Kyle McDowell Transcript
Clint Betts
Kyle, thank you so much for coming on the show. I am so excited to talk to you. I love talking about the topic of leadership, what it means to be a leader, the various ways that people go about leadership. We've seen some incredible leaders in world history and they all have a different way of approaching it and a different way of getting the outcomes that they want.
You have written a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller, Begin with We: The 10 Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence. Tell us about it, and let's dive right in. What are your thoughts on leadership?
Kyle McDowell
Well, Clint, first of all, thank you for having me. I really do appreciate the platform and I'm really grateful to be here.
I'm a guy. I spent nearly 30 years in big corporate America. I worked inside three Fortune 10 firms. I led tens of thousands of employees. As a matter of fact, in my last two roles, collectively, I led just over 30,000 employees. I have to say, man, and I would say I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but the first 20-ish years of those 30 years were one leader, and I think it's safe to say the last decade I was a completely different leader. The paradigm shift that I underwent is what compelled me to write the book. It's what fuels me today to spread this same message. It's essentially founded on principle-based leadership, but not just principles, establishing principles that connect us as a team.
The night before, I was to meet with the top 40 or 50 leaders of this newly inherited organization. Gosh, this was almost 10 years ago now. I knew I needed to lead in a different way, and I only knew that because the level of apathy that I started to feel with each passing year for probably the previous 10 years had reached a point where I just felt so disconnected from the whole machine, the whole machine that is corporate America, which is a real twist man because I was responsible for creating many of the environments that I ultimately began to loathe, which is really a hard thing to process.
Anyway, the night before, I was going to meet with the top 40 or 50 leaders of the $7 billion program that I had inherited. I started to just run through a variety of scenarios of the previous 20 years that left me feeling less than connected, left me less than fulfilled, and squashed how I felt as an individual. I ended up with these 10 sentences. Without any pre-planning and there was no muse on my shoulder, these sentences did and still do begin with the word we. So behold, the 10 we're.
Suffice it to say, in the transformation that I was a part of after introducing those principles to my team and, subsequently, thousands of others, the only thing that sticks in my mind that is more palpable than the results that we drove the transformation was our results were exponentially better by nearly every single measurable. But what trumps that is watching bosses transform into leaders. People that actually give a shit about those around them invest their time and energy into those around them instead of worrying about their own individual success.
When I left that organization, a couple of coworkers or actually folks from my team called to say, "It's time to put this out. You've got a bigger calling, and you have a book in you." I put the book together in about 18 months, and it has exceeded my wildest expectations, the reception that it's getting. The number of keynotes I'm doing now has never been greater. I just think it's a proof point, one of many, that leadership has changed. To be an impactful leader, it takes a hell of a lot more effort than it did years ago. It takes a commitment to do that every single day. Every interaction, actually.
Clint Betts
What do you make of that? I think that's entirely right. I think it's completely accurate, particularly when you said leadership is so much harder and so much more complicated than it was 20 years ago.
I mean, we talked to a lot of CEOs and leaders on this show, and my sense is you can no longer just be the CEO of your company. You have a role outside of your company now, and a lot of CEOs are grappling with what that is. Do they have a role in deciding if they want to do that? But regardless, society has said, "Hey, we're looking to CEOs and business people for leadership outside of what they do in their company," which is really interesting. And then, obviously, you've got the whole inside of your company. How do you see it? What do you see as the difference between being a leader now and being a leader even just 20 years ago?
Kyle McDowell
Yeah. Well, so two things. First is a CEO that is struggling with an obligation to play a role in their community in terms of something greater than what they do with their business card is I do believe that is an obligation. I think the struggle comes from the corporate world telling us we have to be one person inside of our "professional life" and a different person in our personal life. I struggled with that for many, many years. Two dozen years, actually.
But when you realize if the person you're being outside of the office is different than the person in the office, there's a bit of hypocrisy there. If you want folks to trust you, follow you, believe in you, and respect you, they have to see that you are authentically you inside and outside the workplace. I'm compelled to reply to that part of your question first because we've got to stop expecting people to be something they're not just because they're on the clock. We need people to be who they are. That's where the best ideas and innovation are birthed.
To me, there are a couple of threads that are driving why leadership is so wildly different than it was, gosh, probably even five years ago, let alone 20. Well, for decades, if not centuries, organizations and companies were able to set expectations of the team, how individuals, how employees on the teams inside the organization, how they would think, and how they behave. They essentially set the rules. Organizations set the rules, and if you want to work here, you have to subscribe to these rules.
