(peppy instrumental music) - Well hello, are you excited to be here? (crowd murmuring)
I am. I have this tattered copy of a book from 1983 called The One Minute Manager. I never thought it would
be signed by the author, but that just happened moments ago. The One Minute Manager
is a book that helped me get through 20 years of ServiceMaster, which is a company that
I was with that we grew like crazy and Ken was a
significant piece of how we trained leaders. But Ken is the co-founder
and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard companies, a global leader in learning,
productivity, leadership and team effectiveness. He's a Cornell grad with a PhD. He understands the Academy, he understands non profit, he understands for
profit, he's an entrepreneur. He's authored more than 35 books. That's a lot of books. The One Minute Manager,
the One Minute Salesman, Raving Fans, Gung-ho,
The Generosity Factor. And then, in about 1999 he became a follower of Jesus Christ and he founded Lead Like
Jesus, a non profit entity, whose mission is to glorify
God by inspiring and equipping people to lead like Jesus, by transforming their lives. So from villages to cities
in 31 countries or so, Lead Like Jesus is making
a very big difference in the world. Ken is an avid golfer, his wife Margie is over
speaking to some of our Women in Leadership at Biola University, and here's something
that is not in the Bio, but it was a few years ago when the San Diego fires happened, and Ken's house burned to the ground, and only a few short days
later, I was looking at this man preaching from the
Saddleback Church pulpit, probly three, four, five days
after his house burned down. And you'd have to say that
someone who could actually pull that off would be rooted
and grounded in the truths of Jesus Christ, would you not? And so I want you to join me in welcoming Dr. Ken Blanchard. (audience applause) - [Ken] Thank you. (mumbles) Well, what a joy to be
here and be with you all. I've been here before,
you all are pretty lucky. I want all the students,
particularly, to put your right hand on your left shoulder, and put your left hand
on your right shoulder, give yourself a hug, 'cause
you chose to be here, not to this session,
but to this University. It's gonna make a difference in your life, so you should really feel good about that. So, but it is fun to be here. It's so interesting, I never
anticipated I would be doing this kind of thing in my
life, I was going along and doing my thing and the Lord wasn't much in my life and then all of a sudden, you
know, it's interesting how you can see God in your life
backwards easier than forward but he had plans for
me that I didn't know, but the One Minute Manager came out it was so ridiculously successful,
I was havin' trouble taking credit for it. And people said, "Why
do you think this book "is so successful, I mean it..." We were on The Today
Show on Labor Day, 1982 and it went on the Best
Seller list the next week. Didn't leave for like,
you know, three years. And all the books he mentioned I sell, the biggest royalty I still get every year is the One Minute
Manager, and it's 30 year anniversary this year. And so, it's so ridiculously
successful, people would say, "Why do you think so?" And I started saying God
must be involved, I mean this is ridiculous, you know, 'cause Spencer Johnson
and I were not that good, and so the minute I opened myself to the Lord he started
sending me interesting things and so I ended up on the Hour of Power with Bob Schuller and
my Mom and Dad were big fans of his, living in
Florida, listening to his television ministry and Schuller had me on there and said, "Ken, what a great book
this One Minute Manager is," and he said, "I love it," he said, "You know the greatest One Minute Manager "of all-time was," and
I said, "Who's that?" He said, "Jesus," I said, "Really," he said, "Yeah, he was
really clear on goals, "wasn't that your first secret,
one minute goal setting," I said, "Yeah," and he said,
"You and Tom Peters didn't "invent management by wandering around, "you know Jesus did,
he wandered around from "one little village to
another, if anybody showed any "interest, he'd heal and praise 'em." He said, "Isn't that your second secret, "one minute praising?" I said, "Yeah," and he said, "If people stepped out
of line, he wasn't afraid "to give them a one minute repremand "and redirect them, and isn't
that your third secret?" I said, "Yeah," he said,
"Well he's the greatest "one minute manager of all-time," and so I went, "Well, that's
really interesting." And in the meantime, the
Lord was sending other people in my life. I got a call would I write a
book with Norman Vincent Peale, and I said, "Is he still alive?" I mean, my parents had
gone to his church before I was born, he was 86
years old when I met him, and he and Ruth just
kinda wrapped their arms around my wife and I and said,
"The Lord's always had you "on His team, you just
haven't suited up yet." (audience laughing) So suiting up became kind of a cry, and then I'm heading to a big conference in Mexico City for the Young Presidents Organization and the way God works, he puts
Bob Buford across the aisle from me, any of you know Buford, he wrote Halftime, in fact Peter
Drucker, before he died said, "Bob Buford's probably
one of the five most "influential Christians in America today" in a low key way and so I'm talkin' to Buford
and I reach into my wallet to get a card to give him
and amongst the dollar bills is this little booklet a
friend of mine had given me by Bill Bright, the founder
of Campus Crusade, called The Four Spiritual Laws. And I want to tell you,
I wouldn't have put that in my wallet, you know. (chuckling) His daughter had gotten
in, he gave it to me, but there it was, so I
pulled it out and I said, "Bob, this is here for a reason. "Do you mind if I ask you
a couple of questions," and he said, "Well I'm not
a preacher, but go ahead." And first law was, God has a plan for your life, Jeremiah 29:11, I mean I could buy that. But the one that got
me was the second one, and I didn't like it too much, it said we were sinners. And I didn't like that for
two reasons, number one, I hate labels, I don't know
if you've ever noticed, if you call a friend a
sinner, they don't say, "Thanks for sharing," (audience laughing) you know I mean, they get a little upset,
and then they say, "What about you?" And then the thing that really bugged me is the concept of original sin. Why do people have to
start off bad, I mean a little baby in a crib's bad? And so Bob said, "Well Ken,
let me ask you a question. "He said, do you think
you're as good as God?" And I said, "Obviously
not, if there's a God, "that's perfection," he said,
"Okay, why don't we give God "100," he said, "We'll
give Ax murderers five and "Mother Teresa was alive," he said, "She's a pretty good gal,
why don't we give her a 95." And he said, "Blanchard,
you're not bad, you're trying "to help people, I'll give you a 75, 80." He said, "The neat thing about the Lord, "he sent Jesus down to
make up the difference "between you and 100." And I went, "Woah, what
an interesting way to talk "about grace." Because if you say to
anybody, "Where are you "on a one to 100," nobody's gonna say 100, but if you call 'em a sinner
they're gonna get their backup. Now Bob said, "Don't get too excited, Ken, "'cause I have to give
you the whole thing, "some people don't like it. "The fact that the ax
murderer has the same "opportunity as Mother Teresa. "'Cause it's not about
deeds, it's about faith." And I said, "Wow, it's
really interesting." He said, "Well let me turn
you over to a friend of mine "who's gonna be at this
conference and speak, "he knows more about this than I do." And so he turns me over to Bill Hybels, I don't know if you ever know Bill. He heads up Willow Creek Community Church, one of the great churches in the world, and you get in Hybels'
jaws, you're in trouble and so I sit down with my little booklet to talk to Hybels and he
said, "Wait a minute, Ken. "Let me explain the difference between "religion and following Jesus." And I said, "What's that?" He said, "It's how it's spelled," he said, "Religion is spelled 'Do,' D-O. "And there's this whole
bunch of To-do lists you're "supposed to do to get the Lord's grace." And he says, "Most
people do religions quit, "because they never know
when is enough is enough, "and then they start changin' the rules." He said, "The neat thing
about following Jesus, "it's spelled 'Done.' "There's only one rule, 'Do you believe?'" And I went, "Woah, that's
really interesting." And he said, "Blanchard, I
don't know why you haven't "signed up a lot sooner,"
he said, "because you get "three consultants for the price of one." (audience laughing) I mean, he's talking
my language, you know, he says, "You get the
Father who started it, "the Son who lived it and," he said, "The Holy Spirit's the day
to day operational manager." And I kinda liked that of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always gets
the second end of everything, you know, we don't even have a swear word for the Holy Spirit. (audience laughing) And so, I said, "Well how do I sign up?" He said, "It's pretty easy
for One Minute Manager," he said, "All you have to
do is bow your head and say, "'Lord, I can't make it by myself, "'I fall short of 100 "'and I accept Jesus as my Savior and my "'bridge between you and,'" so I said, "That sounds pretty simple," he said, "Well if you want to do it
this weekend, let me know." And I still was a little
reluctant, 'cause normally Vincent Peale said, it
was interesting, he said, "A lot of people like Ted
