when you meet a person you always have three questions one who will argue as a person is this about you is it about I versus we is about me versus service are are you about what we're trying to accomplish here this compelling vision for the organization or is it about you
the second question is you're the leader uh where are we going and I really want to know I mean where where are we going what's that strategy what's the what's the BPR what's the creating value roadmap then you know what the third question is same yes do you see me do you see me [Music]
Alan let's just Dive Right into this you've served your family Boeing Ford and communities around the world in such a positive way over the years how did you end up with this formation of leadership and can you share your service Journey with us absolutely well first of all it's a pleasure to to be
with you and I think that really is a good way to start and um I grew up in the midwest in Lawrence Kansas also where the University of Kansas is and uh we were had pretty modest means but we had a lot of love in our family from our starting with our parents love of us
and uh over the years I can remember um very clearly the lessons that they shared with me and the and who they were as a person in addition to what they what they did and so every morning in the same for one of my prayers will say these lessons to me just to make sure that I was
remembering them and understand them so one day my mom would say now remember honey I had the purpose of life is to love and be loved I'd say oh wow that's great I remember I think that's good and she said but remember in that order okay thank you the next day my mom or my dad
would say again when I was getting ready to go to school well now the serve is to live honey thank you Dad that's great then next day one would say seek to understand before you seek to be understood I'd go well that's good too I remember that and one that really stuck with me over the
years is it's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice thanks Dad and then the one that probably impacted me the most Shane was when they said by working together with others you can make the most positive contribution to the most people
and then of course uh they discuss lifelong learning and continuous Improvement and respect everyone We're All Creatures of God and we're worthy to be loved and then one that really uh was meaningful to me as I got married and it's part of our family stuff is I
developed one integrated life to deliver your life's work so those are the things that that uh my formation was was based on and of course I was a normal uh child growing up and so I wanted to fit in I really being that must means I really wanted to pair of Levi's in some widge and shoes
and so I decided that I can remember deciding this that if I were going to be able to get those genes or those uh or those we just use I would or even go maybe get a a car and go to the University of Kansas someday that the service to live was going to be my my
strategy so I started my service work with the TV Guide routes newspaper routes a lawn mowing business I was a bagger a checker and then a night manager at the at the Dillons grocery store I was a carpenter and a ranch hand and a farmhand and then when I uh started school at the University of
Kansas I also for the the entire time I was there working on my uh my degrees in their nautical astronautical engineering I continued to work and serve the engineering department at the University of Kansas and then of course um I followed that with joy and Boeing and then also later at Fort the thing
saying that that really I Learned was that I just love this survey and I I'd love that looks on that on the people's face that I was serving I like I'd ask them for the suggestions for improvement and somebody told me I was the only person as a checker in the Dylan's
grocery store that actually got a tip and I remember asking the first that was coming through the line and why are you tipping me I could understand that when I was a bang boy and they said well first of all you took care of us you asked us if we found everything that we needed did we have
the coupons for the the items are discounted and so I I just work was always a service and it was just fabulous I felt good about it I wanted to be better at it and I of course I I also included all of the stakeholders because I knew that if I did that including my parents and
family and and the leaders in the in the areas that I was serving that we would actually come up with a even a better plan to serve our customers and serve each other and all the stakeholders so that's that's my formation then my further development got Boeing it
forward and especially at Boeing initially was I was joining a company that was world class at project and program and business management so I combined those personal uh values and beliefs and and behaviors uh with the learnings of a large-scale system integration and business uh green
businesses are probably growing for the good of all stakeholders so that's how I came became who I was I took the same or I am and I I took the same lessons to when I was asked by Bill Ford to join forward to help work I want to talk a little bit more about the story of how
you ended up at Ford in a second one of the things that you said that stood out to me was you have to you have to build an integrated life to deliver your life's work what does an integrated life mean I I found that to be so uh useful and one day my my parents made a drawing and they had a
circle and inside the circle it'd have a smaller Circle and the circles would be your work life uh your family life your spiritual life your community lives all your different lives you could put as many lives in there as as we chat and then on the top of the circle
if said one life and then underneath the bottom of the circle it said uh life's work and remember work to me and my parents was the same as service so my life's work is service and I'm going to integrate all of those components and people ask me a lot of times well how do
you how do you do that I said well you first of all you you decide what's really important to you in each one of those circles and um and then also look at your calendar in the morning look at your calendar at night and I know that I you run into this also it when people imagine their
work life balance they might think that oh well I have something planned with the family next year so I got that one covered no I think you're gonna have to think about that every day so the idea of an integrated life is that you decide what's really important to you and be
honest with yourself and also you're looking at your calendar near and longer term and RZ paying attention to the things that you really believe are important in your life to serve so one life and life's work I like the term integrated because so often and we sort
of forget about these other components right and then we sacrifice um our relationship with our community or you know part of integration could be your overall health and we sacrifice that in pursuit of a myopic sort of focus on one part and then inevitably it crumbles well exactly uh Shane and I
think that uh you can see how fast you would get this would be a discipline process if you look at that drawing and you look what you have put down there is what's important to you and you look at that each day and just reflect on how it's going near and long term you
get to the place where you really get clear about your activities and having an integrated set of activities I remember when we uh when the kids were young and we'd have our family meeting and we'd sign up for the different things we're going to do to help each other and I would take my items back to
Boeing and my assistant would I put that on my calendar and some days I would just disappear in the middle of the day for an hour to go to a parent-teacher conference or something else and everybody knew uh where I was and they knew I'd be back and so again uh I think
that it's a it's a very uh reliable process but you have to follow the process is my would be my advice on that thank you for that um before we get to some of the principles I want to talk about the decision to join for because when we talked before you said you originally
were actually not going to join Ford so can you walk us through that decision how you ended up joining Ford and sort of some of the immediate cultural differences that you felt between Ford and Boeing and then after that we'll dive into some of the principles and working together management system oh
sure well um clearly I love I love for love Boeing and I always have I was on the design team of every Boeing airplane and you know I realized very quickly that at the time at airplanes were the first internet because we were actually connecting people around the world and
