking about implementing a few tricks that we can superimpose on our management system. You've got to manage it completely differently to actually get this kind of intrinsic motivation to be a driving force in your workplace.   0:24:19.2 AS: It just made me think that I wanna come up with the five happiest companies in Bangkok and do a tour and take my students out and my teams out and my company managers out and let's go, you know, see how they're turning on intrinsic motivation, you know. And one thing about Thailand that's interesting is that what people want from work is very different than in the West.   0:24:50.1 JS: Right.   0:24:51.2 AS: And what people want from work is good relationships, harmony.   0:24:57.6 JS: Really.   0:24:57.8 AS: They want connection. They want meaning, more meaning from their work than the typical Western.   0:25:05.8 JS: Isn't that interesting? Interesting.   0:25:05.9 AS: And so when I see and I rail sometimes on to my students about, you know, be very careful about bringing this KPI disease into Thailand, where all of a sudden, you're setting up the Thai people to go against each other, which takes away from what is a core strength is their desire and ability to get along.   0:25:33.3 JS: Isn't that interesting? Wow, so they got a head start.   0:25:42.5 AS: Yeah. My first move to Thailand in 1992, I taught an MBA class. And the first thing I did is what was done with me in my MBA class is say, all right, here's a case study, break into groups, and then, you know, and then they came back and, and then after getting to know them in my first semester that I taught, now I've been teaching for 32 years in Thailand. The first lesson I learned is Thais do not need group work. They need individual work. And because they need to kind of flex that muscle.   0:26:08.8 AS: And then I thought, well, why are we do so much group work in America? Well, because it's Americans are trained and taught from the beginning to think independently, have their own idea, watch out for themselves. And they need help in, let's say, MBA classes to work together.   0:26:26.8 JS: Isn't that interesting?   0:26:26.9 AS: And so what I just saw was a very different dynamic.   0:26:30.3 JS: Wow.   0:26:30.9 AS: And it helped me also to understand that we... The good side of the American, let's say, I know, American worker, I know Americans, just 'cause that's where I grew up. But the good side of that is that there is a lot of independent thinking, they can come up with the good systems and all of that.   0:26:47.3 JS: Sure.   0:26:48.9 AS: But the bad side is that they're oftentimes fired up to be in competition with each other. And KPIs just ignite that fire that just...   0:26:58.2 JS: They do.   0:26:58.3 AS: Really causes, you know, a lot of damage.   0:27:00.5 JS: Well, I got to ask you something, then, do you think that that East versus West kind of mindset is why Dr. Deming's ideas were taken up in Japan when they had been kind of ignored in the US?   0:27:16.9 AS: Yeah, I mean, I definitely I mean, Japan is like an extreme example of Asia and trying to have harmony and everybody, the bigger mission is the company, the bigger mission is the community, the bigger mission is the country. I would say that Japan is like the ultimate in that. Thailand is less so there's more independence and people don't have to be completely allegiant to those things. But still, that desire to be happy at work is there, you know, I think it's there more, it's more innate, for some reason in Thailand, than I saw it in America.   0:27:55.8 AS: And I always explain that, when I worked in America, I think I never went out on a weekend with my colleagues.   0:28:04.5 JS: Really. Interesting.   0:28:05.3 AS: And in Thailand is a very common thing to arrange activities together with your workmates, and go bowling and do this and do that. And I thought, I saw that everywhere. And I was pretty, you know, that just was fascinating to me. So I really, you know, this discussion is all about opening up people's minds, that carrots and sticks are not the only way. And as you said, it's a transformation, it takes time, you got to think about it, you got to reconcile it.   0:28:37.8 JS: Well, and that brings up another really important point, Andrew. And that is that teamwork, team productivity really makes the difference in a company. And when you think about it, you've got a whole bunch of individuals that productivity is very often not gonna add up for reasons, you know, that we've already talked about, you know, it's not part of the system. So team productivity becomes really, really essential. But team productivity, and Kelly Allen actually pointed this out really well to me. And I mean, I'm gonna just look in my notes here to get his words exactly, 'cause he said it so well.   0:29:21.0 JS: Let's see here. And here's Kelly, "a useful operational definition of a team is the collaborative and coordinated efforts of people working together in an atmosphere of voluntary trust." So you got to build that. And, you know, that's kind of tough to do in a lot of North American companies.   0:29:48.5 AS: Yeah. It's such a great point. And I think I've recently been teaching a corporate strategy. And I talk about Michael Porter and all the he's taught about strategy. But one of the things that he mentions towards the end of his books is the idea of fit. And he's talking about how do the pieces fit together in the company. And everybody knows that feeling when the when the process before you or the process after you in your company is being run by somebody that you have a good fit with. It's like everything comes together. And so I think what I realize now is that the power of that coordination that Kelly Allen's talking about is all about how do we get these pieces fit together, working together, coordinating together. That's the magic.   0:30:37.3 AS: Interesting. But Porter, I mean, he talked about a lot of I think, you know, it's been a long time since I've looked at his books, but a lot of his stuff was either or, right? I mean, you know, you decide, am I gonna be a price leader or am I gonna be a quality leader? And I think a lot of what he did disregarded, you know, Deming's Chain Reaction, you know, where he where you actually invest in both. So I mean, that's got a problem and with strategy people in general. Now, I know you've taught strategy. So maybe you're gonna take me apart on this one. But it seems to me that the strategy folks are really missing something.   