Robert Hargrove Transcript

Clint Betts

Robert, thank you so much for coming on the show. It means a lot to have you. You're the author of a book called Masterful Coaching, an incredible book. It's already in its third edition. Congratulations on that. That's no easy task.

Robert Hargrove

Thank you.

Clint Betts

It's incredible. Let's start with... You're an executive coach, let's start with your background and how you came to be an executive coach.

Robert Hargrove

Well, that's a long story. I started out actually working as an editor at the Boston Globe.

Clint Betts

You're kidding?

Robert Hargrove

Yeah, and because I guess I've always liked writing. I'm kind of a writer and writer first, coach second or the other way around. And so I had the opportunity while I was doing that, and this was like 30 years ago, to interview some very interesting people, Henry Kissinger, Muhammad Ali, Salvador Dali even, and many, many, many others. So I got very interested in the idea of leadership, and as I was interviewing people, especially as was writing up the interviews, I realized I was making them sound better than they actually sounded by the editing of the interviews. So then I started to feel like, "Gee, I have a voice." And this was around the time of the human potential movement.

There were a lot of different gurus around, and I said, "That's something I'd like to do." I'd like to stand up in front of a group and hold forth about... My topic I was most interested in was leadership. And I was scared stiff to talk in front of a group, but somehow I was supposed to... Do you remember Werner Erhard? He was one of the leaders of the human potential movement. Anyway, he was supposed to give a speech someplace, he couldn't show up, somebody called me to give a talk and I rose to the occasion and people told me afterwards, they gave me a standing ovation. It was great.

So that led to spending 10 years leading personal transformation seminars basically all over the world. I had these leadership weekends with about a hundred people each almost every weekend. And then after a while I started to notice that it's one thing to go to a big immersion experience, a big leadership weekend, a Tony Robbins type of thing, Date with Destiny, but in these things people get a lot of insights, but there's a difference between insights and results. So I said when I was doing these, these were like three day programs and I said, "What can I do to actually ensure that people get results?" And then I all of a sudden shifted from conducting these leadership weekends to working with people in a one-on-one coaching relationship over the course of the year.

Some of the people in my first programs were CEOs or rising stars in companies. This was the before coaching... When I started, when I wrote the book Masterful Coaching, coaching didn't exist. There were only sports coaches and music coaches. And now, somebody told me the other day, if you throw a rock, you might hit a coach. So that's kind of, to make a long story short.

Clint Betts

Yeah. What do you make of that? The fact that there are so many coaches now? Do you think it's oversaturated? Do you think people are going into that who maybe shouldn't? What's your just overall take on... Because there are a lot of coaches. I mean, I was just talking to a CEO who runs a coaching platform actually, Leland.

Robert Hargrove

Well, you know, what do I make of that? I think there's... Let me see. There's the traditional career path that most of us have where we were a doctor or a lawyer or a CEO. But what happened is, I think partially as a result of the baby boomer, baby boom, we wound up with a lot of people with a very high degree of professional expertise, personal mastery, subject matter knowledge that wound up retiring too early. That's in one case. So we have a lot of people in America who can provide expert secrets that will help various people solve problems. And I think that's a good thing. We should be able to take advantage of the knowledge capital that we have in our society to solve big problems.

On the other hand, a lot of people have glommed onto coaching as a way to make a fast buck. I go on YouTube all the time and Facebook, and there's so many people selling get rich schemes on coaching. It's unbelievable. I'm sick and tired of all the hype, but I can get you 20 clients by the end of the month, and most of it is very exploitive. And so I'm not happy about that at all. I see myself as one of the keepers of the flame of what masterful coaching is really about, and I never did it to make money. I did it because I like doing something that would help people be more, achieve more, and have more than they ever thought possible. If money came in, that was good, but that was never my modus operandi.

Clint Betts

As you look back at your clients, and I'm not asking you to disclose who your clients are, over the years, how do you think about what they accomplished following their relationship with you or during their relationship with you? Is that something that you look back on with pride? I'm sure.

Robert Hargrove

To some extent. I was thinking about this before I got on this call because I was thinking, "Well, what do I have to say?" And I think what I've done over the years is I've been fascinated and intrigued by working with CEOs. Why? To be honest, to some extent, I'm attracted to the glamour and power that CEOs have. Somebody like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, whoever it is, there's a certain animal attraction I have. These are charismatic, attractive people, and I like their money and power. But in a way, what I've tried to do for the past 30 years is to save CEOs from damnation. I'm not a religious person. I say that in a tongue-in-cheek way because I think that working with the coaching CEOs is one of the most powerful things you can do to make a difference in the world.