Turner and other people say, "'Christianity is for sissies.'" He said, "That's not true,"
he said, "The toughest test "of self esteem is to
bow your head and say, "'I can't do it by myself.' "That is really tough, to
get your ego out of the way, "and realize you need
help, that's a big deal. "That's not a minor deal,"
and so I kind of held off for a while and then Margie
and I turned our company over to a guy to be
President 'cause we thought he knew more about business, and we did, and he had different values
and he was runnin' off with the thing and so Margie and I were
gonna meet at dinner to see what we should do about this, and I was comin' up
from downtown San Diego and I'm drivin', all of a
sudden I get this blinding flash of the obvious,
'cause I'm thinking so hard I'm gettin' a headache, you know. And all of a sudden I
realize, "I got a three member "team, here." You know, that if I only sign up. And I said, "Lord, I can't
bow my head completely, "'cause I'm drivin', but
I think I finally get it." (audience laughing) And I said, "Jesus, as my
Savior, my bridge between "you and I." And I want to tell you, I could feel this energy that I had read about and it was amazing, and I
walk into the restaurant, and Margie said, "What happened to you?" And I told her and it really made all the difference. She signed up about
six, seven months later, you know, it's not a team deal. But it's been pretty exciting, and then I really decided
to get into looking at Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, and I was just blown away by to realize that
everything I had taught about leadership, everything I
had written about leadership Jesus did, and he did it
with these 12 incompetent guys he hired, I mean you
wouldn't hire that lot. And he's the greatest leadership
role model of all-time. I was doin' a session with John Ortberg, who's one of my favorite people. He's up in Menlo Park, and
we were doin' this session out of Atlanta. And I said to John in the beginning, we were in a big church and it was being teleconferenced all over. I said, "John, why would
you fly across the country "to tell people that Jesus is the greatest "leadership role model of all-time?" And John, who's a great storyteller, turns to the camera and he says to people, "Let's just assume, and some
of you might not like this, "but let's assume that you
were a gambler 2100 years ago. "Where would you have put
your money on lasting? "The Roman Empire and the Roman Army "or a little Jewish Rabbi with
12 inexperienced followers?" And he said, "Isn't it
interesting, 2100 years later," he said, "We still name kids Jesus, "and Peter, Paul and Mary, "and we name our dogs Nero and Caesar." (audience laughing) He said, "I rest my case." And so, what I realized is that we had the greatest
leadership role model of all-time right amongst us and how many of you know that the world is in desperate need of
a different leadership role model? We've seen what self-serving leaders have done in every sector of society. And we badly need servant leaders, people who are there to serve rather than to be served. And here we have 'em, what blew my mind, 'cause
you know, I didn't come up in any traditional way, is it wasn't being taught
in the divinity schools, it wasn't being taught in
the churches, it wasn't being taught in a University like this, and I went, "Woah, what's going on?" So I said, "I guess that's
what you want me to do, Lord." So, what I've done is committed my life to try to spread the word around the world about
Jesus as the greatest leadership role model. And it's so interesting as
you go around the world, everybody loves Jesus, they
just don't like Christians. And the reason is, they
asked Gandhi one time if he thought he would
ever become a Christian. He said, "If you could find one." He said, "If all Christians
would behave like Jesus, "everybody in the world would
want to be a Christian." And see, I think what we forget, in "Christianity," and I call
myself a follower of Jesus, 'cause Christianity's never
mentioned in the Bible, and Christian, is mentioned
three or four times in Act, and it's negative. You know like, "those damn Christians." And, but, what I really think is so powerful about what Jesus was teaching, was that He said, "You will be known "as my disciples by how
you love each other," he didn't say "how you judge each other." We got so much judgement in our faith. And when the Pharisees, this one guy said to Jesus, "What are the
greatest commandments of all?" What did he say? "Love God with all the
heart, all your mind "and all your soul and love
thy neighbor as thyself." Now if you have those, you
don't need commandments, "Thou shalt not kill,
thou shalt not steal," you know, I mean, you got it. And later on Paul and all, in the Bible say that if you know God, you know love. 'Cause God is love. And if you don't know
love, you don't know God. And I think that if we went out there, I think that the next
great evangelist movement from my standpoint is going to be demonstration,
not proclamation. I think if we want people
to follow our faith, we oughta behave differently. And that's what Lead
Like Jesus is all about. Now that you say that
the Lord's in your life, what does that mean? What are you gonna do? And so, when I talk about leadership, I want you all to understand. A lot of people, I'll say,
"How many of you are leaders?" Like, how many of you
think you're all leaders, put your hands up if you
think you're a leader. See not a lot of hands went up, see. Why, because we have this image of leader, you have to have a certain position, see. But no, leadership is
an influence process. Now, if I asked you, "Who are the people "that influenced your life the most, "and the way you think
and your beliefs and all." Most people don't mention
any boss they've ever had, they mention their mother, their father, their grandfather, a friend, a teacher, maybe a coach. See, leadership is an influence process. Any time you attempt to
influence the thinking, beliefs or development of somebody else, you're engaging in leadership. So every one of you have
life role leaderships. You don't think you're
trying to help your friends and influence them? You all have. Being a parent, what
could be a more important leadership role in that? Being a spouse, I mean
what's a more important leadership role than that, and yet there's a 50% failure rate. We need to be teaching
people how to love like Jesus as well as live and lead like Jesus. And so that the key thing is it's all about love, it's all about that and it's so interesting is that Jesus is so emphatic about how he wants us to behave as we interact
with other people. I love that part in Matthew, where John and James bring
their mother to Jesus, you know, good Jewish mother. And she says, "Can one of my
sons sit in your left hand "and one in your right
hand and you're heaven." I mean she thinks it's
a hierarchy up there. And after Jesus says, "It's
not for Him to grant," then he sits down with his disciples and he gives I think one of
the most powerful speeches about the Gentiles lord power over people. Those who think they're
great use authority, not so with you, that's a pretty emphatic
thing, and when he says, if you want to be first
essentially, you need to be last. If you want to lead, you need to serve. And even I have come to
serve, not to be served, and to give my life as a ransom for all. I mean, I don't think there's any option that we're here to serve
others, not ourselves. And it's really wonderful when
you see that get played out in people. And there's four parts of
leading like Jesus that I'll just share with you and then I want to open up for questions from you is, the first is the heart
of leading like Jesus, and that's a character
question, and the question is, are you here to serve or be served? Now, when I ask people, how many of you are here to serve or be
served, that'll get a lot of people to put their hands up, you know, count me in for self serving. You know, because we're
all built in God's image, but God I think made a
major mistake, you know, he might be, want to wish he didn't. He gave us free will, you know, so that we can
either live according to that image that He gave us, it's in His own image, or we can choose to go off in another direction. And that's a big choice,
but the question is, why are you here? And the reality is that we all
are self serving sometimes. And the question is, can
you catch yourself in there. And several ways you can tell people are self serving, have you ever tried to give anybody feedback in an organization,
particularly up the hierarchy, and they kill the messenger? You know, Gordon McDonald
wrote a wonderful book called, Ordering Your Private World, and he said that there
are two kinds of people in life, there are driven people and there are called people. Driven people think they own everything. They own their relationships,
they own their possessions, they own their position. If you think you own everything in life, what are you gonna do
if somebody gives you some negative feedback? You're gonna put 'em down, why, 'cause it's your worst
nightmare, 'cause you think they don't want you to lead, 'cause you gotta protect what you own. Called people, and this
is a lovely concept, realize everything in life is on loan. You don't own anything. Do you know you don't
own your relationships? Somebody you love and care about today might not be here tomorrow. Don't let your I love
yous get out of date. Don't let the last memory be where you're upset about something, 'cause relationships are fragile. Do you know your possessions are fragile? Greg was saying, you
