Preston Pysh  06:33

I think at the end of the day, if you’re in a position like Buffett and you’re a leader in business, you’re in the room making deals.  A lot of the times, to make great deals, it has to be a win-win situation. It has to be orchestrated with great social skills. I think that that’s what this book has taught Warren Buffet and also the course that he attended.

Now, when I was done with it, I remember just putting it down and thinking that was amazing. That was a great book. But now’s the hardest part of like implementing this stuff because reading it and agreeing with it is one thing, but then putting it into practice and executing this is a lot harder than it sounds, at least I think it is.

Now, as you try out these habits, and you keep doing this, that’s what it turns into as a habit. And it turns into just a way of life for a person. And that’s why I would tell people you’re going to read this book once, but you’ll definitely probably read it again because you’re going to try to remember and continue to implement these things as you go along.

07:30

So, let’s go ahead and dive in. We’ll just dissect it by part. So, the very first part he talks about his fundamental techniques in handling people. And to start, he provides this great story. He provides an awesome story about Al Capone and other criminals and their inability or unwillingness to blame themselves for anything that they had done wrong.

While most people are not criminals, and probably that part doesn’t relate to them. I think he uses this as an extreme example, to share their incapacity to criticize themselves and go through this self-improvement phase. And I think that he starts with this because this is so foundational to a person’s growth. If you’re not willing to accept responsibility for something that bad that happens to you, or you’re not really good at receiving criticism, you have to start there. You can’t even begin to touch some of these other subjects until that becomes a way of life for you.

So, I’ve mentioned it a few times on the show that I went to a military academy. I went to West Point and up there, you learn that lesson really, fast. Your whole first year is just… It’s quite humorous because there’s nothing you can do, right? You’re constantly being told all the different things that you do wrong and some of it is just ridiculous at times. But you come to an appreciation of this idea that you always look at yourself first before you place the blame anywhere else. Somebody might come up to me when I was in the hall as a freshman before and like, “Pysh, why did you do this?” And I’d be like, “No excuse, sir.” That’s the first response no matter what is no excuse, sir.

And then it’s “Your friend went out and did XYZ,” and you would go “Yes, sir, that is my fault.” Whether it is or is not, you just immediately have this opinion, this response that everything and anything is your responsibility. And when you have that beat into your head for an entire year straight, and the next three years were like that, too. But when you have that beat into your head, you start to view the world through a different lens of always taking responsibility for yourself. And I think that’s what he’s getting about in this first part of the book is you have to be of that mindset before you can even go anywhere else.

Stig Brodersen  09:44

Yeah, and they think it is a good point that you have about criticism because as soon as we start to criticize other people, as you’re saying, we are not taking full responsibility for ourselves. I think one of the problems, at least I know that from personal experience, but I also see this with my students, if something is not their fault, they just sit back and just stop criticizing. And that’s probably the worst thing you can do. And you might be thinking, “Well, it’s not my fault. Why should I take responsibility?”

But if you relate this to a work situation, basically, what I see is that there are three things you can do. If something goes wrong or something goes against you, first of all, you can change it. If that might not be possible, then you can change your job. That’s extreme, but you can do that. Or you probably should just accept it. So that’s the third option. And I think the whole acceptance instead of criticizing is probably one of the most valuable advice from this book, because once you start to accept things as they are, especially if you can change them, then you will probably also realize that they are not that big of a problem after all.

Preston Pysh  10:48

So, I read this article, and this was probably five to ten years ago, a long time ago and I keep searching for it on the net and I cannot find the reference for this article. But it had an enormous impact on the way I saw things. And in the article, it was written by a psychologist, *Mountain California, I can’t remember any of the names because this was a while ago.

But this psychologist was talking about that they dealt with these hardcore criminals, like guys that were just straight evil. And what was the common thread amongst these men that were locked up, that was just the evil as human beings that you could ever face. And you know what the common theme or the thread was between all of them? None of them had any empathy at all for other people. They could not step outside of their way of seeing things and try to understand life from another person’s perspective. That was the common thread that this psychologist came up with.

