Latest / Something Extra / Returning to Episode 10: Honoring Bob Chapman: The Extraordinary Power of Treating Your People Like Family

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Returning to Episode 10: Honoring Bob Chapman: The Extraordinary Power of Treating Your People Like Family · Something Extra

0:01
Lisa Nichols: In this special tribute episode, we honor the life and legacy of Bob
0:05
Chapman, former CEO and chairman of Barry Wehmiller, following
0:09
his recent passing.
0:11
Bob shares the defining experiences that shaped his belief that everybody
0:15
matters, from his upbringing in Ferguson to reconnecting with his father.
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This episode reflects his commitment to building people first cultures and
0:24
redefining what leadership should look like.
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Listeners will walk away with a renewed perspective on empathy, responsibility,
0:32
and leading with care.
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Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with both the Chapman family and
0:37
the Barry Wehmiller family.
0:42
It takes something a little more to lead with impact.
0:45
I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast
0:50
was inspired by our daughter, Allie, whose additional chromosome has shaped
0:54
how I see people in leadership.
0:57
Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the world
1:01
about what truly defines how they lead and serve others.
1:05
If you enjoyed today's conversation,
1:23
Bob, I am so honored and humbled to have you with us today.
1:26
I am a huge fan.
1:28
I know a lot of people are a huge fan.
1:30
Barry Wehmiller, your name is out there.
1:33
You guys are really transforming, I believe, the way people are thinking
1:37
about leadership today.
1:38
So I'm just so honored to have you with us as our guest.
1:40
Bob Chapman: It's a pleasure to be here, and I appreciate the opportunity to share this,
1:43
calling we have Yes.
1:44
To make the world a more caring place.
1:46
Lisa Nichols: I love it.
1:47
Well, let's jump right in.
1:49
Tell me a little bit about growing up in Ferguson, if you would.
1:52
Bob Chapman: As I look back in my childhood, I would say in terms of where
1:56
I've come to, my childhood was a very normal childhood.
2:00
I was an average student in a public school system,
2:04
wasn't really turned on academically.
2:06
I I was into kind of a class clown.
2:09
It's hard to believe, but I was a class clown.
2:12
And so I wouldn't say that my childhood really shaped
2:16
the message.
2:17
So I I think it just think of me as a typical Ferguson kid
2:21
who got in trouble occasionally and had good friends and
2:26
ended up giving the, speech at the graduation of McClure
2:30
High School in Ferguson.
2:31
So, kind of, again, I think back on it.
2:34
I I just was gifted with a positive personality.
2:38
I've always had this positive outlook on life that's allowed me to get
2:42
through the many challenges we all experience with, thinking that
2:46
things were meant to be and we can learn from every experience.
2:49
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
2:49
Where where do you think that came from?
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Was I mean, I know that your parents were very instrumental in your life.
2:54
Was that just Bob Chapman and how Bob Chapman was born?
2:58
Or
2:58
Bob Chapman: I honestly think it was Bob
3:02
I honestly think it was how Bob Chapman was born because I have this
3:06
eternally optimistic attitude that things happen for a reason.
3:10
And if we if we embrace life that way, then we learn from those
3:14
experiences we had, learn more from the challenges we have than the good
3:18
things we had.
3:19
There's an old expression somebody told me at one time, you only grow one
3:22
way when you eat ice cream.
3:24
Good times do not necessarily make good character.
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So I would say to you, I was more challenged by the,
3:32
I'm more I grew more from the challenges than I did from the
3:37
experiences.
3:37
And, again, my dad was I was not close to my father until
3:42
I was in my early twenties.
3:43
I graduated from college, and he was an accountant by background.
3:47
And when I passed the CPA exam, it was the height of my dad's
3:51
pride in me because it took him three times to pass the exam, and
3:54
I passed it the first time.
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So that was Wow.
3:56
The first time he experienced that.
3:58
And my mother was just a supporter of mine, but I wouldn't say that
4:02
either.
4:02
My dad was kind of a pessimist, and my mom was just a simple
4:06
Iowa farm girl.
4:06
So I believe some higher power blessed me
4:10
with these personality traits that have allowed me to deal with the issues I
4:14
faced in my life.
4:15
Lisa Nichols: Well, there's so much packed in there.
4:17
I'm a big believer too.
4:19
It's not always fun, the hard challenges, right, that we go through, but that
4:22
truly is where we grow, I believe.
4:25
Bob Chapman: Yeah.
4:26
There's no question that I look back on my professional personal career.
4:30
It was the most traumatic moments of my life that shaped what
4:34
my life has become.
4:35
And I look back and said, thank God that I had those challenges
4:40
or it wouldn't have allowed me to think and grow as I've been able
4:43
to do to shape the message I've been able to embrace in this journey
4:47
I've been on.
4:48
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
4:48
Well, I think that's gonna be really encouraging and some hope to some of
4:51
our listening audience.
4:53
So Ferguson means a lot of things to a lot of people.
4:56
But what does Ferguson mean to you today, Bob?
4:59
Bob Chapman: I would say to you that Ferguson means to me good basic
5:03
values.
5:04
You know?
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I believe here in the Midwest, here in Ferguson, here in the Saint Louis
5:08
area, the thing I would say to you, it's a wonderful place to be
5:12
raised as a family because we have good Midwestern values.
