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Every day you have a choice. You can wake up and choose to give in to mediocrity and complacency, you can choose bad habits and poor choices, and you can do the bare minimum to get by and fly under the radar. Or you can choose to make today the day that sets you apart from the crowd, you can choose to start doing the right things, the things that will set you up for success. You can choose to create a life that is worth living, worth waking up to, and worth sharing with the world around you. Today You can choose to start with a win.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:11:13
Speaker 2
use. You don't have to be right. You just have to get it right. So stop putting the pressure on yourself and show who you are. Because if you show a little bit of vulnerability and then you show that you want to take risks, people will show you who they
00:00:11:13 - 00:00:18:13
Unknown
Welcome to start with a win where we unpack franchising, leadership and business growth. Let's go.
00:00:18:13 - 00:00:26:11
Speaker 1
Curious about what it takes to drive innovation across some of the most cutting edge industries today. We talk about that and start with a win.
00:00:26:11 - 00:00:54:23
Speaker 1
We're sitting down with Blair Lockhart, a man whose leadership has left a transformative mark on sectors from aviation to AI. Blair's journey includes leading companies like Lumos Technologies and XO jet from startup to IPO, all while mastering the art of team motivation and operational excellence. With a Dartmouth MBA and hands on experience across multiple industries, Blair brings a unique blend of strategic insight and real world knowhow.
00:00:54:23 - 00:01:02:19
Speaker 1
Get ready to be inspired by a leader who's not just talked about innovation. He's lived it. Blair, welcome to start with a win.
00:01:02:19 - 00:01:06:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. Great to see you as well. I'm a big fan of the show. Adam.
00:01:06:16 - 00:01:27:00
Speaker 1
Hey, thanks a lot. you've. I'll tell you, this is really a fascinating interview for me because you've done so much in business, but you've also done so much interpersonally for people and coaching, longevity, things like that. So, all of those things obviously play together. I want to unpack some of those different directions there. But ultimately I want to start with this.
00:01:27:05 - 00:01:41:22
Speaker 1
You've been CEO of different companies across different industries. I mean, stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with each other. you know, there's there's leadership and then there's people. How do these things work together that allowed you to do that?
00:01:42:00 - 00:02:03:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, you know, actually, you know, thank you for that question. You know, as a, as a marketer, you know, you try to make your background, look, you know, that it looks like it makes sense. but in reality, I think that, my skill set, you know, comes from my childhood. And, you know, as everyone says, from your childhood and from your trauma, right?
00:02:03:20 - 00:02:23:04
Speaker 2
Which is, you know, I had to entrepreneur parents who are divorced. So two different businesses. I had eight brothers and sisters. and so I became very, very good at change management and helping people solve problems. And so, you know, I when I'm really honest and I have a couple beers, I'll say, people look at the end of the day.
00:02:23:06 - 00:02:44:15
Speaker 2
that's what makes me feel good is to, to find industries where I can learn about and be curious, but I can also elevate the people. So the answer to your question is, you know, I learned to find a way not to be right, but to get it right, which means going into a company and figuring out what's going on by listening to people before I started to tell them what to do.
00:02:44:17 - 00:02:57:11
Speaker 2
that said, you know, it would be nice that, you know, every once in a while, I think to myself, I wish I had been in one place for 25 years because I would know everyone. on the other hand, it's not who I am, right?
00:02:57:13 - 00:03:15:08
Speaker 1
I mean, it's obviously building. Trust is a big part of walking in the door as a leader. how did you overcome that challenge? Because, you know, you walk into a new a new boardroom or a new, executive meeting, and everybody's sitting there going, this guy doesn't come from our space or we don't know who he is.
00:03:15:10 - 00:03:19:06
Speaker 1
How did you start building those bridges with the other people in the businesses?
00:03:19:08 - 00:03:35:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's you know, it's a great question. And, I really think it starts with yourself because we all try to fit our persona right. We all try to go in and say, okay, this is where I'm supposed to act. This is what I'm supposed to do. And at some point, you know, my dad gave me a great gift.