0:31:29.1 AS: Well, I think most people are missing the type of stuff that Dr. Deming's talking about, but I use an example of McDonald's and Starbucks.   0:31:35.5 JS: Okay.   0:31:37.3 AS: You know, one is a low cost leader. And one is a premium, you know, differentiated, you know, product and service. And we all know which one's which. So which one leads to a sustainable competitive advantage? Which one is better? I always talk to my students. And I say, the fact is, is that both of them have led to a competitive advantage. So part of what, you know, I would say, when I think about corporate strategy, from my perspective, is figure out the direction that fits your DNA, and then pursue that, whether that's about making, you know, I like to tell my students that think of a company run by an engineer, who may be focused on the processes and all that, who may create a very efficient operation, versus a business, let's say run by a marketing or sales person who has a much better contacting and messaging to the customer. Those two business owners should be developing their corporate strategy around their DNA, you know, and if they do that right, that, in theory, should lead to some competitive advantage.   0:31:58.9 AS: And to me, competitive advantage is how do we make sure that our company creates a level of profitability that is higher than the industry average over a sustained period of time. If we think we're doing a corporate strategy that works, and we're making a very low amount of profitability, I think that there's enough reason to argue that that's probably not achieving a competitive advantage.   0:32:37.1 JS: Yeah. And I think we have to put the word sustainable competitive advantage. But along the McDonald's, Starbucks, though, I have a very interesting twist. And I think this was done locally in Canada. But somebody did a blind test of coffees from various outlets to see what rated the highest. And I have to tell you that McDonald's coffee rated very high, higher than Starbucks. So...   0:33:47.1 AS: But it's definitely the case in Bangkok that McDonald's coffee is fantastic.   0:33:50.8 JS: Really.   0:33:51.8 AS: I happen to know very much about that. But I highly recommend that.   0:33:55.7 JS: Yeah. Well, I think we're, you know, we are focusing in this book, essentially on, you know, productivity. Now, marketing, marketing strategy and stuff like that is yeah, I'll acknowledge that. Sure. And that's maybe, you know, I think what Michael Porter was talking about it's very true in terms of marketing. But in terms of quality, output of quality, I think that's where the Deming magic and the Lean magic all come into play.   0:34:12.2 AS: Yeah, I mean, it took me a long time to figure out that what Dr. Deming saying is, if we are continually improving our products and service and our quality, we're driving down costs, and we're making people happier, and we're bringing more value to the market. How... Shall we wrap this up? And how would you summarize what you want people to take away from this?   0:34:26.1 JS: I would say that intrinsic motivation is underestimated in workplaces, it's misunderstood. It's not reflected in the way most companies are organized or their strategies. So it's a big learning curve for companies to create the kind of environment where intrinsic motivation is connected with the workplace. But I think it's worthwhile, it's a very, very important thing. And we have a lot of unhappiness in society. And a lot of it can be traced to a lack of that. So, you know, I hope that more companies will see the importance of this.   0:35:16.6 AS: You know, it's my, my friend who never... He was helping me when I was writing my book, Transform your Business with Dr. Deming's 14 points.   0:36:02.2 JS: That's a great book.   0:36:02.7 AS: And he was editing a book.   0:36:02.8 JS: I love that book, by the way.   0:36:04.3 AS: Thank you. I was trying to make it as simple as possible for the 14 points. But my friend, as he was helping me edit it, he turned to me after many hours of working together over many weeks, he said to me, I figured it out. Dr. Deming is a humanist, he cares about people. And that was just so funny, because he thought going into it, it's all gonna be about, you know, charts and graphs and statistics. And I think that's, you know, that's the key, it's the mindset. I wanna wrap up by by just going through some of Dr. Deming's 14 points that apply to what we're talking about. And, you know...   0:36:39.2 JS: Great.   0:36:39.6 AS: The question really is, you know, when my friend said that Dr. Deming was a humanist, it's 'cause as he started working on the 14 points with me, he started to realize, just listen to these points. Here's point number eight, drive out fear. Yeah, that's critical to having a joyful workplace. Number nine, break down barriers between department. That's the source of so much trouble for people at work is that they're working in silos. Number 10, eliminate slogans and targets and exhortations. Stop focusing on pushing the workers constantly. Figure out how to improve the system.   0:37:10.2 AS: Number 11, eliminate work standards or quotas, eliminate management by objective, management by numbers, substitute leadership. And number 12, remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of the right to pride of workmanship. Remove barriers that rob people in management and engineering of their right of pride of workmanship. My goodness, from eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, all focused on this concept of intrinsic motivation. And to me, that thinking, changing that thinking is what's so critical. Anything you would add as we wrap up?   0:37:25.0 JS: Yeah, I will add one thing to that. And this is very strongly in the book. That is why the first step if you're gonna transform your company is making everybody feel safe. That's got to be the first step, even before you start training them with methods and things like that. You have to build safety, then you can build trust.   0:37:47.2 AS: Fantastic. Well, Jacob, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. So much happening there. You can find Jacob's book, Productivity Reimagined at jacobstoller.com. And this is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming that I just never stop talking about. And today we talked about it a lot. And that is, "People are entitled to joy in work."  