And you know, ever since I read that, I was like, “Huh, so let me just flip that on its head. You know, let me do the Charlie Munger here and invert. So, if I become a very empathetic person. And I try to always understand things from the other person’s perspective instead of my own, wouldn’t that make me just an exceptional person instead of a person that needs to be behind bars and the evilest person on the planet?”

And so, I just inverted that and I think about this article I read so much because it has such a profound idea of empathy and trying to understand things from another person’s perspective. So, let me take this a step further. So, there are these studies that, I know we’re getting off the topic here of the book, but a lot of this stuff relates to the book.

12:32

So, there’s a test that they do for intelligence on animals. It’s called the mirror test. And they say that you can judge an animal’s intelligence by their ability to recognize themselves in the mirror. So, like a dolphin can recognize itself in a mirror. Some pets can, it depends on the animal, but all those animals that can recognize themselves in the mirror, they can recognize oneself in the world. They are a higher and more intellectual being.

So, when you think about that step of “I don’t even know who I am. I know who I am. Not only do I know who I am, but I understand that other person too. And I understand what they’re thinking about. And I can feel and understand the context and how they see the world too.” So, you can see that progress of intelligence. And so, what I think, whenever I think about an intelligent person, a person that is an empathetic and a person who can see things from the context of multiple people. Call it 5 or 10 people’s opinions, and a person sitting over there and say, “I can empathize with that person. I can see why maybe they’re upset.” In my opinion, that’s a very, very intelligent person, because they’re seeing the world from just such a broader context.

But I know we went off tangent there. I think it does relate to some of the stuff we’re going to be talking as we move along. So, let’s keep on moving.

In the second section of part one, he talks about this big secret, and this big secret is there is only one way to get somebody to do something. And he says it makes the person want to do it.

Stig Brodersen  14:02

And I think, Preston, in continuation of what you just said, the whole concept of appreciating other people is something you should pay attention to. And if we’re going to flip this, I might also ask you, so could you give me a reason why you shouldn’t appreciate it when other people do something good? Like, I could challenge everyone in the world and I hope no one could come up with an answer, right? Because why shouldn’t you tell other people that what they were doing is good, and I don’t think you can do it too much? Well, I have to say it has to be sincere like you shouldn’t flatter, but you should be able to give sincere appreciation to other people. And I can’t see any downside for doing it. And if I had to relate to what you said, Preston, before, is that it is one of the leaders’ best ways of motivating people because money will only take you this far. And basically, it doesn’t have to be related to business. It’s also relevant in all types of relationships.

Preston Pysh  14:53

Well, I think it’s a function of like genuine, real gratitude. And I think to have genuine, real gratitude, you have to be a person that sees things from a context that’s outside of your domain. You have to see it from the other person’s vantage point.

So, let’s say you have a subordinate and they just completed something that was a lot of work for them. If the superior can’t step out of his skin and see things from that subordinates’ point of view, as far as them working hard and all everything that they had to do to do that, how can they have any type of gratitude towards their work or true, genuine appreciation for it?

And so, I think it goes back to that underlying theme. I think that’s why he starts off the book, the way he did, is because it has such a layering effect. If you can’t see things from outside that perspective, you’re not going to be able to have that gratitude or appreciation and respect for the other people as you move forward.

15:48

And then the last thing that he talks about in this section is this desire to feel like you have importance in the world. So, he makes the statement that everybody on this Earth right now has this desire to feel some type of importance. You know, whenever you just look at Stig and me, like we get our level of importance through doing like this show right here. Like, I feel important because I do this show and I’m able to help people with finance or investing or whatever. That’s where I get my desire because I have that same desire.

I’m sure that if you are driving down your car, you’re in your car right now. And you’re thinking, “Yeah, I agree with that.” What is that thing for you though? There’s something out there that you need to feel like you’re important for something and you know what? When a person stops feeling like they’re important, that’s when they go into this deep depression type state because they don’t feel like they have anything to add to the world.