5:15
And so I would say to you, when I look back on Ferguson with
5:18
a great deal but I enjoyed my life in Ferguson.
5:21
We lived in a very simple house, a one bath, three bedroom house in
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Ferguson.
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It was a very normal life.
5:27
Nothing unusual about my life.
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Two sisters.
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And so I would say to you that Ferguson just is the foundation
5:35
for my value system.
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My parents were from Iowa, which were pretty simple backgrounds.
5:40
And so I would say to you, there's nothing unusual in my background that
5:44
would account for as kind of the journey I've been on other than good
5:49
values, good Midwestern values that I think Ferguson embodies.
5:52
Lisa Nichols: Well, I couldn't agree with you more.
5:54
I do.
5:54
I think the the values here are just it's salt and light, you know,
5:58
really.
5:59
I mean, people are just great people.
6:01
Bob Chapman: It's a great place to raise a family.
6:03
Lisa Nichols: Right.
6:04
So more people come to Saint Louis and start your businesses and move
6:08
their businesses here.
6:09
Right?
6:09
That's right.
6:10
So we kind of talked a little bit about it.
6:13
You you became an accountant.
6:15
You passed the CPA exam.
6:16
Did you work for you worked for Price Waterhouse.
6:18
Right?
6:18
Bob Chapman: Yes.
6:18
I worked for Price Waterhouse.
6:19
Lisa Nichols: Starting with Price Waterhouse.
6:20
Bob Chapman: And I that's what I wanted to do.
6:21
I wanted to become a partner.
6:23
If you ask me why I became accountant, I have no idea.
6:27
As a, you know, as a teenager, I wanted to be a gentleman farmer.
6:31
My grandfather was a farmer.
6:32
I spent my summers on the farm.
6:34
But when, I found out that my longtime girlfriend was
6:38
pregnant in college and I was pretty much a
6:42
barely passing student in my first year in college.
6:46
I found myself in the accounting profession, you know, pursuing
6:50
an accounting degree.
6:52
And I went from a that's why I always say the greatest challenge, tremendous
6:55
feeling of society judging you when you find out that your
7:00
high school girlfriend's pregnant when you're nineteen years old.
7:02
When I look back on that, it gave us a phenomenal son, and I
7:06
went from a equivalent of a barely passing student in college
7:10
to a straight a student who graduated with honors.
7:13
I don't remember ever thinking about that that, you know, I
7:17
I felt like a loser because, you know, I went and lived in a
7:20
trailer court in a little mobile home and where most people live on campus.
7:24
And, it clearly brought out of me something I didn't
7:28
know I had, which was academic skills.
7:31
Mhmm.
7:32
Lisa Nichols: I
7:32
Bob Chapman: virtually got straight a's after I found out that Liz was pregnant
7:36
with our child, and it clearly changed my life.
7:39
Mhmm.
7:39
And,
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Lisa Nichols: the pivot point for
7:41
Bob Chapman: you wasn't gone.
7:42
Pivot point.
7:43
Mhmm.
7:43
But, again, sometimes you only learn when you look back at something.
7:46
At the moment, I just felt humiliated.
7:49
You know, what am I gonna do?
7:51
And, again, I don't remember thinking this that I'm a
7:55
loser and, you know, that my life is now gonna be shaped by this.
7:59
My response was clearly I'm gonna make something of my life and earn the
8:03
respect of my son and and be a good steward of my wife, and
8:07
academics were certainly a path to do that.
8:09
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
8:09
You stepped up.
8:10
I think it's probably your positive outlook on life, though.
8:13
Again, probably thinking, you know, things are not don't happen by accident.
8:18
Yeah.
8:18
I was just saying.
8:19
Bob Chapman: I couldn't agree more.
8:20
I I look back on the things that have happened in my life and,
8:24
and again, many challenges that I faced.
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And, there's no question that shapes the way I think and
8:30
who I am and and and it grounds me, because I don't ever
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forget those experiences.
8:35
Lisa Nichols: Right.
8:36
Well, let me ask you this.
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Did you ever think when you were getting your CPA and
8:42
you were working at Pricewaterhouse, did you ever think about being a CEO one
8:45
day?
8:46
Bob Chapman: No.
8:46
I mean, I I think my focus ever since I took up accounting in,
8:50
my sophomore year in college was to be a partner of public accounting firm.
8:55
Even though my dad had a background at Arthur Andersen in Saint Louis, My
8:58
dad and I didn't have much of a relationship, so that was never I
9:01
I didn't think a factor in my decision.
9:04
But my dad had invested in the nineteen fifties about thirty thousand
9:08
dollars to make a small investment in this family owned company that was struggling.
9:13
And in the nineteen sixty five era, a factoring company out of Chicago
9:17
that lends against your assets offered to lend the company money to retire
9:21
the Wehmiller stock, some small amount of money.
9:23
And my dad's thirty thousand dollars would become fifty seven percent.
9:27
So my dad stepped into a leadership, you know, to owning the company, if
9:30
you will, our family, in about nineteen sixty five.
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But I I don't ever remember any interest in the company whatsoever.
9:36
We never talked about the company because the company was always challenged.
9:40
Mhmm.
9:40
It was struggling.