00:03:35:12 - 00:03:55:21
Speaker 2
Is that that quote I just use? I you don't have to be right. You just have to get it right. So stop putting the pressure on yourself and show who you are. Because if you show a little bit of vulnerability and then you show that you want to take risks, people will show you who they are. So my attitude was there are, you know, you know, one company I won't name I the my first board meeting I invited my dad.
00:03:56:03 - 00:04:13:23
Speaker 2
You can imagine how horrified people were. Why is your dad here? Right. I said, because I'd like to, you know, have him see what I do. That's who I am. I mean, I, you know, we only got a certain amount of time on and that set the tone for you guys. At that point, people said, this guy is a family guy and he's a guy that cares about people.
00:04:14:01 - 00:04:31:12
Speaker 2
when I took over the airline, I remember the first day I walked in and again, I was that one that was a little nervous about because, my stepfather and my mother had run an airline when I was younger, and it was a rocky road. and so when I came in, I thought, oh, this is, you know, oh, my gosh, fate, here I am, I'm going to run this airline.
00:04:31:12 - 00:04:45:00
Speaker 2
And the first thing that happened was the chief pilot came up to me, went to shake my hand. He's a good looking guy. He's tall and shakes my hand and I said, oh, I'm Blair le Cork because, you know, you want to be a little bit humble. Like I obviously know who I am. He said, I know who you are.
00:04:45:00 - 00:05:03:22
Speaker 2
And then I thought, okay, there's the exchange. He goes, you're management. And I thought, yeah, he knows I'm in charge. You know, I'm a pilot, you're management. We're two different companies. And, you know, again, I had to actually decide, was I going to tell him that he worked for me, or was I going to sit down and ask them, you know what does that mean to you?
00:05:03:22 - 00:05:24:09
Speaker 2
And I decided to take the latter. So I think that when you're dealing in an environment where people know more than you do, if you don't figure out a way to learn from them, you're at a disadvantage. And ultimately you'll probably lose. So that that's my advice is that it's not really the the company. That's the challenge.
00:05:24:09 - 00:05:34:23
Speaker 2
It's will you be confident enough to actually figure things out and be humble enough, not to take, you know, the bait and, and worry about what people think.
00:05:35:01 - 00:06:03:17
Speaker 1
I love it. Yeah. There's always that, you know, gotcha moment where somebody is involved at upfront or they want to make a statement or something like that. But, I mean, you, you know, you talk with a lot of humility. You mentioned humility. I mean, it seems super important to be that, that, you know, that olive branch that you offer out to people as you walk in a new room because you've walked in a lot of new rooms, a lot of new companies and move things along.
00:06:03:19 - 00:06:16:19
Speaker 1
you know, you there's this fixing something versus growing something mindset that you have. explain that to us. how do you identify that for each of these companies and then.
00:06:16:20 - 00:06:33:17
Speaker 2
Right, you know, and again, you know, it's funny because when people, you know, we all have to put things in boxes and compare it so that we can normalize it in our mind. So when a lot of people will meet me and they say, oh, it looks like you've been involved, a lot of companies are either restructurings or they're growth companies and they're very, very different.
00:06:33:22 - 00:06:52:15
Speaker 2
How do you deal with that? And my answer is they're exactly the same. It's, restructuring is all about people and patterns. Something's not working. And you got to figure it out. And a growth company is all about. These guys have done unbelievably well, but they need to double, and they have to figure it out. They have to change.
00:06:52:17 - 00:07:10:04
Speaker 2
when you do a restructuring, the I think the average is you're going to replace 40 to 60% of your staff in that restructuring, not because they're all horrible people, but because, you know, maybe the wrong person in the wrong seat or they may be burnt out in a growth company. Guess what? You replace 40 to 60% of the people.
00:07:10:09 - 00:07:39:10
Speaker 2
And why? Because they're probably not in the right place. They got the company to a certain place, and now you need someone who can actually scale it, which is a different set and a different mindset. Right? So, you know, to me, it's all it's all the same. You're always dealing with how much change you want to have. And so, you know, and change always comes back down to, you know, and we can talk about what strategy is, but, you know, it always comes down to, you know, brainstorming is about yes, strategy is about no.