And so, understanding that idea and that concept, it’s amazing how much you can do to help out other people by making them feel important and in a genuine way. Not doing it just totally fake but you have to do it genuinely because when you do that that’s the core fundamental thing here. Everybody should be able to feel important about something. And when you go after that, and you try to assist that desire in another person, it’s amazing what you’ll get in return.

17:14

Okay, so let’s go ahead and move into the second part of the book. In the second part of the book, he has six principles on how to make people like you. So, I’m sure a lot of people want to hear some of these.

Okay, so principle one: become genuinely interested in other people. So, he talks about, I think one of the most important things that you can do is just listen to a person. When you listen to a person and you just sit down, and you can tell that the person that’s talking to you, you can tell that you have a genuine interest in what they’re talking about. You’re not sitting there on your smartphone, like typing a message as they’re talking, okay? That’s not a genuine interest in what the person is saying. This is like, I’m going to put the cell phone down. I’m not going to look or think about anything else. I’m going to look at this person and I’m going to listen to what they’re saying and be actively engaged with what they’re saying.

Stig Brodersen  18:01

Yeah, and this is also the second, this is definitely before Facebook. But this is also the section where he’s talking about how he’s writing people’s birthdays down. So, he always remembers them. So, they will feel important. And he’s talking about being a friend to become a friend. And in continuation of this, I just want to say that tomorrow is Preston’s birthday. And it’s not because of Facebook that I know that.

Preston Pysh  18:24

Wow. So, what’s funny is I didn’t even remember that. Tomorrow’s my birthday. Nice. Wow, that was amazing, Stig. I’m impressed. I know when I think about that, you can see how well this works as I just looked this, like, “Wow, he’s a good friend.” Oh my gosh.

So, the thing that’s important here, and this idea of listening to people is the sincerity piece. Is your intent… And man, I’m big on intentions. Like for me, there’s nothing bigger than talking about the intent of something. So, if your intent is a pure intention because you do want to get to know the person, they’re going to sense that and they’re going to know it.

If you intend to manipulate them, to make them think that you’re a friend, they’re going to sense that too. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, people can sniff out an intention faster than anything on the planet. Okay? So, if you are not paying attention to your intentions, you’re going to have some bad repercussions that are going to fall out of it.

19:23

And I also have another thing, and I tell my kids this all the time, I talk about this way too much with them. But I don’t share this with the podcast, because we’re usually talking about equities and stocks and intrinsic values and stuff like that. So, my opinion is that intentions work like boomerangs and intentions have to be tied to an action. So, every single action where you do something, there’s an intention tied to that action. And I look at intentions and actions just like you would say, and I’m going to geek out on you here… When you talk about a force you have mass times acceleration, mass times acceleration creates a force and so my opinion is that your mass and acceleration in life are your intentions and your action. When you combine those two, you create a *inaudible type event that if your intention is a bad one, and you have an action tied to it, it’s going to come back to you like a boomerang. And it’s going to have something ill or something bad that happens to you. And it’s not dependent on time. It could happen 10 years from now could, it could happen in 10 seconds from now.

But I consciously think about that and any type of action that I take, because if my intention is bad, I fully expect that to come back to me in a bad manner. And so, I’m not going to go down that path much more because I could talk about that for probably an entire episode that idea. But I’ll tell you, folks, that fundamental idea is something that I hold so close and then I think about so often is this idea of combining action with intention and thinking about the consequences that I’m potentially creating because of if I have a bad intention, it’s going to come back to me.

So, principle three he says, “Remember that a person’s name is the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Stig Brodersen  21:08

Yeah, so in my situation again, sorry, I always refer this to teaching. And I don’t know if me saying people’s names is the most beautiful thing they ever heard. But I could definitely see why this is usual, both of me and for them. I get quite a few names that I need to learn. And I have made it very important to me to learn people’s names really, fast. So basically, what I do whenever I get a list with people’s names, I also get pictures of them. I would go home and then I would spend hours learning people’s names. And you might think why would I spend time on that? Why shouldn’t I prepare the curriculum or whatnot?

