Weology how everybody wins when we comes before me

CONTENTS An Introduction to Weology Where this book comes from How this book was written The Concept Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest Always take the last shot, and remember Aristotle Screw the status quo Clean the toilet The only shortcut is hard work Make your luck Don’t stop at different, go for inimitable Keep the light on in your office Define happiness Once you’ve climbed the mountain, don’t dwell on the view Selective disclosure Prepare your improvisation Define success your way Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke Manufacture discontent Don’t poke the bruise Know the force you’re fighting against The Machine Design a machine for human nature Listen to Frank Zappa Learn who you are by understanding who you’re not Offer customers slow-drip coffee, not espresso Don’t sell, help Have a Guinness when you’re tired Pick a colour Be realistically idealistic Imperfect is perfect enough Just tell me what you’re good at Theory is (sometimes) only good in theory Get your customers to work for you Don’t hire servers for a buffet See victory through your clients’ eyes Love the haters Fire customers Don’t be angry if it’s isolating Change the things that are easily changed Hang out with high school teachers Don’t sell, inform Earn your keep Tell people what they’re in for Read to your kids The Humans Respect given is respect earned The only expectations that matter are yours How to be strong is to know what makes you weak Forgive physical mistakes, refuse mental ones Just tell me how you plan to use me Autonomy is profitable Don’t ever watch the ball going out of bounds Sometimes, somehow, average beats better than average Make as many mistakes as possible Buy a pair of jeans Look at people, not age Put people before branding Leave room for risky secret missions Define everybody’s purpose Pride is not always a mortal sin Be good, even when nobody’s looking Saving money is the root of happiness Talk to your kids about money Let the people say it Opposing forces can work together Conclusion: Click! Ideas and Caffeine Culture Always have a North Star Involve me and I will understand Everything is an opportunity Tailor your dress code to fit your workforce Care for everybody Be prepared for all kinds of feedback Acknowledge negativity at work The three powerful Ps of people See your colleagues as teammates To be natural, act naturally Motion matters most Mistakes make great lessons Winners don’t think about losing Connect your emotions to your brain, not just your heart Set goals that aren’t about money Transparency is a conversation Embrace inevitability Success is tied to happiness, not money Technology Simplicity, always Give technology a seat at the head table There is always a better way Go, be and stay green Walks wonders Community Let the people choose! Giving is more than money Know thy neighbours Leadership Boldly go forth with thoughtfulness Show vulnerability to build trust Do what works for you It’s not bragging if you can it Accept change An open-door policy without doors Leave your office Find new ways to be transparent Destroy stereotypes Answer the phone Have a voice Let employees decide direction If pride got out of the way The simple formula for leading people Mentorship is a vital leadership skill The glass ceiling is real Acknowledgements About the Authors Praise Copyright About the Publisher AN INTRODUCTION TO WEOLOGY I am not a banker Coming from the chief executive officer at one of Canada’s biggest and most important financial institutions, this statement may come as a bit of a surprise Finding out that I’m not a banker was certainly a shock to me It was a couple of months following a career move to the United States and a big promotion for me My wife and I were at a house party organized by a colleague I’d been with ING Direct for a number of years, but this was my first senior job My “shot,” as they say I would be a top leader on the American lending team and working with a very accomplished lending expert This was a good thing because I didn’t know much about credit or lending Everything I knew was related to doing I was a doer, and now I’d be working for—and learning from—a very good credit expert Made sense to me So, this was a Friday-night party with many work colleagues, their spouses and friends A fellow named Jeffrey was there too, a close friend who had in many ways been a mentor to me My wife and I were chatting with some friends at one end of the room, and my pal Jeffrey was at the other end, surrounded I can still see and hear him, holding court before a rapt audience, his big laugh booming and rebounding off the ceiling, people hanging from each syllable Yet somehow I felt he was talking to me He just had to be His heavy, robust laughter was like an engine kicking into gear, a sound belonging to him and him alone And I can still sense his gaze, the corners of his eyes spying for me as he spoke, using long words and loud gestures Like he was waiting to catch my glimpse, tug on the rod and reel me in Oh yes, I definitely remember the moment when he began screaming across the room at me: “Hey, Peter! Pete!” I ignored him “Pete!” Finally, I succumbed and turned slowly toward Jeffrey, and our eyes met “Hey, Pete, tell me, what are our mortgage rates?” In the movie version of my life, the one that plays over and over in my head, the room fell silent when he asked me that question The overheads dimmed The spotlight caught me—pock!—my soles were glued to the floor and I was framed by a circle of light and floating flecks of dust, and there was nowhere to go, and it suddenly sucked being there Necks craned in unison, people stopped mid sip, and curiosity was painted on the faces of all those assembled Eyebrows arched A look at the inside of their heads would reveal exactly what they must have been thinking: “What an odd question Surely the man in charge of lending at a bank knows something as elementary as his own mortgage rates!” I’m sure not one of them cared what our mortgage rates actually were, but they sure seemed interested in my answer The problem, as you’ve already guessed, is that I had absolutely no idea what our mortgage rates were It had to be a setup Jeffrey was well aware that I did not know what our rates were, as we’d discussed this many times So what did I do, under the bright glare of the spotlight? I don’t know for certain because I can’t clearly remember the rest of what happened I probably made a joke out of it, but the truth is that I only remember being seething mad I was enraged and, worse, I couldn’t show it So I just deflected by saying something funny and took a very big sip of my drink For the rest of the interminable evening, I was upset that a peer would outrageously embarrass me this way So publicly So directly And so insightfully! Unable to get the thought out of my head, I made up scenarios Maybe he was talking about how brilliant I was despite my lack of lending knowledge Maybe he was telling a story about something unrelated, like helping a friend at the party who was buying a house Maybe but something in my heart made me confident that it wasn’t the case As I let the anger simmer