know, we lost our house 25 years of stuff. We were down in Florida, and
it's so interesting how God does things, I had just
finished Ortberg's book, and this is a book I recommend you all read and get a class discuss it. The title of the book is, At the End of the Game, It
All Goes Back In the Box. And in that book, he had a little exercise, and I'm the Chief Spiritual
Officer of our company, and I leave a morning
message for 300 plus people around the world, and I do three things,
number one, I tell them who to pray for, and we
have people of every faith and non-faith, and they
don't mind when they hear that somebody's hurting and we oughta pray and send love and positive
energy towards them. Then I praise people, I think
that the important thing in life is to catch
people doing things right. And then I leave an inspirational
message about something I've read in terms of our values. So four days before the
fires, I put everybody in our company through John's exercise. In the exercise, it's four
o'clock in the afternoon, and you're thinking of heading home. And there's two piles of
Post-Its on your desk. One pile says, Important Forever, and the other says, Temporary Stuff. And as you leave, put a Post-It
from one of the two piles on everything you see. You know, your desk, your computer, your secretary, the coke machine, the receptionist, your car. When you get home, in the garage, your golf clubs, your bicycle, and where you're gonna put
the Post-Its in the house. I got so many wonderful
e-mails and voicemails from people saying, "Ken, wow, "that was so powerful,
because it just showed "that when all is said and done, "the only thing that's really
important is who you love "and who loves you and the rest is stuff." And four days later, we
lost 25 years of stuff, but nobody got hurt. And I think that's why I
could preach, and that's why I could put things in perspective, because it's really powerful. It's so interesting, with
people who are called, that think everything's on loan, they think that their
relationships are on loan, and they want to really
nourish those while they're still there. They think their possessions are on loan. And their position is on
loan, because you can always tell a servant leader,
because when you give him feedback, no matter how negative it is, they say, "Thank you. "Boy, I really appreciate it. "Is there anybody else I should talk to?" Why do they say thank you? 'Cause the only reason
they're leading is to serve, and if you've got any suggestions
on how I can serve better, they want to know, I mean
that's a really powerful, powerful thing. And another key difference
is self serving leaders don't want anybody else to look very good. So if there's anybody
good in their department, they want to keep 'em,
but they want to hide 'em. Whereas servant leaders
love leaders to develop around them, in fact if one
grows up, they're willing to share leadership, or maybe even take another role. And then the last one
that's so important for you to understand is that self serving people, who are
predominantly self serving think that their self worth is a function of their performance plus
the opinion of others. And that's really I read
one time, is the definition of self worth that the devil
would like you to have. Because he's got you, why has he got you? How many of you know that
your performance isn't great every day, have any of
you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed
that people are fickle, you know, one day they're for you, one day they're against you, you know. So, if your self worth
is up for grabs every day by your performance or
the opinion of others, it's exhausting. Whereas, what really helps people who are basically servant leaders is they trust the unconditional
love of their father. God loves you with all
your warts and all that, I mean that's a pretty powerful thing, and so if you got that love,
and you trust that love and your performance is good, you can say, "Gee, I
wonder what happened here, "I'd like to see what
I can learn from this." But, it's not your self worth. And if somebody's upset with you, you can go to 'em and you can say, "What did I do, I didn't mean to hurt you. "Tell me what happened." Because your self worth isn't
tied up with them liking you, so now you can turn into
a learning opportunity. So, pretty powerful stuff. And one of the things that we've started and it's in the book for
those of you that have read it and it's a really neat
thing to have I think around campus is Egos Anonymous Meetings. Because what makes you
self serving is the ego when you edge God out. And there's two ways you edge God out. One is false pride, when
you think more of yourself than you should and you're very
judgmental of other people. You have a "more than" philosophy. And your main concern
is promoting yourself. And then the other one
is self doubt or fear, where you think less of
yourself than you should. And now what you're doing
is protecting yourself. In both cases, you're putting
yourself in the center, whether it's false pride or it's fear, you've edged God out. And the anecdote for
false pride is humility, and Norman and I in our book said that people with humility
don't think less of themselves, they just think about themselves less. And so humility is the capacity to feel good about yourself
and also to let other people feel good about themselves around you and then the anecdote
for fear is to trust the unconditional love of God. And so, we run these
Egos Anonymous meetings, and they're hysterical. People, one by one, will get up. "Hi," what will everybody say. "Hi, I'm Ken," you know, "Hi Ken." "I'm an Egomaniac and
(audience laughing) "the last time my ego got in the way was," and then they give an
example of false pride or fear, because you have
that occurring in your life all the time. The real key issue, walk
with the Lord, is you catch yourself more. But to say you never have any false pride, or you never have any fear or self doubt. If you say, "No, I've
never had any of those," you lie about other things, too. Because we all really have that, so it's a matter of catching that and through Egos Anonymous,
people get to share and everybody laughs and
realizes, I could have said that, too, and all that, and I have a bunch of managers and people who
run churches and all, who when they have their weekly meeting, the first part of the meeting
is an Egos Anonymous meeting where everybody stands up and talks about how their ego bit 'em in the
last week and what happened. It's just a wonderful equalizer. So, the heart thing is really important. 'Cause if you don't get the heart right, you're not gonna ever be
able to be what Jesus wanted, because see Jesus came here
to give us a heart attack. He wanted to really get right inside us and make a, I love your thing about
transformation, you know truth, transformation. And just, the transformation,
that's what the concept is all about. And then what's the last T. - [Voiceover] Testimonial. - Testimonial, which is, now you can share what the impact has been of you, but it first
begins with transformation, that starts with the heart, which is a pretty powerful. The second thing is the head of being a servant leader which is, what are your beliefs
about leading people, and what is that all about? So, I'd love you all to
stand up for a minute and get a little energy going here, and just find somebody
you're gonna talk with for a couple minutes,
and you're gonna kind of interview each other,
like you were Ted Coppell or Barbara Walters or what, and decide who goes first,
and whoever goes first, say to the other one,
"Tell me your leadership "point of view, your beliefs about leading "and motivating people?" And have them share for a
minute what their beliefs are and then when they've
finished, then change roles. Okay, how many of you found
that was pretty easy to do? Lot of people don't, you
know it's really important for you to think about your
leadership point of view. what are your beliefs about
leading and motivating people, and what does that mean
in terms of what do you expect of people and what
they can expect to you? My wife and I teach a whole
course, and we're gonna actually talk tonight about the power of understanding a leadership point of view. And what did Jesus do for three years? He taught His leadership point of view to His disciples, and
they were a slow group, so He had to really kind of
work with them quite a while. (audience laughing) But, it's a belief about, now when I talk out in the business world about servant leadership,
one of the first reactions I get is, "What are you
doin', that's soft management, "you're talkin' about the
inmates running the prison, "or trying to please
everybody, or some kind of "religious movement." No, they don't understand leadership. See, there's two parts
of servant leadership. The first one is the leadership
part of servant leadership, which is vision and direction. What do we stand for? What are we trying to accomplish? What business are we in? And then you can set goals, because people have to have something that they can serve in
order to be servants. If there's nothing to
serve, then what happens? People are going after
me to write a book called The One Minute Manager Goes to Washington, (audience laughing) and the biggest problem with Washington is we don't have a vision
for this country anymore. We don't know what business we're in, we don't know what the
picture of the future is, we have no values. I mean, the values today
are the squeaking wheel, and we've changed all of our values to for convenience of people. And you can't have anything served. Why is Washington so self serving? 'Cause there's nothing to serve. And so, what business is this, I love this, "Biblical wisdom