00:07:39:10 - 00:08:00:11
Speaker 2
And really business is function on a business model. That's all that matters is, you know, how the people ask for money and how they provide value, right? So at the end of the day, anyone who thinks that they're going to win because they have the best idea, you know, it happens, but it's not a good probability shot from the outside.
00:08:00:13 - 00:08:22:07
Speaker 1
You know what? I mean, you see a lot of givers and takers start to separate in these businesses as you roll in and and begin applying different, pressures or stress. And, and I'm a firm believer that pressure is a good thing. It it moves things forward, but it also demonstrates where the weaknesses and the gaps are that that are ripe for growth.
00:08:22:09 - 00:08:40:22
Speaker 1
But how do you how do you start to separate where you're at with the givers and the takers in these businesses as you roll in, in order to maximize the capabilities that they might have? Because some people are just so scared they're protecting and they're, you know, they're they're not giving at that moment, but maybe they are givers.
00:08:41:03 - 00:08:45:06
Speaker 1
Who knows? I mean, right, I explain that a little bit to me, if you can, if. Yeah.
00:08:45:06 - 00:09:02:14
Speaker 2
You know, look, I again I come in with, you know, models in my head and then I, you know, like you have to solve one equation before you can solve another. And so I come in with models and then I watch and I see if my model is right or wrong and what I'm predicting. But I'll tell you one of the things that, you know really bums me out.
00:09:02:14 - 00:09:27:03
Speaker 2
And I, you know, that's not a business term, but it is that you walk into a company that needs help. And a lot of people think these guys, these people are idiots. That's why I'm here. I'm here to save them and they're idiots. And the reality is, 10% of almost any population are probably not good people. And, you know, I would dare to say, you know, depending on your value set, they're they're evil people, right?
00:09:27:03 - 00:09:49:14
Speaker 2
They're they're out for themselves and they don't care about what happens, people. But when you look at the rest of those people that, you know, the other 90% of the people, there's probably a big percentage of them that are really, really smart. but they don't know how to actually, apply that to helping the business. There's a big percentage of them that, are really smart, but the skill set they have is not right for you right now.
00:09:49:14 - 00:10:16:09
Speaker 2
And there's a bunch of people that are really smart and they're influencing things, but they don't have enough power to actually move it across. And so your goal is to both learn and to figure out who should stay on the bus, to use a cliche. Right. I you know, I had this, this thing I developed over the years where if I fired anybody a direct report or a direct report of a direct report, I would want to know.
00:10:16:11 - 00:10:32:20
Speaker 2
They're not going to fire anyone without telling me. Okay. And we sit down and talk about it for an hour, and then I would tell them, I am going to meet with every person that you fired, because now I know why we decided to make that decision. And I'm going to spend an hour with that, and I'm going to tell them what our logic was.
00:10:32:22 - 00:10:51:23
Speaker 2
Now, sometimes it was just shock and awe that I was going to sit down and talk to them because they had just been fired. a lot of times it was anger that they had to get out, but I always stuck by if I can't tell them why I'm making the decision, I'm not going to change my mind at that point, but they can either make me better or I can make them better afterwards.
00:10:51:23 - 00:11:09:19
Speaker 2
And what you found is that a year later, people would come back to me and say, thank you. I was in the wrong job. I was screwed, right? But I didn't. I was afraid I had a mortgage and I wasn't going to get out of it. And you explained to me that it wasn't a bad thing because again, firing isn't the end.
00:11:09:19 - 00:11:37:20
Speaker 2
It should be just like coaching, moving you off the field because you're not appropriate for this. But that doesn't mean you can't play in another team and that doesn't play. You can't you can't play another, position that you go find. And so I think that you have an obligation as a leader to give a shit about about people and again, come in and assume they're not all idiots, figure out which people should be on the bus and help them move to the place they should be, and they will be loyal to you.