I just quickly figured out that it’s really, hard for me to teach my students if I don’t know their names. That might seem weird because again, why? But it’s a question of for them to care, I need to care. And if I keep saying, “Hey, you in the red sweater or you with the hat,” I would have a hard time connecting with my students. I don’t think you can connect with another person if you don’t know their name, because it just becomes too impersonal, in my opinion.

Preston Pysh  22:17

So, he provides a story in the book that’s just outstanding on this one. And I love this story. I can’t remember if I ever talked about this on the podcast, but I’m going to mention it again, in case I didn’t. So, Andrew Carnegie when he was younger, he wanted to have some rabbits. Some pet rabbits. And he implemented the power of a person’s name. So, he didn’t want to have to take care of these rabbits because he didn’t want to have to go out there and feed them and everything, but he wanted the opportunity to go and hold them and pet them whenever he wanted. But he didn’t want to have to do all the dirty work of cleaning up after them.

I believe this story goes because I read this a long time ago. I believe the story goes three neighbor girls live next to Andrew Carnegie and the three girls like the rabbits too. And so, Carnegie worked a deal with the three girls. And he said, “I am going to name each one of these rabbits after you. But if I do that you have to take care of the rabbits.” And three girls said, “Oh, that’s awesome.” They were all excited that they were going to have the rabbits named after them. And so, he did that. He named each rabbit after each of the girls. In the end, he didn’t have to take care of the rabbits. He just went out there and played with the rabbits when he wanted, but he never had to clean up after them, because he implemented the power of using a person’s name for something.

And I think it talks about, later on, he was working some big deal when he was selling the company. And it was between… I can’t remember who it was. It was another powerhouse name during that era. But he couldn’t agree on the final deal, as far as the price that they were going to be paying and everything. Then Carnegie remembered this lesson that he learned at a very young age and he goes, “You know what? We will name the company after you. My name will be second or it won’t even be in the titling.” And that’s what enabled him to close out the deal. No more money or anything. He just used the person’s name.

So, if you don’t think a person’s name is important, and I like Stig’s point on, as far as in the classroom, because from a student’s vantage point, if you don’t know their name, their opinion is that you’re at a different plane. You’re not at their level. They’re not important, you are important. And that’s what you’re conveying. You’re basically saying, “You’re not even important enough for me to know your name.” And that, again, you can’t step out and understand it from the other person’s vantage point, if that’s how you think as a teacher, you just don’t.

Stig Brodersen  24:41

Yeah, and it’s not only a question about how we speak to each other. It’s also like in the modern age, it’s also about how you email each other. So, I would get a ton of emails from people and some of them would be like, “Send me the executive summaries. Thanks.” And you know, I would never respond to a question like that or demand like that. But like if you wrote, “Hey, Stig. I like your podcast, I’m curious about these executive summaries. Would you mind sending me a link because I can’t find them on-site?” And I would be happy to do that.

What I’m thinking about is like, it’s the same thing but it’s not because he’s using my name. So, he knows who I am. He’s creating a connection. And he is saying you’re doing a good job. So immediately, I feel like I need to reciprocate to that action, instead of just saying, “Oh, I can just put that in my spam folder or whatnot.” So again, it’s not just that we speak to each other, it’s also how we interact or email or communicate in general.

Preston Pysh  25:35

Yeah, that’s a funny point because I get a lot of the same messages. Some are just like, you can tell people have respect for what you do, or they’re just respectful of your time. And then you get other people that will send you something they’re like, “send me this now.” You’re like, not only no but delete. Yeah, it’s very true. It’s amazing how just the context of how you could write or that you can speak to people, the response that you get is just so drastically different.

Stig Brodersen  26:05

And this is also something I thought about after interviewing Guy Spier because he was talking about how should you interact with people that you like. And how should you interact with people you don’t like because you can also be very confrontational if you have to tell people what you think about them, especially if you don’t like them.