for the business world," I mean that's a pretty simple statement about what business you're in, I mean I, I'd love for ya just as a whole University to be in business of
developing servant leaders who are world changers, that's
a pretty easy statement. I think if we get carried
away with too many wordy things about what business
we're in and our mission and all that kind of thing
that put people to sleep, but there's three parts
of a compelling vision. One is, your purpose, what business you're in. Second is your picture of the future. If you do a good job in your
purpose, what will happen? And then the third, what's
gonna guide your journey, your values. And I wrote a book with
Colleen Barrett, who's the President of Southwest Airlines called Lead With Luv,
and Luv is spelled L-U-V, which is their stock symbol. But, it's really interesting,
the whole airline industry and it's history has lost money. Southwest for 40 straight
years has made money. Why, 'cause everybody
knows what the vision is. You ask anybody at Southwest
what business are we in? They'll say we're in the
customer service business, we happen to fly airplanes. And you know what their
picture of the future is, if they do a great job? That every American will
be able to be with a friend or a loved someone in a
happy time or a sad time. That's why they're a low cost airlines. You know what their vision is? To democratize the airways. The reason they bought
Airtran is that it expanded their capacity to do
that, but you'll notice they haven't changed
the name of Airtran yet, 'cause they want to make
sure, 18 months to two years that they're part of their culture. They don't want to put
their name on something that's not gonna be part
of their culture, so, and you know they have four values. You shouldn't have more
than three or four. 'Cause people can't remember 'em, but the first value is safety
for the business they're in. Then they have three
values they want everybody to engage in everyday. The first one is a warrior spirit, which means if you got a job, do it. Don't just sit around and talk about it. That's why they can turn a plane in ten or 12 minutes, 'cause
the pilots are in there throwin' garbage out
with the stewardesses. They don't say, "That's not your job," and all that kinda thing. We gotta turn the plane, let's
get in there and get it done. Their second value, which I've
never seen another company have, is they want people with a servant heart. Isn't that really
interesting, they want people with servant's hearts, and they interview people for that. Right now with Airtran,
they need some new pilots, and Colleen was telling
me about this big pilot, very experienced pilot,
I think he was from Delta or one of 'em, flew down on one of their crafts
to Dallas for an interview and the word was he was kind
of obnoxious to the staff on the plane and then when
he got to headquarters he kind of blew off the receptionist and she called upstairs and said, "There's a guy comin' upstairs, "I'm not sure why he's here, but, "let me tell you how he treated me, "and I got word from the
plane how he treated them," and they didn't even interview him. They said, "We're not
gonna put pilots in the air "who can't fly, but we're
not gonna put good pilots "in the air who aren't here to serve." And if that helps you in your life, that's feedback for you and
they didn't even interview him. And their last value is
a fun-loving attitude, they have a lot of fun. A friend of mine was
flying Southwest recently, and the steward got up, in the microphone and says, "It's the
last flight of the day, "we're really tired, we
just don't have the energy "to pass out the peanuts. "And so we're gonna put
'em on the floor up front, "and when we take off and gain altitude, "they'll... (audience laughing) "they'll come down the aisle, and "if you need any peanuts you can grab 'em, "and people were just chucking, "and having a fun time and
passing peanuts around." And somebody wrote to Herb and Colleen. Herb's one of the founders, and said, "I object to
your people making jokes "during safety announcements,
those are really "important," but the data
says if people fool around people will listen more. And he said, "I just
think it's inappropriate, "and I think you should
do something about it." Most Presidents would
have written and said, "I appreciate the feedback, "and here's a couple of coupons, "I hope you continue to fly us
and I'll talk to the people." No, Colleen wrote back and
said, "We'll miss you." (audience laughing) I mean, if you don't
want to fly in an airline that's having fun, don't fly, 'cause that's one of our values. And so, I mean, that's really amazing, so everybody knows that. So the first part of
leadership is the vision and direction. What did Jesus say to his disciples? He said, "Come with me,
and I will make you" what? "Fishers of men." What was his picture of the future? Go and make disciples of all nations. He didn't say forget this group, and of all nations, and baptize them in
the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then what were the values? The values were love
God with all your heart and all your mind, and love
thy neighbor as thyself, that's pretty clear. So once you have that,
and that's gotta come from the hierarchy, Jesus
got his from his father. Then philosophically, you
have to turn the pyramid upside down. When Jesus washed the
feet of the disciples, he was transitioning
from the leadership part of serve and leadership,
vision and direction, to implementation, which is the servant part
of servant leadership. And when he washed the
feet of the disciples, you know a lot of people
say, "Well, you know "if I'm a servant leader, aren't
I gonna lose my positions?" No, what did Jesus say after he got up after washing their feet? He said, "You call me
teacher, you call me Lord, "rightly so. "But just as I have done
for you, do for others." Because that's what he wanted us to do, he wants us to serve, not to be served, I mean
that's a really powerful thing. And you can always tell
organizations run by self serving leaders, 'cause they love
the hierarchy, you know, and they want to make sure
everybody knows who's in charge, and all the energy is
sucking up the hierarchy away from the customers, but when you turn the pyramid upside down, then who's at the top, the
people you're trying to serve, and all the energy is
going in their direction. One of my favorite
Southwest Airlines stories, when I travel, I have this
thing I call my geezer pouch, you know when you get
older, you forget things, but in my geezer pouch, I put my ticket, my license, my passport,
you know, pen and pencil, anything, you know, and what
do you need, it's all here, you know, so one day I loaded the beauty, and I was headin' to the airport, and I left it on my desk at home. And I'm pullin' into the San Diego airport and I realize I have no
official identification. It's like three years after
9/11, a little uptight about that kind of thing. I didn't have time to go back home, so I had to figure out how
am I gonna get on the plane? So the only book I've ever
written, and I got my cover picture on the cover, is I
wrote one with Don Shula, the old Miami Dolphins coach? Called, Everyone's a Coach,
and they took our picture in Miami stadium. And so I ran in the bookstore,
and they had a copy, and I bought it. (audience laughing) And fortunately the first
airline I had to go to was Southwest Airlines,
and the guy's checkin' my bag. He said, "Could I see identification?" I said, "I feel badly, I have
no license I have no passport. "How's the book?" And the guy looks at it, he shouts out, "This man knows Don Shula! He said, "Put him in first class!" 'Course they don't have first class, they didn't even have
business select then. And they're high fivin' me in the street, you know, Guy knows Shula
and all that kinda thing. Then there was an older guy there, who says, "I know the
security guards upstairs "and I think I can get you through there," which they did. Why is that possible? 'Cause they treat their
people as if they got brains. They didn't assume I had
superimposed my picture on this book to get by them. 'Cause the bigger issue is
whether I have weapons or not, and they did, but the
next airline I went to, one of the biggies always
talking about, Chapter 11, and going out of business so they can stop the union contracts and all that. And I want to tell you, the
minute I showed my picture, the duck doo doo started to fly. Because you can always
tell, when the hierarchy is kept alive and well, you
got ducks rather than eagles. Southwest has got eagles, quack, quack, quack, it's
our policy, quack quack, I just work here, quack quack, you know, that's all the ducks, you know. And this guy, I showed
him a picture, he says, "Quack, you better talk
to the ticket counter," and I talked to the ticket
counter and she said, "Quack, you better talk to my supervisor." We call the supervisory
duck the head mallard, 'cause they just quack at a higher level. And have you ever seen them, you know. Pretty soon I'm about
four or five levels up, talking to a guy in a coat and a tie. So I started giving
him a little hard time, and I could see he was a bureaucrat. You can always tell bureaucrats,
they have very tight underwear on, and they
(audience laughing) kind of walk a little
bit like this, you know. And so I had to change my tune, you know, if I want to get on a plane, I said, "What a difficult job you have, (kissing) (audience laughing)
"making these kinds "of decisions."