9:41
My dad had poor health.
9:43
And so I my aspirations was a career in public.
9:46
It never occurred to me that I I would had any aspiration of being
9:50
a CEO.
9:50
I I wanted to be a partner in a public accounting firm.
9:52
Lisa Nichols: But at some point, your dad invited you into the business.
9:55
Bob Chapman: Yes.
9:56
What happened were you?
9:57
Well, what happened was as I started as I passed the
10:01
CPA exam, which was a momentous occasion for my dad because
10:05
he was a CPA and he had taken him three times to pass it.
10:08
And when he saw this son who he had mixed feelings about what I
10:11
would turn out in life, passed the CPA exam in the first sitting, all
10:14
of a sudden he started talking to me about business.
10:17
And so he'd called me over and asked me advice and ideas and
10:21
but I still wanna be a public accountant.
10:23
And one day he said to me, would you ever consider working for the
10:27
company?
10:27
I need somebody I can trust.
10:29
I had never thought about it, and my mom cried because she said, though,
10:33
you'll two will hate each other, you know, if you work together.
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Idea.
10:36
And what my dad and I said is, okay, I said, okay, dad.
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You're kind of a pessimist, and I'm an optimist.
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Well, we gotta promise each other, and this was critical to our relationship.
10:46
If something's bothering you, you're gonna tell me.
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And if something's bothering me, I'm gonna tell you.
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That's gotta be the foundation.
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So we began the journey that way.
10:54
And, again, it was so bad when we started, and my dad had a
10:57
practice with his secretary of opening all the mail in the company looking
11:01
for somebody who might be trying to cheat him.
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So that's, I mean, that's the environment I stepped into in nineteen sixty nine.
11:08
It was he just had people had disappointed him,
11:12
and, he didn't feel he could trust his leadership team.
11:16
So I was a breath of fresh air to my dad, and I came
11:19
in with, unbridled enthusiasm to bring what I
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had learned in my school education and a little bit of Price White House
11:27
because I'd only been in public accounting two years.
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So that's how my journey began with my dad.
11:32
Somebody he could trust.
11:33
Mhmm.
11:35
Lisa Nichols: So we talked about one life interruption.
11:38
You had another life interruption when you were just thirty years old.
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Talk to us a little bit about that, Bob.
11:43
Bob Chapman: I was at dinner in Saint Louis with my mom and dad who were
11:47
leaving to Australia the next day to, our joint venture in in Melbourne.
11:52
And had a nice dinner with my dad.
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And, he woke up the next day and died of a heart attack.
11:57
So at age thirty,
12:00
I went from and the interesting thing is that dinner that night at
12:04
the local restaurant, Steak and Shake, my dad had said to me, you know,
12:08
you're kinda running the company now.
12:10
I think you ought to have the title of executive vice president.
12:13
That's the last thing my dad said to me, before he passed away.
12:17
So I had worked at the company six years.
12:20
I'd been Armin.
12:21
Because my title was somebody he could trust, I worked throughout the company,
12:25
and I learned I always say when you look at a clock, it looks
12:28
kinda simple.
12:29
You have two arms.
12:30
It goes around, tells you time.
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But underneath that face, there's a lot of gears that have to come together,
12:35
synchronize to provide accurate time.
12:38
So I was given the beauty to look behind the face of the business
12:41
to manufacturing and sales and joint ventures and accounting
12:45
and supply chain, all the functions that I kind of my intellectual
12:49
curiosity took me on.
12:50
So when my dad passed away suddenly, I was ready.
12:54
And the beauty is that I think my dad died in October.
12:58
We were three months into our financial year, and the
13:02
company virtually rarely ever made its budget, struggled,
13:06
had banking relationships, but they weren't strong.
13:09
They were okay.
13:11
So when my dad passed away in October of seventy five, within
13:15
the first few weeks, our bankers announced that they were gonna pull our loans
13:19
because, you know, here's this thirty year old kid.
13:23
What does he know?
13:24
Yeah.
13:24
What does he know?
13:25
And, and in hindsight, you know, my dad passing away again,
13:29
it's a little bit like, when I found out, that my first wife was
13:33
going to be with child.
13:35
It dramatically changed it.
13:36
When the banks pulled on me and my dad died within a matter of
13:39
a few weeks with each other, in hindsight, again, I said,
13:43
I'm not going down this way.
13:45
And I threw my energy into that company immediately.
13:51
And the balance of the nine months of the twelve months, the company had
13:55
the most profitable year in the history of its company.
13:58
I paid back our debt.
14:00
The banks all of a sudden had a new appreciation for me.
14:02
So the company had the most profitable year in its history in the first
14:07
nine months I ran it of the twelve month year.
14:10
And the good news is that we got through the banking issue, and
14:14
the bad news is I got overconfident.
14:16
I had such a win so quickly that it appeared
14:20
that I had kind of the golden touch, which began a journey to
14:24
building this company to have a future.
14:26
Lisa Nichols: Right.
14:27
That's really interesting, Bob.
14:28
So, like, what did that do to you internally?
14:30
Because I've seen that happen before.
14:32
If you have success too quickly, you can get a little overconfident.
14:37
You can get a little prideful.
14:38
Pride's not a good thing.
