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Lead The People is your guide to unlocking your true potential as an authentic leader. Hosted by Dr. Matt Poepsel—The Godfather of Talent Optimization—this podcast dives deep into the art and science of what it takes to lead at the next level. With insightful conversations and practical strategies, each episode equips executives, strategic HR pros, and aspiring leaders with the tools it takes to boost performance, inspire teams, and drive meaningful impact. Whether exploring the latest workplace trends or tackling real-world leadership challenges, Lead The People offers an enlightened approach to leadership. Embark on a rewarding journey to become the leader your people deserve—the leader you were meant to be.
Steve Farber (00:00):
What should love look like in the way that we work? Not just how often do we use the language with each other? I mean, frankly, that's easy and companies have been doing it for a long time. We love our customers. We print the buttons and the banners and all that. That's really easy to say. Acting that way is a whole different story. I don't mean it as a fluffy, sentimental thing. I mean it as a practice and a discipline.
Matt Poepsel (00:28):
Hey leader, listeners, you're going to absolutely love this conversation with Steve Farber. We're going to talk about all kinds of fun stuff, but some of the more memorable things that you got to look forward to. One is that love itself and this notion of people feeling connection to us, it's not just something that we say. It is actually a practice and a discipline that we can operationalize. We can build our business around it, the way we create connection with our customers and also with our employees. Really cool stuff. He has this great question he likes to pose, which is, if we truly loved our customers, would we. And think about one of your business practices in that light. You could say the same thing for employees as well. He talks a lot about raising standards. If we raise our standards about being more attentive to the things that we say and do we follow through on those things, that's what's really going to help us make sure people feel the way we want them to feel when it comes to being part of our business.
(01:19):
And finally about closing that gap when it comes time to think about this difference between sometimes when we may not be as consistent for various reasons, if we get a little complacent perhaps in how we're showing up for others, that can sort of erode all that great connection and feeling that we've created before. So really fast-paced conversation, really important one right now. We talk toward the end about some of the reasons why it's so important. So I'll leave you to it. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Steve.
(01:50):
Why does the word love still make business people nervous? Today we're talking about love as an actual leadership discipline, not just a platitude. And we're asking a harder question behind the sentiment. Do our actions ever really match what we say we believe? Our guest is Steve Farber, founder of the Extreme Leadership Institute. He spent six years as vice president of the Tom Peters Company before writing The Radical Leap, the book that introduced his Leap framework, Cultivate Love, Generate Energy, Inspire Audacity, and Provide Proof. His new book, The Radical Promise, co-written with leadership researchers Jim Cousas and Barry Posner focuses on closing the gap between what leaders say and what they actually do. Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Farber (02:29):
Thanks, man. It's great to be here with you. We're starting out with the small questions.
Matt Poepsel (02:32):
The small questions. And this is why I've been looking forward to this conversation, doggone it. Love is a four-letter word in my book when I see it in these circles, and I just can't wait to dig into this with you.
Steve Farber (02:42):
Great. Wait, I'm happy to do it.
Matt Poepsel (02:44):
I want to start with this notion that you've been talking about love in business circles since 2004 at least. So why is it still such one of the words that's like, we just avoid it in our business writing, our business conversations? We just only want to talk about it sometimes.
Steve Farber (02:59):
It's a great question. And I think that we actually use the word and talk about it more often than we give ourselves credit for. We don't make it part of the public discourse all that often. I wrote a book called Love Is Just Damn Good Business came out in 2019. Certainly not the first book to use the word love, first business book to use the word love in the title. Tim Sanders wrote a book called Love is the Killer App, which I think came out in 2003, a year before The Radical Leap, my first book came out. So it has been part of the public conversation, but certainly not mainstream. Yet when you have a conversation with somebody, just a casual conversation, somebody who really is engaged in their work, and just ask them a simple question, "What do you think about your company? What do you think about your work?
(03:45):
What do you think about your team?" It's not uncommon to hear people say, "Oh, I love it. Love working here. Love my team. Love my customers. I love coming to work." It's not all that uncommon. Unfortunately, it's still more the exception than the rule, but it's there. I mean, this is a very basic, primal, foundational human experience. And we're still human beings when we go to work. So it's not surprising that it's there. I just like to shine the spotlight on it and see what the implications are.