(kissing) And so I sucked up enough
that he let me on the plane, but that's the stuff you gotta go through, see with servant leaders,
when they get to the serving part, it's all
about, how can I help? I just wrote an article to send out today about, I'm a long term
friend of John Calapari, he's the Kentucky coach. I'm on his kitchen cabinet,
that's what he talks, he's got five of us that he calls if he's got things
he's trying to figure out, you know, like Bobby Knight, comin' down on him or
something, and I told him, go to mass, and,
(audience laughing) ask for forgiveness for it. But he's such a classic
servant leader, you know. And it was really interesting, 'cause there's three parts
of being a servant leader, which is the third part,
which is the hands part. Now you got your heart
to serve, you understand the two parts of leadership. And John has a real clear
vision, this is gonna be the greatest basketball program
anywhere in the country, this is the place you need to come and all, and then he turns
the pyramid upside down and it's all about the kids. I said to him, "How do
you feel about winning "the national championship?" And he said, "It's not about me, "it's about these 13 kids." And a blue nation, you know. He's always talking about
the kids and the fans. It's not about him. So the first part of
implementing and being a servant leader is the servant part. And the elevator speech
is, it's not about you, it's about the people you're serving. The second part is the steward, which is, I've already talked about it, you don't own anything,
everything's on loan. And John doesn't own those players. I mean some people
criticize him, 'cause he has a bunch of kids that go
"one and done," you know. Freshman who play one
year, and then they go. But John is all about what's
the best for the kids. And if the kid's not
ready, like Terrence Jones, who is a sophomore this year, they wanted him go pro last year and Cal said, "No,
Terrence, you're not ready. "If you just stay another year or so, "you're gonna be ready." And the Terrence Jones that
played in the Final Four this year was a very
different Terrence Jones than played last year. I mean, it's really a, and so, he's all about the kids, they're on loan to him. And what can he do to kind of take that loan and nurture
it and support it and all. He gets calls every day
from his old players, I mean, Derrick Rose,
who's the MVP of the NBA calls him every week. And when they went to get the trophy, John's wife came up. And the kids are all
huggin' and kissin' his wife and everything. 'Cause they're over at
their house all the time, they're just part of the thing. And the third thing, so
that's the steward part. And the last one is the shepherd part, and the shepherd part is
to realize every single human being is important. Nobody's more important than anybody. And what's amazing about
the coaching job he did, he had six kids on that team who averaged 25 points or better their senior year in high school. I mean these guys were stars. And how he could get them to lower their ego and play as a team. Their top five guys, their average was ten points to 14 points. I think the most any kid
averaged was 14 points and it was all about them. About the team. He says, "None of us is
as smart as all of us. "And if we play as a team,
we're gonna really do it." And they couldn't stop
any one person, 'cause somebody else would come up, and all. It was really great, they interviewed this Anthony Davis, who's
probably the number one draft choice in the NBA and they said, "How'd you feel about the game?" He only scored six points, but he was the Most Valuable Player. He had 15 rebounds, blocked six shots, five assists. And Anthony said, "It's
all about these guys. "They held the team up. "I told 'em, that look,
when we get down the court, "you score and I'll just
rebound and do what I can, "it's all about you." I mean here's a kid sayin' that, and the kid's 19 years old. And Cal's teaching him
that kind of stuff and all. And they asked him, "Are
you glad you got the "monkey off your back?" Because he'd been in the
Final Four three times, and this is the first one he's won. He says, "Yeah, 'cause now I can get back "to what I'm supposed to be doing, "and concentrate on developing these kids, "and helping them be
the best that they can "and helping them to realize "that together they're
more powerful than alone, "and that they're all leaders," and he said this on TV, "and I want them to be servant leaders." I mean that's just an amazing
thing, and people want to beat up sports and all, but
I love to see an example of a guy who's fabulous at what he does, but it's all about the
kids, see, and that's what the hands is all about, is
okay, now that I know that, how do I treat people, how do I do that, you know? It's not about him, when
he yells at the kids, they all know it's just
their best interest. Lot of times they'll call
a kid out of the game and he'll say, "Terrence,
you're just not playing "up to your ability. "Now you go sit down, and
when you're ready to play "what you can do, let me know." (laughing) The kid'll come up, said,
"I'm ready to go, coach, now," I mean and they'll rip the
ball right off the backboard and all, you know, and I mean, it's just wonderful to watch. But servant leaders are all about creating a vision and
then helping everybody arrive at that vision and accomplish, and it's just wonderful. It's the only way to get great performance and great human satisfaction together, you know, and you could see that and Greg worked for ServiceMaster, I mean, ServiceMaster,
I mean what a company, it's changed now without
Bill Pollard there. But when Bill was there,
they had four values. You know what the first value was? It's to glorify God in everything we do. The second value was to develop people. The third value was to pursue excellence. And the fourth value
was to grow profitably. And Bill Pollard said that the first two are the ends, because the
purpose is to glorify God and develop people. And the means is to pursue
excellence and to grow profitably. Very different than other
people and that's why it was a great company to work with. They had a beautiful
statue of Jesus right out in front of the corporate headquarters washing Peter's feet. And so, this isn't soft, this isn't bad. I was just with Jimmy Blanchard, who was President of
Sonovis Financial Group in Georgia. They won the Best Company to Work For for Fortune magazine so many times, Fortune asked 'em to stop applying. And then they created an all-star list for them, and you just see that kind of stuff. Ritz-Carlton I knew, and
worked with Horst Schulze who started that. What's their mission? "We are ladies and gentlemen
serving ladies and gentlemen." Pretty powerful stuff, so I want you to understand this. "Biblical wisdom for the business world," I mean that's what it is. The best leadership book you're ever gonna read is the Bible. I mean it's just extraordinary, and don't think you gotta
go out there and preach, go out there and behave. So people come up to you, I've see you operate in tough times
and this kind of times. Where do you get that strength, I just see this inner peace in you, and then you can tell 'em. That's a pretty powerful
thing for them to get. The last thing I want to talk about before we open up for questions is the habits of leading like Jesus, so you can have in your
heart you want to serve, and you can understand
that there's two parts of servant leadership,
vision and direction and implementation. And then you can understand in the hands you've got to serve, which
means it's not about you, you gotta steward, which
means you don't own anything and shepherd, everybody's important. But how do you do that on a daily basis, because Norman Vincent Peale used to say, "Every morning when you wake up, "the evil one is waiting." To try to do it, to hook your ego. Either in false pride,
or self doubt or fear. And so how do you re-calibrate yourself on a daily basis so you can be who you want to be in the world? And Jesus had three habits that helped Him do
something that's so powerful to enter your day slowly. Norman Vincent Peale and I, when we wrote, said that, we all have two selves. We have an external, task-oriented self, that's used to getting jobs done. And then we have an
internal, thoughtful self. Which of those selves
do you think wakes up quicker in the morning, your
external, task-oriented self, or your internal, reflective self? What do you think wakes up more? The task-oriented, why? The alarm goes off. Have you ever thought about
what a stupid term that is? Why isn't it the opportunity clock, or it's gonna be a great day. Alarm! Jeez, then all of a sudden
you jump out of bed, and you're trying to eat
while you're washing, and then you're running to this
class, you're running here, you're running there. And you get back to the
dorm, you get back home and you're absolutely
exhausted, fall into bed. You don't have any energy
even to say goodnight to anybody, and all. And the next morning, bang,
you're out of there again. And so many people in life
