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Welcome to the Deep Dive.

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We're here to pull out key ideas from really compelling sources.

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And today we're looking at leadership.

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This is transformation, really.

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Exactly.

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Think about this.

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It's 2012.

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Hubert Jolie gets this call.

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Maybe you should be CEO of Best Buy.

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Right, and Best Buy was, well, it was in deep trouble.

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Totally.

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Facing Amazon,

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looking like it might just disappear,

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Jolly's first thought,

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he actually said,

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Jim,

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you're crazy.

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Yeah, you can imagine.

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But he took it.

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He did.

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And what happened next was,

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honestly,

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one of the biggest turnarounds we've seen in business lately.

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Definitely.

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So our source today is extracts from Jolly's book, The Heart of Business.

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Great title.

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It really is.

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And it includes a foreword from Bill George, too.

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Mm-hmm.

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So our mission here is basically to unpack Jolly's insights,

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you know,

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give you a shortcut to this idea of putting people,

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humanity at the center of work and leadership.

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And explore why maybe the old ways aren't cutting it anymore and how this focus on

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purpose can create,

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well,

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what Jolly calls human magic.

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OK, let's start with the problem.

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What did Jolly actually walk into?

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He talks about going mystery shopping in 2012.

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Yeah, and it wasn't pretty.

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He found employees just kind of hanging out, chatting, not really paying attention to customers.

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And he even got charged, what was it, $18 for a simple screen protector install?

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$8, $10, yeah.

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It really showed a company that had lost its way, you know.

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But this wasn't just Best Buy, right?

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The sources say this is bigger.

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Oh, much bigger.

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It's framed as a global epidemic of disengagement.

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the cost, something like seven trillion dollars in lost productivity globally.

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Wow.

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Seven trillion dollars.

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Yeah.

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Most people just feeling meh about work, just getting by.

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Jalee even admits his own teenage jobs, you know, assistant mechanic sticking labels on cans.

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Right.

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He was basically a slacker,

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his word,

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because the work just felt pointless,

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a means to an end,

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no purpose.

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That really paints a picture.

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But think about the opposite.

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What if people were engaged?

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Well, the numbers are pretty stark.

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Studies show highly engaged teams are like 17 percent more productive.

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OK.

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21 percent more profitable.

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People are 12 times less likely to quit.

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It's huge.

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And even 25, 50 percent less likely to get injured on the job.

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It's massive.

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So why is there so much disengagement?

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Is it just bad jobs?

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Well, partly it's this historical view, isn't it?

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Work is a burden, a curse almost.

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Mark Twain said work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

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Right.

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I've heard that.

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And you see it in ancient myths like Sisyphus or even the word travail in French

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coming from a word for a torture device.

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Ouch.

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Okay, so that's the cultural baggage, but then there's the business side.

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Exactly.

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For decades, the dominant idea pushed hard by Milton Friedman was simple.

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The only job of a business is to make money for shareholders, maximize profit, full stop.

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That idea was everywhere.

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Still is in many places.

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It is.

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But Jolly argues,

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and the source really digs into this,

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that this view is fundamentally wrong,

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dangerous,

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and ill-suited to today's environment.

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Okay, why?

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What are the big problems with it?

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Well, first, it ignores externalities.

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You know,

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the costs businesses push onto society,

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pollution,

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waste that they don't actually pay for on their balance sheet.

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Right, the hidden costs.

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Then there's the accounting itself.

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July saw this firsthand as a CFO.

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Accounting rules can be, let's say, conveniently applied.

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They don't always show the real economic picture.

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OK, so the numbers can be misleading.

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And crucially, focusing only on profit is dangerous.

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It treats profit as the goal, not the outcome.

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Ah, like focusing on the symptom, not the underlying health.

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Precisely.

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Look at Best Buy before July 2009-2012.

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They cut costs, slowed spending on stores, underinvested online to prop up short-term profits.

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And the results.

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Dusty stores and poor customer service.

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It hurt them badly in the long run.

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It also stifles innovation.

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A Stanford study found innovation drops 40% after companies go public because of

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market pressure for quarterly results.

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That's significant.

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And society's catching on.