So because CEOs have a lot of power, they have a lot of money, and to some extent, they're very effective. You don't get to be the CEO if you're an ineffective person. They're very effective. And what I've done is to try to engage those people in relationships. And I think primarily what I've done is somewhat under the cloak, and it's sort of a cloak and dagger thing, is try to elevate their aspirations and motivations so that the CEOs don't just focus on delivering next quarter's returns for Wall Street, but do something that makes a difference in the world.

When I look back over the people that I've worked with, these different CEOs, I've helped a lot of people become CEOs. I've helped a lot of people get to the top, find the path to power, get into the CEO position, and I've helped with multi-billion dollar transactions, disruptive innovation, creating more efficient, more effective organizations, creating organizations that work just not in financial terms, but in human terms. But overall, I don't think I've been successful in my mission. I can't honestly say I influenced that many CEOs to transcend their preoccupation with money and power and to stand for something bigger than themselves to do something that really makes a contribution to society. I have to say that I've failed to some degree.

Clint Betts

Why do you think that is? That's very interesting and very honest, by the way. That's an interesting take on the fact that they can't get over money and power.

Robert Hargrove

Well, I know I was listening to this Arnold Schwarzenegger YouTube video. He's someone who I happen to like a lot, and he described himself as... If you look at his life from the outside, he looks like he was very successful. He looks like he's very successful. He was a bodybuilding champion, came from Austria. He was a movie star. He was the governor of California. But he said, "What you don't see is that most of the time I was failing to do what I set out to do. Most of the majority of time." So why is that? Because I don't think I've been able to really... When I talk about elevating people's aspirations and motivations of CEOs, if I could get a hundred that I would succeed with or 10 that could really have an impact on changing the world. But I think most of them were more preoccupied with money and power than with anything else.

I think Bill Gates, who I never worked with, is a pretty good example of someone who came up with an innovative idea that had an impact on the world in and of itself, made a lot of money, and then shifted to doing something that really made a difference. I admire him for that, but I can't really think of too many others in that category. Well, why? You asked me the question why? Because I think people are small-minded for the... Many of the CEOs I've run across are very small-minded, very petty. They don't have a big enough dream.

My goal has been to inspire CEOs and leaders, not only in business, but in politics, to dare to dream, to have a bigger dream, to live their life consistent with America's ennobling ideals and empowering values. The one place where I saw a big difference is when I worked in the Pentagon, strangely enough, because when I went to the Pentagon, I saw that people, although people there were interested in money and power too, I worked with a lot of four-star generals and admirals, but there was something else that was bigger than money and power. It was patriotism. I remember one guy talking to me about how proud he was to put on the cloth of the nation and go to work every day.

Clint Betts

Yeah, that's very interesting. Here's something I've been thinking about. I want to get your take on it. I do think that so often, and we've interviewed hundreds of CEOs now, my sense is they attach their identity to what they're doing. They attach their identity to that title, to their company, to their success, and that becomes almost like who they are, like as a person. Do you get that sense that that happens?

Robert Hargrove

Yeah, I would agree with that. Let me give you an example. I was working with a CEO whose name will go unmentioned. He was on the Exxon Mobile Board for a long time, and he wanted to work with me on a leadership project. And I interviewed a lot of great leaders for this project, people who were very prominent, and he knows he never showed any interest in these interviews. His company was paying me a lot of money to do this, probably over a half a million dollars, but he never showed any interest in getting the result. And then I came up with the idea of creating a leadership center in Utah. I think you are from Utah.

Clint Betts

I am. Yeah.

Robert Hargrove

You may know the person I'm thinking of. I don't know. And what happened was we were going to have a leadership immersion experience for people in government, business, science, the arts, et cetera, and we started moving toward that. And he never showed any real interest in actually doing that. It was like a plan. What he showed interest in was getting his name on the building at the University of Utah. His action, separate the words, his action was giving them a bunch of monies and getting his name on this building at the University of Utah. And I think what you said, I think he identified just like what you said with the title and with the money and with the power. So what do you find, I'm doing all the talking here. What other observations have you made? You said, that's interesting. You've talked to a lot of CEOs, what have you-

Clint Betts

Well, we've done a lot through this podcast, and obviously through ceo.com, that's a useful domain for this topic.

Robert Hargrove

Great domain.

Clint Betts

Yeah, it's a good domain for this. I wonder though, not to avoid your question, but to flip it back to you on, by the way, I could probably guess who that person is now that I've gotten enough of those hints and being from Utah, but I won't mention them either. I wonder what makes a great leader in your mind. When you see it, when you see great leadership, what is it?

Robert Hargrove

Well, a few things come to mind. I'm a fan of Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote the book, the Team of Rivals, the presidential historian.

Clint Betts

Great book. I've read that book. Yeah, that's a great book.

Robert Hargrove

And she said that what makes a great leader comes down to four or five traits, character skills, not credentials that all great leaders have. And the first one is the ability to stand for something bigger than yourself. And I think that not only applies to CEOs, but I think it applies to mothers and fathers, because to have children, you have to stand for something bigger than yourself. It's amazing what sacrifices people will make on behalf of their children. I think you see much better examples of leadership in the home than in work. So that's quality number one.