Matt Poepsel (04:16):
You're right. I hear it used and certainly in reference to, I love my job. Sure. I love my team. I think when it gets to the individual person, sometimes we get a little squeamish about it perhaps. I don't know why that is necessarily. And I do wonder if it's changing at all. Have you seen that there's been less resistance maybe over the last 20 years or so? Or is it still kind of like, no, situationally or person to person, it can vary?
Steve Farber (04:38):
I think overall there is less resistance to it because let's call it the adjacent neighborhoods to love. Conversations about meaning and purpose at work and how important that is and values congruence and all of that is really more part of the mainstream conversation. So it's not much of a leap, so to speak, to go from one to the other. And as far as people admitting to one another that they work with, that they love them, people still get a little squeamish about that, particularly folks in HR, I would imagine. But the fact is that those feelings are there. So I'll give you an example, Matt. I was speaking at a conference a while ago. I do a lot of keynote speaking and stuff like that. And we were talking about this love thing, of course. And afterwards I was walking down the hall and I overheard a couple of guys talking to each other and they were punching each other in the arms like, "Yeah, I love you, man.
(05:27):
Yeah, I love you, man." And then one of them stopped and said, "Yeah, yep, but I really do."
Matt Poepsel (05:32):
Oh, that's nice. I like that.
Steve Farber (05:35):
Using the language with each other is not the most important thing really. It's are we acting in a way that cultivates love of the work and love of the customer and love of one another in our endeavors? I
Matt Poepsel (05:48):
Like that because it kind of takes some of the sting out of it or you don't want to cross a boundary perhaps, but making sure they feel the love. Yeah, that makes total sense. And I have a military background, so we certainly had some pretty extreme environment. And you actually find that language a lot more than you might expect. I've never been in the fire service or police or anything like that, but I'm sure there's a lot of that too. You go through something together, you just feel that bond at that level, and you might be a little bit more readily able to even just say it out loud. But I like what you're saying though, Steve, which is let's make sure that the sentiment is there, the feeling is there, that connection, that bond. It's more important than actually saying the word.
Steve Farber (06:23):
And so really in this context, because I looked at love as a very significant and important business strategy. It's a way to give ourselves a competitive edge. If we want to have that edge, we have to create a product or an experience that our customers are going to love. That's the standard. And it's very hard to do that in a consistent and meaningful way unless you can create a culture that people love working in. And I can't create that kind of a culture as a leader unless I have it myself first. I've got to love the place and the mission and the people that I'm working with. So I don't mean it as a fluffy, sentimental thing. I mean it as a practice and a discipline. So really the question is what should love look like in the way that we work? Not just how often do we use the language with each other?
(07:09):
I mean, frankly, that's easy. And companies have been doing it for a long time. We love our customers. We print the buttons and the banners and all that. That's really easy to say. Acting that way is a whole different story.
Matt Poepsel (07:19):
Yeah. I've never really thought about it that way where you're saying it's a practice, it's a discipline, and we have to kind of almost operationalize and build around it. I don't know that we need to assign metrics to it. Maybe we do, maybe I'm wrong. But how does that look like? How do we actually operationalize love in that way?
Steve Farber (07:34):
Funnily enough, it starts by asking the question, how do we operationalize love?
Matt Poepsel (07:39):
There you go.
Steve Farber (07:40):
It starts by posing that questions to ourselves. If you look at your customer policies, for example, and ask the question, does this, whatever this system policy procedure is, does this show our customers that we love them? Or another way of asking the question is, if we really loved our customers, would we do it this way? So for example, it's a company that I've cited quite a bit, I've written about and spoken about a lot. It's called Trailer Bridge. They're in Jacksonville, Florida. They asked that question in just about every context when they were bringing the company out of bankruptcy and trying to turn it around. And one of the questions they asked was, do our policies and procedures show our customers that we love them? So real quickly, these guys are in the shipping and logistics business. So they ship barge loads of stuff from mainland US primarily to Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and all that.
(08:34):
And they had a longstanding policy that unless their barge was, I think it was 75, 80% full, they wouldn't sail because they would lose money on the shipment. Which kind of makes sense if you're looking at the balance sheet. We're not busy to lose money.