And what he’s saying is that, well, you should probably respond longer, respond better, faster to people that you want to attract in your life. And you might not want to respond to people that you don’t want to attract in your life. So, whenever I have an inquiry one way or the other, and I don’t find respectful, I might not typically… I don’t answer it. But even if I do, I also emphasize that just between the lines that we should probably not continue with this type of relationship. But on the other hand, whenever I get an inquiry for someone who respects my time and like what I do and seem generally interested in me, that’s a connection and a relationship I want to keep building on. So also think about that whenever you communicate with other people, like whom do you want to be a part of your life.

Preston Pysh  27:07

All right, so principle four, we already hit on this one. And that is to be a good listener. And he provides fantastic for each one of these things. This is the thing that I think I like about the book most is he’s not just preaching it like what we’re doing on the podcast. He’s providing like good thoughtful examples and stories to represent the idea to you. So, it’s easy reading and the stories that he provides are fun and interesting. So, we’re just cutting right to the meat of what he’s trying to say. But when you read the book, I’m telling you, it is just a fantastic representation of each of these ideas.

So, principle four, be a good listener. And I think that we hit on a lot of the major points of that and we’re going to move along so we can keep things going.

27:48

Principle five: talk in terms of the other person’s interests. So, I believe in the book and again, I’ve read this quite a while ago, but in the book, he provides an example of a letter and he writes the letter in two different contexts. The first context is in terms of the letter writers’ interest. The other one is in terms of the person that he’s writing to, his interest. And when you read the letters and the comparison, it’s borderline hilarious because you can see how people get what they want when they talk in terms of the other person.

The letter if I remember, right, it was something like he was trying to get this other person to do something for him. So, in the original letter that he writes, it’s something like, I need this and I need this because and it was all for his self-interest reasons. When he rewrote the letter he started with, “Hey, mister, so and so you know, it’s such a pleasure to be working with a company like yours because you guys are always on time and whatnot. I’m writing this letter because I want to allow you to maybe benefit from something that is in your interest.” And he explains he goes through this letter.

When you read the comparison between the two, it’s just amazing to see how well-crafted and how well thought out the second one is. And it all revolves around this idea of thinking about the other person’s vantage point first before your own. And he talks in terms of the other person’s interest. So, I use this all the time. And I don’t use it for a malevolent cause. I use it because it is mutually beneficial. After all, it is a win-win. And how I use it is whenever I write people to come onto our show. I often talk about how it will benefit them first, opposed to, you know how it’ll benefit me or necessarily our audience.

And so whenever you think about how you could use this in your daily life, or interaction or written correspondence, either one of those two, always try to think in the other person’s terms before your own and you’ll be amazed at how much you’re able to shape and influence that what you want to get, but also make sure that it also shapes and influences what the other person wants and what they need to get as well. And when you have that win-win, that’s when you’re going to have success.

30:03

So, let’s go ahead and go to the sixth principle, which makes the other person feel important. And most importantly, you got to do it sincerely. If it is sincere, and somebody is talking about something that you have a genuine interest in, it’s amazing how much of a bond you can establish with a person quickly, because you’re talking about something that they enjoy or that they like.

Stig Brodersen  30:25

Yeah and I think that the whole process of asking people for that advice is powerful. And why is it powerful? Well, because of the concept that we’re just talking about here that you’re making the other person feel important. You would not ask another person about their opinion if you didn’t think they’re important. So, you know, to me, it’s strange. I still have a problem asking other people, not necessarily their opinion, but their advice because sometimes I feel well, that makes me look stupid, but they’re probably willing to help you. They feel empowered by you asking them and this is the very first foundation for creating a good relationship that you can both prosper from.

Preston Pysh  31:03

So, the book, after it goes through these different principles, shifts into the third part, and the book is broken into four parts. So, the book shifts into the third part. And then the title of the third part is “How to win people to your way of thinking?”