Well, with the proliferation of work at home, the internet expansion allowing people to work broad distances, I mean, zip codes away, states away, countries hemispheres away way, the worker, the workforce more broadly, has more options than ever. No longer are they confined to a single zip code. No longer are they confined to a single industry, with the gig economy and other things that have driven wild disruption in the workplace in general. We can't expect those wild shifts not to result in what is needed in a shift in leadership.
Essentially the old playbook is dead. If you want to have an impact, and if you want to find genuine fulfillment and not feel the sense of apathy that I felt, to me the answer is clear. It's you establish your leadership principles, you align around those principles, you hold each other accountable to those principles. Approach it as a team instead of an individual.
I realize, by the way, that when I get on a bit of a soapbox about this, it may sound a bit cliche. I even get some eye rolls. But I'm not someone who's coming at this from an academic perspective or a hypothetical perspective. I've done it. I've done it at huge organizations with wild success. It can be done. There is a different and better way.
Clint Betts
Let's go through your 10. I would love to do that; however, it makes sense on your end to go deep on those. But I think that's super valid to get your sense of each of those.
Kyle McDowell
Yeah, and Clint, I must give two caveats before I dive in, really quick ones.
The first is they're incredibly simple. There's nothing inflammatory or controversial in these principles, but simple is not easy. We can't be confused or influenced otherwise. The second caveat is, and this is the most beautiful byproduct of writing this book that I have, it was unpredicted but also incredibly beautiful to watch is the impact I'm hearing these principles are having on people's personal lives: within their relationships, how they're raising their children, which is... It gives me chills to even say that. I never intended for that, but I hear from readers a lot now. That's something that's a constant theme.
The first is the foundational principle: we do the right thing always. I always include that one-word sentence because the right thing is that it can be slippery. We can disagree on what the right thing is, and I walk the reader through some decision paths to hopefully land on what is ultimately the right thing. But that is the foundation of who we are, and we will never waver against that. As a matter of fact, if anyone disagrees with it, you don't want them on your team anyway. We're always going to aspire to do the right thing. It's not perfect, but we are going to aspire to do so.
Now, as a leader inside of an organization, whether I have people who report to me or not, I think the number one way to exhibit every single day that you are committed to doing the right thing is to just lead by example. I recognize that sounds a little cliche, but the question is, should I lead by example? You already are. You are leading by example. The question is, am I leading with an example that I would be proud to see replicated? I want to see this played out. Would my mother watch this behavior and be proud of the person I am and how I'm behaving?
However, to lead by example, the number one aspect or trait of someone who leads by example in my mind is someone who makes good on their commitments. Number three is we say what we're going to do, and then we do it. Anyone who's spent any significant amount of time, as a matter of fact, probably very little time inside of the corporate world has been disappointed by someone else in a different functional area or someone else in general who committed to doing something that you needed. Maybe it was to take it for further dissemination to your boss, whatever the case is. We've all been disappointed by that.
I believe before we start making commitments to those we serve externally, we got to make those commitments and honor those commitments behind the curtain. First and foremost, that is where this begins. If we're excellent with the details behind the scenes, our customers will feel that and then we can deliver on commitments to them.
But for us to make good on we number three, we've got to look at we number four, and that's we take action. Every organization is right, with opportunities that all of us know about. But usually, there's very little incentive to raise your hand and say, "Hey, boss, this is a problem. If you don't mind, I'm going to go take a look at this." There's usually very little incentive to do so. But inside a culture of excellence, which is always my goal, is to build a culture of excellence, when we see something, we say something. That doesn't necessarily mean we jump right at it or we're a cowboy, and we take over something that doesn't report into our functional area. But what it does mean is we're not going to act like it's not there. We will get it added to some list of things to do, but we're not going to turn a cheek to it.
But if you want your teams to take action, everyone has to be comfortable with the fact that we're not going to be perfect at it, right? We number five addresses that. We own our mistakes. When we shift from an I and me and my focused paradigm to a we first paradigm, we start to realize that mistakes truly are opportunities for learning. They are a black-and-white example of what not to do. I like to be tough on problems and mistakes but not tough on the person who discovered the mistake. Now, I'm not naive. There are mistakes from malice and carelessness that we're not going to deal with. But by and large, if we want people to take action. We've got to be comfortable with the mistakes they're going to make, so we're all going to own those mistakes and get better from them. When someone makes a mistake, though, they're only going to raise that hand and say, "I've made a mistake," if we know that number six is front of mind. That's why we pick each other up. We all bring baggage to work. We've all got drama going on in our lives. I think it's a human obligation, first of all, to pick someone who's down if they're struggling. Maybe they have a sick kid or an aging parent; whatever the scenario is in their life, we've got to pick them up. A leader has a different and further obligation, and that is to propel those around them to new heights. Any boss can check a box. Any manager can manage a process or a group of people, but it takes a leader to say, "Listen, man, I care about what's next for you. You want my job? No, you don't want my job? Okay, what do you want to do," including starting a side hustle.