14:40
What did it do to you internally, you know, to have that
14:43
Bob Chapman: success so quickly?
14:44
Of confidence.
14:45
Because again, to have the most profitable year in the hundred year history of
14:49
the company within the first nine months of me running a company.
14:52
And, again, it continued on.
14:54
So the company was eighteen million when my dad died.
14:57
And within four years, I took what I had learned in my
15:01
MBA program, what I learned from just awareness of business,
15:06
And I started some growth initiatives to give the company a future.
15:09
And it looked like everything I touched turned to gold,
15:13
and the company grew from eighteen to seventy two million between seventy
15:17
six and nineteen eighty to eighty three.
15:20
And then everything that it looked like was gold ended up having
15:24
issues.
15:25
And not that anybody could see those issues because we were dealing
15:29
with major corporations with major initiatives and getting tremendous support.
15:33
The banks were giving us support.
15:35
You know, and when you've never the company hadn't grown since the nine early
15:39
nineteen hundreds when mister Moe Miller brought
15:41
Lisa Nichols: It's amazing.
15:42
Bob Chapman: It was an amazing feeling to talk of Saint Louis, talk
15:46
of the organizations because we're just exploding with growth and
15:50
solar energy and electronic inspection in Denmark and filling systems
15:54
with the Miller Brewing Company and serving Anheuser Busch growth.
15:58
So every dimension was dramatic.
16:00
And so it you know, just like anything, when success seems
16:04
to come too early, you don't learn as much from it.
16:07
Lisa Nichols: Mhmm.
16:07
Bob Chapman: And so I again, very successful initiatives, but
16:12
each one started developing challenges, which ended up creating the second.
16:16
Well, actually, the third because, you know, my first wife getting pregnant,
16:20
then my dad passing away.
16:22
And now we're at fifty five million in sales, and the banks
16:26
suddenly pulled on me this time in nineteen eighty three.
16:31
It was much more traumatic than in nineteen seventy five Mhmm.
16:35
Because we are much more dependent upon the banks, and it was a dramatic
16:39
the bank that one day said to me, you're one of our most highly
16:43
valued clients.
16:44
We believe in you.
16:45
And the next day, they said, we don't understand what you're doing.
16:49
We wanna pull our loan.
16:50
And it was it was dramatic.
16:51
Now, again, I always say I learned so much more when I didn't have
16:55
money than when I did.
16:56
When the banks made it easy for me to have when they supported my
17:00
growth, it all seems so easy.
17:02
And I the amount of learning was limited.
17:04
But when the banks pulled on me and while I was paying twenty two
17:07
percent interest at the time, I'm in prime plus whatever.
17:10
It was unsecured debt, but very I learned more in the nine
17:14
months it took me to refinance the business than I ever learned
17:18
in my life.
17:18
Oh, I I wanna talk to who we became today.
17:22
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
17:22
I wanna dig into that.
17:23
We're gonna take a quick break, and then we'll be back with Bob Chapman.
17:27
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17:57
Lisa Nichols: Well, welcome back, Bob.
17:59
You kinda left us with a little cliffhanger there, and so we need to
18:03
tell our listening audience.
18:04
I mean, what did you do?
18:05
I mean, here's another life interruption.
18:07
You weren't expecting the banks to call the loan.
18:10
So how did you what did you do?
18:11
Bob Chapman: Well, again, I'd had this tremendous trajectory of growth,
18:16
tremendous awareness in this community, in our industry of this phenomenal growth
18:20
from eighteen to seventy two million in four years.
18:23
And with the full support of our banks.
18:25
I mean, they basically told me along that journey, make sure you tell
18:29
us how much money we need so you got the kind of money you
18:31
need.
18:32
And when they suddenly, pulled the loan because we experienced
18:37
some issues with each of those growth initiatives and the related financial
18:41
issues of warranty expense and inventory write downs.
18:45
The very bank that, supported me in that growth was the first to pull.
18:49
And so I came back from the meeting with the bank where they told
18:53
us to grow.
18:54
And I don't ever this is where this personality issue
18:58
helped.
18:59
I don't ever remember saying, oh my god.
19:01
What are we going to do?
19:03
I remember saying, we gotta get through this.
19:06
And the responsibility of a leader in any organization is
19:10
to give the people in your span of care a grounded sense
19:14
of hope for a better future.
19:16
Well, in this situation, dealing with the crisis I'll give you an
19:20
example.
19:21
I called a meeting in in in the intensity of this with our global
19:24
leadership team.
19:25
And, again, we had declined from seventy two million to fifty five million.
19:28
But we had some operations in England.
19:30
And and so people came over from England, and I had, you know, about
19:33
twelve people in our boardroom.
19:35
I said, well, you know, it's Saturday morning.
19:36
Let's, get a cup of coffee.
19:38
And my financial director said, you know, Bob, I forgot to tell you, but,
19:43
they repossessed our coffee maker.
19:45
We hadn't paid them in six months.
19:46
And I said, you know, I don't ever remember liking that coffee.
19:50
Why don't I run out and get some, and I'll be right back.
19:53
So I had this positive attitude towards and we'd have
19:57
crisis, you know.
19:58
I remember our health care I mean, our personnel director came to me and
20:01
said, Bob, we haven't paid our health care premiums to the insurance company in
20:04
three months.
