8 Leadership Questions

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Page 1© University of Phoenix 2013 Servant Leadership, Values, and Trust

Successful businesses rely on servant leadership, values, and trust. Garry Ridge explains these concepts as they relate to his life and to his work at WD-40.

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Servant Leadership, Values, and Trust

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Aug 26, 2013

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50 Lessons, Leadership, Behaviors

Well, a lot of people think that servant leadership is all about kumbaya. It’s not just kumbaya, servant leadership is clearly respecting the value of people, but also understanding that we’re there to get results. We’re there to make the world a better place.

So, you know, our four pillars in the organization are care, candor, accountability, and responsibility. If you work for WD-40, I care about you, I really care about you. I have no right to stop you being your best. I have no right to get in the way of people doing great work. You know, people mess their own lives up, why do they need me to be involved in that? I’m going to be candid with you. I’m going to have open conversation.

It’s like the conversations you had with Mom, when you’re a kid. You know, Mom didn’t always tell you what you wanted to hear, but whatever she was saying, in most circumstances, she was saying it with, “I mean you no harm and I love you.” And I mean our people no harm, I want them to be the best they can. They need to be accountable. The world has let people off the hook too much. They won’t hold themselves accountable. And that’s important. We have to say, you know, “If it is to be, it’s up to me.”

You know, it’s like Michael Jackson’s song, “Man in the Mirror”: we need to look at the man in the mirror all the time, because we have to do it. And then responsibility. You know, we have responsibility to the people who use our products, the people we work with, and to our shareholders.

So it’s not just washing people’s feet and hugging. There are other elements that are so, so important. Values are probably, over the long haul, more important than performance. There, you know, values are the written reminders of the only acceptable behavior in the organization. They’re like the riverbank that helps the river go from the mountain to the sea. They give people a space of freedom. They give a common language. The number one value at WD-40 is we value doing the right thing. Is there any ambiguity in that? I don’t think so. But what happens is it allows people during conversation to question openly and say, “You know what? Are we doing the right thing here?” So that pause, that moment of reflection.

Our second value is we value creating positive, lasting memories with all of our relationships. That, you know, people say, “How does that work?” Well, think about our end user. Think about our product development program, our R&D. You know, we can ask the question, “Is that new product going to create a positive, lasting memory with our end user?” That’s a hard question. If it’s not, ixnay, it’s out.

So, whether it be the people within the organization, the products, you know, our value about we want to value—we value sustaining the WD-40 economy. You know, that could say we value profit, right? But what is profit? That message sent to the tribe members: “Well, it’s all about just making a buck.” A growing economy has a lot of things going for it: it thrives, it creates jobs, it creates education, it creates learning and teaching. So the values are so important, and we weigh the values very heavily. And I would think, in the time that—you know, I’ll be with WD-40 twenty-five years next year, sixteen years as the CEO—I would think anytime we’ve shared someone with a competitor, it’s more been because of a values disconnect than a performance disconnect. You know, trust is—you know, it’s a very small big word, and until you’ve been given the responsibility of trust, and the impact of trust, I don’t think you really know what it is.

And I recall, apart from working in a sports store in my home suburb of Five Dock in Sydney, Australia, I used to work at a local hardware store, and a guy there, his name is Warren Knox, and Warren was a fabulous guy and I would work in the store. And anyhow, unfortunately, Warren’s dad passed away and he had to go to take care of family business.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

And I think maybe I was sixteen. And I had been working part-time for him. And he kind of threw me the keys as he walked out this door one day and said, “You need to take care of the store. I have to go to do family business.” And I—“Oh.” And it made me realize that you don’t understand the value and the power of trust until someone trusts you with it.

So I basically ran that store for a number of days until he back, and when he got back, I gave him the keys and he said, “Thank you.” And there wasn’t any questions. He just was confident that, you know, the sales were made, the cash was banked, the store was taken care of, and we went on with business.

And it taught me a lesson, is that people have to be aware of the impact of trust. So, you know, trust is, are you able, are you believable, are you connected, are you dependable. And I think all those things come in and it’s important to learn those lessons early in life. And so many people don’t learn them early enough.