Michael Bungay Stanier (or MBS) is the founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations move from advice-driven to curiosity-led. They've trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like and their clients range from Microsoft to Gucci. A few years ago, Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman, shared our leadership philosophy with MBS on the Great Work Podcast from Box of Crayons, which is where we were first introduced to his work. One of MBS's books, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change The Way You Lead Forever, has sold more than a million copies and is the best-selling coaching book of the century. The Coaching Habit very much resonates with our core principles at Barry-Wehmiller, you can see it in the title: “Say less, ask more.” In other words, listen. Really, truly listen. On this podcast, Michael talks about the difficulty leaders have in listening and why that may be, but he also gives practical suggestions on how leaders can be better coaches and help their people feel like they really matter

Barry-Wehmiller's CEO, Bob Chapman, often says that to be a Truly Human Leader, you need to have the skills and courage to care. Often, when you are placed into the role of leadership the traditional way to view the people within your span of care is as functions. So, you try to get them to do what you want so you can be successful, not because you care about them. It's not about who those people are or why they matter. They're just a function for your success or the success of your organization. Caring is reserved for family and friends outside the doors of the office. But, Bob says, caring is what we need more of in the workplace. Everyone on the team – especially leaders -- needs to shed their emotional armor. It's only then that we connect more deeply so that the 40 hours a week we spend away from home are not draining but fulfilling. As leaders, we should create work environments in which our team members feel safe, cared for and comfortable being their true, fully human selves. This is also one of the main insights in a new book in which Bob and Barry-Wehmiller are featured. It's called The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out. It was written by four senior partners from McKinsey and Company, one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world. It's a look-behind-the-curtain at McKinsey's step-by-step approach to transforming leaders both professionally and personally, which was gleaned through lessons from its legendary CEO leadership program “The Bower Forum,” which has counseled 500+ global CEOs over the past decade, as well as McKinsey's global CEO counseling practice. On today's podcast, we feature a conversation between Bob and Ramesh Srinivasan, one of the McKinsey Senior partners who co-authored The Journey of Leadership. We'll talk about what it means to lead from the inside out, and how that connects to Bob's thoughts on caring in the workplace.

McKinsey and Company is one of the most, if not the most, prestigious consulting firms in the world. McKinsey creates immeasurable value for its clients, influences how the business world operates, and produces many of the world's business and political leaders. Barry-Wehmiller and our CEO, Bob Chapman were recently featured in an important new book written by four McKinsey Senior Partners. It's called The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out. It was written by Hans-Werner Kaas, Dana Maor, Ramesh Srinivasan, and Kurt Strovink. The Journey of Leadership offers leaders a method by which they can assess their own leadership and reinvent their approach in a way that is in alignment with many of the principles Bob Chapman talks about, and that we often talk about on this podcast. The authors have packed it full of lessons from McKinsey's legendary CEO leadership program “The Bower Forum,” which has counseled 500+ global CEOs over the past decade, as well as insights gleaned from McKinsey's global CEO counseling practice. The Journey of Leadership shares how you can hone the psychological, emotional, and ultimately, the human attributes to be what we would call a Truly Human Leader. We at Barry-Wehmiller are honored to be one of the case studies in the book, appearing in chapter 12, which is titled: For People to Care, Show Them You Care.” On today's podcast, we bring you a conversation between Bob Chapman and one of the authors of The Journey of Leadership, Hans-Werner Kaas. Hans-Werner introduces himself and explains the inspiration behind the book and he and Bob have a meaningful discussion about the importance of human-centered leadership.