Matt Poepsel (08:47):
Well,
Steve Farber (08:47):
What happened? You had a bunch of ships that wouldn't sail because they didn't sell enough space. So the customers are going, "Hey man, where's the car that I was shipping to Puerto Rico? You said it was going to be there three months ago and it's still sitting in the harbor. Are you telling me it's still in the harbor?" Say, "Yeah, well, we haven't sold enough space yet." So they asked the question, "If we really loved our customers, what would we do in that scenario when we told them we were going to ship on a certain date, but we didn't because we weren't full enough? What would we do then?" Then the answer's pretty obvious. We would sail. Why? Because that's what we said we would do. So they started doing that. And pretty soon their reputation started to change. And I'm going to fast-forward and skip through all the details on this, but these guys have now been voted best place to work.
(09:34):
I don't know how many times. They had two years running that their revenue exceeded the previous 20 years of the company combined and on and on and on it goes. Because they applied that question to every aspect of their business. And really what this is about, Matt, is raising the standards. We're not about satisfaction anymore. We're not about being okay. We're about creating experiences and products that people are going to love. There was no higher standard than that. So it's not easy. It's a challenging question to ask. It's easy to print the buttons and the banners, but doing the thing is very challenging. Well,
Matt Poepsel (10:08):
Compare that to, I was in the airport the other day and I hear one of the airlines over the loudspeaker saying, "We've oversold this flight. We're offering you some voucher. You can get on a flight first thing tomorrow morning and we don't have enough seats, so somebody's going to have to take this voucher." I though, "Man, that is brutal to try to come back from that." And they're asking for quote unquote volunteers, but somebody's going to get voluntold because this is the kind of thing you have to do artificially when you don't ask that question upfront that you just suggested. Somebody was running a spreadsheet, they weren't asking the question of all if this were really true, if all the things that we say in our marketing posters were true, is this how we would act? Right?
Steve Farber (10:47):
Yeah. So really what that's about is holding ourselves accountable to our own words, to our own promises and commitments. And we do that as individual people. And we also do it as companies and as brands. A brand is essentially a promise of a certain equality or characteristic. And again, easy to put all the words together, but it's about holding ourselves accountable to be congruent with the things that we say are important.
Matt Poepsel (11:16):
Yeah. And that's really the crux of what you're writing about now these days. When it comes to the radical promise, you're talking about credibility comes from closing that gap. Does the gap, is it that we just never knew we had to cross it or do we lose it and the gap grows or both?
Steve Farber (11:30):
Yeah. So specifically, the radical promise, the subtitle of the new book is Mastering the Art of Doing What You Say You Will Do. So do what you say you will do. D-W-Y-S-Y-W-D is the acronym, which is pronounced Dwizzy Wid, by the way. It's kind of fun to say. Doing what you say you will do is a very simple behavioral description of credibility. We see a person, a company, a team as credible when they do what they say they're going to do. Again, sounds easy on the surface. It's a simple principle to understand, but when I say I'm going to do something, the say part, again, is easy. And sometimes we're just a little too casual with the things that we say we're going to do. Following through on it with our actions is what establishes us as credible, trustworthy, and somebody that I'm going to willingly follow, engage with if I'm thinking about a particular leader or it's a company that I'm going to engage with if I'm thinking about an organization.
(12:26):
So the gap between the say and the do is the issue. That's the question that you're asking. And we have to do whatever we can to close that gap. In other words, to be ideally, and I really do mean ideally, 100% congruent. So if you can imagine being 100% doing what you say you will do, I don't know that that's humanly possible because what's the phrase? Shit happens for one thing. I mean, we live in a world that seems to conspire against our doing what we say we'll do sometimes. So nobody's perfect. We got to acknowledge that, which means that we need to be hyper aware and whenever possible to be congruent with our words and our actions. Whenever possible to do what we say we will do both individually and organizationally, which means we've got to be very cognizant of the commitments that we make and the commitments that we don't make.
(13:20):
And to make this even a little bit more complicated, sometimes we say things, the gap is there and we're not even aware of it. So if I say to you, for example, "Hey Matt, I'm going to be in town next week. We should have lunch." And I'm thinking we're not. But what you're hearing most likely is, "I'm going to be in town next week and we're going to have lunch."