And it gets into this deep philosophical discussion of, is it right to criticize other people? And I think a lot of people out there will absolutely say, “Yeah, you have to tell people when they do something wrong,” and I agree with that. But I think how you tell people that they’re doing something wrong is what makes all the difference in the world.

So instead of, using an example here from the book, I want to talk about the discussion that I had with a family member. So, one of my family members works at a golf course. And they cut the grass. They cut all the greens and all that stuff. And there are times when this person’s out there and they’re cutting grass and they come across the golfer who is just completely basically destroying the golf course. And so, he was telling me this story and he said, you know that he talked about… I guess somebody had like a golf cart and they like ran it like up on the green and just like kept going or something, something ridiculous something that you don’t do on a golf course.

And so, he told me, he said, “I went over there and I just gave it to him. I let him.” And he just told me how he basically lambasted this person. And so, after he was done telling me this story, I said to him, “Well, what was your end state? What were you trying to accomplish with that?” And he just looked at me like confused, like, “What do you mean, what was my end state? I was trying to make sure this guy was never going to do that again and destroy him.” And I said, “Well, the most important thing you can do in an exchange is to ask yourself first, what is it that I want to get out of this?” Well, he didn’t want him to drive the golf cart upon the green again, and he wanted him to be respectful of the course.

32:52

So, what’s the best way that you can get a person to do that? Well, you got to make the person understand things from your vantage point, but you have to do it in a manner that is respectful and thoughtful. So, if you think about that scenario, and you think about, well, if I would go up to this person after they just drove the golf cart across of it, and you yell at them, and you scream at him, the first thing is, the person’s exchange back is going to be immediately in defensive mode. They’re going to be like, “I’m not listening to you, who are you anyway?” And just the exchange immediately goes off in the wrong direction, and you’re not accomplishing your end state. You wanted him to not do that again, and to learn a lesson. So, what you’re doing when you’re yelling at them, or you’re having this major confrontation is you’re doing the exact opposite of what your intention and what’s the end state that you wanted to achieve. And so, you got to think about that.

And when you’re having these interactions, and so think about it from this context… Let’s say that my family member would have gone up to this person and said, “Hey, sir I hope you’re having a game of great day golf and I’m sorry, but I want to talk to you about something important to me. I’m out here I’m cutting these greens and I’ll tell you, I put in eight hours a day trying to make this golf course look beautiful. And I don’t mean to criticize you. But whenever you drive your golf cart upon the green, it’ll leave this out, and it’ll make it hard for other golfers that come after you to putt over that surface because it won’t be an even surface because the golf cart is so heavy. If you could just try to be cognizant of that as you go on the rest of the course, it’ll help me out tremendously. And I’ll help out the golfers behind you.”

And if you would have a conversation that’s calm, collective, thoughtful, you have a reason behind it. It’s amazing. You would accomplish your end state, you would get exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve. And you would do it and you know what the guy would look at you like, I like that guy. He was nice. You know, and I think that that’s something that is so insanely hard to do because a lot of the times you’re acting on your ego.

Stig Brodersen  34:54

Yeah, and I’m also thinking of this in monetary terms, right? I can’t help myself and if you think about this in monetary terms, like think about this person will probably quit, or at least his productivity will be very, very low and you might need to replace him anyway. So as Preston was saying you don’t gain anything… Well, you might get some satisfaction for the next five minutes or something like that. But in the long run, it’s just a very, very bad way of managing your relationships.

And I think perhaps the one thing that Preston’s family member perhaps did, right or at least didn’t do wrong in this situation was that he likely didn’t do it in front of other people. Well, people often know when they’re wrong, and you don’t have to be harsh on them. And especially you don’t have to do it in front of other people because especially if you’re superior, it can feel like a humiliation of that person. If you’re doing it for other people, because the person made a mistake, you’re his boss, for instance. So, like he can’t tell you anything back and that like he might forget what you have been saying, but you will never ever forget how you made him feel. I think that’s something we should all consider when interacting with other  people,

Preston Pysh  36:01

I love that comment, Stig. Maya Angelou has a quote that goes along those lines of people 10, 20, or 30 years from now will not remember what was said. They will forget the words completely. But the one thing that people will never forget is how you make them feel. And I think that that is such a profound idea.