If you're struggling to build a company culture you love … Or if you're an emerging leader trying to figure out your leadership style … Then hit play on this inspiring conversation with Bob Chapman, the Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller.  Bob is going to show you all the ways that leadership can be a powerful force for good—and how you can infuse those principles of care into your organization without compromising on results. You'll also learn: Three big paradigm shifts that will shape your leadership style How to make business more fun The mindset you need in tough personnel situations Just how much recognition people need (hint: it's more than you think!) ——— FEATURED RESOURCE The How Leaders Lead mobile app Download the app and scale up your leadership skills in under 2 minutes a day

Have you ever thought about what your eulogy might say? It's kind of a macabre thought, but it's actually a pretty important question. And it's the topic of conversation on this podcast between Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman, and Garrett Potts, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida. As you've heard over several episodes of this podcast, Barry-Wehmiller is working with a number of universities to try and instill principles of Truly Human Leadership into business schools, so future leaders are not only taught the hard skills you'd expect they need in their career, but also the essential skills of how to be a caring leader. Bob met Garrett through those efforts and he came up with the idea of having students write their own eulogy. Bob challenged Garrett to impress upon his students to live their lives with intention and ask them, “When your life comes to its end, which eventually it will, what do you want people to say about your life?” On this podcast, you'll hear why Bob and Garrett think this is an appropriate challenge for students at this point in their career, but you'll also hear a broader discussion on the purpose of education and how better leaders can be created through it.

Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. They do this by helping those organizations identify, develop and equip their leaders. One of the ways Chapman & Co helps to equip leaders in an organization is with information. One of the ways they can provide that information is by administering an organizational culture survey. On this podcast, we're going to do a deeper dive into organizational culture surveys and implementing them within a global organization with Chapman & Co.'s survey expert, Morgan Miller. Morgan will explain the whats, whys and hows of organizational culture surveys and then she'll also talk to Yasmin Nehls, a people team leader from Barry-Wehmiller's BW Papersystems company. Together, they address the challenges in implementing a global organizational culture survey, but they'll also talk about the ways the survey has brought change to their organization.

Listening is not always a dedicated subject in educational curriculums.  Think about it. There are speech classes, debate teams. You don't hear much about listening classes. That's why it's one of the foundational leadership classes taught in Barry-Wehmiller's internal university. We teach our people to "listen like leaders." It not only affects their relationships at work and with customers, but it has been shown to have a pround affect at home with their families, friends and neighbors.  On this podcast, you'll hear how those teachings are being integrated into college curriculum by Lisa Waite, a professor in communication studies at Kent State University. Lisa teaches a course titled Business and Professional Communication. On this episode she discusses incorporating Barry-Wehmiller's empathetic listening curriculum and CEO Bob Chapman's TEDx talk into her college courses, as well as the effect it has had on her students and their leadership skills.

Laurie Butz is the President and CEO of Capital Credit Union, a credit union with more than 120,000 members in northeast Wisconsin. And we at Barry-Wehmiller definitely consider Laurie part of our extended family. Laurie's husband, Dennis, worked for many years for our Paper Converting Machine Company, or PCMC, based in Green Bay, WI, part of our BW Converting group of companies. Our CEO, Bob Chapman, has been privileged to be part of Laurie's leadership journey. And Laurie has enlisted Bob and Cynthia Chapman's non-profit, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, to bring our leadership training into her organization. Laurie is also working with the Chapman Foundation on a very special initiative in Green Bay, where Capital Credit Union is based.   As we always say at the beginning of this podcast, the way we lead impacts the way people live. It's one of the driving forces behind the importance of practicing what we call Truly Human Leadership. On this podcast, we're going to tie all our common threads together as we talk to Laurie about the ripple effect of Truly Human Leadership in her life at home and, consequently, her own leadership journey.