20:05
I'm afraid they're gonna cancel on us.
20:07
And my reaction was, well, if they do, we'll just pay the premiums our
20:10
self, and we won't use the insurance company.
20:12
And my family would say, my wife and kids, Cynthia, would say, they don't
20:16
ever remember me coming home and bringing it home to them.
20:19
Because, again, this positive attitude, we're gonna find a way through this.
20:24
Let's just keep going and be creative.
20:26
So I would say to you that we spend nine months being turned
20:30
down by financial institutions.
20:32
People would say, oh, well, we could lend you.
20:34
You know, you've done so well.
20:35
And then they'd look at it, they'd say, sorry, mister Chapman,
20:39
but we're not able to lend you.
20:41
Finally, we got what's called asset based lending out of
20:45
a company in Chicago called Citicorp because somebody's
20:49
father used to work in our shipping department, and his son worked
20:53
for Citicorp.
20:54
And he went the extra mile to try and make it happen.
20:57
So we got refinanced nine months later with a,
21:01
I always say, kinda like going in a dark alley with a guy in
21:04
a dark suit with an envelope.
21:06
You know?
21:06
That's what asset based lending can really be traumatic.
21:09
So anyway, we got refinanced after nine months, but we lived
21:13
day to day on cash.
21:15
We negotiated with vendors every day.
21:18
Can you give me a little bit?
21:19
I'll give you a little bit of money.
21:20
I'll pay a little bit more.
21:21
I mean, it was day to day.
21:23
What cash came in?
21:24
What do we have to pay so we can build things, etcetera?
21:27
And we there's a whole book that could be written on what it's like
21:31
when you don't know every week whether you're gonna be to pay your people
21:34
for work.
21:34
Lisa Nichols: Right.
21:35
Bob Chapman: So at the end of that, we've got refinanced by Citicorp.
21:38
It is like having a noose around your, neck.
21:42
The key I had studied a company called Emerson Electric and a gentleman named
21:46
Chuck Knight, who had grown Emerson from a billion or something to twenty
21:50
billion through acquisitions.
21:52
Kinda mature businesses.
21:54
And so I just went to my finance team after we got refinanced,
21:58
and I said to my finance team, you know, I'm proud of our history,
22:01
our hundred year history, but our history does not give us a future.
22:05
We need to find a way through acquisitions to create a future
22:09
for our people.
22:10
And my finance department said the obvious thing, mister Chapman,
22:14
I think you forgot something.
22:16
We only have one problem with that idea.
22:18
We have no money.
22:20
Repeat after me, mister Chapman.
22:21
We have no money.
22:22
And, again, this is probably the single most important thing I ever did.
22:27
I looked at my finance team, and I said, I didn't tell you I
22:30
needed money.
22:31
I told you we need to do acquisitions.
22:34
And I walked out uninhibited by the fact that I had no money and
22:38
began doing acquisitions.
22:39
It's a little bit like saying, I'm gonna go shopping, but I don't need
22:42
a wallet.
22:43
And so what do you buy when you have no money?
22:46
You buy things nobody else wants.
22:48
Lisa Nichols: Nobody else wants.
22:49
Bob Chapman: But And they'll virtually finance you to buy their product.
22:52
Sure.
22:52
So these series of probably five or six acquisitions that I did
22:56
between eighty four and eighty six, when role and then I
23:00
brought incredible intensity because everyone was a life defining moment for
23:04
me.
23:05
Because if any one of them failed, we were dead.
23:07
Because I had no room in our financial Mhmm.
23:10
And the beauty is that those came together.
23:13
I put them together, and the idea surfaced again in England
23:17
that what if we could sell off these acquisitions in the public market and
23:21
get enough money to pay off our debt and we'd have a new beginning?
23:24
I thought that looks like heaven to me because I was so tired
23:28
of no credibility with financing.
23:31
Even the Citicorp people were tired of us.
23:33
And so I would say to you that that was a transformative opportunity for
23:37
me.
23:38
But we began to do acquisitions to give our people a future.
23:42
And because we were so broke, we brought incredible intensity to each
23:46
acquisition to make sure that they work.
23:48
So that's what transformed our company.
23:50
Mhmm.
23:50
I don't know if we had had plenty of money to do acquisitions whether
23:54
we had done as well because the fact that that being your end.
23:57
If if somebody tells you if you're not successful, you're going to die, you'll
24:02
probably work really hard to be successful.
24:04
Mhmm.
24:05
So I would say to you that environment of frailty in financial
24:09
terms caused us incredible intensity to make sure that these
24:14
really, eclectic acquisitions worked.
24:17
And it brought out creative things we did to shape broken
24:21
companies to give them a better future.
24:23
Lisa Nichols: Wow.
24:24
There's so much in there that I love because that just turns everything upside
24:28
down because you usually do not look for a struggling company to buy.
24:32
Bob Chapman: Right.
24:32
But the beauty is there's plenty of those out there.
24:34
There's plenty of struggling companies nobody wants to buy that I was able to
24:37
buy.
24:37
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
24:38
That's wonderful.
24:39
Well, let's talk a little bit.
24:40
And I because I really want to get to who you are today and
24:44
Okay.
24:44
And who Barry Wehmiller.