(13:38):
Didn't even register with me because I was just kind of thinking out loud. And then next week comes and goes. I come to town, I leave town, we didn't have lunch. And you're thinking, "Oh, man, Farber said we're going to have lunch with this guy. I can't trust this guy. And I don't even know what happened." So we have to, again, be really aware of the words that come out of our mouths because if we don't have credibility, this is really why this is important. And you can look at Cousas and Posner's research, my co-authors of this book. If we don't have credibility, we don't have anything. If somebody doesn't see us as a credible person, they're not going to follow us anywhere. So if I'm a leader and I want to lead effectively, and I want people to engage with me into this uncertain future or to achieve this vision that we're laying out, and they look at me and they don't see me as credible, they are not going to engage.
(14:27):
This really is foundational to everything that we try to do as leaders and as human beings in general, I would say.
Matt Poepsel (14:32):
Yeah. And I think the stakes are raised in this dynamic environment we're in right now where everything changes very quickly. You may have to unwind something you said because you meant it at the time. The other thing I think is complexity. There's a lot of trade-offs in business and a lot of times you have to make choices. If we decide to splurge on something to make our customers love us, then we have less resources to make our employees love us. So sometimes we have to be cognizant and go through that and thread that needle a little bit too. Have you seen that this current environment we're in since, gosh, I don't even know the last time things were stable, but is that making it harder to sort of follow through and maintain that credibility or is it kind of the way it's always been?
Steve Farber (15:12):
I think both and. Pretty much every generation for the last hundred years has said that about its present circumstance. We've been engaging in this pace of change forever, it seems, at least in the modern history. So yes, it's more challenging. It always feels like it's more challenging. And the world does, like I said, sometimes seem to conspire against us. So we just have to be really careful about saying what we mean so that we're not just saying what we think people want to hear with having no intention of ever following through on it. That's the worst case scenario, which is just another word for lying basically. But the more subtle application of that is, I just need to be clear. Am I making a commitment or am I expressing something that I would like to see happen? And sometimes the best of intentions, things don't work out.
(16:10):
And if we can fess up to that and say, "Hey, listen, I'm sorry it didn't work out and here's why." That's a productive conversation to have. But here's the rub. If that happens in our relationship, let's say, and when I say relationship, I mean, let's say a relationship between a leader and his or her team. If I tell you that I'm going to do something or that we're going to do something and it doesn't work out and it wasn't intentional, it wasn't malicious, I can come to you and I can apologize. And you are likely to extend that grace to me because you know that it's not the norm for me. This was an outlier of a situation. If it happens again, even again, not in my control, happens again. Now it's a little more painful. If it happens a third time, then we run the risk of a three strikes, you're out kind of a thing.
(17:01):
Even if all three of those scenarios were something that I had no control over. So yes, in that sense, it's always more challenging. But here's the way I like to look at it. Maybe it's an impossible standard to live up to. Literally 100% congruent between words and actions. But I do know this. In striving to live up to that standard, I'm going to be a lot more consistent over time. And then that gives me the credibility to demand the same thing of you.
Matt Poepsel (17:29):
You got me thinking that you've talked to me before about taking an analogy almost from marriage. And I've been married 31 years. I'm not 100% congruent. No way. And it's interesting that there's this track record because I've showed up more times than I haven't, thankfully. So I've banked some goodwill there. But at the same time, I probably take things a little bit more for granted after 31 years too. You take that back into the workplace, you think about somebody's onboarding and you're getting so much attention from the boss. They're making sure you're comfortable, that you meet the team, they're walking around the building, and then they're like, "Okay, that was a great day. I got to get back to all the stuff I was supposed to be doing the last eight weeks while I was trying to find you, hire you in the first place." And now all of a sudden they start drifting away and you're like, "Wait a second.
(18:11):
Where's all that love? I was feeling so great on Monday. Now it's Tuesday and I can't get you to return my emails." That's got to be one that wears off a lot quicker.