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Younger generations are looking at inequality,

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environmental issues and feeling pretty disillusioned with that old model of

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capitalism.

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You see in surveys employee actions like that Amazon walkout in 2019.

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Right.

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Demanding climate action.

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Exactly.

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And it's not just activists.

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Customers expect more.

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Employees expect more.

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Even big investors like Larry Fink at BlackRock are saying companies need a social purpose.

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The whole ESG investing boom reflects that too, right?

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Environmental, social governance.

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Huge growth from like $23 trillion to over $30 trillion in just two years.

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The expectations have fundamentally shifted.

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So this sets the stage for Jolie's big realization, his aha moment.

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Yes.

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It happened way back in 1993.

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He's at dinner with Jean-Marie Descarpentries, CEO of Honeywell Bowl.

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Yeah, okay.

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And Descarpentries just drops this bomb on him.

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Remember, Jolly's steeped in that profit-first world.

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He says, the purpose of a corporation is not to make money.

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Wow.

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That must have hit him.

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Totally.

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Descarpentries explained his model.

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It's people first, them business.

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Yeah.

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Then finance.

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Invest in your people, help them excel.

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That leads to great business performance,

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delighting customers,

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and that leads to strong financial results.

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Profit is the outcome, the results.

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Not the starting point.

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Exactly.

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It's an outcome and an imperative.

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You need profit to fulfill the mission, but it's not the why.

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That really stuck with Jolie.

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It felt much more inspiring.

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So how did Jolie build on that?

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What's this new model look like?

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He talks about creating purposeful human organizations.

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And right at the top, there's a noble purpose.

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He borrows that term from Lisa Earl MacLeod.

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A noble purpose.

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What does that mean practically?

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It's the positive impact the company aims to have on the world.

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And it's not just a slogan.

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It has to be baked into everything the company does.

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OK.

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And the idea is employees connect with this purpose.

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It energizes them.

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And that purpose then shapes how the company relates to everyone.

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Customers, suppliers, communities, shareholders.

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It connects everyone.

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Yes, Jolie calls it a declaration of interdependence.

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Profit is still vital, absolutely, but it's the fuel, the outcome that lets the purpose live.

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Let's bring it back to Best Buy then.

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He thought taking the CEO job was crazy because of Amazon and his lack of retail background.

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What changed his mind?

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It's fascinating.

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He didn't just look at spreadsheets.

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He went into the stores.

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He talked to the blue shirts, the frontline staff.

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Okay, boots on the ground.

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Yeah.

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And he quickly realized, you know what?

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Amazon isn't the real problem here.

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Our problems are self-inflicted.

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Like the bad service?

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Yeah.

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The disengaged staff he saw?

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Exactly.

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And that actually gave him hope.

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Because if the problems were internal...

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They could be fixed internally.

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Right.

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He saw it.

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Could be fixed.

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And look what happened.

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Yeah.

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The company everyone thought Amazon would kill not only survive,

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but actually started partnering with Amazon.

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Amazing.

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Yeah.

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So what was the noble purpose they landed on?

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It clearly wasn't just sell more stuff.

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No.

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They defined it as enriching lives through technology.

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Enriching lives through technology.

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OK.

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Jolie uses that great analogy.

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Two masons are working.

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You ask one what he's doing.

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He says, I'm cutting stone.

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You ask the other.

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He says, I'm building a cathedral.

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Ah, the bigger picture.

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Yeah.

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The purpose.

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That's it.

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That cathedral inspires people.

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It makes the work meaningful.

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It's the difference between Joel miserably labeling vegetable cans as a teen and

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somewhere like Wegmans where employees seem genuinely happy because they're rallied

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around helping families live better through food.

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So how did that purpose, enriching lives, actually change things on the ground at Best Buy?

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How did it impact customers?

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There are some powerful stories.

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Like Stanley, he'd had a lung transplant and was recovering at home.

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Best Buy has set him up with some in-home tech sensors, AI.

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A Best Buy care agent noticed the data showed Stanley wasn't eating enough.

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Wow, the system picked that up.

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Yeah.

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And the agent didn't just send an alert.

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They proactively reached out, organized help for Stanley.