24:45
Because like I said, I feel like that right now, Barry Wehmiller,
24:49
there's so much great buzz out there.
24:53
You guys are the gold standard as it relates to how to lead
24:57
and the leadership model.
24:59
So I wanna get to this, but, you know, this is called something extra.
25:03
So, Bob, what do you think is the something extra that
25:07
every leader needs to be a great leader?
25:09
Bob Chapman: I'd say the something extra that every leader needs to be a great leader
25:14
is what I was blessed with by some higher power, which
25:18
is to see people in a different way, to see
25:22
them.
25:23
And and again, I think the most transformative revelation I had
25:27
was that wedding story where Talk about that.
25:30
I stopped Many of your listeners will have had the experience of seeing your
25:34
child, wed to another child and having great hopes for
25:38
the marriage.
25:39
And so I was experiencing this wedding, and again, as I saw my friend
25:43
walk his precious daughter down the aisle, and as he got to the altar,
25:46
he said, her mother and I give our daughter to be wed to this
25:50
young man.
25:50
And he sat down next to his wife, with a great deal of pride
25:54
watching the ceremony continue.
25:55
And my mind, as you can sense, went to a different place.
25:58
And I said, that's not what that father wanted to say, having walked my
26:02
two precious daughters down the aisle.
26:03
What he what that father wanted to say when he got older is look
26:06
at young man.
26:06
Her mother and I brought this precious young lady into this world.
26:09
We've given her all the love that we can possibly give so she can
26:12
be who she's intended to be.
26:14
And we expect you, young man, through this marriage for you to continue to
26:18
care for her as she will care for you so you can both be
26:21
who you're intended to be.
26:22
Do you understand that, young man?
26:25
And all of a sudden, I said to myself, oh my goodness.
26:29
All twelve thousand people that work for us around the world are somebody's precious
26:33
child just like that young lady and young man.
26:36
And because until that point in time, I saw people that
26:40
work for me as functions.
26:42
That's a receptionist.
26:43
That's an engineer.
26:44
That's an accountant.
26:45
That's an IT person.
26:47
I didn't see them as somebody's precious child.
26:50
And I would say to you that that transformed me because when I realized
26:54
that, it changed my whole view of the stewardship of the people
26:59
whose lives are entrusted to me.
27:00
Because when you think of people not as function, but as somebody's precious child,
27:05
and you know that you've got them in your care for forty hours a
27:08
week and that you will be the most positive influence on their life, it
27:11
changes everything when you stop seeing people as functions.
27:15
You know, I always say I took a management classes in college.
27:19
I got a management degree, and I got a job in management.
27:21
So what did I try and do?
27:22
I tried to manage people.
27:24
And it was always about me and my success.
27:26
I was never taught to care for the people I would experience in my
27:29
journey toward in my life.
27:31
I was taught to use people for my success because we define success as
27:35
money, power, and position.
27:37
And I know many people with all three who are miserable in their lives
27:40
because that is not a truly successful life.
27:43
You know, it was it was interesting to me, after I was interviewed for
27:47
an article in a magazine, the writer said to me, name three people
27:51
you'd like to have dinner with.
27:53
I'd never been asked that before, so I thought of him.
27:55
And I said, well, there's a guy named Ken Blanchard who wrote a book
27:58
called The One Minute Manager.
27:59
He's a very man of deep faith, very simple ideas on leadership.
28:03
And I thought, boy, I'd love to have dinner with Kenny.
28:05
He's still alive.
28:06
I said, number two, I'd I'd love to have dinner with Ronald Reagan.
28:09
He he believed in the goodness of people.
28:11
He had a vision for our country.
28:13
He led it with simple elegance.
28:15
And I said, do I get three?
28:17
And he said, yeah.
28:17
I said, well, then I'm going for the big guy.
28:18
I'd like to have dinner with Jesus Christ.
28:20
You know?
28:21
What a cool guy to have dinner with.
28:23
And so that was published.
28:24
And this still amazes me, but within two months of that article
28:28
being produced, the people I tell you about did not know about the article.
28:32
But a gentleman emails me.
28:34
His name is Ken Adleman.
28:35
He worked for Reagan in the White House.
28:37
He helped negotiate with the Russians, the strategic armed court.
28:41
Ken emails me and said, Bob, I just watched your TED Talk, and Ronald
28:44
Reagan would love the wedding story.
28:47
And I thought, well, you know, that's about as close as I'm gonna get
28:49
to Reagan.
28:49
It really touched me that somebody worked intimately with Reagan for eight years in
28:53
the White House, reached out to tell me that Reagan would have loved the
28:56
wedding story.
28:57
So that's a coincidence that I just named Ronald Reagan.
29:00
And then I'm I'm at a dinner in San Diego, a leadership guru conference.
29:04
And a gentleman taps on my shoulder and says, Bob, I just had dinner
29:08
with Ken Blanchard.
29:09
And he loved the wedding story, and he wants to talk to you.
29:13
I thought, oh my god.
29:14
That's number two, and I'm not ready for number three yet.
29:18
And it was astounding to me that I had said that in the article
29:22
and these voices came out all related to, people
29:26
who I would love to talk to about this journey we've been on from
29:30
success to significance.
29:31
So, I would say that the wedding story is and all
29:36
the talks I've given around the world, that is the one that resonates with
29:39
people because we're kinda taught to use people for our success.