Steve Farber (18:19):
It does. And to build on that a little bit, Matt, there's also the gap that exists between the things that I heard in the interview when you were hiring me and the things that I experience when I come to work. This is not what you told me it was going to be. How many times have we heard that one? Or we had that interview. I'm sold on you. You're sold on me. You hire me. I come to that onboarding that you're just telling me about. And one of the things that I learned in the onboarding is the company's values. And I'm given a little laminated card that shows our vision, mission, and values on the card. I mean, I see a video of the founder of the company who's talking about what this place is all about. That's all great. I don't mean to sound cynical about it because I'm saying it kind of in a snarky way.
(19:00):
That stuff is all important. But then what starts to happen is when I start engaging as this new employee in the experience of working here, I'm going to compare my experience, what I see happening, the doing around here. I'm going to compare it to those words. And are we collectively as a company doing those things that we say on those laminated cards and the calligraphy posters and the reception area and all of that? So this dwizzy wid thing applies on every level, individually and all the way through the way the enterprise shows up and all the way out to the customer in terms of do we deliver on our promises and our brand promises? Yeah,
Matt Poepsel (19:43):
I like that. I had never really thought about it that way, but it's almost like love makes a promise. It's what allows us to say, you can count on me for this connection between us, this thing I said I was going to do. Some companies obsess over the customer because they know that that's an important source of obviously revenue. Without customers, we wouldn't have a business. But I don't think it has to compete with being able to show love to employees also. That yes and you talked about earlier.
Steve Farber (20:10):
Right. And yet sometimes it does. I mean, sometimes it's not a nice, neat, linear sort of a process. Sometimes the right thing to do for a customer may not feel right for an employee. So we have in the past, my colleagues and I referred to this as a dwizzy wid dilemma where the values that you have for one person or group of people kind of smacks up against another. And that's where compromise comes in. And sometimes you have to adjust and you have to bring people in on the conversation and explain it and be transparent. That word that we like to use so much. Another one of those words that's easy to say and hard to do, but to be transparent in the thinking process behind it. And most human beings, the vast majority of human beings that come to work are mature adults and they want to do the right thing.
(20:57):
And if I really understand that there's something that I disagree with, at the very least I'll understand it, even though I might continue to disagree with it. I might hurt my feelings in the short term. So it really comes down to a lot of this being very forthright and be willing to talk it through with people. It's always coming back to the sage, the conversation, the words, and then making sure that our actions live up to it as best as we can. And if they don't, then we talk again and keep working together. And
Matt Poepsel (21:26):
I'm curious what you're saying when it comes to this notion of technical disruption. We live in a very, almost an isolating society in a way where we're consuming so much content at home. Our packages get delivered to us or food gets delivered to us. Are you seeing that people want connection differently, more than they have, less than they have?
Steve Farber (21:48):
There was a book, a very, very popular book was written in, it was in the '70s, I think, by Alvin Toffler. Do you remember a book called Future Shock? I
Matt Poepsel (21:59):
Don't know by title.
Steve Farber (22:00):
He was a futurist. And one of the dynamics that he described, this was in the '70s. He called it high tech, high touch. That the more technological the world gets, the more our desire for touch, human to human connection, the greater that desire will become. This is in the '70s. Now you put AI into the mix. Talk about high tech, high touch. So to answer your question, I'm seeing this a lot. I'm seeing this a lot with millennials that I've been spending time with. When I listen to them talk about what's important to them, 30 to early 40s, let's say, these are our new leaders in companies. And when I listen to them, talk about what's important to them in companies and in their leadership roles, because these are the new leaders of companies now. It's all about relationship and connection and purpose and meaning and human to human.
