TRANSCRIPT
Claudio Encina: So, here I am in LA with Elite Agent Magazine and we’re doing a little US tour. It wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t stop by and said hello to one coach, who certainly impacted my life almost 20 years ago. I was in Palm Springs, at the Marriott, and I saw this guy and it turned my life. He’s impacted not just me, but millions. I really want welcome T.F, Tom Ferry, my man. In the house!
Tom Ferry: Thank you, buddy! Thank you, man. C.E then, alright, this is good. Alright. So, hey everybody. Very nice to be here and, man, we have known each other for a long, long time.
Claudio Encina: Very long time, Tom. Okay, so Tom, we’re doing a Transform program with Elite Agent Magazine. We have got a leadership summit happening in November. We’ve got 12 Transformers in this group, and we asked them to-
Tom Ferry: Are they like those cars that turn into big robots and take over the Earth?
Claudio Encina: No, no, we transform them from leaders. They’re either, I actually call them principals, or you call them broker principals there. So, they’re transforming their businesses over a 12 week period, and we’re going to measure certain metrics around their businesses.
Tom Ferry: Beautiful, beautiful.
Claudio Encina: There’s different coaches, including myself, or another 12 different coaches in different parts, but a couple of questions that came through this morning-
Tom Ferry: Fire away.
Claudio Encina: We put it on Facebook, and it just went nuts, right.
Tom Ferry: Love it.
Claudio Encina:Â Let’s go with Alicia Williams. She said, “What has been Tom’s biggest challenge and how did he overcome this, and what was the lesson?”
Tom Ferry: Thinking I was smarter than I was, and realising that the only way you grow is you got to surround yourself with ridiculously talented people that have a contrasting point of view, and they are equally as good as what you do, as they are what they do, that’s how you get big.
So, the isolationist who thinks they know everything, who stops learning, who stops growing, who doesn’t surround themselves with amazing people, which I’ve got a bunch of my teammates right here. They’re amazing at what they do, I’m horrible at what they do, I could never do it without them, right, it’s yin and yang.
That was the biggest mistake early on as an entrepreneur, thinking that I had to know-it-all, because I’ve got the title that says CEO, that’s the kiss of death. I don’t want to do anything except the stuff I’m good at, so you’ve got to surround yourself with people, which brings up the next part: hiring talent.
Hiring and retaining talent in the early days was an issue for me. So, how did overcome it? I think I just made every mistake. And, you know what? I’ve been doing this for 29 years. You make enough mistakes, you get enough grey hair, and you piss off enough people, you make yourself angry enough, and you finally realise, just like I was saying to them, like, I was saying this, but if my behaviours are here, got to align them.
Claudio Encina: Line them together. Love it, love it.
Okay, so, Tom, another question from Samantha McLean, the editor-in-chief at Elite Agent Magazine, she just texted me about 15 minutes ago. She said, “What does the leader look like in the future?” You’re trained, obviously sales, super teams coming in, and that’s a real trend now in Australia in the last 12-24 months, and you reviewed four or five years ago. I remember hearing it in one of your summits. Tell the viewers and the readers out there, what does it take to be a good leader today?
Tom Ferry: It’s interesting, I just had this conversation with somebody else, and I would tell you, the number one thing is selflessness.
The moment you step inside a leadership role, and we’ve read books about this, and this shouldn’t be anything new, but it’s really in your heart of hearts, to say to your team, “My job, as the CEO, is to help you get what you want,” and it’s old-school Zig Ziglar, helping other people get what they want, and you’re going to get all that you want, right?
But really, I don’t even think about the other end of getting what I want, I just think about, “How do I help them get what they want?” Because if they’re happy, and productive, and moving forward, and growing, making the money they want and everything else, then life is good. So, that’s number one.
Number two, we are a data-driven, consensus-based meritocracy. That’s how we run this place. If you’re going to be a good leader, I think, in a 2017, 18, 19, 20 environment, that you have to look at data every single day. It’s the data that decides. It’s consensus, collectively.
If I come in and I say, “Hey, Richard, this is how we’re going to do it,” and he doesn’t have a say, he might do the work, but he’s going to do the work with resistance. But, if we, collectively, consensus decide how we want to do it, now, all of a sudden, it’s everybody’s idea, and we all march forward powerfully.
So, data plus consensus meritocracy, how we govern, that’d be the second one.
I guess, if I had to say the last one, at the end of the day, walk the talk, but that’s old school, you all know that. So, maybe, let me give you something you’re not thinking about. Ready?
Realise that your team is not going to be with you forever.
This is something that some of my team sitting inside this room right now – they know – they’ve heard me say in team meetings, this is not your last job.
It’s just the job where you’re going to have a CEO that cares enough to say, “It’s not going to be your last job, but, while you’re here, be the best you can be, grow as much as you can, and remember me when you become a billionaire.” That’s the reality.
Claudio Encina: I like that.
Tom Ferry: I watch these CEOs of companies, these leaders, that think that they own their people, and they get mad if they leave. I’m like, “Look, I don’t want you to leave, but, if you leave, go and do something really insanely great, and make sure I’m on your LinkedIn page, because I want to watch.”
Claudio Encina: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Ferry: It’s just the understanding that people are going to go do their thing. They’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got, and they’re going to go do their own thing, and you should be inspired by that, because you don’t own them.