On several episodes of this podcast, you've heard about Barry-Wehmiller's efforts to transform how business education is taught. If you want leaders who have the skills and courage to care, that should be part of their education before they are out in the world and in positions of responsibility. But what if we can reach people before they are in business school? What if these skills of Truly Human Leadership are taught alongside history, math, science and grammar in primary and secondary education? It could make an amazing difference in our neighborhoods and communities and in the future of our world. This has become a focus of our CEO, Bob Chapman, and to kick-start this effort, we recently hosted a very important group of friends and allies at our St. Louis office to reflect on the purpose of education and formulate a vision to inspire our efforts as we begin in earnest. An “education summit,” if you will. On this podcast, we're going to feature a collage of takeaways from that special day from Anne White of Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, David-Aaron Roth of Charlotte Latin School and Sarah Bennison of the Mattering Movement. 

This episode is a reissue from October 2021.As businesses worldwide increasingly focus on reducing their own environmental impact, it is important to examine how industries are evolving to embrace more sustainable practices. In episode 4 of SLU International Business Now, guest host Dr. Jennifer Mackey sits down with Carol O'Neill, Group President of Packaging for Barry-Wehmiller, to discuss current efforts in global consumer packaging.As Group President of Packaging, Carol O'Neill leads efforts to enhance the alignment and capabilities of the five divisions within the BW Packaging Systems Platform. Guest host Dr. Jennifer Mackey currently serves as Director of Sustainability Solutions at Bunzl Distribution USA and brings her strong background in the plastics industry as a marketing and sustainability professional to the episode.Carol O'Neill LinkedInJennifer Mackey LinkedIn

If you want to change the way people lead, maybe you should go to the source of where they're taught to lead – business schools. Maybe the way we teach people to lead should change. Christopher Reina is the Founding and Executive Director of the Institute for Transformative Leadership and an Associate Professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at Virginia Commonwealth University. Chris came into our orbit at Barry-Wehmiller a number of years ago. Our relationship with Chris blossomed into a partnership at Virginia Commonwealth University, spearheaded by our Director of Outreach, Brian Wellinghoff, who is now their Executive in Residence. Chris has also recently published a paper in the Academy of Management Review, titled “Humanistic Organizing: The Transformative Force of Mindful Organizational Communication,” that lays out a framework for businesses to transform into more people-centered organizations where individuals feel valued and a strong sense of belonging. And it features Barry-Wehmiller as one of its case studies. On this podcast, we're bringing Chris and Brian together to talk about the partnership at VCU to transform the way leadership is taught. 

A good business model is the Ferrari engine—people are the fuel that makes it work! 14% CAGR for almost 25 years by caring, looking for goodness and saying thank you.  Hear practical examples of how Barry Wehmiller does it—and at the centre of it, leaders measuring success by the lives they have touched. This approach to leadership and culture that has worked in over a 100 acquisitions- across the globe- a better way of doing business! Join us to hear the inspiring story of Bob Chapman CEO of Barry Wehmiller- WHAT they do is provide the industrial equipment and engineering solutions that  help bring many of life's daily necessities - toilet tissue and wet wipes, corrugated boxes, cans of soft drinks, bags of dog food, containers of yogurt, pharmaceuticals, envelopes and more - to people across the globe.  But that's just what they do.  What truly defines them as a business is HOW they do it, and that's by fostering a caring, trusting, nurturing organizational culture through which people feel safe to express their ideas and share their gifts and talents.  Using the power of business to build a better world. ** If you enjoy this podcast, would you consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes only a few seconds and greatly helps us get our podcast out to a wider audience. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. For transcripts and show notes, please go to: https://www.theconsciouscapitalists.com Thank you for your support! Timothy & Raj

Dr. Melinda Bremley is the newest Partner at Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. Melinda and the rest of the team at Chapman & Co do this by helping those organizations identify, develop and equip their leaders. You can learn more about Chapman & Co. on their website: ccoleadership.com Melinda has over 25 years of experience in executive coaching, excelling in nurturing leadership at various career stages. At Chapman & Co., Melinda plays a pivotal role in realizing their mission, bringing extensive experience in creating and maintaining selection processes across organizational levels. Notably, she also spearheads succession planning and CEO/President performance feedback processes. On this podcast, we'd like to introduce you to Dr. Melinda Bremley through a discussion she has with two other Chapman & Co team members, Morgan Witzig and Jessie Turner. They'll talk about Melinda's background and experience, but also talk about leadership coaching, the benefits of assessments, AI and leadership and Melinda talks about some of the biggest challenges she is seeing leaders face at the moment.