The more we can connect on a human level on what it is that you're trying to do in this existence, and the more I tell you straight up and demonstrate that I'm here to help you on that journey, they're not going to work less hard. They're not going to be less invested. They're actually going to be a little more committed to the effort. You're only going to have them for a finite period of time regardless, so why not make the most of that time?
When we turn the corner from six to seven, it gets a little tougher for some people to embrace. The first is number seven: we measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity. There is this fascination inside of the corporate world now with busyness, and many folks wear it like a badge of honor. "I was triple booked four times yesterday." "I had 11 meetings yesterday." "I don't have any time to do anything because I'm..." That doesn't impress me. Show me the handful of outcomes that you've been assigned or that you've assigned to yourself depending on at what level you sit in your organization, and let's connect all that activity to every one of those outcomes. The odds are you're engaged in a lot of activity that is not directly related to outcomes that you've been assigned or that you own. However, you were given them.
I like to say I'm really grateful my Uber driver gets gas before they pick me up, but I'm not paying for that. That's a very important activity, but we pay for the outcomes, and that's the transportation from A to B. That's how the real world operates, and we should lead that way. When we put an emphasis on outcomes over activity, all of us must do the same thing. We got to lock arms in it, and that's where number eight comes in. It's when we challenge each other. It's my favorite of all the principles; we challenge each other. Because you know what, Clint, historically or typically, even the challenges come from someone in a position of authority. They flow in one direction.
But the math says that's not going to work. It's one person and many team members. The bigger the organization or the bigger the group I lead, it's even less likely that I can really be effective at leading and managing this group of people. That's where it's important for peers to challenge peers. It's important for those on the team to challenge the manager, challenge the boss. Challenges need to go in all directions.
Now, there is a rule. Challenges must be grounded in either data or experience, not opinions. We all have those. Let's lead with data or experience. And we number eight is a recipe for chaos without we number nine, and that is we embrace the challenge. Challenges are going to come from external forces, whatever's happening in the marketplace. They're going to come internally, obviously. But we're going to embrace those challenges. We're not going to act like they're not there. We're going to say, "Oh my gosh, boy, this thing in front of us is incredibly gnarly. I'm not sure how we're going to get around that or get through that, but we're going to approach it though, aren't we? We're going to talk through it. We're going to walk through our next steps. We're going to embrace it." Likewise, at the individual level, if you're empowered and essentially obligated to challenge others, you must be on the same page with embracing those challenges. That's where real innovation comes in, where we can get to that point.
And then lastly is we number 10. I was really intentional to make this the last one because I feel like this principle any earlier in the list is a recipe for disappointment. It's we obsess over details. Details matter a lot, a whole lot. Oftentimes, they are what separates the average from good, the good from great, and so on. Ultimately in many cases is what forces someone's buying decision, whether it's a product or a service you sell.
Well, think of opening an Apple product. The whole unboxing phenomenon began back when Apple started to make these packages so sexy. They don't just communicate an excellent product as inside. They tell you, "We care about your entire experience." The sticker with the arrow on it telling you which way to pull it and how tightly the lid fits on that box are all indications of how much that company obsesses over the details. We need to do that inside of our teams. We have to be smart about how the time is spent, but we need to understand what matters most, who has eyesight or line of sight to what it is that we're doing, and then make sure that we're behaving accordingly. Details will make us better than our competition. That's the 10 we're.
Clint Betts
First of all, it's incredible, and I can see why it's doing so well and why you're being asked to keynote so much because it is simple, but it's sometimes the simple stuff that comes through... Well, sometimes the simple stuff is the hardest to come through, right? The way that you've explained it and written this book really nailed it and gave some context behind these 10 principles, which I really appreciate.
I want to go back to number seven, the judging ourselves on outcomes. That's really interesting, and I think that's something that more people need to apply to themselves. I think they would be able to say no a lot more and accomplish more were they to judge themselves on outcomes and not just how busy they are.