are caught in a rat race. And when you're caught in a rat race you can't live and lead
and love like Jesus, because you're into tasks all the time. And Lily Tomlin, the great
Hollywood philosopher, said one time, "The
problem with a rat race is "even if you win it, you're still a rat." (audience laughing) And so what you have
to do is enter your day slowly, and Jesus had
three qualities and habits. One was solitude. He used solitude all the time. He went off by himself
after he was baptized, for 40 days, that's a lot of solitude. Devil miscalculated that. He might have been hungry, but man he was spiritually strong. He went off by himself when he found out that John the Baptist had been killed, I think probly to deal with grief. He went off by himself after
he fed the crowd of 5000, probly to deal with
pride, 'cause they wanted to make Him king. And my favorite one is he's
doin' a lot of healing one day and the disciples are
gettin' really excited, I mean this could be a
really good business, and it says the next
line in the Bible says early the next morning, Jesus
went off to a solitary place to pray. And the disciples wake up,
they're runnin' all over, where is he, you know and all that. They finally found him, and they said, "Come, everybody's waiting for you." Did he care about those people back there? Sure, there's no more
caring human being that ever walked the earth. But what did he say? "No, let's go to the next
village so I can preach, "for that is why I have come." I mean, you can get
sidetracked by good things. But why are you here, what
is your purpose for today, what are you trying to
do and so, you need to take some quiet time,
and one of the things we recommend is so powerful when I do it is to sit on the side
of the bed when I get up and put my hands, I shouldn't put my hands there, but, (audience laughing) but I put my hands on my knees, and I think of any
concerns I have for today, and I lay it down at
the foot of the cross, and let the good Lord take over. And then after I've thought of those, then I put my hands in an upward, and I just quiet myself to see if I can hear anything. And Henri Nouwen said
that solitude is the place where the Lord can say to
you, "you are the beloved." It's that silent, wonderful place that He can talk to your soul, and that's a really wonderful thing. So solitude. And then prayer, also
goes with solitude, too. And I think you need to
find a strategy for prayer. Bob Buford taught me ACTS as a strategy for prayer. You start off with Adoration, A, which is praise the Lord,
you're unbelievable. I mean, just drivin' up
here and lookin' around on this campus, I go, "Wow,
this is really somethin'. "Look at those flowers
out there, look at that. "Look at what incredible
creatures we are, wow. "Praise you, you're the best." Then C is Confession, which is, what did you do yesterday that you wish you could have re-done. We all goof periodically, you know. And fess up, He already knows it, I mean Adam and Eve hidin' in the bushes, that's ridiculous, I mean He already knows what you did. So fess up, He likes to hear it from you, and say, "I'd like to do it a
little bit better tomorrow." And then T stands for Thanksgiving, have an attitude of gratitude. What are you thankful for today? And then S is Supplication,
which a lot of people start with, which is your to-do list. And there's nothing wrong
with asking for what you want. He might not give it to
you in your time table, but you'll eventually get it. 'Cause he says, "seek and you will find. "Pray, and I'll take care of it." And so, those are, solitude and prayer, and then the third one that's so powerful is study of scriptures. One of the things I got a big kick out of when I first read the Bible, when Satan was tempting Jesus, he coulda said, "Ah, get outta here, "you know, I mean I'm
at least number two." But what did he do, every time he said, "It is written." I mean he really knew the Bible. And you need to memorize some verses, so that they're really key to you, 'cause sometimes somethin's gonna happen and you can't say, "There's
gotta be a Bible around here "somewheres." You know, Bob Buford
who I mentioned earlier, his son Ross went off
with a couple of buddies, and camped along the Rio
Grande River in January and they got this stupid idea of "wouldn't it be interesting to see "what it would be like
to be an illegal alien" and swim across the river,
the Rio Grande River and only one of them made it, and it wasn't Ross. And Bob got a call that Ross was missing and he got everything
that money could buy, he got helicopters and
trackers and dogs and all. That afternoon, he's
on a cliff overlooking the Rio Grande where with an old tracker who'd been tracking the
illegal aliens for 30 years, and he said, "What's the chances I'll
ever see my son again?" And he said, "Less than 50-50." And Bob realized this
is somethin' he couldn't buy his way out, he
couldn't think his way out, he couldn't plan his way out. And he was about ready to jump off that, 'cause Ross was his only kid. He just loved that kid,
they were like brothers. And all of a sudden he remembered, Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in God with all your heart, "and lean not in your own understanding." 'Cause it doesn't make any
sense to lose a 23 year old kid and all, and remembering that voice, he said, "Okay, Lord I'm
gonna trust ya, I lost "maybe 30 years with Ross,
but what's that compared "with eternity, and there's
good things to be done." And his life has taken off
in terms of his service ever since Ross's death. But that Bible quote
was really so important. Norman Vincent Peale, his
three favorite Bible quotes I read and think about every morning, which is "If God before you,
who could be against you," I mean if you just look,
somebody's giving you a hard time, you say, come on, get out of
here, look who's on my side. Get a life, you know. And then another one is, "I can do all things "through Christ who strengthens me." And the last one is, "What's impossible "for man is possible with God." I mean those are pretty
powerful starters of the day. Okay. Hello. And so, you know, study scripture, it's good stuff. (laughing) It's a pretty amazing book. And there's two other habits that's worth thinking about. One is, Jesus had a small group that he could be more vulnerable with. He had John and James and Peter. Do you have a small group
that can be honest with you, and you can be more vulnerable. I think that's important. Who are the truth tellers in your life? That's important. And then finally, the last one that we add as a habit, is he trusted
the unconditional love of his father. I mean even in the garden, he said, "Can you take this thing off my back, "I mean I'm not sure I want this deal. "But thy will be done," you know. And just trusted his father completely, and I think that's just so important. So, that's what leading like
Jesus is really all about. It's about looking in your heart. Are you here to serve or be served, and understanding in your head about vision and direction and implementation, about the leadership part
and then the servant part, and realizing to really make
it in your behavior you gotta be a servant, where you
realize it's not about you, it's about the people you're serving. You gotta be a steward,
you don't own anything. It's all on loan, how are you stewarding what's on loan to you. And the shepherd, every
human being is important. And then habits of solitude, prayer, study of scripture, small
accountability group and trusting the unconditional
love of the Lord. And I'll just tell you
one last story and then, and all, but I mentioned John Ortberg, and the key thing, I
think in getting, living, leading and loving like
Jesus is to get back to that your self worth is
not a function out there. See that's edging God out,
is everything good outside. And a lot of people think
that their self worth is tied up in how much money they make, how much recognition they
get for their efforts and how much power and status. Let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with making good money. There's nothing wrong
with having recognition for you effort, there's
nothing wrong with power. See it's, what's wrong
is when you think that's who you are, then the only way you can
maintain your self worth is to get more of 'em. I mean, why do some of
these CEOs wanna take huge 20 million dollar
bonuses when they lay off thousands of people? Because they keep score by
how much money they make, and they miss significance. And significance, the opposite
of accumulation of wealth is generosity. You have time, talent, treasure, and I like to add touch as a fourth one. What's the opposite of
recognition, service. And the opposite of power and
status is loving relationships and John tells a wonderful
story about his grandmother in that book at the end of the game. And she was a great Monopoly player, any of you ever play Monopoly? He said his grandmother was
a vicious Monopoly player. And at the end of the game, she always had everything, she had Park
Place, she had Broadway, and he just had nothing,
and she would get this great grin on her face, and she'd say, "John, some