people could find out that we had more in common that were different and and we could then choose to work together for the greater good and so I never thought I was going to ever leave Boeing and I had a lot of opportunities along the way uh and then one one day Bill Ford called
I'm going bills Ford the great grandson of Henry Ford and I had a Ford vehicle when I was growing up and uh and like and I also I just I followed forward a lot because as I learned more about history and especially uh World War II and Ford and Boeing working together I'm just always
very interested in it so I I I knew I was in trouble when I was talking to bill because I wanted to know more I kept asking all these questions about why they're in the situation they were in and he shared the whole story with me and uh you know the fact that
they've become a house of Brands and purchased Aston Martin and jaguar and Land Rover and Volvo and it's still 78 of the business was poured and which as you know it can't be world class too many things at the same time and so they uh they're going to lose 17 billion dollars and uh
and he and he said that the biggest issue he had was was uh getting people to work together around the world to use all these fantastic smart and talented people and so I you know thought about and talked about it as a family and and I initially I called him back and said I
was going to stay at Boeing and a couple of the kids we have five kids and they cannot marry for 52 years and and Nikki and two or three of the kids were outside my little office listening to this because they really want they were encouraging me to go come on they had me
we know about airplanes we know all your friends here and we want to drive a Mustang and see everybody at all and so uh they walked in the room and one of them said so Dad would listen to this and we're going to Ford aren't we and I said we are and the lesson learned on that I've learned over the years on
you have too is that you think about it and you look at it from every possible angle and uh and then at the end of the day you decide but the most important thing is that when you say it and you start to act on it you really need to think about about how you feel about it
and the the and when I went through that process I knew I knew that this is where I wanted to serve next and people ask me a lot why why would you choose a lead bow and you're that you're the CEO of Boeing commercial airplanes you've been on the defense side uh you love your work
you're an airplane desire uh you love the business and at the end of the day uh Shane I really what what I really helped me to decide was I felt like I was serving a second American and Global icon two really important companies that have made such a difference uh to the United
States and the people around our world and I felt like it was the all time I was being asked to serve to save the second American and Global icon you know it and I I I'm absolutely every day I I say thank you for getting the chance to serve these two great companies it's incredible I mean what you did at
Ford was new short like it was one of the biggest turnarounds in history I think they were on Pace to lose 17 billion when you took over yep uh and nearly bankrupt and then the transformation over the next decade was just astonishing and in researching and talking to people
who worked with you you're known for these working together principles practices and a culture of I hope I get this right love by Design What specifically are those principles and practices super super question and it's the essence of of uh working together in
my life and service so uh there are a few of them and I'll I want to touch on on on each of them so these are to your point these are principles of practices that create a culture of Love by Design meaning that it's is demonstrating your love for what you're doing as an organization
it's also demonstrating your love but how you feel about all the participants and their contribution and it's also by Design so you're creating and not only the principles and practices but also a reliable process and expected behaviors of all the participants as you uh as you work
together to deliver your compelling Vision whether it's that Boeing or Foreigner a specific airplane or a specific car and so the first one and these are written down um people have them uh on the card they they carry around they're in the offices at and one of them the first one is uh
people first love them up and the reason is that these are talented people that are that are working uh on these programs I'll just use the triple seven airplane isn't as an as an example of a of a major program project in business and so uh yeah hundreds of thousands of
people that are working on this airplane to design it all around the world they're talented they're motivated they believe in the vision of getting people together so they can work together around the world so appreciating them as a human being and appreciating their
talent and thanking them and including them so every one of these things I'm going to share with you get to your point is a demonstration or an element of showing your love for all the participants so the second one is including everybody so when you're designing an airplane we include not
only the airlines but we include of course all the employees all the suppliers all the certification agencies around the world all the cities in which the airplane is going to be used and all the investors and all the bankers all the people that are participants that are
actually represented on the leadership team so their voice and their thoughts uh and their suggestions are included in the development of the strategy and the plan and the accomplishment of the objectives so include everybody uh the next one is uh coming together around a compelling Vision a
comprehensive strategy and a Relentless implementation plan so the power of that Vision as we all know is really really important is it meaningful is that purpose is it going to serve not along the stakeholder but the greater good and you can imagine how that neep that was
at mowing that Fort because our whole life is is dedicated to safe and efficient transportation and having a comprehensive strategy for the product for the process for delivering it for all to the people including the working together a strategy and uh a then a Relentless
implementation plan and that's the business plan review which we'll talk about which gets a lot of uh attention over the years where every week we meet with all of the stakeholders and we go through an hour and a half two hours we go through every element of the strategy
for accomplishing our objectives also the status of that we actually color code all of the team members color code their strategy plan on how it's going red or green to have its own plain yellow they have an issue but they have a solution and red uh they have a new
issue but uh they're they're still working on the solution for it and that next one is having clear performance goals and one plan most companies have many plans and most people are trying to figure out what the plan is as as we all know vaccine data really important we care what you think
but we also want to know what's what are the facts and data that you're looking at to draw your conclusions because as we go forward especially on working on a yellow or red we all want to know those specs of data so that we together can turn the Reds to yellows to Greens and
then we moved to the some more demonstrations the lab so expect the unexpected and expect to deal with it and so we're going to share the reality of our situation every week so that everybody knows what the opportunities are but also what are the issues that we need to deal with and that everybody
knows the plan the product to process the people that work in the other plant they know what the status of it is and also shame they know the areas that need special attention so think about with that respect for people means when you share these things I mean many people many
Believers if they have a red item first of all that embarrasses them they think they're not doing their job as opposed to that red item is a gem we I clap when you have it read because you're not the you're not red it's your items red thanks for sharing that now we all can
work together to help you and us turn the red seals green and then the attitudes are really the attitudes the police and the values are really important and what we really look at are the behaviors because that's what we can see and so we have these expected behaviors
that that uh we have zero tolerance for violating them so a proposing a plan being positive having to find a way attitude uh respect in each other uh listen to each other help each other appreciate each other you can see very sophisticated words shame very sophisticated but we can see this and we