So, let’s go into the last section. This is part four, and it’s titled “Be a leader: how to change people without offending, or arousing resentment.” And so, the example in this section they talk about Charles Schwab. So, this is what we had written down. So, call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly. What would a thoughtful leader do if he were to find employees smoking directly under a no smoking sign? And he says, “Charles Schwab found himself in precisely this situation instead of belittling his workers, he approached them, offered them a cigar and kindly requested that they enjoy it outside.”

And according to Charles Schwab, he earned the right respect to these workers by giving them a little present and making them feel important while indirectly enforcing the rules. And so that’s the thing. Sometimes you can get exactly what you want. And you know, some of these leaders and some of these people that get exactly what they want, they are so smooth. And they do it indirectly. And where they’re respectful, the people that are working for them are working alongside them. They’re respectful of them and they see it from their vantage point, they know that they want to smoke even though that they can’t directly empathize with it. They have respect for the people. And then they just put their little twist on there to get what it is that they wanted, to do the right thing. And when you think about it, that idea is rooted in doing the right thing.

And you know what, when you challenge people to do the right thing, and you do it in a manner that’s respectful and calm, they will do the right thing and, in the end, they’ll gain your respect too. And that’s what he’s getting at with this. So Stig, did you have any points or anything to add for that last part of the book?

Stig Brodersen  38:00

Well, I think the whole idea of asking questions instead of giving orders, I think that was something that I like. And one of the samples that you come up with herein this book is that he’s saying if you’re a production manager, and you want to increase your production, but you can say to employees is that, “Well, we need to increase production now. And I need you to start working harder.” Instead, he’s saying, why don’t you ask the need to increase production? What are the different ways we can go about it? Like your message comes through just as powerful, probably even more. And again, you have your employees chiming in with the best ideas, and since they are handling the production on a day to day basis, they probably have better ideas than you have. And they will feel this ownership that is so important for all dealers to have and employees that have

Preston Pysh  38:48

So, when I was a company commander back in the day, one of the big things that I would tell the gentleman that I had the total pleasure of leading because I’ll tell you, I had some of the absolute best soldiers that worked for me. But sometimes they would come into my office and they would have a problem. And I think this is something that anybody in a leadership position can empathize with. You have employees, they come in, they bring you problems. But one of the most important ways that I finally discovered how to get everybody involved in the process was if somebody brought me a problem, we would further define what the problem was. Sometimes they might have their end of the story and not have some other aspects from maybe my vantage point or other people’s vantage point. So, we’d further define the problem.

After we completely defined the problem, I would look at the person and I would say, “Okay, so I think we both understand the context of the problem. So, what are three courses of action to solve that problem?” And a lot of the times the person will look at me and be like, “Well, I don’t know. That’s why I came to you.” And I would take it and I would totally flip it on its head and I’d say, “Well, I want you to think about it. I want you to come back to me with what the three courses of action are to solve this problem. There are three ways to solve it. I don’t know what they are, but I want you to solve the problem three different ways and come back to me with what those courses of action are.”

So, you know, a couple of hours later, the person would come back and say, “Well, we could do this, we could do that. Or we could do this thing over here.” And I’d say, “You know what, I like the second one. Let’s do that. And you know what, you’re going to be the primary person to execute that course of action. So, if you need my help, if you need me to get other resources for you, to accomplish that, just let me know. But you’re the primary POC to execute a course of action number two, now let’s move out.”

40:32

As Stig said, there’s ownership there’s buy-in, they’re thinking of creative solutions. A lot of the times that person working down at the lowest level has the most information and the most details about how to solve the problem. And so, what it does is it generates this conversation. I have this saying: most people in the world are problem identifiers. They’re great at identifying problems. They can identify them for days and days on end. Very few people are problem solvers. And so, what I tried to do as a leader was always try to create as many problem solvers as I could within an organization. And when you do that, you do it indirectly. And you do it in a manner that is so conducive and productive to the entire organization.