Times of transition can be challenging for any organization. But challenging times and times of change often presents many opportunities for growth.  But the ability to maximize those opportunities depends on effective leadership. Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that specializes in helping other organizations unleash the extraordinary in their businesses and their people. A few years ago, Chapman & Co. acquired Leadership Alliance – a data-driven talent acquisition and development business equipped with a team of consultants, many of whom have their Ph.D. in psychology. The Leadership Alliance brand is now officially combining under the Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute name, which has inspired a number of emotions around the transition, especially from Leadership Alliance's founders. On this podcast, Chapman & Co.'s Matt Whiat talks to David and Karen Weller, Leadership Alliance founders and current partners in Chapman & Co. We're going to explore this transition in the hope that it can help other organizations in their own change journeys. We explore some of the things to keep in mind to make transitions as smooth as possible for the people inside the business.  

It is a universal truth -- every one of us, no matter what our job or where we live, simply wants to know that who we are and what we do matters. As leaders in business, we have the awesome responsibility to let people know that they do. Our goal at Barry-Wehmiller is to show the world that business can be a powerful force for good when we realize that the way we lead impacts the way people live and have the courage to care for those we lead.  And that is what Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman, did as he spoke to more than 80 different organizations in 2023, sharing the message of Truly Human Leadership. This podcast features a talk he gave to a luncheon for business leaders at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hopefully, it will inspire you to be the leader you wish you had in the coming year. 

At Barry-Wehmiller, we consider leadership to be an awesome responsibility--it holds the key to growing our business and, as important, improving the lives of our team members. It's our job, as leaders, to help them establish goals so they know how to contribute, to remove barriers that get in the way of them achieving their goals, and help them chart a path for their growth. Our team members deserve that and, consequently, if we're asking them to contribute, we must ensure that they are led by leaders who have the skills to help them perform and the courage to care about them along the way. A few years ago, we introduced Leader Expectations & Commitments, developed to help all formal Barry-Wehmiller leaders with team members in their span of care understand the actions and skills needed to embody Truly Human Leadership.  On this podcast, we thought we'd explore Barry-Wehmiller's leader expectations and commitments through five outstanding leaders in our organization. You'll get to hear how they view these expectations in the scope of their responsibilities and how they try to apply the commitments in their daily interactions and leadership of those within their span of care. 

While presenting our message of Truly Human Leadership, our CEO Bob Chapman is often asked: What about the people who don't get it? What about the people who actively work against positive change? Barry-Wehmiller has acquired more than 130 companies and we've certainly found that the people within that company are a product of their experiences. They may have experienced great leaders in their past or, more likely, they have had some negative experiences. Consequently, some have difficulty trusting our leadership message. That's okay. We're all at a different point on this journey, and we have to be patient and trust that the skeptics will eventually see the transformative power it can have—on both their work lives and their personal lives. On this podcast, you'll hear the story of Randall Fleming, who was a welder in our BW Papersystems company in Phillips, Wisconsin, and very much a skeptic. Randall's story is testament to the life-changing power of meaningful work. It's what happens when you establish a workplace culture of empathy and shared purpose as opposed to the "command and control" atmosphere of most traditional management environments. 

When Lean was introduced to the Barry-Wehmiller organization a number of years ago, CEO Bob Chapman's concern was that people would be lost along the way. But we found a way to adopt Lean methods and stay true to our Guiding Principles of Leadership.  Instead of using Lean to reduce waste, we use it to reduce frustration. It's part of the bag of tools we use in continuous improvement to ensure a stable and thriving business for the benefit of our people. It's part of our overall Operational Excellence strategy. Our vision is about engaging people's head, heart and hands in creating their own future and actively shaping the legacy of the business every day. On this podcast, we take a look at how our approach to Lean puts people at the center to make it about eliminating frustration, not waste. In addition, you'll hear an interview with Jacob Stoller, author of The Lean CEO. Jacob's book features a number of organizations, which, like Barry-Wehmiller, found a way to empower people, not processes. And that is the true power of Lean.