can help each other in our personal development plans always be moving forward and growing in all of these behaviors the way we treat each other then emotional resilience uh this is a creative process it's Innovation we're going to have issues along the way and so we're going to
trust this process of working together and we're going to trust the process of turning the Reds to yellows and green and the last one uh that everybody absolutely loves is have fun and enjoy the journey and each other and as I mentioned uh every day uh we would wake up and every every business
player we would get together and would say you know thank you uh how can I help and then enjoy each other and also enjoy the journey of creating these phenomenal products and services now there's one corollary to that chain that's really important and that is zero
tolerance for violating this process of working the business plan review the creating value roadmap including everybody uh all stakeholders on the leadership team and uh zero zero tolerance for violating that operating process and zero tolerance for violating these expected
behaviors because we all concede each other we're together every week and you can imagine how seriously everybody takes the process and the behaviors and as we as we continue our discussion I'm sure you're going to want to know well what do you do Alan when when people are
not committed to following the process and the expected behaviors they're working together but we can talk about that as you wish so those are yeah fundamental principles and practices I I have three sort of follow-ups here three rabbit holes that I want to dive down on that was excellent
um you said trust the process and that sounds great but you're coming into Ford and you're implementing it a completely different process than the culture has had before how much resistance did you get how do you get the buy-in for people to actually trust the process you're an
outsider coming in right how do you Corral the people to trust the process and then follow the process this is a really good question and everything you said there's truth in that uh absolutely and so what do you think the one piece of paper that I brought with me from Boeing to
Ford was this piece of paper that I just described to you and that and when in the first meeting when Bill introduced me to the team um I shared with them this one piece of paper and the looks on their faces were phenomenal they'd never seen words like this uh people first love them up if you
you know if you make a mistake and you violate the process of you just say you're sorry and so I could tell by licks on their faces and they're from all around the world they and I could tell in their faces that well I'm gonna have to it's gonna be really important I
spend a lot of time sharing with them what these mean and about that Zero Tolerance policy if you're if you in in the commitment to commit to them so uh I've been I I spent a couple of hours a day for the first few weeks uh making myself available to the entire team and individually as
they they wish to answer their questions about these principles and practices and then I said okay uh here we go and we're going to learn about it because we're going to start so we pull together on the on the business plan we updated the crazy value roadmap tit to
restructure ourselves to match our production of the real demand and develop a competitive cost structure at the same time we committed to develop a new product line a small medium large cars utilities and trust everyone being Best in Class in terms of quality and
fuel efficiency and safety a smart design affordability and then also uh taking out a small home improvement loan of 23.5 billion dollars to finance the restructuring but also refinance the product development plan to support the customers and our growth and then the last one was work together
as one team worldwide on our one-four plan and of course the way Ford was set up at the time uh every Fort was different in every country around the world so for the Henry Ford never thought that that would be the way it would end up but you can clearly see that we would never be competitive if we
were trying to compete with all these different Fords against these Global powerhouses that that we all knew so the biggest part of that strategy was we were going to pull together work together as one team and uh and also we're going to use all all of our talents to work together to
create this one one forward plant so we uh we developed the strategy uh we started the business plan review uh selected uh the team from all around the world because which is really relatively easy because everybody knows who the leaders are in each of the disciplines whether it's engineering
manufacturing or procurement so I talked to everybody looked at their Performance Management 360 system and so we had the best of the talent all around the world some of which had never worked together started our business plan review I'd always start the meeting
and then each of the members and not go through the the vision of strategy and apply on status at the at the company level then every member would go through their area their responsibility and uh and share their contribution on the strategy and the plan and also as we
mentioned uh they also show the status with their colored coding so uh now here's the here's the essence of your question so we start our process the behaviors are getting really good um we have about 300 charts with the entire team and uh and we've also shared with them
now for the first time that we lose 17 billion dollars and all 300 charts Shane or colored green all 300 charts why and so this is the essence of the point so here's this new person we get we've shared a new culture uh working together and transparency and timeliness and supporting each other and
respecting each other uh and all 300 charts are green so I I stopped the meeting a few weeks in a row and said you know um is there anything in any of your areas responsibility that's not going well we are losing 17 billion dollars of course the eye contact goes down to the
floor because they don't know me and they know that the culture that they ran is a you bro like a lot of companies if you brought an issue to your supervisor your boss the CEO uh and you didn't have an a solution then you seem to disappear because a lot a lot of cultures are you only bring the
shoe if you have an answer and so and that's not that doesn't allow working together the way we're talking about where you can move quickly and bonding it on the issues so they didn't know what would happen if they should have read so finally the leader of North
America uh they have an issue uh with the launch of the Ford Edge you know Phil Canada with the actuator liftgate and so he's having his meeting his BP art before ours the night before and up comes the the Lots chart saying it has three columns for uh technical Readiness schedule a
compliance and uh and financial impact and all of them were colored green and they just stopped production one of the biggest things you could ever do to cause it cause a lot of a lot of issues and so he's he says to the team he said I think this is one of those red
things Alan's talking about and that one of the members one of the vice president said to him well good luck uh because you know what happens when you have a problem you don't have a solution at Fort and uh he finally said well I think we need to trust the process I'm going to
trust Allen and they said and then another vice president said Shane well it was nice knowing you take care what color red for you so red red so the next day we started the business plan review green green green green green and up comes this red chart on something really
important a watch a new vehicle and so uh he explains it very uh succinctly that here's an issue that came up uh we're working on it we don't have a solution yet and at that point I started to clap and I mean the all the eye contact with went to the floor I could feel it air
dissipating and they're they're kind of looking at me and they're looking at the floor and they're looking at at the at Mark the speaker and and they're in the later they told me that they thought that sign I clapped in that the two large doors behind us in the Thunderbird
room the world headquarters were going to open up two large human beings were going to come in they're going to extract mark from the meeting we have to take care of that so the so I said so if any any initial thoughts from from the team on how we can help Mark and there
kuzak was leading engineering worldwide 70. I've seen a problem like that before we'll get you that data uh Benny Fowler who's leading quality worldwide had a similar comment and Joe Hendricks who's leading manufacturing worldwide said you know we're gonna figure this out you're gonna need some manufacturer