Kyle McDowell
I see it a lot. I take on a handful of coaching clients from time to time, and it almost never fails. I have a similar conversation about the principles in general, and someone says, "I don't know about this outcome. I wish I could do something more with this number seven," as if they don't actually ultimately control their calendar. They may not in some instances, and that's probably an indication that there should be a really deep conversation, perhaps awkward, with your own boss if you feel as if you must display this level of busyness.
I've even had Clint. This has happened two times now when the executive will rotate a laptop or bring it if we're on a Zoom call. They'll bring up their calendar, and they'll pull that up like it's a badge of honor how many meetings are there. But when we start to get really critical, self-reflective, and honest, when we go to the 8:30 meeting, show me. I know the things now that you're accountable for delivering. I know those things. We've discussed those. How does this meeting advance that? You start to see these lights go on; it's like, "Ah, you know what? I could probably delegate someone else to participate in this. I could probably just ask for a summary." There are steps to avoid. You don't have to be in all places at all times. As a matter of fact, a lot more usually gets done when you're not there. Let's be honest.
Clint Betts
Well, I mean, the best time as a leader of anything is when somebody cancels a meeting because all of a sudden, you have this free hour to actually do what you need to do. The interesting thing about that is when you have that feeling of whenever that happens, and maybe not all leaders have this, but we've all experienced it where somebody cancels something. Oh, oh, I have this free hour. Now I can do what I actually want to do and-
Kyle McDowell
Get work done, right?
Clint Betts
Isn't that interesting? That's a really interesting phenomenon that we are holding ourselves back from doing what we should be doing or need to do or want to do. When it cancels, it becomes super obvious like, "Hey, now I can do what I need to do." It's really interesting.
Kyle McDowell
Our whole dependency on meeting inside the corporate world is just something that I've railed on here for a little while because I do believe there's a time and a place for a really good, high-functioning, outcomes-driven meeting. But more often than not, people just show up because it's on the calendar. We might get to something. We might not, or some scope creep is bound to happen, so we might bring up another topic. What should we do about that? I got an idea. Let's schedule another meeting. It just becomes this loop, man. We just depend on it instead of just picking up the phone or walking across the hall sometimes if we're on-prem. That's just something I feel like a lot of organizations, more specifically leaders, need to revisit regularly is meeting etiquette.
Clint Betts
What was your process like writing this book? You said it took 18 months. What was that like? I assume this is the first book you published, probably not the last. Tell us what goes into publishing a book.
Kyle McDowell
It's not fun. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I used to struggle with it because look, man, I'm someone who likes to be really transparent. I think a lot of us struggle with this, and it's called imposter syndrome, more than we like to admit. As I was going through the process, my publisher had assigned someone to work with me because I'd never, as you mentioned, written a book. There are periods of time when you really question what you're doing. You really do. But I was never naive about it. I thought I told my wife, "If I sell 1,000 copies of this book, mission accomplished." We're just at around 30,000 copies sold at this point.
Clint Betts
Wow, that's incredible.
Kyle McDowell
I don't say that for vanity's sake, man. I say that because, again, I think it shows that there's a hunger and a need for this type of leadership. But what it involved was just like any other job. I was fortunate at the time that I was out of corporate America and had a non-compete, so I was able to collect a little income but had more hours than I probably otherwise would've had.
The truth is, if I didn't have that little break, I wouldn't have never written the book because it was such a time commitment. It was probably, I would say, 28 to 40 hours a week, either heads down, hands on keyboard, or meeting with Greta from the publisher. I'll end with this, and this might come across as a little weird, but it happened. The day that we finished the manuscript. I remember getting off a phone call, walking upstairs, and telling my wife that it was done. The book's done, and this is after 18 months. I wept. I wept. It was the weirdest, unexpected thing. Since then, it makes a little more sense because I've had this heads down... By no means am I comparing it to the physical comparison of giving birth, but it was my version of that. It took me 18 months to get him or her to the point where they were ready to come out and ready to take a place in the world.
I was overwhelmed with emotion at that time, but it was a really cool experience. One that I was embarrassed about for a while, but now I just tell it with pride.
Clint Betts
What do you read outside of your own stuff? What do you read? Give us some reading recommendations on what has shaped your thoughts and journey, even read this book and even write this book and then even beyond now that it's out there.
Kyle McDowell
Yeah, you bet, man.
I would quickly point to three books. One is by a fellow named Harry Kraemer, who is, I would consider a mentor as much as a friend, former CEO at Baxter International. He led a multi-billion dollar firm and is now a professor and the probably most obvious and shining example of someone who walks the walk, not just talks it. I mean, a great human being and a great leader, someone that I think we could all learn from from Values to Action by Harry Kraemer. My easily second book would be Eckhart Tolle, The Power Of Now. I'm not sure. Are you familiar with that one?