29:43
We're never taught to care about people because we define success as money, power,
29:47
and position, not leading lives of significance in response to his
29:51
love for us.
29:52
So I would say to you that the wedding story was the one that
29:55
really helps people understand when you look at the people that you have the
29:59
privilege of leading as somebody's precious child and you know you're gonna have impact
30:03
on their life, profanity changes everything.
30:05
Lisa Nichols: Changes everything.
30:07
Absolutely.
30:08
I love that.
30:08
I love that.
30:09
I'm so glad that you were able to to meet with Ken, and that's
30:13
that's wonderful.
30:14
So, Bob, there's a couple things that I love that you say.
30:17
One of the things is people will say, you know, what do you build?
30:21
What do you do?
30:22
And I love your quote, we build great people.
30:25
I love that.
30:26
Another one that I know that I'm gonna carry with me personally, is that
30:31
always look for the goodness in people.
30:33
And there's goodness in everyone.
30:34
There's goodness there.
30:36
Sometimes you really have to look hard for it, but, you know, there definitely
30:39
is goodness.
30:40
So I love those two things, and those are quotes that I'm gonna take
30:42
with me.
30:43
But talk to us a little bit.
30:45
I mean, you've been given this amazing gift.
30:47
Barry Wehmiller, like I said, has just kinda turned things upside
30:51
down in terms of how you lead.
30:54
What are you doing with this gift that you've been given?
30:57
Is there something you wanna talk to our listening audience about and how they
31:00
can get more connected and learn more?
31:02
Bob Chapman: You know, I think a couple of things that come to mind, and one
31:05
of the things that I was blessed with in this journey at Revelation
31:09
was that, probably ten, twelve years ago, somebody encouraged us to do a video
31:13
about our unique company, and this is when we're much smaller and much less
31:17
evolved in our thinking than we are today.
31:20
And it was during the, Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal.
31:24
It was during the Enron scandal.
31:25
So if you go back to that environment, it's kinda disappointing for our country
31:28
and our political leaders and our business leaders.
31:31
So but we had been challenged to do a video of our company's success.
31:34
And so the marketing team done all these nice expressions.
31:38
They're getting towards the end of the video, and and they came to me
31:40
and said, we wanna talk about our success growth in sales, growth in profits,
31:44
growth in in customers.
31:46
And the burden of kind of where we were as a country in
31:50
terms of trying to look up to leaders, but these issues,
31:54
developed.
31:55
And a thought occurred to me that has profoundly shaped what I'd like to
31:59
share with listeners.
32:00
I said, you know, we just find success all wrong in this
32:04
country.
32:04
We define it as money, power, and position.
32:07
We are gonna measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.
32:11
And that became our guiding principle, measuring success
32:16
by the way we touch our team members, we touch our customers, we touch
32:19
our community.
32:19
We don't beat up suppliers.
32:21
You know?
32:21
We don't take advantage of people.
32:23
We are gonna measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.
32:26
And that became kind of the foundation of our belief system
32:30
of, the our values and everything needed to we could look at that statement
32:34
and make decisions all day long about caring, well-being,
32:39
stewardship because we had this now this expression, we measure success
32:43
by the way we touch the lives of people.
32:45
I'd also like to add that when, Washington University sent over two
32:49
organizational development professors a few years back to interview me because
32:53
they had heard about this, and they interviewed for me for about an hour.
32:56
At the end of the hour, they said, you know, you're the first CEO
32:59
we've ever talked to that didn't talk about our product.
33:01
And I thought a moment, and I said, we've been talking about our product
33:04
for the last hour.
33:05
It's our people.
33:06
I will not leave this earth proud of the machines we build.
33:10
I'll be proud of the lives we built.
33:13
These thoughts that developed over this period of time really
33:17
shaped this feeling that we've been blessed with a leadership
33:22
model that could profoundly change the world as we know it.
33:25
And I believe it's the way we were intended to live and work together
33:29
where people validate the worth of each other in their journey, and
33:33
that successful lives are those people who serve others in their pursuit
33:37
of significance.
33:39
And so I I would say to you what we've done because we feel
33:42
that we've now some higher power chose us to show the world the way
33:46
we are intended to live and work together, where we value each other and
33:50
care for each other.
33:51
So we not only teach with internally how to transform managers
33:55
into leaders.
33:57
And, again, a lot of my leadership practice was shaped by trying to be
34:00
a parent and trying to be good to the six kids we were blessed
34:04
with.
34:05
At the same time, I was trying to fix this broken business, which I
34:07
told you about previously, which is about management, which I define management.
34:11
The word management means the manipulation of others for your success.
34:15
And leadership is the stewardship of the lives entrusted to you to ensure.
34:20
And people talk about needing to find people, you know, good people to bring
34:24
your organization.
34:25
I believe it's a matter of building a safe bus, which is your business
34:29
model, and then you need leaders who know where to go and how to
34:32
get there safely.
34:34
And therefore, anybody that gets on the bus is gonna go to a good
34:37
place.
34:38
So our responsibility as leaders is around people, purpose, and performance.
34:42
It starts with our understanding that our primary responsibility of the people who we
34:46
invite to join us around a purpose that inspires them to share their gifts
34:49
fully towards a common vision, and then we have to create value.