Engineers up in Oakville Canada I'll get him a dentist all right and get them up there so when we have a solution we could switch out the parts and get the production going at a time there that took you know 10 seconds 12 seconds we were on to the next chart
green green green green green Green next week saying next week only one red chart that was Mark's again and I was looking around the room and they're all looking at me they're looking at Mark and they can't believe that Mark's still there and then a couple weeks a couple weeks and I
proceeded hadn't seen comment thank you very much and then that finally uh two weeks two or three weeks later uh they had a solution that turned to Yellow uh two weeks later I think it turned to green and all the vehicles start flowing around the world so Shane guess what the
colors of the slides look like that following week not all red but they look like a rainbow and everybody then decided to answer your question that not only we're going to trust the process but wow this trusting the process would allow us to remove all the stress out of our individual lives be
able to share what the real situation is and also be able to count on this working together process to trust it that we if we know what's going on and we know that our behaviors in our process allow us to deal with it that we can turn Reds to yellows to Greens and at that point Shane I knew that no
matter what happened at Ford whether it was GM and Chrysler going bankrupt or whether it was the tsunamis around the world the competition whenever I knew that we could use this working together process and create a near-term and longer term value for all the stakeholders in the
green nugget I know that's a little longer than the answer but it is a really important question you had it's perfect length I I think what stood out to me is you were saying that it's just the consistency and if you were if you were if you had a lot of variation in your approach or how
you handled it I don't think you would have got the same results you did Shane that is really critical and when we talk about the reliable process the system for doing that when the biggest single uh principles is the discipline we're just just imagine you're on the
team and every week 7 A.M 7-9 a.m everybody's connected around the world and we're gonna go through this I've gone through my introduction to the vision strategy and plan for 45 years every week I think I maybe missed 10 meetings because wherever you are uh you
phone in or you link in and the kids used to link in with me if we're somewhere because they just love watching the colors and watching them all change and watching Everybody try to help each other and uh and so that discipline of following the process and also to your question for your comment the
discipline of the behaviors see if somebody would go after somebody or act like they knew what the answer was or be rhetorical questions or whatever anything that would cause an unsafe uh culture of Love by Design where people felt like they're going to be a victim
or be made fun of then their commitment to sharing everything is going to go down and so it's a commitment and a discipline to the process and a commitment discipline to the behaviors on how we're going to treat each other and how we're going to be treated I think that's what creates the
psychological safety right it's not always a commitment but the consistency and then the discipline to keep following it up and let's go to your question now which is how do you deal with people who either don't commit to the implementation of the working
together system or choose behaviors that don't align with what's expect great great great question and just one comment about your last comment which is very important is that what happens so quickly is the confidence that's built up with all the participants on the team because
you can imagine when you start solving issue after issue because this is a creating process you're creating something out of nothing uh and so you're expecting the unexpected you're expecting to deal with it and it's working and so you can imagine the confidence that you get in the team plus
their stress levels go out way down now they sleep at night should they know that they know they're going to make progress and so I think that's really an important point because the minute that that's not a safe organization then you're not going to be able to have this
phenomenal working together a success okay now um at the first um everybody's trying uh I also told them uh you know if you if you violate this or you go after somebody or you don't respect what they said or just say you're sorry well they'd never heard the love word I got the Ford but
they also had never word the sorry word I hadn't heard that either so just say you're sorry and then jump back onto the under the expected behaviors so uh every once in a while I'd have somebody that would go after somebody or or thought they knew more than the person and kind
of attack them in an aggressive way as opposed to asking for a question for clarification or whatever so I followed up to their office and in one version of the other this is what would happen I'm gonna say now uh would you think about uh your behavior today in the meeting
you know where whatever the situation was and they'd make a comment about well you know I wasn't um is uh probably the best that I could be um and I said well no kidding and what do you think that meant to the team did you watch what happened when people started to be a lot
more careful to share and uh yes I did and and so uh remember I look at the same piece of paper on the pencils and practices the reason we're doing this is that we need the hearts and the minds of every participant every stakeholder and then the person would say oh I know
but uh I don't know whether I can do that Alan this is not the way I grew up that's not who I am I'm I know I'm command and control and I can be a little bit of a bully and but I've done very well and fort's paid me well and and and one more responsibility and I said I know and uh and if uh if you
don't want to commit or you can't commit to these principles and practices it's okay and I'm looking at their face and Shane I could see what they were thinking they thought I meant oh I mean because I'm so important that I can start to treat people like I always I treat them and
not move in this direction and so and they even say that sometimes well thank you very much Alan I said no okay what I mean by okay is it really is okay because you're making a decision to move on and and it's okay and remember that first principle we still love you
you're a human being you're a creature of God and if this doesn't work for you respecting people listening to each other helping each other um then it's okay and you're making a decision and if you wanna commit to it we can get your help and get your coach your Dynamite person very
knowledgeable uh but if not we wish you the very best on and also I'd like you to we all need to know what you're gonna do and so I would like you to go home tonight think about it talk about it with the people that you love and trust and let me know tomorrow whether you're
going to commit to moving in this direction I know it's going to be different and a long career and um and we'll uh we'll have you tell that all the rest of the team will agree on the two or three things that that if you improve those will move you a very positive direction into working together
and they will be supportive and we'll help you so they come back the next day and one person would say I've thought about it and I don't think I can do it and we we say we we wish you the very best had another person that always liked to do rhetorical questions
which is not very healthy for working together like you're trying to you ask me questions you know the answer so that you can show everybody how smart you are not working together as I had the same conversation with her she went home came back I said Alan I'd like to I'd like to
move in this direction and uh because this is really who I am and I I feel like I've been violating my true self for a lot of years and she became one of the most fantastic leaders I've ever worked with because once you say that and you say that to the team now and you say it to me because remember they're
not looking for me now they're working for that vision of the company and the service that we're providing and they're working for all of the of their colleagues and so uh she just became one of the most fantastic at working together leaders that I've ever worked with so and again
it's their decision because it is their decision and and 80 80 of the time that it happened they moved in the direction of staying and making a commitment and making great proper Zone working together because it goes back to the just basic fundamental human values that