Stig Brodersen  41:16

I just have to ask you, Preston, how you came up with this solution, because I just read a book about Google, and apparently, this is corporate policies that to bring a problem to your boss at Google, you have to bring a solution to them. So, I’m just thinking, is it like this parallel Google Preston Pysh universe? Or how’d you come up with this?

Preston Pysh  41:35

If there’s anything I know in life, it’s not because I originated it myself. I promise you that. It’s because I read it somewhere or somebody else taught it to me, and in this case, somebody else had taught it to me.

Stig Brodersen  41:45

Okay, but it’s profound. I mean, whenever I heard that in the book, I was like, “How could I not have gone over this before because I have so many problems brought to me? I’m like running around trying to figure out, like, what the answer is, and now I’m starting to ask well, what do you think we should do about it?” And they often come up with a  better solution than I would anyway,

Preston Pysh  42:05

Well, and so it’s beneficial. Now I will say this, sometimes you can have some downside risk, if you will, to implement this way of interacting with your subordinates. And the downside is if you get people that bring you problems before, and you basically made them solve it, and you made them execute the solution, they might be hesitant to bring you more problems in the future. And so, it’s important that is there may be in the way that I would go about… making sure that they would continue to bring me problems because that’s important. You need to know that as a leader. That’s how you know what’s happening within your organization.

What I would try to do is I would try to partake and participate in the solution, or somehow in any way that I could show them that they’ve got my full support and how much I appreciated them solving the problem. And it’s just how you handle it. You can’t be just, you brought me this problem and you have to give me the solution. And now you’re going to solve it. You know, if you’ve got that approach, it goes back to your intent. You come back to that approach, it’s going to be a disaster. You’re going to be that leader in your organization that doesn’t know any of the problems in the organization because no one wants to bring them to you because they know how you’re going to handle it.

But I think if you do it in a delicate and respectful and show appreciation and gratitude for what they’re doing, you’re going to have people bringing your problems all the time and solutions.

All right, so that concludes and we got a little bit off tangent there in a couple of different spots. But I think it’s important to highlight some of these things because what you’re getting at is how to be a great leader, and how to work with other people well. And you know, I can’t speak highly enough of this book. I do think that this is one of those books that is a mandatory read for people. I think that this should be built into everyone’s curriculum across the country. That’s all I have. Stig, did you have anything else that you want to add?

Stig Brodersen  43:53

I can definitely also just recommend this to anyone. Not only leaders, I know we talked a lot about leadership, but it’s not so much corporate leadership but also personal leadership. And that is perhaps even more important. So definitely read this book.

Preston Pysh  44:08

Okay, so if you’ve noticed, we haven’t played a lot of questions from the audience later, and today, we’re not going to play one either. But what we’re going to do in the future episode that’s going to be coming up, we’re going to play about five questions from the members of our audience. So please continue to go to asktheinvestors.com, record your questions there. We’ll play them on the show. We’re going to send out a bunch of books to people in an upcoming episode where we play a lot of the different questions, where we also talk about the current market conditions as it continues to evolve. interesting in the market right now. It’s getting pretty crazy.

Also, I wanted to just highlight once again, if you want to read this book, or you want to listen to this book on Audible, use our link on our website to download “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” You can listen to that book completely for free if you use our link because you get your first book for free if you use the link from The Investor’s Podcast website.

Also, sign up on our email list. We’re going to send out I think it’s a six-page executive summary of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that captures all the things that we talked about today. It’s a great outline. I print off every one of our executive summaries and I stick it inside the book after I’m done so that I can quickly access and pull out the information from each of the books that we read. And I recommend people do the same. So, if you sign up on our email list, we don’t send any spam unless I send you an accidental message at night, which I’m deeply sorry for. I am, so sorry, folks. So that’s all we have for you guys this week. And we hope you guys enjoyed this episode. And we’ll see you guys next week.

Outro  47:25

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