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That's not selling a product.

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That's providing a solution, building a relationship.

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It's a huge shift.

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Huge.

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Or Anthony Wu, a blue shirt.

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A customer comes in.

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She's hearing impaired, needs headphones.

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Anthony really listens,

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understands her specific needs,

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and recommends the right pair for her,

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not necessarily the priciest.

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Creating a real connection.

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Exactly.

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An authentic human connection.

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It moves way beyond just a transaction.

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So it's about seeing customers as people, not just...

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Not just walking wallets, as Jolie puts it.

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Yeah.

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But it wasn't just customers.

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This approach extended to everyone.

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That idea from DeCarpentries again.

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It's not either.

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It's and.

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Precisely.

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So for Best Buy,

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it meant,

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yes,

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delight customers,

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train staff to be like an inspiring friend and partner with vendors.

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Instead of fighting everyone, especially the disruptors, collaborate.

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That's where the Samsung store within a store came from.

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Ah, I remember those.

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Then they did it with Microsoft, Sony, Apple, even Amazon.

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It showed you don't have to see business as a zero-sum game.

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Interesting.

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What else?

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And support communities.

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Best Buy got involved in social issues, supporting dreamers, joining climate packs.

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Okay, showing broader responsibility.

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And reward shareholders.

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But treat them like human beings, too, understanding they have different goals.

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Profit is essential.

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Jolly's clear on that.

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But it flows from doing the right things for people and the business strategy.

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And the results backed it up.

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Absolutely.

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Share price tripled.

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Earnings grew significantly under this human-centered approach.

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Okay, so this leads us nicely into Jolie's framework for making this happen.

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The five key ingredients for unleashing human magic.

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Yeah, this is the core of how you create that environment where people can really thrive.

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Ingredient one.

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Connecting dreams or purpose.

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There's a great story about a manager, Jason Luciano.

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Oh yeah, at the South Bay store.

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He asked every single person on his team, what is your dream?

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And wrote them on a whiteboard.

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Right there, for everyone to see.

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But he didn't stop there.

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A blue shirt's dream was independence.

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So Jason worked with her, created a promotion plan, helped her move up to supervisor.

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Wow, actively helping them achieve it.

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He connected her personal dream to her work at Best Buy.

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Jelly calls the energy this creates electricity, like in the movie Billy Elliot, that passion.

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Leaders need to feed that connection.

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Okay, powerful stuff.

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Ingredient, too.

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Developing human connections.

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This is huge.

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Think about Kami Scarlett, head of HR at Best Buy.

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What did she do?

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She wrote a blog post for the company about her own struggles with depression.

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Incredibly brave.

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Wow.

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That must have opened things up.

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It fostered openness, connection, shared humanity.

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Joy talks about initially being skeptical of that Gallup question,

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do you have a best friend at work?

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Yeah, it sounds a bit soft.

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Right.

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But he saw data at Carlson Company showing TGI Friday's restaurants with strong

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friendships performed way better.

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Connections matter.

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Belonging, feeling seen.

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I am seen, therefore I am.

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Exactly.

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Best Buy learned Black and African-American employees often felt invisible,

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so they started a reverse mentor program.

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Jolie got mentored.

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Yeah, by Laura Gladney, an African-American manager.

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He said it opened his eyes, led to real changes in hiring, like recruiting from HBCUs.

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So connection needs trust and vulnerability.

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Absolutely.

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Brene Brown calls vulnerability the glue.

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And trust takes time, keeping promises, being transparent.

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Think of Alan Mulally at Ford asking for Redamber Green status reports.

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Right, the turnaround there.

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When someone finally put up a red,

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signaling a big problem,

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Mulally applauded them and asked,

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how can we help?

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That built psychological safety instantly.

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Vulnerability isn't weakness.

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Like Marriott CEO Arne Sorensen's emotional video during the early days of COVID.

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Vulnerable, but also hopeful.

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Exactly.

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OK, third ingredient, fostering autonomy.

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Jolly mentions Maurice Grange's theory of the mayor.

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Yeah,

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the idea that if you carry your team like a mare carries its rider,

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they'll just lean on you and stop walking themselves.