and stew, I altered my thinking but not for the better I started thinking that maybe there was some resentment brewing about me CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann was a different kind of leader, and he had picked me for this job because he liked stray dogs He built teams just like Major Reisman did in the Dirty Dozen: a ragtag bunch of misfits His idea was that damaged people have lived through adversity and are therefore better suited to “getting things done” than anybody else—category experts included How else could a neophyte lawyer be hired to work in a bank? And here I was, a decade younger than most of the executives, a new generation—and I didn’t know the frigging mortgage rates My wife didn’t say anything No one said anything I’ve never even discussed the episode with Jeffrey, who remains a friend To this day I have no idea whether anybody except me remembers Why? Because it was my fault I should have known the darn rates, and from that day on for the rest of my life I vowed to learn from this lesson, this public spanking, and never let it happen again I thought: The next time I get asked that question I’d better know the answer, because it is a question to which I should know the answer Preparedness doesn’t just happen in the work setting— not when you’re a leader or striving to become one The moral of this story is that, for my entire career I’ve been fighting against the fact that I’m in a leadership position but I’ve never been a subject matter expert The way we are accustomed to thinking and reasoning builds certain expectations People expect the head of a bank to fit their image of a banker—a slick-haired financial expert who uses the right words and numbers and wears pinstriped double-breasted suits Not me Some skills can be mastered by study, and numbers are only a question of recollection One can say, “I don’t know the mortgage rates, but I can learn to memorize them.” That’s easy What matters to me is the desire and ability to learn as fast as possible Other skills, like motivating people, can’t be taught—they come from life experiences and the way they shape us as people They come from doing The idea of doing is a recurring theme in this book, which also aims to be much more I have tried to write a business book that is unlike other business books Some will say it’s not a business book at all, and that’s just fine by me As long as it’s different and it moves something, anything, forward It bothers me when someone belittles others because of something he or she thinks they should know I’ve developed the skill, the art, of getting up the learning curve faster than I need to From what I remember, in my first job at a bank I was just trying to stay above water That’s why I don’t feel like a pretender or a charlatan It doesn’t bother me that I’m not an expert—not like it did that fateful night I made a promise to myself after that party I swore that I’d always, always, know our mortgage rates And now that I’m CEO, as I sit here writing these lines, I realize that I don’t have the slightest idea what our mortgage rates are at this moment Why? Because I am not a banker Where this book comes from In 1975, Muhammad Ali was invited to address Harvard University’s graduates at Senior Class Day There were over 2,000 students in the room, most of them white-skinned apparently, to hear the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) speak There’s a YouTube video featuring the writer George Plimpton, who explains what happened in the auditorium, but no footage from that day exists that I have been able to find At age 34, Ali was already a living legend He was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, had changed from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, refused to fight in Vietnam and had undergone imprisonment, had fought and defeated the “unbeatable” George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle,” and was entering the final stage of his fighting career On top of everything, Ali was a fantastic poet His nickname, before GOAT, was the Louisville Lip because he just always had something to say “Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see—I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” When Ali started backing his words with action and results, he grew in stature and popularity It’s important to note this because some people may think that Ali had always been a popular, iconic character—but that is not the case By the mid-1970s, Ali’s legacy was definitely growing, which is probably why he was invited to speak at Harvard And so the champ spoke He used cue cards and explored all kinds of subjects, even dyslexia He discussed the meaning of opportunity, chances he’d never had, and encouraged those present to forge their own paths through life based on their own strengths and advantages When his speech was over, a lone voice rang out from the crowd “Give us a poem!” one young man shouted Silence All eyes were on the champ And there, in that instant, in a flash of pure improvised genius, Ali composed what is recognized as the shortest poem ever recorded in the English language He looked at those kids and said: “Me We!” Three letters organized into two little words What a way to capture an era The individual and the collective, one and the same A new relationship between person and people A unique way of boldly viewing how humanity can move forward Fearlessness! In 1975, this poem carried a multitude of messages expressing the hopes of an entire generation Ali nailed it We’ve seen many variations on the theme since Ali’s brilliant invention When my co-author, Justin, and I discussed Ali’s brilliant poem, we both felt we were on to something We knew we had the roots of the idea for this book, that we could develop a concept that captured the essence of everything I’ve done as a business leader We had, in four letters, the roots of a story that reaches back in time and stretches into the future What I’m trying to as the leader of Tangerine is to build a culture in which individuals—people —have the means to truly thrive To succeed To be happy in their work To feel fulfilled and growing A culture that gives voice to all team members, no matter who they are or what they Why? Because being good to your own people is good business When Me thrives, We benefit And so the title of this book is Weology Its meaning is the thread that runs throughout and best expresses my own philosophy What I call “Weology” is about creating win-win scenarios It’s transparency without asterisks It’s a way of putting people first in the short term so that a company ... Disappointed, he told me not to worry, he would handle everything The fib? When I called my team they asked me how the meeting went, and I said, “It went well, we got what we needed, we got the green... an event means feeling emotion Humans remember emotion We recall the great times, and the sad ones too We know that understanding is akin to empowerment People who feel empowered become, in many... term At first we called it Wemeology, but we soon realized that the shorter, simpler term? ?Weology? ??did the job Of course, many of the initiatives we develop and implement don’t immediately reflect