00:11:37:22 - 00:11:57:23
Speaker 2
Because at the end of the day, you know, I know you mentioned longevity. I mean, I'm spending a bunch of time on longevity right now. Human connection is the super power. It is the super power. now, I would also say just like in in Yang, there are the part of the super power is knowing when they're evil or they're bad for you.
00:11:58:04 - 00:12:17:01
Speaker 2
And that means setting a boundary. So it goes both ways. How do you both come in to help? But how do you know where you draw the line? because you can't help everybody. As my dad would say, if you help too much, they can't stand on their own two legs and therefore you're not doing them a favor.
00:12:17:03 - 00:12:39:03
Speaker 1
Incredible. I hear a lot of coaching coming from you. And you mentioned the word coaching. Tell us where the crossover of coaching and leadership is. Is it extreme or is it? I mean, because we we don't see a lot of leaders come in and, and lend a lot of coaching into what they do? A lot of times, it seems more that they're managing.
00:12:39:05 - 00:12:59:08
Speaker 2
Whereas, yeah, you know, I, I love to, you know, I'd love to tell you there, you know, there was one way to do things right. I mean, I think that you have to sit down and ask yourself, who are you? What's your authentic, authentic skill set in? The second is what applies to the situation. Now, what I say to people is be very careful to pick situations that apply to who you are.
00:12:59:10 - 00:13:20:11
Speaker 2
if you look at it, I went back to Stanford, to take some graduate courses because as I started to get into when I was in investing, we hired a lot of people. You buy a company, you got to hire some people, right? And so I spent a lot of time doing what we call human capital. And we had bought Burger King and Neiman Marcus and IBM and a lot of big companies, and we bought a lot of small companies.
00:13:20:11 - 00:13:47:17
Speaker 2
And it's a very, you know, who you pick determines whether you make money off that company. It turns out that interviewing has a 1% correlation. It's 1% correlation. And the reason is, is because you're selling your job because, you know, someone put this person in front of you, a recruiter, and they're selling themselves. So this whole idea of self-awareness, you can't make the candidate self-aware because you're selling and he doesn't want to be, you know, make you self-aware of who he is because he's selling.
00:13:47:19 - 00:14:04:22
Speaker 2
And so part of the trick, I think, is first deciding who you are and then deciding what position would be good for you. So I came down to a thing where I would spend two hours, with key candidates, and I would, you know, this was a in some ways, I'm giving my my secret. It was a little bit of a setup.
00:14:04:22 - 00:14:20:11
Speaker 2
I would say, hey, listen, I am going to tell you everything that sucks about this company in this job, something you'll know a month in, because a month into a company, you know this. So I'm just going to tell you, you already know the good things. And by the way, I've read your resume the recruiter sent you. I already know you're good.
00:14:20:13 - 00:14:39:14
Speaker 2
So let's just assume stipulate. You're really good. And this company is a great opportunity. So now I can I'm going to tell you the things that you would find out. And then I also want to take you through your background. I don't want to hear about one achievement. I just want to talk about every decision you made from your first girlfriend to where you went to college, to what sports you played and why.
00:14:39:14 - 00:15:02:07
Speaker 2
I want to know how you think we can start either place. They'd always pick or why don't you tell me about the company? Because they're still in that mode. If the more information I have, the better I can sell myself. But if I do a good job and I'm authentic and I'm humble and I'm honest about it, and I explain to them why they end up saying, this is different, I'm going to tell you the truth about myself, and I'm going to learn something.
00:15:02:11 - 00:15:23:04
Speaker 2
50% of the guys I interviewed for CEO actually turned down the job because they realized this was the wrong industry, or didn't want to be CEO again, because again, you have to be self-aware enough, and anyone who thinks they're going to interview someone and figure them out, you need that person to tell you who they are. And so back to your initial question, which I you know, I'm Italian.
00:15:23:04 - 00:15:42:13
Speaker 2
I went on for how, you know, you have to first decide who you are, to decide whether this is the right place for you to be. And once you decide the right place for you to be, then you decide the strategy. So it turns out that I'm a coach. I've always been a coach. So if you don't need a coach, it's probably the wrong job.