are that are powerful two rabbit holes there the people who stayed after I love how you phrase it you're choosing this behavior and if you're choosing that behavior you're choosing to opt out the people that stayed how quickly did that behavior change like was this I can't imagine in my head it's
this overnight thing almost almost immediately and what would happen oh yeah because you're nervous that just keep remembering you're on the team and every Thursday you're sitting around a round table and you're also looking at monitors inside the table of all the people that
around the world and now every member of the team's there and uh you've just gone through all your Reds and yellows and greens that week before you would never you wouldn't possibly be able to uh have a red and say to the team can you imagine saying I was really busy this week y'all
I didn't have time to work on that to hell with all of you I don't think so can you imagine what that conversation would be like out on the playground because they're not working for me now they're working for what we're trying to accomplish and so what we'd see is when
a person made a decision to move in this positive direction they'd be first of all they'd be a little more hesitant for offering their thoughts or questions which is understandable because they're thinking this through how do I how do I do this but I do it in a respectful uh
humility in base a way and then pretty soon after two or three weeks they they're watching now the behaviors of other people uh they're doing this they're getting comfortable with it and then they just start moving in that direction and every once in a while because of the sorry thing they'll say
can you imagine what happens if when when a person say you know that's not the way I really meant to say this I know there's a little abusive but I'm really sorry and then we all look at them and they know we're saying well start again and so you get this
unbelievable support that you can really move in this direction pretty decisively of the people who decided to leave did anybody ever at any point come back to you after they left and I said you know what I really want to get on this boat I want to get on this ship with you we had a we had a few
that as we were growing uh we had opportunities that could use their skills and they approached uh usually me or one of the senior people and people tell me that those are some of the most phenomenal conversations they've ever had but just and we and the we'd make a judgment call uh and usually it was if
somebody comes and does that then we know it's going to be okay and in yeah 99 of the time it was um but because when somebody gets to that place they have really uh you know thought about it and reflected on who they are as a person and what they do and you know what
really happens in this uh Shane you're really getting at it is that who you are as a person is going to have more to do with your success uh and whatever you're choosing to do than anything else and I'll give you give you another thought about that uh Maryland just uh who I work asked me to
work with her on her phenomenal book of extraordinary power of leader humility and she actually wanted to have a a couple chapters in there about working together and how you meld me that really supports that and in her book she really did a phenomenal job of
laying out a simple model for humility and what does that really mean and and one of the things that she said was when you meet a person uh whether it's a leader no matter what level of leadership because everybody's a leader on just being who they are um when you meet somebody you always
have you always have three questions one who will argue as a person is this about you is it about I versus we is about me versus service are are you about what we're trying to accomplish here this compelling vision for the organization or is it about you
the second question is you're the leader uh where are we going and I really want to know I mean where where are we going what's that strategy what's the what's the BPR what's the creating value roadmap then you want the third question this same yes do you see me do you see me
and how many times have you been in a line meeting somebody and by the time that they have uh reached out to shake your hand their eye contact has moved on even before they looked at you they don't see you and I'm going to see you means that I respect you I care about you I'm
interested in you I want to thank you because we're going to do this together and together we're gonna we're gonna create a lot of value for the greater good it's almost like a presence feeling right you can tell when people are present in the conversation and when
they're not like if you have your phone sitting on the table and you're talking to somebody you're not fully present in that conversation because at any moment if that phone dings you know that I'm just gonna pick it up and read it but people feel it when you're present and
they feel respected and they feel listened to you and they feel hurt all of these things that go into your culture of safety as well right where what does everybody want they they want to be loved they want to be respected they want to be listened to they want to
contribute to something larger than themselves and to do that we have to be consistent okay now listen to what you just said you just described a working together culture of Love by design it was designed this way I mean I'm an airplane designer it was designed because we wanted that culture where
people felt everything that you just described and also to your point uh when we're doing a business plan review there are no devices if you if you pull out your device or you're looking at your your computer we just stopped a meeting and look at you can you imagine how quickly you stop
that because everybody knows the principles and practices on the piece of paper they're sitting up there in front and you're choosing not to respect this organization and each other and you're not present because we need you we need everybody so it's really cool you said that because
that's see you don't that's you don't need to stop uh very many times for everybody to understand that doesn't work but you need to be present so that's why when you were asking me earlier about how much time it takes but then within two months when I arrived at Ford we were on our
way the colors were all showing up the behaviors were getting just fantastic the stress was going down the the issues we're dealing with are considered gems and we're going to solve them together and we did and so again back to your discipline the discipline The Clarity on the
behaviors and the clarity on the process we're going to follow and then backing that up zero tolerance and then and then appreciating it and thanking people absolutely uh accelerates the implementation of the working together system it also and from the outside not
working at forward or never working at Boeing with you uh it strikes me that it almost creates like a transplant you either take it you it other takes or it doesn't but the body becomes the reinforcing mechanism or in this case the your fellow your peers your colleagues become the
reinforcing mechanism and so the role of HR in my head I would say the role of HR is changing right it's less about Grievances and complaining now it's about hiring and attracting talent and unleashing them because people know when they're not fitting in and the culture
is such that it just forces you out absolutely and just another a point about what you just said part of the working together system that we'll talk a bit more about is uh continuous Improvement and like lifelong learning and continuous Improvement so our Performance Management our 360 process
you now know exactly what that's about you're going to use all the stakeholders all your colleagues around that particular round table and every year that we share we ask them about how we're doing including me and what would be one or two things that if I if I
could improve that behavior or that whatever that either that character or that skill that would help us help uh me individually and also help our team and our business if I made an improvement on that so every year every member of the team had their one or two items that everybody else knew about
that to your point everybody else is now supporting and so very easy then to say give somebody feedback uh because that we know what they're working on and we can give them an example and so people want the feedback now because they can they know it's facts that they're
looking at so to your point uh a stakeholders that are coaching well you know it from Marshall uh I didn't know what those words meant until I I met Marshall but I knew we were doing stakeholders our coaching with our work of the amazing business and he thought that was the coolest thing is