Clint Betts
No, I don't know. I've read that one.
Kyle McDowell
It changed my life. Seriously changed my life. It is mostly about the self and ego and the role the ego plays in limiting our true potential. It's connected to leadership without intentionally being connected to leadership. When I read the book, it hit me that it was my ego that needed to be in control inside the workplace. It was my ego that needed to be right. I had to have the funniest jokes. I had to be the guy that had all the right ideas.
It worked. I had a pretty good run, but then I realized I wasn't having an impact and the people that I thought respected me actually feared me. I knew something had to change. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Clint Betts
Yes, there you go.
Kyle McDowell
It's an easy one, right? It's an easy one to go to.
Clint Betts
Maybe the greatest book you've ever written, honestly.
Kyle McDowell
Yeah, I mean, that'd be hard to argue against that. Isn't it ironic it was never intended to be public?
Those three, oh, and by the way, I'm on a new one now, Rick Rubin. The Creative Act: The Art of Being, I think it's called.
Clint Betts
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have that book. I haven't started it yet.
Kyle McDowell
Well, likewise. I had the book for several months. I was at an event recently and met someone and she was saying, "Hey, have you read Rick Rubin's book?" I said, "I've had it for months." She goes, "Please start it. It's epic." I started it. I'm about halfway through it now. It's a good one. I'm enjoying it.
Clint Betts
I definitely need to read that. That's a great wake-up call for me.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Kyle McDowell
Oh, man. I'm very, very patterned and routine-driven. As a matter of fact, it's something I struggle with because I am so OCD about certain things, and my calendar is one of them. I'm usually up at about 6:00. Sometimes, I'll sleep in air quotes until 6:30 or so. It's all about fitness and self the first two hours. When I say that, people go, "Oh, he spends two hours in the gym or two hours doing things other than work." Yeah, because I got up at 6:00, sometimes 5:30. If you were to do the same, you probably could squeeze in a few more things. I get it. Everybody has their own.
But it's fitness, and that fitness is followed by what I call a reflection period. Sometimes, I'll meditate. Sometimes, I'll journal. Sometimes, I just sit with my eyes closed, and oftentimes, I just read. The genesis of that was I feel as if you're going to be great at anything or be excellent or have an impact on the world, any one of those three things, you got to immerse yourself in areas that help your cause or help your effort to do just that. I figured if I can't find 10 minutes a day to read a book, then it's not a priority. You're not really about spreading this message. You're not really about having an impact or having a significant place in this space.
And then I am at my desk usually by 9:00 or 9:30 at the latest, and I work until the work's done. I try not to be too disciplined. I do travel. I try to be too disciplined about the end time because there are times when I'll say, "Enough's enough," at 4:00, and then other times it's a late into the evening thing, just depending on what's going on. But I do struggle with being as disciplined as I could be by following that candidly.
Clint Betts
You coach, right? You coach CEOs. Tell us about that and what that process is like. And maybe explain why some CEOs, if not all leaders, should have a coach.
Kyle McDowell
Yeah, so I never intended to take on coaching clients, but what happened is when the book came out, and my speaking started to increase, nearly every speech would end with an outreach. Either even as soon as that same day, "Hey, saw what you did today. I want to buy some books from my team," or, "I want to talk to you about maybe working with someone on my team." And then, of course, occasionally there's the, "I need help myself, and your message is something that I think I can run with." I think it's important. I don't do it a lot, honestly, man, because it's just... For me, giving the needed amount of time and investing real energy and hours into helping somebody is going to take me away from spreading the message more broadly. I usually don't take more than four or five at a time.
It's important for me to be an ear and a sounding board. Again, you can read all the leadership books you want. You can listen to any or watch any podcast that you want, but it all starts with making a commitment. I'm really upfront about that when I take on new clients to say, "Listen, man, are you here because someone has asked you to be here? Or are you here because you truly want to have an impact? Are you concerned about your leadership legacy? You want to be remembered for the work and the effort that you put in and those you impacted?" That's not a yes or no decision now. That's a yes or no decision every day, in almost every interaction.
If we're here to check a box, it's probably not going to go as well as either of us would like, and we should probably not even do it. But if you're here because you are genuinely interested in transforming not just the organization but people and helping people in ways that maybe you wish you had been helped earlier in your career, I think that's a fast path to fulfillment. That door is often unlocked with help, like anything else in life, with help. If you want to lose a bunch of weight or put on a bunch of muscle, you probably should look into a personal trainer.