day you're gonna learn "how to play the game." And one summer, a kid
moved next door when he was 12 or 13, that was an incredible Monopoly player. So John practiced every day all summer, 'cause he knew his grandmother was comin' in September. And when grandma came,
he ran outta the house, gave her a hug and a kiss, and he said, "Grandma, how 'bout a Monopoly game," and her eyes went like,
"Well let's go, John," she was excited. But he was ready for her
this time, and he came out of the chute, and he
wiped his grandmother out. At the end of the game, he had
everything, she had nothing. He said it was the
greatest day of his life! (audience laughing) And his grandmother said,
"John, now that you know "how to play the game, let me teach you "a lesson about life." "He said, what's that?" "It all goes back in the box." He said, "What, everything you bought, "everything you accumulated, it all goes "back in the box." So you can push and
shove for money in life, you can push and shove
for recognition and power. When you die, baby, it
all goes back in the box. The only thing you get
to keep is your soul, and that's where you store who you love and who loves you. I love Ghost, that movie
with Patrick Swayze, you know, it came back 'cause he died but, story about a guy who's
a financial adviser gets killed by his supposed
friend, and he gets to stay on earth as a ghost to talk to Whoopi Goldberg. Now the religious, to talk
to Molly, his girlfriend, and he gets to talk to her
through Whoopi Goldberg, who plays this kind of
character who can talk to people and all that, I know the
religious right doesn't like this kind of stuff
but, that's their problem, they don't have a sense
of humor about anything. And but, at the end of the
film, he's avenged his death and three of them are in the
top of Molly's apartment, see, Sam and Molly and Odame. And all of a sudden, this
white light comes towards them. And Sam looks at Odame and says, "Your Momma would have been proud of ya," and then he stands in front of Molly. If you saw the movie, he
never told Molly he loved her. She'd say, "Sam, I love
you," and what would he say? "Ditto." And now, with tears comin'
down his eyes he says, "Molly, I love you,
I've always loved you," and she's crying and she says, "Ditto." And then he turns to face the light, and he stops one last time,
and he turns to Molly, and he says, "Molly, the
remarkable thing about this "is you can take the love with you." And that's all you're
taking out of this world. And so, servant leadership
is all about love. It's about caring for people
and making a difference in their lives, and it's not about you. But my mother always said,
"Ken, don't do good for other "people to get something back. "But if you do good,
you're gonna be amazed "how much comes back." So with that, God bless. (audience applause) - Alright, so the first
question from Danielle, "How can those of us going into "entry level business "begin to practice servant leadership?" - Well, you know, I
think one of the things when you go into, as an entry is, who can you serve around you? And sometimes it might
be your boss, you know, a lot of times people
come to seminars I do and they say, "The wrong people are here," and I say, "Who should be there?" And they all look up. And I say, "Who's that," you know. And they're always
blaming people up there, but you know, it's kinda lonely up there, and maybe they need
somebody who sends a little love and care to them and so even though you're
"not in a position," but if you keep on saying
to people, "How can I help, "how can I serve," they're gonna start to look at you as a
different kind of person, you know, it's not about you, but is there any way I can help, you know and all. People will just be blown away. So, start that way and you'll be amazed how you get up the
hierarchy and then maybe you can be different up there. - Ken, we have Rebecca asking a question. If you could go back and
do something differently, or more, what would it be? - If I could go back and
do something differently? Well, I, I probably would have
coached basketball maybe, I don't know. (chuckling) (audience laughing) I look back at my life,
and I think God probly had a plan for it, and so I'm not sure I'd
do anything different, 'cause I think he had a plan for it. It was interesting, I was
on a program in Hawaii where the gal who the
shark bit her arm off, a wonderful movie, if you haven't seen it, called, Soul Surfer. And they asked her, do you
wish you hadn't have surfed that day? She said, "Absolutely not." She said, "When I look at
the good I've been able to do "and how I've been able to help people "through my mishap," she said, "I wouldn't substitute it for the world," and so I can't think of
anything I probably would have done differently, I'm fortunate I married way above myself, and Margie's over talking to a group. We're gonna be married 50 years in June, so that's a pretty good deal. (audience applauding) - Okay, from a, we got
you from all sides, here. So from Katie. "What do you do when you
experience the pressure "to be more aggressive "in your leadership style and business? "What do you do?" - Well, I think you need to
go outside and take a walk. (chuckling) I think what happens is
that people get caught in pressure, and they don't
realize that they don't have to do something
about that right away. I ran into one President, he was amazing. He would call people in to solve a problem that had been identified. And after they identified
the problem, he said, "Okay, we're gonna move to a solution, "but before we do that, I
want you to go off by yourself "for half an hour and no
phones, nothing to read, "nothing to do, and I want
you to just sit quietly "and look for the answer within." And he couldn't believe the
clarity of thinking that came when people took a moment, you
know, when you feel pressure, it's really interesting, I
guess the most powerful learning I've had is, I was on a program with Erwin Mcmanis, who
has a wonderful church in LA called The Mosaic and his congregation is
predominantly druggies, alcoholics, prostitutes. And he said, one of the problems,
he thinks with Christians is that when we deal with
non-Christians we want to pull the Hell card right away. We want to say, "If you don't sign up, "you're going to go to hell." And he said, "My congregation
isn't too excited about "eternal life, because why
do want more of something "that's not working." So he said, "I pull the
abundant life card." And I said, "What is abundant life about?" He said, "Jesus said, abundant
life is about peace, joy, "and righteousness." He said, "Any time you
don't feel peaceful," which is when you feel under stress, or joyful, or righteous,
"you've detached yourself "from the vine." John 15, and you're goin' it by yourself, and just reach your hand
out, and ask the Lord for forgiveness, there I go by myself, I need you Lord, and I want to tell you, that
has been such a powerful thing for me, 'cause when I got
the call about our house, I was down in Florida, and
I got up early and I got a voicemail from my son about the fire and the whole thing and
I'm sitting on the couch, and I'm not feeling
very joyful or peaceful or righteous, and all of
a sudden I caught myself, and I said, "Lord, there I go, "trying to figure this out by myself, "I can't do it all by myself, I need you." And what was amazing is my son said, "Dad, Mad and I and the kids "had to evacuate and we
were down in the main road "and we're lookin' up and
there's flames comin' out of "our house, and I think
yours is gone, too," 'cause he was in our neighborhood. And when I told Margie,
'cause she was up at Orlando on a conference
and I was in Naples, down playing golf with some old friends. Margie said, "You know
what I feel worse about, "Is Scott and Mad's house,
'cause they had spent "nine months re-doing this
house and moving four kids "into it and all and it
was so full of love," and she said, "Do you think
it's wrong that I pray, "if God has to take a
house, he'll take ours, "not theirs." And three people had reported
Scott's house was gone including a policeman. The next day, I'm comin'
back from the golf course, 'cause they said we couldn't go home, and there's a call from Scott. "Dad, you won't believe it. "I'm standing in our living room, "and the house is saved. "The front mat was burned, "towels in the back porch was burned. "All the houses around 'em burned, "and our house stands." And I started to cry and laugh. I said, "Scott, that was our prayer." And I think that was because of that whole thing of
just gettin' back in touch with the vine and all. Because you can't feel stress if you're attached to the vine, 'cause the Lord said, "I
will never leave you," but you gotta not leave
him in the process. - Matthew's asking the questions. "What were the challenges
in bringing Lead Like Jesus "to life?" - Well, I think the biggest
challenge is churches. (chuckling)
You know, because everybody thinks that they've
got their own program, you know, and they think
