Any Dumbass Can Do It with Garry Ridge

Welcome to episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast.

Today we're joined by Gary Ridge, the legendary former CEO of the WD40 company who turned a household product into one of the most iconic brands on Earth.

For 25 years, Gary championed a culture of learning moments, proving that when people feel they belong, magic happens.

He's a global leader, a best selling author and a Coach to top CEOs sharing wisdom that transforms not just businesses, but lives.

Stick with us, you don't want to miss this episode.

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Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast and it is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you all today Gary Ridge.

Gary is a visionary leader, renowned advisor and and professor with over 35 years of experience transforming global brands and workplaces.

As chairman emeritus of WD40 company, he championed a learning moment culture that inspired employees to turn challenges into opportunities and led the company to becoming one of the world's most beloved brands.

Through his platform, the Learning Moment, Gary now partners with forward thinking organizations helping them build cultures where people feel safe to innovate, empowered to grow and and passionate about their purpose.

A powerful speaker and author, Gary's insights resonate deeply with leaders seeking lasting cultural transformation.

From the boardrooms of top companies to the classrooms at the University of San Diego, he shares hard won lessons and actionable strategies to create workplaces that foster joy, engagement and success.

His upcoming book, Any Dumbass Can Do It.

Learning Moments from an everyday CEO of a multi billion dollar company offers an unfiltered look at the principles that fueled his own journey and can elevate any organization.

Gary Ridge doesn't just teach culture, he lives it showing that any leader with the right mindset can build a thriving workplace where people love to work and extraordinary results follow.

Gary, it is an absolute honor to have you on the show today.

Good morning.

Who are you talking about?

My gosh, I'm just going to Start this episode, Gary, by giving a gigantic thank you to Chester Elton for making this introduction for both of us.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Chester a few months ago, and what a pleasure it is.

That is an incredible individual.

And from what I understand, you guys are very close friends.

We are, yes.

Chester and I and you, we all share the same barber, obviously, but, yeah, I love Chester.

I love the work that he does.

You know, he's the ambassador of appreciation and certainly a truly treasured individual in a very different.

You know, the more I talk to you, I think you guys might have been cut from the same cloth.

Well.

Well, at least we know one thing.

People matter.

That's right.

That's right.

My gosh, WD40.

You spent 35 years leading WD40.

And, you know, we talked about this briefly before the show.

I'm super excited about this.

I think the very first spray can that was ever put into my little Canadian hands was a can of W40 to clean my bike chain and lubricate my bike chain.

And I just, honestly, like, I'm thrilled and excited to have you on the show for that very reason.

There's just something like, there's something deep about WD40 for me.

It's interesting, Kelly, you'd say that, because at WD40 company, our purpose was we're in the memories business.

And if you asked us what our purpose statement was is we existed to create positive, lasting memories, solving problems in factories, homes, and workshops around the world.

We solved problems and we created opportunities.

And there you go.

You've just let in with your memory.

And that warms me because a lot of people just thought we were oil in a can, but really, it goes a lot deeper than that, particularly around the culture of the company.

It's incredible, honestly.

And I can't wait to go into it today because I've never really heard the story of WD40.

So I'm really excited to learn it today.

But it's incredible because I don't think that there's a home in Canada, a business in Canada that does not have a can of WD40 sitting on a shelf.

And I don't know if that's just a testament to an incredible product or a testament to your incredible marketing brand building over the years.

But I can't wait to learn it because I think you're probably in every home in Canada and America and many places around the world, which is incredible for any brand, period.

Well, I know that, you know, we're in more houses than Coca Cola.

That's pretty interesting.

And, you know, I'd like to think there are still some opportunities.

So there are a.

Lots of.

There are lots of homes in many countries around the world that haven't been introduced to the blue cam with a little red top yet.

But that's what the company continues to do under great leadership now of our new CEO, Steve Brass.

He was, you know, my successor.

He'd been with the company for 31 years.

He understands the power of culture and power of the brand.

And he's busy out there with a wonderful team of people.

And today, thousands of people around the world will meet the blue and yellow can with a little red top for the very, very first time.

Wow.

Wow.

And there's that other, like, really incredible thing with every one of those cans is eventually they run out and you got to buy another one.