(22:54):
So we're starting to embrace the technology as we learn it. And I think we'll see more and more we'll be using it as a tool. And if we can use AI as a tool for genuine connection, that'll really be fulfilling a higher purpose for the technology. But yes, we want to connect with each other. And the more we can learn how to do that and be really present with the other human beings in our life, the more challenging it becomes to do that, the greater advantage we'll have by mastering how to do that very thing. I
Matt Poepsel (23:26):
Love it. And I feel like the hunger is there. People want that connection. For my listeners, your team leaders, your department leaders, functional leaders, you're running companies. Basically knowing that people are wanting that connection, taking your advice, Steve, and saying, let's make sure that people feel that, that we're following through on our commitments, that we're careful and attentive to our words is going to pay off on that. And because if they can't feel that connection from us, then all they have is a job and that's not going to cut it. I mean, that's not what's going to have them showing up anxious to serve customers and their teammates and everybody else. Not
Steve Farber (24:02):
Only is it going to pay off, but to put it in maybe a more critical light or negative light, downside light, when you don't do it, it damages you. Whether you're aware of it or not. And I say this because again, I go back to the research on this. Jim and Barry, Kouzes and Posner asked a very simple question. They started asking it 40 years ago, and they've asked it all around the world. The question is, what do you look for and admire in a leader? Someone whose direction you would willingly follow? And to really get it down to its essence, the answer to the question is credibility. That's it. Credibility plus vision. So if I'm going to follow you somewhere, I need to know where we're going. That's the vision piece. But I also need to know that I believe in you. So the Cousus Posner First Law of Leadership, these guys have a law named after them.
(24:51):
I don't, but they do. So that's cool. But the Cousus Posner first law of leadership is if you don't believe in the messenger, you won't believe the message.
(25:01):
So to your listeners who are leading companies and teams, if you have a track record, even if it's unbeknownst to you, if you have a track record of not consistently doing what you say you will do, your credibility's in trouble. And if you're wondering why people aren't engaging to the level that you would like them to, that's a good place to start looking. So the good news in all that is that if there's anything that is mostly within our control, it's that. We can hold ourselves accountable to our own words. Accountability we typically use as accountability is that thing that we desperately want other people to take. This is about holding ourselves accountable to our own words. And you could start right now. We could all train ourselves, and I put myself in this mix. We can all train ourselves to be more vigilant about the words that we say and how well we follow up on them.
(25:51):
That
Matt Poepsel (25:51):
Is fantastic actual advice. It's one of those things that sounds simple, but it's not easy, but it is important and it's important that we get it right. Let me tell you about something that's not important, Steve. It's trivia, but that's what we're going to do. And I saw that you co-wrote a book called Twisted Business, which was Lessons from My Life in Rock and Roll with J.J. French. That was the guitarist and manager of Twisted Sister. If you're Gen X like me, you might recognize Twisted Sister for sure. So I though we'd get a trivia question about rock and roll. Okay? Okay. So here it is. It's a multiple choice question. Who is widely known as the king of rock and roll? Is it A, Chuck Berry, B, Elvis Presley, or C, Little Richard?
Steve Farber (26:27):
Widely known as the king of rock and roll?
Matt Poepsel (26:29):
Yeah. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley. I don't think it's Little Richard.
Steve Farber (26:32):
Elvis Presley. You think Elvis
Matt Poepsel (26:34):
Presley? We're going to Elvis Presley. Audience, if you're playing along at home, king of rock and roll is at A, Chuck Berry, B, Elvis Presley, or C, Little Richard. We went with Elvis Presley and you got it. Correct. Simply the King. It was a record-breaking success starting in the 1950s. There you go. Crushed it. But I got a much better question for you, Steve. Where can my listeners go to learn more about you and about the new book?
Steve Farber (26:54):
Elvispressley.com. No. Yeah, if you get it, stevefarber.com is the website. The book, The Radical Promise is available everywhere books are sold. So Amazon, of course, is always a good place to go. Barnes & Noble, wherever you go for your books. The Radical Promise: Mastering the Art of Doing has say you will do. I'm also getting more active, more and more active on Instagram, but you can find me on LinkedIn. And if you could remember my name, you could find me because my handle on all those platforms is Steve Farber @stevefarber. I dig
Matt Poepsel (27:24):
It. So listeners, I'm going to have those links for you in the show notes. You're only one click away from getting connected with Steve, learning about his new book, and all about the radical promise that is following through and creating that love. Steve, thanks so much for being here. And
Steve Farber (27:35):
By the way, you could also go to. It's a new website because that's why I didn't think of it right off the bat, but it's theradicalpromise.com. Perfect.
Matt Poepsel (27:43):
So there you go, listeners. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Steve, thanks again for spending time with me today. I've really enjoyed this topic. It's an important one. My
Steve Farber (27:49):
Pleasure, Matt. Thanks for having me.