that we had a whole company led by the leadership team that Not only was leading with stakeholder Center leadership because they're including all the stakeholders and also we were leading with stakeholder Center coaching meaning that we were helping our colleagues further
develop themselves individually and as a team and as a business and so you feel you feel you feel good but you feel good about it and you're you're getting more and more effective people are are benefiting from it and you're feeling that satisfaction of meaningful accomplishment and smiles on
their faces I mean it's it it just uh it just Builds on itself it strikes me that we only receive or we only really want feedback when we feel safe and we only offer real feedback when we feel safe and the reason that I think that is not only from our conversation right now today
but I'm thinking most people at a workplace you know what's holding your colleagues back you know the one Behavior they do that undermines them every time or self-solving self-sabotages them but you don't tell them and I think you don't tell them in part because it's not because you don't
love them or you don't want them to succeed it's because you don't feel safe telling them you don't feel safe in that relationship I am absolutely Shane think think about how this system deals with that because when you are this clear about the expected behaviors well you
have set everybody free right because if you can provide Behavior somebody and you don't have clear expectations about what the behaviors are expected well it's just that's really hard they don't know why you're saying it to them they don't know how that fits in and that's why I
I always have wondered uh I mean we always think about when I look when we look at those expected behaviors that we just we described in the principles and practices uh the reason that they that's okay for us to take a stand that way is that those are so fundamental to respected
people's dignity and all the religions of the world everyone has tried to describe these right and so and the reason that works is you're respecting people's dignity as a human being as a contributor and uh everybody knows that that results in that satisfaction of meaningful
accomplishment with individually and as a team and so we've never we look at those behaviors all the time and we just check one make sure we're not where that we think they're absolutely the right thing but I think it's because for thousands of years we've been trying we're all been trying
to One Way work to work to create this kind of environment and that's what we're doing with the work in the other management system so talk to me a little bit more about the working together management system I think we've come at it through a couple of different angles
we'll piece it together for me in the sense of like the whole and then break down the parts that we haven't talked about oh sure uh that's a really neat way you said it too uh saying because their their elements of a system and uh you know as an engineer I my whole life is is around systems because
there are lots of different uh pieces of a system and they all work together to contribute to the to the uh the greater the greater good and so the first element and think about a Venn diagram another Circle just like the when life lives work so you draw a circle
and um and that's the work in the other management system is what's inside this circle so at the top put a circle that says principles and practices then put another Circle going around to the right and put another Circle and put governance process in there then put go down a little further and
put another Circle and put leadership team then go start going back up put another Circle and it says creating value roadmap then go one more your last Circle then is business plan review okay and so if you add all this and then it in the bottom of the circle
put our culture and we'll put this diagram on the website for the show notes okay okay pop up and see it yeah okay that's great yeah that's great that you're going to do that because uh that's a it's a gift and we've worked on it forever to describe it like this and
so again when you look at these five elements and you can see how they work together to create this this environment so we covered the principles and practices in the manage in the governance process that's the way we manage the overall business so that includes our ours all the shareholders
the stakeholders the board of directors the leadership team uh and then the process of the creating value roadmap and the business plan review then when you look at the leadership team and remember the word leader is inside leadership so it starts with the leader because you can imagine
if you don't have a leader that is actually committed to these the this character and skills that this can be very hard to have this operating system and these expected behaviors so the things that that are clear there is you're going to include all of the
stakeholders you're gonna you're gonna coach and facilitate as opposed to tell everybody what to do you're going to be leading with humility and love and service and courage and discipline and resilience and civility authenticity meaning that your behaviors are aligned with your beliefs and your values and
also positive mindsets and you're going to be responsible for the working in the management system with zero tolerance for violating it so everybody these that's that's our job or these things and then your Performance Management and your continuous Improvement uh in your
lifelong learning then when you move over to the creating value roadmap that's the strata for example the strategy at Boeing was to make a complete family of vehicles that can go point-to-point non-stop all around the world safely and officially to get people together or afford Henry
Ford was opening the highways to all mankind and at that time you had 50 market share worldwide he was already feeling his way and so compelling Vision Two compelling visions and now what's the strategy for accomplishing that that sort of deals with the product the process of
doing it the people and the working together a strategy then going up to the business plan review okay we have the strategy now we have the plant now every week we're going to go over the vision the strategy and the plan the red the awesome reason the RZ special attention
then rewrite back up to operating with those principles and practices I love it it's self-reinforcing uh and there's natural feedback loops in it what what's the leader's role in that system the most important thing is to hold the team themselves and the team uh responsible and accountable for
following this process all five of those elements we just got to follow the process and so holding ourselves accountable for that on the other is leading by example like I uh over the years I mean I started out as an engineer working on on commercial airplanes and as you as you
are asked to take more and more um on a service and responsibility As you move in that direction when I when I found just because of who I am and what I learned at Boeing on on large-scale projects assistance integration is is that you're going to move to the place where you're
facilitating and you're coaching because somebody has to keep getting this aligned like if we have a new issue on the strategy well we need our special attention we need to deal with that and so as you get to the place where you're on this leadership team at this level
yeah responsibility for a large portion of the organization like engineering manufacturing procurement but you're really leading with aligning with the rest of the team and you're facilitating in your coaching with your team so uh and and now you have I always have like
maybe 12 or 13 people reporting to me which a lot of people always wondered how I did that but I had to have every discipline need to be on that team because if not then if you have the Haves and the have-nots on the leadership team they got to keep explaining to the people you haven't
aren't meeting about what's going on as opposed to everybody's being there and now everybody is leading with an example where everybody in the entire organization reports to one of those people so you're not leaving anybody any out and if you follow this discipline it
really doesn't make any difference how many people you have there because when you do a business plan interview you run it on a very tight schedule and you because you're going to be there again next week so you're looking for the changes offers to help and you'll be
back together next week so that's the most important thing about the leadership team is to is the B and the do who you are and what you do you don't know anything about that Shane is that it um about the B and the do is that because this is so visible on the behaviors and the process is so reliable