34:52
If we don't create value, we can't be good to our people.
34:55
It's a continuous cycle.
34:57
Not two out of three, not one out of three, but all three.
34:59
People, purpose, and performance in harmony.
35:02
Human value and economic value in harmony.
35:04
That is the world the way it was intended to be, and we have
35:08
been blessed with a model that allows us to create
35:12
that for the people we have the privilege of leading, and that is our
35:15
leadership criteria.
35:16
And so we teach people internally in our university to care
35:20
because we realized we couldn't send them back to universities because we teach management,
35:24
and we need to teach leadership.
35:26
So we created our own teaching content.
35:28
And then from that, we learned that listening is the most powerful act of
35:32
leadership.
35:33
So we have taken from our university to Cynthia, my nonprofit called
35:38
Our Community Listens.
35:39
And we have a branch in cities around the country, but we have one
35:42
right here in Saint Louis where we teach people empathetic listening in three days.
35:46
Because when I thought when you cared for somebody, you went over and talked
35:49
to them.
35:49
It turns out when you care for somebody, you go over to listen to
35:52
them with empathy, to be present, to listen to them.
35:56
And finally, we decided that this message was so powerful we
36:00
needed to share it with the world.
36:02
And we created the Leadership Institute where we're looking for early adopters,
36:06
people who believe what we believe and wanna join us on this journey
36:10
so we can start healing as a country.
36:12
Because when you look at our country right now with the lowest unemployment in
36:16
fifty years, peace in the world, and people are not happy.
36:20
We thought when we had prosperity and peace, we were giving people the ultimate
36:25
environment.
36:25
But what we haven't created is a world where people feel valued because we
36:29
live in a society where we use people for our success
36:33
instead of care for people for our success.
36:36
Together, we can do great things.
36:38
So we feel that we have this calling to share with
36:42
the world what we were blessed with, which is a model that cares
36:46
for the people we lead so that we again, we found out in this
36:50
journey that the person you report to at work is more important to your
36:53
health than your family doctor.
36:55
Okay?
36:55
And we also when we teach people to be leaders in our company, ninety
36:59
percent of the feedback is how it affects their marriage and the way they
37:03
raise their kids.
37:04
And so we realize now that if people are not cared for for forty
37:08
hours a week, it affects their health and affects their family units.
37:12
So Mhmm.
37:13
Business could be a powerful force for good if it simply cared
37:17
about the way it treats the people they have the privilege of leading.
37:20
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
37:20
And when you think about that, Bob, truly this leadership model could
37:25
change the world.
37:26
Because and when you are doing that with the people that are entrusted to
37:30
you, they're gonna go home.
37:31
They are going to be happier at home.
37:33
They're gonna have a more fulfilling family life.
37:36
And that's there's just a domino effect there.
37:38
Bob Chapman: You know, and there's a church that I generations.
37:40
I gave a speech at a church in Charlotte, and they have a program
37:44
called the leap of faith.
37:46
How do you go from Sunday to Monday?
37:48
And this is exactly how the book Everybody Matters
37:52
is how we care for the people that we have the privilege of
37:56
leading in our life, whether we're at home or we're at work or we're
38:01
in our community.
38:02
And when you think of the issues we face today in our society where
38:05
people don't feel valued, how can we ever be raising kids
38:09
today when their parents come home from work not feeling valued?
38:13
So I'm when my granddaughter graduated two years ago from Aspen
38:17
High School, everybody else was cheering as their hundred and fifty eight students walked
38:21
up to get their diploma.
38:23
And I had tears in my eyes because I knew the world we were
38:26
sending my granddaughter into, a world where eighty eight percent of the people
38:30
don't feel valued.
38:31
And my hope is that by standing up and sharing
38:35
on this podcast, preaching wherever I can this caring
38:40
message that we can transform the world to the way it was meant to
38:44
be where people genuinely care for each other.
38:47
And I just this is not an American issue.
38:49
It's not a business issue.
38:50
It's true in every facet of our society.
38:53
People are hurting because they don't feel valued.
38:55
We have customers in Russia who come over to look at our equipment and
39:00
come back, and they wanna talk about our culture.
39:01
They wanna bring this culture to Russia.
39:04
So I believe that this is the answer to the world peace
39:08
where people value each other because they feel not used, but valued.
39:12
So my message is to try and share this in any way I can,
39:15
and I appreciate this opportunity or interest in this message because I feel it's
39:19
not our message.
39:20
It's a message a higher power has given us because it it's it's a
39:23
message that would heal the world as we know it.
39:26
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much, Bob.
39:27
Thank you for being with us.
39:28
Thank you for inspiring us.
39:30
Thank you for your deep convictions and your willingness to stand up for
39:34
what you believe is right because I'm with you.
39:38
I had
39:38
Bob Chapman: a feeling she was with me.
39:39
Yeah.
39:41
Announcer: Our show today is executive produced by Brian Muncie.
39:44
Our technical producer is Daniel Williams.
39:46
Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
39:49
Copyright Technology Partners Inc twenty eighteen.
39:51
For show notes or to reach out to Lisa, visit lisa gale nickels dot
39:55
com slash something extra.
39:56
Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you
40:00
listen.