I think any area that you're trying to find some growth and development within, it makes a lot of sense to find someone that's been there and done it. Not just an academic or read a book or watch a podcast. Talk to someone that's actually done the work.
Clint Betts
Yeah, there's no replacement for that, which is really interesting.
What are you thinking about? I know this is a little bit different from what you're used to, but 2024 is an uncertain year economically with all that type of stuff. 2025, there's now some certainty or at least a sense of where we're at. How are you thinking about the difference between these two years? What advice would you have for leaders approaching? We're talking at the beginning of 2025, approaching this year.
Kyle McDowell
The problems continue to change. The solutions don't. It's the people. It's the people. Whether we're struggling with any number of issues that are obsolete today or we're worried about the impact of AI, you pick it; the solution is almost always found in the people in the room.
If not, question if it's the right people. If your input is not taken seriously on those problems, if your solution is not, you should question if you're in the right place because you have an option. You have multiple options. I think it's incumbent on the leader to put that out there and allow people to come to work and be their best.
Clint Betts
How are you thinking about AI, and how are you using it yourself?
Kyle McDowell
Man, I use AI a lot. But from a more macro perspective, I don't share many people's concerns. If you look back throughout the course of our history of mankind, new things have been invented that have put lots of people out of work, but somehow, more roles in different economies or different industries always. It just seems to work itself out. Now, I'm not naive to the truck driver who's potentially facing a massive change in how that industry works. I'm not naive that there are individual impacts. I don't mean to sound heartless, but I do think this kind of stuff just works itself out.
I think there's a risk. There are obviously tons of risks, but the thing that scares me is the deepfake AI-type stuff, right? If somehow someone were to take over some airwaves and you don't know if what you're watching on television or on your screen is legit or not, looks good, sounds good, and that person saying the most vile, worst, and insidious things you can think of, it's scary. That's a scary thought to me.
I use AI personally really for two main reasons. One is that my team will take all of our social media content, and we will try to match what we think is what our audience is thirsting for. We do that by our creation. We do that by our tagging. And then I guess the secondary way is occasionally they'll use it to rewrite some of my own copy because I said something that was silly or didn't make sense. We've created a Kyle bot, and ultimately, this bot will probably be a lot smarter than me before it's all said and done. But we ingested the book into it. We've ingested podcasts into it with my voice. It's pretty wild how accurate it is or how accurate it can be.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that stuff is way wild. That's hard to wrap your head around, and that's only going to get better and better. The most fascinating thing about AI is this is the worst it's ever going to be right now.
Kyle McDowell
Imagine that, man. Imagine that. Just life-changing, groundbreaking technology is going to suck next year or the year after. Wow, I never thought of it that way. That's wild.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that part is wild.
Finally, we end every interview with the same question, and that is at ceo.com we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Kyle McDowell
Vonda Ganey comes to mind. Vonda was my supervisor when I was probably 21 at a regional bank inside their call center. It just gave me lots of opportunities, and I had more confidence in myself than I could ever have in myself.
And then the second fella, who I'm dear friends with to this day, named William Krenz, who, long story short, I ran... I was an SVP of a back office function for this health plan, and I had a peer who left. I can't recall if he resigned or was dismissed or whatever. I reported to William, and I'll never forget dude; William comes into my office. It was probably 7:00 one night; taps on the door and told me he wanted me to assume my peer's function. I'm waiting for the, "And we're going to relieve you of these duties" or, "So-and-so you'll promote so-and-so." No, he wanted me to run both functions.
This is a function, by the way, in which I had zero experience. I was terrified. I was terrified. But had I not embraced that challenge and dove in the way that I did, I wouldn't have picked up new skills in a new domain that was void on my resume before, which enabled me to get the next role. William had foresight for me that I didn't have for myself. We joke about this to this day how terrified I was and thought he was making... I openly told him I thought it was a mistake, so I owe him a lot. I love that. I love the premise of the question. It is not just about the chances you take but also the chances you give. That's why we're here, man.
Clint Betts
Yeah, there's something beautiful about that.
Kyle, thank you so much for coming on. Highly recommend everybody get your book. We'll make sure to put it in the show notes and all over the website and all that type of stuff when we publish this. Thank you so much, my friend.
Kyle McDowell
Hey, the pleasure's mine, Clint. You're doing really important work, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to share the message. Thank you again.
Clint Betts
Thank you.
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