Welcome to foHRsight – a podcast about making work better brought to you by future foHRward.In this week's episode, Mark Edgar is joined by guest Susan Conrad who is part of the Chapman & Co Leadership Institute – an organization that supports companies create a people-first culture. She is also a serial entrepreneur and sees her purpose as serving as a catalyst so people achieve more together.Mark partners with Susan and team as part of his Chief People Officer role at Wajax as we continue to focus on building a people-first company.A lot of the Chapman & Co Leadership Institute work is based on the Barry-Wehmiller journey who have created a very intentional culture focused on unleashing the potential of every person in the organization. You can learn more about the company and the work in these links.  Everybody Matters Documentary  (37 minutes)Everybody Matters Book & Discussion Guide (see attached)Truly Human Leadership Animation Video (10 minutes)In this episode they talk about the importance of taking a people approach and the role a purpose and a set of values has in creating a sustainable culture. They talk about the unique approach they take to creating a purpose and values.You can learn more about Susan's work by following her on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-conrad-b167636/Or you can email here at susan.conrad@ccoleadership.comQuick reminderDon't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter foHRsight at www.futurefoHRward.com/foHRsight.Follow us on LinkedIn:Mark - www.linkedin.com/in/markedgarhr/Naomi - www.linkedin.com/in/naomititlemancolla/future foHRward - www.linkedin.com/company/future-fohrward/And on Instagram - www.instagram.com/futurefohrward/foHRsight+ is a private digitally-powered community for forward thinking senior HR leaders committed to making work better. Sign up here to be part of the next cohort!Support the show

Perry Timms is the founder and CEO of People and Transformational HR. He was ranked HR's Most Influential Thinker in 2022 by HR Magazine. An accomplished author and TEDx speaker, his 30+ year career focused on people, business change and performance means he now sits in the HR Most Influential Hall of Fame. In this episode, he shares his observations about the changing nature of work and explores the business case for agility, both as an organisational practice and as a mindset.   More importantly, he sets out why internal communication has such a centre stage role to play as we navigate a very different future of work.    Show notes Find out more about Perry:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/perrytimms/ Find out more about PTHR:  https://pthr.co.uk/ Watch the Barry-Wehmiller video Perry mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or6YoXfHWSE

John Michel is a former Air Force General who has not only used his leadership experience in service of his country, but also to help transform businesses into places that think more about people than profit. John has written two books, (No More) Mediocre Me: How Saying No to the Status Quo Will Propel You From Ordinary to Extraordinary and The Art of Positive Leadership. He has written articles for the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Huffington Post, National Geographic, Joint Forces Quarterly, and the Washington Post. In addition to writing and speaking about leadership, John has held executive positions in the transportation and aeronautics industries and is an entrepreneur in the hospitality industry. John talks about his leadership journey and what he's learned from Barry-Wehmiller in an interview with Brent Stewart and Mary Rudder on this podcast.

Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting company that helps organizations identify, develop, and equip leaders. They bring the lessons we have learned at Barry-Wehmiller and our principles of Truly Human Leadership alongside scientific methods to provide individual and organizational assessments, training, and consultation. They help their clients drive exceptional results through a culture where people and performance are in harmony. On this THL Refresher podcast, we bring you a discussion between two of Chapman & Co.'s leading partners, Sara Hannah and Matt Whiat and Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman. This was done at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the three use Barry-Wehmiller's experience during crisis to give leaders insight into how they may handle their own. But it's not a discussion that is limited to the unique situation of a global pandemic. Crisis can hit business at any time.

Rhonda Spencer is Barry-Wehmiller's Chief People Officer. She has been with our company since before the development of our Guiding Principles of Leadership and was one of the major voices in its creation. It's her primary responsibility to be the steward of our values and make sure that light shines to the furthest reaches of our organization. Rhonda joined Brent Stewart and Mary Rudder on this podcast to talk about the nuts and bolts of how we try to make everybody feel like they matter at Barry-Wehmiller. She also talks about how she became Barry-Wehmiller's first Chief People Officer and what the position means to her.

Imagine going to get coffee for your team and finding your coffee maker had been repossessed. In the early 1980s, Barry-Wehmiller was in trouble as a business, but we learned to embrace the lessons that arise during times of adversity and uncover the opportunities hidden within periods of crisis. BW CEO, Bob Chapman, tells this story in his book,  Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring For Your People like Family, co-written with Raj Sisodia. On this podcast, Bob talks about challenging times in Barry-Wehmiller's history in greater detail. Many of the lessons learned during that time were lessons that informed BW's journey to Truly Human Leadership more than a decade later.