So I can't tell you how many cans of WD40 I bought in my lifetime.

Probably more than I can count.

But I can say I genuinely, there's certain products that are great for the world, really.

100% WD40 is one of them.

I, you know, I mean, there would be a lot more squeaking doors, there would be a lot more stuck bolts, and there would be a lot more kids with rusted bike chains if it wasn't for WD40.

Not to mention the hundreds of other other use cases for it.

You know, incredible product and seriously huge fan.

But I want to get into that today.

How did you end up on that journey, Gary?

Like, that was just one stop on a long journey that you're.

That is still rolling along.

How did you end up on this path?

Who is Gary Ridge?

Take me back to childhood.

Well, I'm an Australian, so you and I share the same king now.

That's right.

But I was born in Sydney, Australia.

In fact, I'm attending my 50th reunion of High school this year.

So that's a long time ago.

Little bit.

You know, I grew up in a suburb of Sydney.

I started my career in retailing.

And it's interesting, that's where my connection with WD40 started.

I was a management trainee for a very large retail organization in Australia.

I had a passion for retail and I was working in that company and I got to know one of our wholesalers who actually happened to sell WD40.

And after a couple of years, the wholesaler approached me and said, would I like to join them to lead their department store business in Australia?

And I thought that could be exciting.

So I joined that company.

And through that, I Got to know very well the licensee for WD40 in Australia, a company called Hawker Pacific.

And after a period of time, the folks at Hawker Pacific approached me and said, would I like to join Hawker Pacific and, and be their national sales and marketing manager.

And I thought, wow, they also had the Armor all brand.

I put two great brands.

I could really, I could really, you know, sharpen my marketing soil with the opportunity to work with two great brands.

And working for the licensee that gave me the opportunity to fly to the United States once a year and to, to attend the WD40 sales meeting.

And that's where I met the people at WD40.

Now I can jokingly say, I think I became truly aware to them when we were coming back from Mexico after a sales meeting, dinner on a bus, and I decided to sing Timey Kangaroo Downsport.

So that's probably how I got the attention of the, of the then president of the company.

And then in.

So, you know, I was back and forth a number of years, got to know them and about the mid-80s, WD40 started to really get serious about its global expansion.

In fact, interestingly enough, the first subsidiary we opened outside of the US was in Canada and the licensing arrangement for WD40 in Australia was coming to an end.

And I got a phone call one day from the then president of the company and he said, hey, Gary, this is a private conversation.

We're thinking about our global expansion.

We'd like to open a subsidiary in Asia Pacific.

Would you like to join us and open that subsidiary and help us build our distribution through Asia?

My dad was an engineer, interesting enough, Kelly, and he had retired at this time.

And I said to dad, what do you think if I went and worked for WD40?

And he said, you can't go wrong with that stuff, son.

So the number one rule in life, Kelly, is listen to your dad.

So I joined them on July 4, 1987.

I joined them in Sydney with a fax machine under my bed.

I opened the Australian subsidiary and then for the next six or seven months we stood up the company and Boyd people and on January 1, 1988, we started trading.

And I spent a lot of time then in Asia building our distribution network.

In 1994 or thereabouts, I was having a conversation with my boss, then the president of the company, and I said to him, is there anything else you'd like me to do?

He said, funny you should ask, do you want to move to the us?

And I said, to do what?

He said, well, we have this goal of building our global distribution.

And I need someone to help me.

And I don't have anyone here understands global markets like you do.

Why don't you come over here and help me out?

And I thought, wow, what a great opportunity.

So we packed up our toys and we moved to San Diego.

And I spent a lot of time then in Europe.

We'd opened a subsidiary in Europe that needed some work.

And then in 1980, 1997, he decided to retire.

And for some reason the board of directors of a US public company thought this, you know, dumb ass Aussie guy might get.

So I was given the opportunity to lead the company in 1997.

Wow.

And from 97 on to 2022, I was CEO.

Now there's something interesting about that.

I knew pretty well how to identify our end user.

I knew pretty well how to make them aware of the brand and I knew how to get distribution.

But you don't do that unless you have people.

And the thing that was continually on my mind was how do we build a culture that's global?

Because the sun honestly would never set on WB40.