that uh that everybody keeps moving forward with their beliefs and their values the things you can't see you can't see those you see their behaviors and and everybody tells me this that no matter how they arrived however they grew up what their training was that the things that went well the
things that were horrible in their life that once they join this environment and you and you have these expected behaviors and they're the right expected behaviors and you start acting this way then you start being this way so gradually your mindsets and your beliefs
and your values they all start to move this Direction that's why that authenticity word is so big because if you look up the definition of authenticity three circles again is it's the alignment of who you are and what you do between your beliefs your values
and your behaviors now we can see that we can see the the behaviors but when I when we see those behaviors and you're doing that over and over again and you're living that way well what happened to those values and beliefs they move in a really positive direction and that's what people tell me
saying that like what we they're off a program where they they they're they've moved on to something else and when I see them they say that wherever they have gone if they can't see the fundamentals um working together a system the process and the behaviors then they make a judgment call really
quickly and and if they don't see a way it's going to happen they move on because once you it's like you said earlier once you've felt this way and once you are appreciated this way and you're never going to go back it's like uh you're never going to tolerate
Grendel's mother or Grendel's extended family down there in the swap which you what you've seen the light once you've felt the heat the warmth of operating this way uh you're never going to go back makes sense yeah totally and to your point about the actions becoming who we
are I mean we are what we repeatedly do there's something that you said earlier I want to come back to you which is you said everyone is a leader just by being who they are what did you mean by that it gets back to the B and the do but especially you the r you see that with their behaviors
okay let's just take humility for example like so three questions that that we asked so you can see that you you know when you ask those three questions of yourself about who you're meeting right away that tells you who that person really is and and how they and
how they operate and so uh that that's why we've always started oh we started uh with the behaviors and but having a process that you're following where you have to you have to exhibit those you can't hide from them you can't just not participate so you have a mechanism now where you have to
participate and now your decision is are you going to do it with these behaviors or not and if you don't um you're gonna meet some interesting people and you're going to get a chance to decide again so I think it the working and management system pulls together the B part and the do part and
everybody eventually gets to see both of those either aligned or not and they're working together management system isn't just for organizations they believe you and your wife use a version of this at home can you can you tell me more about this how does it apply at home my life
just walked by and and the Machine walked by so I they all the kids they all them they all think this is so so fun but uh especially when I tell it um so uh Nikki and I've been married I've mentioned for 52 years and we have five uh darling children and uh when they started to come along
I was at Boeing and I I'm program management and and working together service and and lots of people and I'm watching these seven people now and so I said to Nikki uh I mean you know this has been very uh more complicated with our size of our family we need to do a
business plan review every week and Shane she goes Alan this is not Boeing this is our family uh and and so uh I waited for a week to to reflect on this and that ball made sense and then so I said the next week okay what if we have a family meeting every week and she said
well what would we do in a family meeting I said well um my suggestions and I welcome yours would be after we come back from Mass uh on Sunday morning that we have an agenda for our family meeting and uh the first agenda I would propose is that all of us including you and me we go around
the house we pick up all of our stuff we take them back to our cubby or back to our room because after a week with seven people living lives it looks like a bomb's gone off in that house and I didn't sign up for a compelling vision of picking up the house every every week
and neither did any of the participants and she's okay I make sense I said which is a wooden X I said well then everybody ought excuse me we'll go back to our room and we'll pick up the laundry and we'll take it down to the laundry room and with five children we usually always had
two washers and dryers because you want to get that stuff done or that's all you're doing the whole week and that's not a compelling Vision again for our family so we do all the laundry together then everybody would bring the laundry down dub it out of the kitchen table and
they would all sort the socks and everything else because it's not a compelling Vision to sit there by yourself and cry a sword all these things for everybody I mean it's impossible plus it takes a long time so that's done in like five minutes now then they take their laundry back to their room
and then they come down with their calendar and saying the calendar a little loose like notebook or wires down there they're in kindergarten same they're in kindergarten and they got the calendar and they sit around the Round Table and then uh we go around the room and
every member of the family uh describes what they're going to do this next week and also identify uh any things that they need our help with so that do they need taxi cab service any cheerleading service um are they uh got t-shirt para teacher conferences whatever um and so we all write down things that
we can do to help and I take it back uh the things I'd sign up for I would take it back and give it to my assistant but once you build it into the calendar like we mentioned and so it's just my integrated life I've just integrated my life right um along with the rest of those circles
in the integrated lie and then uh then so that was great and then the next agenda item was we would just reflect um on the behaviors that we've agreed to because we agreed to a compelling vision for the family that had us all growing and contributing to making a difference
in service kind of like what my parents did to me brainwashed and so we go through those any suggestions for improvement including the behaviors and of course that I that was really interesting at the first because they were they got they were pretty aggressive when they were younger
about uh well you you said that you were going to pick me up after football or or and you didn't do it and I had well pretty soon they we also worked on the how you do how you say that and how you give that feedback because you want to do it in a positive way and so they got
really good at that but we went through that and clarification there and so uh that was a family meeting and so every um every time we're together and they're all grown now we'll get together once or twice a year and every time we're together uh especially after a drink or two one of
them our mushroom will bring up things that happen in the family meetings and I mean they're so funny when you look back at the things that were going on oh on one of the family meeting principles was if you're going to do something that could embarrass the family
or make us really proud either way you have to tell us ahead of time can you imagine that scene so uh they didn't share everything that they would do they would embarrass us but they sure thought about it because that was a principle in practice and so uh when we reflect on these when they got older oh
my gosh it was so fun and so funny you know sometimes I couldn't tell whether they really enjoyed it or where they thought this was a hassle and so I would say to them you guys now uh if you didn't really enjoy the family meeting why did you why did you always keep
coming to it you never missed one never never and one of them says Dad do you remember what the last agenda item was on our family meeting I said no I don't and I said you handed out the allowances of course of course we had to come to the family meetings oh and now every one
of them saying every one of them is running their version of a family meeting a business plan review uh every week I love this I want to follow up with two specific questions one what are the other family principles you had uh one was sort of like if you're going