somehow, I'm trying to sell Ken Blanchard. I'm trying to sell Jesus. Our headquarters for Lead Like Jesus is in Augusta, Georgia, because they have a good golf course down there (laughing) and the south is much more (mumbles), but I didn't want people
thinkin' I was tryin' to make money on Jesus. But, it's getting people to
give up old ways of thinking, and all and accept it, and say, wow, this oughta be. See this, what I taught you about today, and we have this in a two day encounter, we have a workbook and all, should be fundamental in every faith-based University and thing, and then you can teach all
kinds of courses above it, but this is the foundation,
Jesus is the foundation. But, we're gettin' much more
reception around the world, 'cause this country, you
know, we don't have any values anymore, and we
have 30 trainers in India. We just started a Lead Like
Jesus society in India, they're goin' crazy in India. We got money, we got
Lead Like Jesus material translated into four
major Indian dialects. We trained 2,000 people
in Uganda in October and some of the trainers
that who we train there to take the message went to Kenya, and they're now training people in Kenya, and I had breakfast the other day with a top guy from Uganda,
where they had all that genocide, and he said, "We
gotta bring in Lead Like Jesus "to Uganda." And so, I'm saying, "Okay, God," you know, "you're just taking it." So, we're patient in terms of how we can get it involved
in places like this and divinity schools and other places, 'cause this is where the action is, this is what we need. Jesus said you will be
known as my disciples by how you love each other. And leading like Jesus
is about living, leading, and loving like him. - "Has anyone ever tried to take advantage "of you because of your leadership style, "or have you ever had anyone confront you "because they totally disagreed
with servant leadership?" - Well, that happens
periodically, you know, people will wonder what
your intentions are, what are you trying to do, because they don't understand it, and I just tell 'em "be patient, "and just watch," 'cause
it's the way we operate, Margie and I. We have 320 people in
our company, and we have on office in Toronto and
London and Singapore. And in 2009, we had projected 60 million in sales and we knew by February, if
we did 48 we would be lucky. And so every quarter, we
bring everybody in our company together, and the
people overseas come online and all in the first thing
our President always does is share the balance sheet with 'em. And talks about how are we
doing on our loans and all. Why do we want them to know all that, because they're our partners, and we have a gain sharing program, we have a giveback program,
and they really care, and we say, "We need your help." And the next month, we
were gonna celebrate our 30th anniversary at Hotel Del
Coronado, two days of parties. We took the first day and
brought an outside group, broke our 350 people that showed up around the world into small
groups of six and eight. Half of the groups said,
"How can we cut costs," half of the group, "How
can we increase revenue?" And the suggestions that
came back were unbelievable, from our people. "Let's cut our salaries, "let's stop matching 401k. "Why don't we just stop raises now, "why don't we do this," 'cause we want our colleagues to be here, we want all pitch in, and I think that that's just part of the whole thing, when people know that you're there to
serve, not to be served. We took the biggest cut of anybody. Our family, and all just to say, "Hey, look what you've done." And we did 48 at the end
of that year and didn't lose one person. And as it's come back,
we've been able to give everything back to everybody, but, it's just amazing and
some people new come in and they just say, "Is this
really true what they do here?" "Yeah, it's true." And we don't tell everybody
we're leading like Jesus, we just try to do it, and then let them figure it out. But, it's pretty powerful. - Ken, one of our students from China, Ying-ing asks the question,
"What advice would you give "to someone going into
the leadership position "for the first time?" - Well, I think the biggest thing about being in a leadership
position for the first time, is to not be fearful that
you have to know everything. First thing I would say to them is, "I bet you're surprised that I
got this leadership position, "and you know what, so am I. "And I want to tell ya, "I'm really here to help
us all win, and I need you. "And I really would you
all to kind of help, "because I don't know all the
ins and outs of things here "and you all do. "And, if we can do this together, "it'd really be amazing." I mean, my son went to the
Hotel School at Cornell and his first job was as a kitchen manager at the Hotel Del, and at one of the shifts and all these guys had been
around, they were all older than him, you know. And he got 'em all together and I had tutored him and he said, "You're really surprised I'm here," and they said, "You better believe it, "how'd you get this job." And he said, "Yeah, I think it's true, "but, you know, we're
in this thing together. "They might have given me a position, but, "I need you, we gotta do this together. "I need your help, you
know Alex, can you help? "You know about this thing," and he says, "You don't worry about it,
I'll take care of that," and all people want to
know is that you know that they know, and the biggest problem
with leaders is when they act like all the
brains is in their office. And they're not. None of us is as smart as all of us. And just remember that. - Okay, so if you're not in Darrell's management class, and you have a question, put your hand up and we'll find ya. - Hi. What do you wish that pastors would learn from the business leaders
in their congregations? - Well, you know what's
interesting is I think that you both could learn from each other, and I think a lot of pastors
are afraid of successful businessmen and they want to
put 'em in the parking lot, you know, parking cars. No, they can really teach you. 'Cause you're runnin' a business. Get them on your advisory board, you know, you don't have to have
all pastors in your board, they don't know anything
about money, either. And say, "You know, I
really need your help." And what you can do is
help them take their faith into the workplace, so
you create a partnership. We need each other. I think that's just
offering, saying, "Wow, "I'm just blown away by
some of the experience here "and I'd love to find somebody
that'd be willing to help "us, 'cause you know, we
are runnin' a business here "and I want to be able to make sure we "balance the budget and
do all kinds of things." But then you can end up helping them, too. I think it needs to be a partnership. And I've, Northern California,
there's a Need Association that brings pastors and
businessmen together once a month for lunch
and they share different things with each other, I
think that's a neat idea. - Someone else, anyone
else with a question that's not in Darrell's class? Going once. Okay, good. - Even our Lord had a Judas. How do you deal with the Judas with love and when do you know when to say when? - Well, you know, I asked
that to Colleen, you know, because there's also tough love, and she's had to have
some really good friends that she's had to sit with
and say, "I love you dearly, "but it's just not working out. "We've done everything we can "to get you into the culture "and what we're going to have to do "is share you with the competition." And I think that we often
avoid the conversation with somebody who is disruptive. If you let somebody who's
disruptive continue to operate, you'll undermine everything
you're trying to do. And I tell ya, it's really interesting. We fired our number one salesman about eight years ago. I want to tell you, that made
a difference in our company and everybody. He was a great salesman,
but he wasn't operating according to our values, and he was sabotaging things in the culture and I brought him close to me to work with me for a while to see if I
could do something with him but, finally we just realized and we let him go, and
people went, "Woah, I guess "they're really serious about this," because there's two aspects to this. It's performance and match of the culture, and if you have a high performer who's sabotaging your culture, you're gonna lose your culture, and so they just need
to go somewheres else and Colleen's said, it's just amazing that she's never lost a friend in these things, in fact they really have
learned and even some have come back and said,
"You know, I really get "what it is." 'Cause some people just have some ego issues that go way back in families and you can't do it, you know, you can't be a therapist, and so you do the best
you can, and then you sort of say, I think
we oughta part company. - Let's everybody give Ken a big thank you very much, first of all. (audience applause) - [Voiceover] Biola
University offers a variety of biblically-centered degree programs, ranging from business to ministry to the arts and sciences. Visit Biola.edu, to find
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