And I didn't want to be called at 2 o' clock in the morning asking for permission to do something.

And I didn't know how to do it.

And I was on a plane traveling from Los Angeles to Sydney.

I'd been in the role about a year and I was reading, as you do when you travel on these flights, you take a lot of reading stuff with you.

And I read two things.

The first thing I read was a quote that was attributed to the DeLAM.

And it was.

Our purpose in life is to make people happy.

If we can't make them happy, at least don't hurt them.

I thought that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

Then I read a quote from Aristotle who was born in 384 BC, and he said, pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

And I thought that makes a lot of sense.

I still didn't know how to do it.

I got back to San Diego, I was reading a.

A article in the local newspaper that talked about a master's degree in leadership at the University of San Diego that was developed by Dr. Ken Blanchard, the one minute manager and the university.

So I went to an information session and Ken got up and spoke and he said, most MBA programs get people in the head.

We got to start getting people in the heart.

And I went.

So here I was about a year and a half into being the CEO of a US public company and I went back to school I went back to school and I did a master's degree in leadership.

It should have been called a master's degree in servant leadership.

Ken was one of my professors, along with others.

Subsequently, I wrote a book with Ken Blanchard called Helping People Win a Poverty.

And I basically took all of the learning that I got from.

From that program and started to implement it in the company.

And what worked, I turned up the volume one.

What didn't work, I turned down the volume one.

And slowly but surely, we built this amazing culture that was really based on a couple of things.

One, a culture where people knew they belonged.

Two, a culture where people knew they mattered.

Three, a culture where they could make choices and decisions, one that had a clearly defined purpose, and one that took fear out of the organization.

And that's where the learning moment was birthed.

We say we don't make mistakes.

We have learning moments.

So that was a long winded, but a big, long story of where I came to where I started and where I got the learning from that.

You know, I listen to that and I just see somebody who was so far ahead.

Like you were thinking a full decade plus into the future at that time.

And I have to ask, because there had to have been pushback, and I get that you're the leader, so what are they going to do?

But at the same time, I feel like the rest of the world wasn't living that way at that time.

You had a job, you went in, you did what you needed to do.

If you didn't do what you need to do, you got fired.

Like, that was, you know, I mean, I'm.

I'm a young guy, and that was still the world that I remember growing up in.

Like, I really see Covid for us as being a big shift in that, you know, what we need to care about people more.

If there was anything good that came out of COVID it was that there's a much bigger focus on making sure that people are okay and people are put first.

And that if we have a happy organization, you're absolutely right.

You get better products, you get better service.

Right?

But I feel like in my mind, that's what I saw.

Change.

But I've talked with people like yourself, like Chester Elton, like Liz Ryan, who've been.

Who've been proponents of this for an incredibly long time.

Why.

Why wasn't it resonating?

You know, like, what was.

Because I think you're right.

I think you've created an incredible company, an incredible company culture.

You know, you've built something that worldwide is beloved and cherished.

Right?

You did it, but you did it by focusing on people.

But I gotta.

I have to ask you, did you face any pushback in this, either from the WD40 organization or from other organizations who are like, what are you doing?

You know, the reason that I took this journey was really the reflection of my book, new book, which is called Any Dumb Ass Can Do It.

And what I realized pretty quickly is I was consciously incompetent.

You know, I would introduce myself and, you know, later in my career at WD40 as G', day.

I'm Gary Rich.

I'm the consciously incompetent, probably wrong and roughly right, chairman and CEO of WD40 company.

And I need all the help I can get.

And that's what I realized is I couldn't do this on my own.

And you can't make people do anything.

You can only create an environment where they find pleasure in what they're doing.

That's why our purpose was so important.

We talked earlier, create positive, lasting memories.

Not to sell oil in a can.

Anyone can sell oil in a can.

And yes, I did get pushed back in the first year or so.

And I want to tell you something.

The culture of WD40 company was not broken.

It just was not a culture that was going to make us a global organization.

It was built around what the great leaders before me had done, which had built a great brand primarily in the us so it wasn't broken, but it wasn't going to take us to the world.

So, yeah, I got pushed back in the first year.

People said, you've been drinking too much of Ken Blanchard's Kool Aid.

If we ignore you, you'll go away.