In this episode, Lisa connects with influential IT Business Leader and longtime friend Teresa Sanzottera. As a Vice President at Barry-Wehmiller, Teresa has more than 25 years of experience leading technology across multiple industries. Tune in to hear an inspiring conversation around growth mindset, personal narratives, and this year's St. Louis HMG CIO Summit.Guest Links:Teresa's LinkedInBarry-Wehmiller CompaniesHMG CIO Summit AgendaHMG CIO Summit RegistrationCredits: Lisa Nichols, Host; Jenny Heal, Executive Producer; Kendall Brewer, Leadership Programs; Joe Szynkowski, Marketing Support; Portside Media, Podcast Engineer

As we've talked about in several past episodes of this podcast, Barry-Wehmiller's CEO, Bob Chapman, has a passion for transforming the way business education is taught in our universities. We want to transform these institutions that train people to manage into institutions that foster Truly Human leaders who honor individual dignity and demonstrate the courage to care for others. It's why we helped found the Humanistic Leadership Academy. But it's not only important to teach students how to be truly human leaders, the teachers must model those principles as well. On this episode, we feature a conversation between myself, David Pickersgill (who is on Barry-Wehmiller's outreach team who is working with the Humanistic Leadership Academy) and Abhimanyu Gupta, an Instructor in the Department of Operations & IT Management and Interim Director of Emerson Leadership Institute at St. Louis University. Our conversation with Abhi discusses how he approaches his relationships with his students and why modeling behaviors of truly human leadership is important. And then we talk about his experiences with the Humanistic Leadership Academy, why he became involved and how it has affected him.

“A toxic work culture was found to be 10.4 times greater than compensation in predicting a company's attrition rate relative to its industry average.” [1:23] Marcel explains the not so shocking reason why workers left jobs in droves in the 2021 Great Resignation. “When leaders lack empathy, fail to communicate clearly, or prioritize their own interests over the well-being of their employees, it can lead to a toxic environment.”[2:13] As Marcel says, toxic work culture is not built overnight, it happens with consistently poor behavior in leadership that seeps into every aspect of the organization. “It is about bringing our deepest sense of right, authentic caring, and highest ideals to business. It is about achieving success beyond success, measured in the flourishing of human lives.” [4:41] Marcel quotes  CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, Bob Chapman, to emphasize his point on the importance of prioritizing people over profit.Mentioned in this episode:Marcel Schwantes

It was Simon Sinek who coined the term “Truly Human Leadership.” Simon and Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman became fast friends when they first met years ago. Simon wrote about Barry-Wehmiller in his book, Leaders Eat Last, and he also wrote the foreword to Bob and Raj Sisodia's book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring For Your People Like Family. He is a significant voice and one of our most important allies in spreading our message. In 2015, Bob and Simon recorded this conversation around the release of Everybody Matters. We re-present it to you in this THL Refresher podcast. 

In 2016, Harvard Business School published a case study on Barry-Wehmiller's approach to leadership that is now taught at 80 business schools. In this episode of our podcast, its authors, Jan Rivkin and Dylan Minor talk about the case study method of teaching, why they chose Barry-Wehmiller as a subject, how business school students are responding to people-centric principles and how Truly Human Leadership might apply in our current business and political climate.

Work doesn't have to be devoid of meaning and fulfillment. You can lead a meaningful and purpose-driven life (and find your purpose) and your work and career can be a valuable part of it!   Michael Gelb, author of How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci and the Healing Organization shows you how to find more fulfilling work, more meaningful work, and how to pull more meaning out of your work.   Key Points Discussed:  What we can do at work to begin to change the world. Being more successful by being consistently kind and focusing on the needs of those around us. Shifting businesses to the notion of stakeholders rather than just shareholders. How do we as individuals choose which companies to work for to support that which supports us? Planned obsolescence and how exploitative it is of customers and the earth. What we can do when we are in a company that is performing shock experiments on its employees and customers? What do we do if we're in the barrel and can we actually make a difference when we're feeling we can't? Out of all companies, which one expresses the most positive story or best model for us to understand moving forward? Healing ourselves and aligning our daily lives around a higher intention. The truly human leadership by Bob Chapman at Barry Wehmiller companies. The power of an idea that is just right for its time.   Visit: https://michaelgelb.com/    To find out more visit: https://amzn.to/3qULECz - Order Michael Sandler's book, "AWE, the Automatic Writing Experience" www.automaticwriting.com  - Automatic Writing Experience Course www.inspirenationuniversity.com - Michael Sandler's School of Mystics https://inspirenationshow.com/ https://www.dailywoohoo.com/ - Sign up for my FREE daily newsletter for high-vibration content. ……. Follow Michael and Jessica's exciting journey and get even more great tools, tips, and behind-the-scenes access. Go to https://www.patreon.com/inspirenation   For free meditations, weekly tips, stories, and similar shows visit: https://inspirenationshow.com/   We've got NEW Merch! - https://teespring.com/stores/inspire-nation-store   Follow Inspire Nation, and the lives of Michael and Jessica, on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/InspireNationLive/   Find us on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@inspirenationshow