Second, character, basic character. I think it was Heraclitus, the Greek historian/philosopher said, "Character is destiny." And what you see, in every single time, when a leader has good character, like for example, FDR or George Washington would be the consummate example, they win people's trust. They accumulate power. They're able to do things that make a difference. George Washington created a new country. So that's stand for something bigger than yourself. Character, which means basically honesty and integrity. George Washington never took a penny in remuneration.

The second is ambition. One of the things I notice as I talk to a lot of young people is that you can have a lot of talent, but if you don't have personal and organizational ambition, you're never going to be a leader. You have to have the ambition to be a leader. And a lot of people are really lacking that. A lot of parents don't encourage their kids to have them. They encourage them to get all A's on the test, but they don't encourage them to have ambition. And there's two, that's what Doris Kearns Goodwin calls the doubleness of ambition. A good example of both of those is two good examples are Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. Both of them were extremely ambitious on getting their way to the presidency.

Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, called him a little engine of ambition who was constantly plotting and planning and scheming. You don't think of Lincoln like that. You think of at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington with his hand up. He was constantly plotting and planning and scheming to get to the top. The same applies to Lyndon Johnson. He was extremely ambitious. He would cajole, bully, please, bribe, do anything necessary to get power. But what's interesting about those two guys is once they got to a position of power, they developed what I call organizational ambition, the desire to do something to make a difference. I'm sure you're probably familiar with their stories to some extent. As you know, Lincoln became president and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. While he was running, he disguised that he was against slavery, but when he was there, he admitted he hated slavery all his life. I mean, that changed the course of human history.

Clint Betts

Yeah, he had to lie about it or else he wouldn't have gotten elected was the challenge for him and Johnson. He came in due to an assassination. That's a crazy [inaudible 00:18:04]

Robert Hargrove

And when he first came in during his first a hundred days as just a topic I've written a book about, they asked him, "What do you want to accomplish in your first hundred days?" He said, "I want to pass a civil rights bill." Are you familiar with that?

Clint Betts

Oh, yeah.

Robert Hargrove

And then his staff said, "Lyndon, if you do that, you're going to burn up all your political capital. You must be crazy." And his response was, "Then what the hell is the presidency for?" So I think that what it takes to be a leader is these character skills standing for something bigger than self, character skills, personal and organizational ambition, empathy. If you don't have... In order to be a leader, you have to care about other people. You're not leading for yourself.

Theodore Roosevelt was born into a patrician class, and he never had any contact with poor people. But when he ran for local legislature in New York, Samuel Gompers took him around to visit the tobacco factories in New York City, which were basically apartments where men, women, and children lived. And he saw the suffering that was there, and other tobacco was in people's food and in their beds. And he decided, he developed something that he called fellow feeling. So empathy is critical. One of the things that's going on today is that there are people in government in high places today that are ambitious, but I'm not sure how empathetic they are.

Number three would be responsibility. If you feel empathy, you see somebody suffering. Buddha said, "Compassion is experiencing other people's suffering as your own." If you see people suffering and you feel empathy, it's natural to want to take responsibility to help them. Lyndon Johnson said that "Government is to help people who aren't in a position to help themselves." Okay, empathy.

The next is humility. By humility, I don't mean humbleness. I mean the kind of humility where you are the first one to admit that you've made a mistake. You can own up to your mistake. So those are some of the qualities that all great leaders have, and the qualities that I think any CEOs as a CEO podcast should aspire to. I think interestingly enough, I think the problem with a lot of our CEOs is their ambition isn't big enough. It stops at the profitability index for this quarter or this year, but you can understand that because if they don't achieve the profit and the growth, they get fired. So I hope that's a good answer to your question. I enjoyed sharing that with you.

Clint Betts

No, yeah, that was incredible. Thank you so much. And we need to have you back on even for a longer period of time because I'd love to talk to you, even go deep on some of these people you've written about and stuff. But in the interest of time, we end every interview with the same question, and that is @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?

Robert Hargrove

Well, I was actually... The person that called me up on the phone and said, do you want to come and give a talk in the middle of a blizzard? I think it was back in 1978, and I was scared stiff. After I started giving the talk and in the middle of the talk, I don't even remember the person's name right now, I had to go to the back of the room and bend over so I could breathe. I was almost out of breath, but by the end it, it was a triumph. But that's a very good question. That's a very, very good question. You seem like a very committed person and a wonderful person, and I'm sure you're a great family man, and I really thank you for the opportunity.

Clint Betts

Thank you, my friend.

Robert Hargrove

Your questions that you sent prior to this interview, it stimulated these ideas.

Clint Betts

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much, my friend. Appreciate you being on.

Edited for readability.