What do you mean?

We have to care about people.

What do you mean?

We have to be candid with people.

People.

What do you mean?

We have to hold people responsible.

What do you mean?

We have to hold people accountable.

What do you mean?

That as a leader, it's up to us to help our people grow.

But slowly but surely with the help of many people.

I love that master's program so much.

Over the next 25 years, I sent 30 people through that master's degree at University of San Diego.

So we're embedding the learning.

And I was very lucky to have a mentor like Ken Blanchard and others like Simon Sinek and Chester Elton and Marshall Goldsmith and all those that had theory around what this could do.

So, yeah, I got pushed back.

Even from my board of directors back then.

You know, they kind of.

What do you Mean what?

Just give me the results.

That's what we're here about.

But now, today, so many organizations are talking about the power of culture.

Because, Kelly, you and I can write a really good strategic position name, no problem.

However, if we don't have the majority of our people going to work every day passionately executing against that strategic plan, we're not going to maximize the economy of our business.

So, strategic plan, write it, mark it up.

Great.

Professor marks it up.

Congratulations, Kelly.

70 out of 100 for your strategic planning.

But if only 20% of your people go to work every day and are passionate about executing against it because they know they belong, they know they matter, they know they can make choices, they know fear is taken away in their psychological safety.

20 times 70 is 1400.

Then if 80% of your people go to work every day and are passionate, blah, blah, blah, blah.

80 times 70 is 5,600.

Duh.

It's so simple.

It's so, so simple.

But it's not easy.

And time is not your friend.

No, not to mention execution is flipping hard.

Right?

Like, I forget who I interviewed, but I interviewed somebody and they were mentioning that like something like 80% of plans fail.

Like statistically, which is massive.

Like, as organizations, we are not great at executing these amazing plans we put together.

Talk to me, how were you so successful at executing this?

Well, we weren't.

We had lots of learning moments and that's.

You used the word failure.

That's a bad word.

The learning moment was created because people are fearful of making mistakes.

Now let me give you the real essence of WD40.

Back in 1953, the company was called Rocket Chemical Co. Based in San Diego.

There was a problem with condensation and corrosion in the umbilical cord of the Atlas space rocket.

The scientists, or in those days, chemists, got together and they started to mix formulas to try and solve the problem.

Formula.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 25, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38 learning moments.

Yeah.

Number 39 didn't work either.

Guess what?

40 worked amazing.

So that's why it's called WD40.

Displacement 40 and 40.

Now, I'll be very honest with you.

I'm so, so, so pleased they didn't give up at 39 because we wouldn't be having our conversation today.

And I'm so pleased 39 didn't work because I don't think WD39 sounds anything like as good as WD40 for it.

No, really, that gets back to the fact that if you have an organization where fear is taken out.

Amy Edmondson talks about this all the time.

Psychological safety.

And we know that we're going to fail, but that's okay.

What do we learn from the failure?

And the definition of a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be, be openly and freely shared to benefit all people.

So if you create that security within an organization.

We used to celebrate learning moments because we knew on the other side of the learning moment there was going to be something better, something bigger, something more exciting.

I love it.

I love it.

I agree completely.

You know, at the end of the day, I learn something every day and I say to everybody, no matter what you're an expert in, you were only an expert until yesterday because tomorrow is a brand new day and there's something out there to kick you off your pedestal.

And so you're absolutely right.

No matter what, we have to keep learning.

No matter what we're experts in, no matter what, you know, what leadership levels we're at, there's always something new to learn.

But I have to say that we can struggle at learning from, from the challenge.

Right.

Do you have a process to, to effectively learning a lesson in a learning moment?

Like, is there steps that one should take when you identify, hey, maybe there's something to learn here?

I think the first step is to get comfortable with, you're going to have it, and then the freedom to be able to talk about it, socialize it, and, you know, work with people around it.

What did we learn from this?

You know, what did we set out to achieve?

Why didn't we achieve it?

Where could we have looked at this differently?

I was visiting a company a few, few weeks ago, a couple of months ago actually, and they had a.

And it's a company called OC10, based out of Salt Lake City.

And someone said something that, they said the biggest negative to innovation is when you become the expert.

Isn't that true?