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Huh.

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Good analogy.

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Yeah.

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It challenged Jolie's top-down training.

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Big time.

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He came from McKinsey, used to having the answers.

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Autonomy flops that.

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It boosts innovation, satisfaction, reduces stress.

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So how do you foster it?

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Key thing is pushing decision-making down as low as possible.

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Jolie loved it when Corey Berry, who later became CEO, made a big call on her own.

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Empowering people.

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Yes.

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Using tools like the RC model helps clarify who owns what.

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Jolie himself focused his own decisions on just four big areas,

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strategy,

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major investments,

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the exec team,

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and values.

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And letting others run with the rest.

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Pretty much.

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Amazon's disagree and commit idea is similar.

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And involving people, a participative process.

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Like those workshops for the Renew Blue plan.

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Exactly.

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Chonley learned his job wasn't to have answers, but to help the team find them.

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Adopting agile methods helps too, like U.S.

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Bank did.

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But autonomy isn't just letting everyone do whatever they want, is it?

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No, Chonley learned that too.

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He actually scrapped a results-only work environment early on at Best Buy because

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the company wasn't ready.

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Autonomy works best when people have both the skill and the motivation.

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The will.

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Makes sense.

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You need both.

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Right.

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He had to intervene at Blizzard once where skill was high, but people weren't collaborating.

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Will was maybe lower in that specific area.

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It needs balance.

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Okay.

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Ingredient four.

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Achieving mastery.

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How do you get people to strive for excellence continuously?

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Jolie uses the example of that high school football team,

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De La Salle Spartans,

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undefeated for 151 games.

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Incredible record.

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How?

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Their focus wasn't on winning or even perfection.

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It was on perfect effort, giving their absolute best on every single play.

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Perfect effort.

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I like that.

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Mastery, Jolie says, is about getting skilled through practice in something you enjoy.

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And a key part is focusing on effort, not just results.

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Like the tennis analogy.

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Focus on hitting the ball well, not winning the point.

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Exactly.

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Obsessing over the outcome can actually make you less effective.

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It's also about developing individuals, not a one size fits all approach.

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Like that manager Chris Schmidt in Denver.

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Yeah.

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He boosted sales associate revenue by 10% simply by coaching them individually

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based on their specific data,

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their strengths and weaknesses,

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not just generic training.

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coaching not just training big difference and it involves rethinking performance

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reviews Jolie is critical of those old-school top-down ranking systems like GE's

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rank and yeah the bottom 10% getting fired he prefers something like Benjamin

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Zanders idea of giving students an A at the start of the course asking them to

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write about how they'll achieve it it unlocks potential so Best Buy change their

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reviews

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They moved to employee-led quarterly conversations about development,

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more forward-looking,

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and crucially,

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making space for failure.

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The get-out-of-jail-free cards.

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Yeah.

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Huh?

(00:14:46):
Yeah.

(00:14:46):
For senior leaders, encouraging smart risks, calculated reversible gambles.

(00:14:52):
Because you learn from failure.

(00:14:54):
The first pilot for in-home advisors failed.

(00:14:57):
Online price matching was a gamble.

(00:14:59):
As Bezos says, failure and invention are inseparable twins.

(00:15:02):
Exactly.

(00:15:03):
You need to allow for it to get innovation.

(00:15:05):
Okay.

(00:15:06):
Final ingredient number five, putting the wind at your back, which means growth.

(00:15:10):
Right.

(00:15:11):
Remember how Best Buy initially blamed headwinds Amazon online shopping?

(00:15:15):
Yeah, the external factors.

(00:15:17):
Yoli actually asked Tim Cook at Apple and Jeff Bezos at Amazon,

(00:15:20):
how's the wind where you were sailing?

(00:15:22):
What did they say?

(00:15:23):
Both said great, which made Yoli think.

(00:15:25):
Maybe the problem isn't the wind.

(00:15:26):
Maybe it's us.

(00:15:27):
Exactly.

(00:15:28):
Then we probably were the problem, he said.

(00:15:30):
Growth isn't just nice to have.

(00:15:32):
It's an imperative.