to humiliate anybody we know in advance what else what are the other values and principles that you had together as a family that you held people now this is going to come as a news flash the same ones yeah hey absolutely the same ones and so like on the chart that you see
the two slides that I sent you that you're going to share with everybody uh it has Boeing as a logo for Boeing and Ford you could also put on there a family reunion photo because it's the very same ones the kids uh I was talking with uh peer the other day using the office and I was doing a
zoom call and I looked behind him and he had that he had that he had to work in the other principles and practices that we just went everybody's gonna get a chance to see that was on his desk right in front of me because I mean you think about it uh Our Lives having a having a vision a compelling
vision for what we're going to do to serve to make a difference a purpose that having a strategy to achieve it but then also having a a plan to reflect on the progress against that so that we can either make modifications to the strategy uh or not but know how it's
going and be able to make decisions back to your your first questions on on an integrated life or am I paying attention to the things that I think are important uh in my life in the life of the of the people that I'm I'm serving the other thing I wanted to follow up with was uh
you give the example of sort of like you're supposed to pick somebody up a football you didn't do it but you you said that you sort of coached your kids on how to give that feedback I'm curious is it if you can take me behind the scenes how do I say that in a nice way
what does that look like how do I teach my kids this Shane great job okay here's an example uh let's only use uh oh so uh one of the one of our uh our girls that was on the uh dance team in high school great dancer loved it great great team we're at Great Sport and
um I was going to be somewhere and Nikki was going to be somewhere and so the week ahead of going up there most important performances at school before one of the events uh one of the older uh kids that was driving then uh agreed to get her from the school to this event and he forgot about it
unbelievable so we started the family meeting we go around and our daughter uh says well I'd just like to bring up one thing um I think we all can learn from that but remember I don't want to use their names but uh do you remember rather um that you were going to pick me up
and you're going to take me to the my event and and then and you know that that event when I do is really really important to me and I could just see them so her brother getting white and um I just want you to know that that I know you care about me I know you love me um you are very reliable
and I just want you to know I think that might be uh might be an opportunity opportunity to learn well girls we're all like okay um and he and the weight the apology that he made and his commitment uh in the sorry in the policy made and then his commitment to learn from this
and be even better uh it wasn't just between those two I mean all seven of us would listen to this and so it affected everybody so again uh when they were at first starting out they'd be a little bit more aggressive because they just didn't know how to do it but we but when the principles and
practices is you treat people or respect you listen to them you give their human beings so you don't you don't yell at people you'll go after them and stuff and and if you just share how you feel share how you feel no one can argue with that so she was sharing exactly what was important to
her what the commitment she thought she had and how she felt about that and being and and not uh and being violated and so uh they got and they're and they're they're exactly that way today and you think of the people that you work with or are you with that
operate that way versus you know telling you what to do or not saying they're sorry or whatever it's incredibly impactful right because we make commitments to each other and if we're not going to do it um I think it it's going to broaden it feel like we're really letting people down and so we're
gonna develop this one where we're not going to let people down I like that a lot I think I'm going to try to implement this after my kids uh but part of what I like about it is that um you're all learning from each other and your role as a parent then goes from
do this don't do this to coaching almost and facilitating exactly look at it's all coming together Shane look at that that's what's on that's what's on the on the work of the other system your coaching and facility it doesn't mean that you're not leading you're
something somebody said to me one time when I was because I I love coaching uh CEOs and their teams on because they all want to know about this working together and um and wouldn't have up said to me one time Ellen are you telling me that the board of directors and the shareholders are gonna
pay me these big bucks as a as a CEO to facilitate and coach and my history was they're going to pay you twice that if you're a good facilitator and a coach you're the leader now you're the leader now you have all of this Talent all of which knows more than you do about their given
subject this is this is Peter drucker's knowledge workers and so we need the hearts and minds of all the knowledge in a safe and a healthy environment and so the biggest contribution you're going to make and the reason you should be compensated for it is if you can
create this culture of love by Design that is so has a reliable process and behaviors that create value for the later good that that's your unique contribution with zero tolerance for violating either I love that I want to end with a specific question that we we ask a lot
of guests or I ask a lot of guests I guess but what is success for you how would you define that how do you want to be remembered we really covered it that integrated life of service I and you know you've had a lot of great a lot of great leaders and and people on
your on your show which is I just like to comments this is fantastic I've I've listened to many of them especially one of the latest ones with Marshall Goldsmith who's a dear dear friend um but at at the end and Marshall love is saying this analogy you're you know
you get towards the end of your life and you're looking back on what you've done and not done and and and Marshall's latest book uh tried to share with everybody that you don't want to get to that place and have a bunch of regrets I mean you can you can deal with that now by the decisions you make
um it needs to be about something bigger than yourself and I and it's going to be the best that you can do as it as opposed to it's always going to be anomaly successful because you'll keep just getting better and better and better and so uh when I look at that that Integrated
Life drawing I look at it every day I mean just it's in front of me I don't I like I'm sitting there studying like I kind of know what that means but when I look at that I just touch on all of those different pieces of my life and am I doing the things that I really believe
in that I can really make a difference and and serve and so and then think about the work one looking at the work one I mean I'm I've been on that design team for every Boeing airplane 707-273-747-5767 I was asked to serve as a chief engineer for the Triple Seven airplane and then the 787 and 70 of the
sea surf flying around the world are on these fabulous Boeing airplanes saving efficient transportation and the same thing at Ford I mean I look at those plus the things in the community and stuff and I can go around your diagram like that um I want to keep doing it I want to keep
doing the same thing I want to keep I want to keep helping out and filling in all the aspects of all those circles of an integrated life what an incredible impact you've had Millions if not billions of people have been impacted by you um and I really appreciate you taking
the time today to have this amazing phenomenal conversation and thank you so much I'll Shane I I've just like to say one thank you and thank you for the opportunity and um and I also want to thank Marshall who was on your show who's fabulous uh for um sending uh the episode to me and
introducing me to you and I've joined your organization I love I love your work and I'm very uh I'm very proud to be able to uh support you and I I think also that um he really you really about something really important because there's so many people in our world in a very complex rapidly
changing world there's so many people that are really working to serve and so the fact that you're capturing that for people um I think is absolutely fantastic so I'd just like to thank you for for your service too well that's very generous of you thank you