And they, they actually have a program where they rotate people in jobs when they get to a certain level, because the person's become the expert now, they're not seeing the opportunity.

So someone new comes into the role.

Now they see the opportunity.

So I think always having this inquisitive, curious mind around.

Well, now our second value at WD40 was we value creating positive, lasting memories in all of our relationships, which was a wonderful catalyst for questioning because anything we would do, it's like, what positive, lasting memory is that going to create?

Particularly when we got into product innovation and development, you know, if we developed a new delivery system, we'd.

Is that going to create a positive, lasting memory for our end users?

If it's not, we're not going to do it.

So again, curiosity questioning itself.

You know, one of the questions that I have as somebody who's been in business development and marketing a really long time, how in the world did you get WD40 into damn near every household in North America?

Because I think I have a lot of people listening right now and I think the question they have is I've used WD40.

So as everyone I know, it's probably sitting on their shelf right behind them at the moment.

How were you so successful?

Like, there's a thousand lubricant companies, there's, there's other displacement companies.

Why is WD40 so bloody successful?

How did you do it?

Focus, basically, focus.

Firstly, you've got to have a product that's an honest product and WD40 is an honest product.

It does what it says it's going to do.

It makes heroes of people.

So it takes.

You can buy market share with time or money.

And we said we're going to use both and we're going to get massive distribution.

So the first question you ask is, do you need me as a product?

And as we developed around the world, there were some countries that didn't need us yet, so we didn't go there.

I'll give you a lovely story about that.

Many, many, many, many years ago, I was in, in China, I was on at a trade fair, an auto trade fair, where we were sampling automotive mechanics and workshop workers with a sample WD40.

And the Chinese word for lubricant is lun.

And the Chinese word for sample is yanping.

So here I am, this Aussie guy and the young Ping Lung Young Ping lun trying to give away samples of lum.

And nobody was paying attention.

I thought, well, maybe my Chinese is really bad.

Anyhow, out of the corner of my eye I saw a motor stand, a stand that was over somewhere else.

And there were people lining up to get what looked from the distance like a brown paper bag with a handle on, with a string handle on.

And they were lining up and I thought, they don't want my WD40.

What's in that damn bag?

So I walk over, I look in the bag, there's nothing in the bag.

My big learning moment.

The bag had value.

It was the size of a bag that actually was a great size for a scoop of rice that they take to their local corner store or wherever to get it.

So I came back to the stand, I said, you know, the problem is they don't see a need for my lubricant.

Why is that?

So we did some intercepts and we spoke to some people and they said, we don't need.

We've got dirty diesel oil and a hammer.

That takes care of our problem.

What do you need?

Well, rust is a problem.

So we changed the message from here is a sample of lubricant to here is a sample of anti rust oil.

And within minutes, we had to have security guards on the stand.

So what was the learning moment?

There is.

Have you truly identified the need for your product?

So once you've done that, then how do you make people aware of it and then how do you build distribution around it?

And let's be serious, it took us 70 years to get where we are right now.

The company's 70 years old.

Wow.

But we're still not in every household in the world yet.

There's still a lot of work to do.

But we are in many households in Canada and US and other.

So I'd say focus is so important.

You know, we only basically had one brand.

We woke up every day knowing that that's what would feed us and keep us alive.

And then of course, the product will work.

And then the secret sauce is the culture.

Wow.

Wow.

I love that you touched on.

You have to speak to people in a way that they understand, because I talk about that all the time.

Because there's so many people who will create like general brochures for their companies or whatever, but they're speaking to like one industry and then they try to market like 10 different industries and you're not speaking to them in a way that they understand.

And so you're absolutely right.

It's just like, you know, the story you just gave where if you can't speak to somebody in a way and a need that they understand, it's very hard to market anything.

It really does come back to, like you said, focus and targeting, like proper targeting.

So who's the target?

What's the message?

And if you don't, if you're not clear on who the target is, then you'll get the message wrong.

But if you are clear on the target, make sure the message is aligned with what they can hear and what they will understand.

And that, that exercise that I, that I shared with you, that story in Beijing, absolute example of that.

Yeah, it's a really great example.

You know, one of the questions that I have is, is WD40 the same WD40 that I had when I was a kid or has there been like, have we had like, are we at WD99 and we just haven't changed the name?