(00:15:33):
It creates energy, opportunity, allows for investment.

(00:15:36):
So how do you create that tailwind?

(00:15:38):
First, think possibilities.

(00:15:40):
Don't limit your view.

(00:15:41):
Best Buy's growth chief, Ashish Saxena, redefined their market.

(00:15:45):
Not just selling hardware,

(00:15:47):
$250 billion market,

(00:15:48):
but total tech spending,

(00:15:50):
including services over a trillion dollars.

(00:15:53):
Wow, changes the whole game.

(00:15:55):
A blue ocean strategy.

(00:15:56):
Finding that uncontested space.

(00:15:58):
It also helps to set BHA's big,

(00:16:01):
hairy,

(00:16:01):
audacious goals,

(00:16:02):
like aiming for thousands of in-home advisors.

(00:16:05):
But you balance that ambition with starting small, testing, scaling.

(00:16:09):
Ambitious, but pragmatic.

(00:16:10):
And finally, turning challenges into advantages.

(00:16:13):
COVID was a huge challenge,

(00:16:15):
but look how companies adapted digital conferences,

(00:16:18):
virtual shopping.

(00:16:19):
Challenges force innovation.

(00:16:21):
As Cardinal Newman said, growth is the only evidence of life.

(00:16:24):
A wonderful quote.

(00:16:25):
So we've got the model, the ingredients, but what about the leader themselves?

(00:16:28):
Let's talk about the purposeful leader.

(00:16:30):
Jolie tackles some myths he grew up with.

(00:16:32):
Yeah, three big ones.

(00:16:34):
One, leaders are superheroes, infallible geniuses.

(00:16:37):
Think Jack Welch at GE.

(00:16:39):
The celebrity CEO.

(00:16:40):
Right, but that's dangerous.

(00:16:41):
They can start believing their own hype, get disconnected.

(00:16:44):
Jolie admits a job he took at Vivendi was pointless, driven purely by his own ambition.

(00:16:49):
Okay, so myth one.

(00:16:50):
Yeah.

(00:16:51):
Busted, what's two?

(00:16:52):
Two, leadership is innate.

(00:16:53):
You're either born with it or you're not.

(00:16:56):
A common belief.

(00:16:57):
But totally wrong, Jolie argues.

(00:16:59):
Even Lloyd Blankfing,

(00:17:00):
CEO of Golden Sacks,

(00:17:01):
admitted feeling daily self-doubt,

(00:17:03):
like,

(00:17:04):
is today the day they figure out I'm not up to this?

(00:17:07):
Wow.

(00:17:08):
That's relatable.

(00:17:09):
And Jolie's own journey proves it.

(00:17:11):
He changed.

(00:17:11):
He wasn't born a compassionate, people-first leader.

(00:17:14):
He evolved, which busts myth three, people can't change.

(00:17:19):
His whole story contradicts that.

(00:17:20):
Absolutely.

(00:17:21):
So the big lesson Jolie took is be aware and be aware of what drives you.

(00:17:25):
Ego is a trap.

(00:17:26):
He actively tried to manage his own ego.

(00:17:28):
Yeah.

(00:17:29):
Like no magazine covers, flying commercial.

(00:17:31):
Yeah.

(00:17:31):
Staying grounded and aiming to be dispensable,

(00:17:34):
which is why he handed over the CEO role to Corey Berry when the time was right.

(00:17:38):
He'd built something sustainable.

(00:17:39):
So if you're not a born superhero, what kind of leader should you be?

(00:17:42):
Jolie offers five B's.

(00:17:44):
These are powerful choices about who you want to be as a leader.

(00:17:47):
First, be clear about your purpose.

(00:17:49):
Connecting your personal why with the company's purpose.

(00:17:52):
Exactly.

(00:17:53):
What gives you energy?

(00:17:54):
How does it align?

(00:17:56):
Corey Berry's purpose leaves something a little better, fits Best Buy perfectly.

(00:18:01):
Remember Marilyn Carlson Nelson asking Jolie about his soul?

(00:18:04):
Right.

(00:18:04):
Digging deep.

(00:18:05):
Okay.

(00:18:06):
Second, B.