00:15:42:13 - 00:16:02:07
Speaker 2
For me. It doesn't mean that there aren't companies out there that said, hey, these people are only coaching this. You know that. They just do it. It's about metrics. It's about, you know, driving, you know, these numbers. It's about, you know, distributed leadership. and, you know, let them go. It's transaction model and, you know, pay for play and eat what you kill.
00:16:02:09 - 00:16:19:19
Speaker 2
Those wouldn't be a good job for me, right. But I have to tell someone that like that, that won't be. I'll get bored. Not that we can't do anything. You can do anything. So you go out there, you take a job and you go, I can do that. At the end of the day, if it's a short term thing you have to do to get you to where you need to be, that's fine.
00:16:19:19 - 00:16:34:23
Speaker 2
But any job you take that you're doing something. It isn't your authentic self. You're either going to get bored or you're going to get frustrated and you're going to fail. So pick things that make sense and you will be successful. Every job isn't a win.
00:16:35:01 - 00:17:00:00
Speaker 1
I love that. That's awesome. it's fascinating because, you know, as we're going through this process with people, you start unpacking their people skills and you're clearly identifying different people skills. What what do you think are the the necessary people skills to be a key leader in an organization that people aren't working on, that they should be reflective about and working on?
00:17:00:02 - 00:17:26:20
Speaker 2
Right. So, you know, there's a bunch of studies that have been done on strength based management that after 40 years old and after a certain level, that you should be working on your strengths, not your weaknesses. Okay. Because again, this whole idea that a player is going to walk out in the field and he's going to be able to play every position equally well, he has to understand every position, but more importantly, he has to understand that if he's playing a position, what are the other people doing and how am I helping or not helping them?
00:17:26:20 - 00:17:46:05
Speaker 2
So what I would say is the first thing again, about self-awareness is understanding what you're good at, then understanding what you're not good at, okay? And then finding people who can it can actually complement that. But there are some basic skills that everyone has to hit a minimum level, or you're not going to be successful over over the longer term.
00:17:46:07 - 00:18:23:02
Speaker 2
I think one of them is, pattern recognition. I think that you have to be able to pull information and summarize it. You know, I summarize it in models, I summarize it in stories, I tell myself stories, and I try to break the story. the other is, being able to evaluate people very quickly, to, to know who they are and to get them to talk to you because, you know, the bigger the organization, you're dealing with eight direct reports, who's then dealing with, you know, people that report to them or report down if you can't get to know the people that are in your first circle, you're never going to understand the
00:18:23:02 - 00:18:50:16
Speaker 2
people that are in the second, third and fourth circle. Right. And so, I do think both pattern recognition and people skills, are things you have to have. The other thing that I would say is that when you look at the studies on entrepreneurs, they do two things extremely well. When they're, growing a business. One is that they're a start that they're willing to learn and ask questions and be curious and figure out very quickly whether they're on the right track or not.
00:18:50:16 - 00:19:08:13
Speaker 2
And the second is back finder. They don't go out of business, which means if you don't have any basic understanding of finance or how a business works, or you're not managing your cash flow, no matter how smart you are, you're probably going to go out of business and you can't outsource that. So think about when you get a president in a company and you have a CEO.
00:19:08:19 - 00:19:27:22
Speaker 2
They always have the HR person in the CFO report to, and the and the CFO reports the CEO. Why? Because you can't outsource people and finance. You can't give it to a president. If that, then that's that's not a president. That guy's running the company. Right. And so, you know, it's not that you have to I'm not the best finance person in the world.
00:19:27:22 - 00:19:51:23
Speaker 2
But when I graduated University of Maine, the Black Bears, I went and thought to myself, what's my weakest place? And it was in finance. So I went to the the hardest finance program in the world at that time was GE. And it was really hard. But I don't have to do finance anymore. But I know that I can communicate about finance with the best people and that's what I need.
00:19:52:01 - 00:20:05:21
Speaker 1
And today's episode is actually a two part piece. So this is part one of two. We talked about business. We talked about leadership. We're going to get into longevity hard core on part two. We'll see you next episode.