(00:18:07):
Be a thermostat, not a thermometer.

(00:18:09):
Don't just reflect the room's mood.

(00:18:11):
Set the temperature.

(00:18:12):
Control the climate.

(00:18:13):
Yes.

(00:18:14):
During that potential data breach,

(00:18:16):
Jolie consciously said an upbeat,

(00:18:18):
positive tone,

(00:18:19):
saw it as a leadership moment,

(00:18:21):
not just a crisis.

(00:18:22):
OK.

(00:18:22):
Third, be clear about whom you serve.

(00:18:26):
And spoiler, it's not your ego.

(00:18:29):
Right.

(00:18:29):
Serving others, your team, customers, the mission is how you lead effectively.

(00:18:33):
Marshall Goldsmith told Jolie to see everyone as a customer.

(00:18:36):
Don't be that executive stuck at the airport yelling, do you know who I am?

(00:18:39):
The ultimate ego trap.

(00:18:40):
Fourth B. Be driven by values.

(00:18:43):
Simple advice Jolie got, tell the truth and do what's right.

(00:18:46):
But values aren't just posters on the wall.

(00:18:48):
They have to be lived.

(00:18:49):
Absolutely.

(00:18:50):
Like Best Buy, closing stores during COVID for safety, even knowing the financial hit.

(00:18:55):
That's values in action.

(00:18:57):
It also means knowing when to leave if your values don't align,

(00:19:00):
as Jolie did earlier in his career.

(00:19:01):
And the fifth B. Be authentic.

(00:19:04):
Bring your whole self to work.

(00:19:06):
Be vulnerable.

(00:19:07):
Like Kami Scarlett's blog post or Jolie's emotional farewell email saying I love

(00:19:13):
you to his team.

(00:19:14):
Exactly that.

(00:19:15):
Admit what you don't know.

(00:19:16):
Brene Brown again.

(00:19:18):
Vulnerability is the core of connection and connection is the core of business.

(00:19:22):
Wow.

(00:19:23):
OK,

(00:19:23):
we have covered so much ground here from the problems with traditional business to

(00:19:28):
this human centered,

(00:19:29):
purpose driven model.

(00:19:30):
And those five ingredients of human magic, purpose, connection, autonomy, mastery and growth.

(00:19:36):
It's really about unleashing potential by putting people genuinely first.

(00:19:40):
And seeing profit as the result, not the sole driver.

(00:19:43):
So the big question for everyone listening, what does this all mean for you?

(00:19:47):
Jolly points out there's often a gap between knowing this stuff and actually doing it.

(00:19:50):
Right.

(00:19:50):
The understanding doing gap.

(00:19:52):
So if you're an individual, maybe ask, what really drives me?

(00:19:55):
What's my purpose?

(00:19:57):
How can I connect that to my work?

(00:19:59):
Build my own cathedral.

(00:20:00):
And if you're a leader or aspire to be, what kind of leader do you want to be?

(00:20:05):
How can you start fostering those five ingredients,

(00:20:08):
purpose,

(00:20:09):
connection,

(00:20:10):
autonomy,

(00:20:10):
mastery,

(00:20:11):
growth with your own team,

(00:20:13):
even small steps count?

(00:20:15):
And maybe we can leave you with this final thought from Jolie.

(00:20:18):
He says the whole idea of the born leader, the superhero, it's just a myth.

(00:20:22):
Mm-hmm.

(00:20:22):
What's real,

(00:20:23):
he says,

(00:20:24):
is getting feedback from a coach,

(00:20:26):
hearing a hard truth from a colleague,

(00:20:28):
or maybe learning something profound about life from a frontline employee totally

(00:20:31):
different from you.

(00:20:32):
It suggests leadership is learned, grown, developed through experience and connection.

(00:20:37):
Exactly.

(00:20:38):
So maybe this deep dive is an invocation for you to start or continue your own

(00:20:42):
transformation,

(00:20:43):
one grounded in the incredible power of people.

(00:20:50):
Distributors can benefit from the quick cash factoring can provide.

(00:20:54):
Contact Chris Lanus at Versant Funding to learn if your client is a factoring fit.