For all intents and purposes, yes.

But over time, we adapted the formula to reduce VOCs, volatile organic compounds.

We've made it more user friendly, reducing its impact on, on the environment.

The great thing about it though is when you think about it, it's actually a positive to the environment because it actually prolongs the life, so it reduces the repurchase cycle.

And just in my final year as CEO, we launched a great campaign which was called Repair Don't Replace.

Think about how positive we can be to the environment.

Instead of, you know, replacing stuff, we repaired it or kept it in better condition than it was before.

But the formula itself is a secret formula.

It's never been patented.

It's written on a sty, a style notepad in pencil and it's trade secret.

The core ingredients have remained the same basic.

And since it wasn't there.

That is incredible.

Okay, and now I have to ask then, how do you keep a secret like that?

Because that sounds like an incredible challenge.

How do you keep a secret like that for 70 years?

There's five or six core ingredients that all come from different places and it's part A, part B, part C, part D. And put some of this and that and this and that and mix it this way and then you end up with a concentrate and then we ship the concentrate out to our packages and packages put it into different delivery form.

It's.

Yeah, yeah.

It's deliberate.

Well, how many people know the secret?

How many people know the formula?

I don't know these days.

I didn't know it for many years.

Really?

Yeah.

I didn't care to know.

I didn't mean to.

Sure.

Anyone's going to get kidnapped for the formula.

It wasn't going to be me.

That's right.

But in the end I did know it.

I signed off on our secrecy agreements because I was doing some work on it, but I didn't.

Yeah, but I, I signed.

The scientists at the company obviously know it and.

Incredible though, like when you think about it, because you're right, it's like you need to know the formula and you got to keep the formula secret.

I don't care whether you're Coca Cola or whether you're WD40.

Right.

Like there's a secret formula here of how we do things.

And I imagine over time it must be very challenging to keep a Secret like that, especially when you have scientists who may move to different companies or whatever else.

I can't imagine it's super easy, but.

You know, over time, I used to jokingly say, look, I'll sell you the formula for a dollar, but if you want the blue and yellow can with the little red top.

That's right.

And the culture of the people that make it famous, start talking at 4 billion.

Because it's not just the formula has to work, but it's the trade dress, the blue and yellow.

You know, we were very, very diligent around registering our trade dress.

You know, and funnily enough, we never, ever, ever changed the trade verse over that period of time.

So, you know, if you, if I was to hold a blue and yellow can, up to you with nothing written on it, you'd say, that's done.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, you know, if you want the formula, five bucks you can get the formula.

But if you want the blue and yellow can with a little red top and the culture that makes it great, then that's $4 million.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

And okay, now we got to spend a little bit of time on that because how do you create brand awareness on that level?

How, how is it that I can look at a blue and yellow can and say, oh, that's WD40.

Right.

Like, you're absolutely right.

You could take all the writing off of it.

I would know exactly what it is.

And I think, I think a lot of people, whether they use WD40 or not, would what goes into building.

And I get it, you've been around seven years.

Sure, it's a long time.

But why is it like, what does it take to build brand awareness on that scale?

Consistency.

Consistency.

It's very simple.

Consistency.

That's it.

Don't, don't be tempted to changing something over my period of time there, and I don't know how many times I had agencies and whatever.

Come on, you need to refresh your brand.

Why?

You know, it's been around for fill in the blank number of years.

Yeah.

So you want me to refresh the brand and change it and then you want me to invest millions of dollars to go and tell the people who already know it that it's now different?

Duh.

Why do I want to do that?

No, I'm not going to do that.

So, you know, it's consistency around, around the period of time.

We never changed it.

We were very.

That's amazing because you're absolutely right.

There are a lot of marketing agencies that are constantly oh, you need a brand refresh.

You need this and that, and your opinion is no, I love that you're the first person who's ever said that.

So I just spent billions of dollars over years making people aware of it, and you want me to change it?

Why?

It's.

Why?

Oh, well, it's old.

Wait a minute.

There's millions of people around the world who haven't even met it yet, so it's not old.

And then the agencies want you to.

You know, that's how they make money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

I've.

I kid you not.

At this point, we're at 276 episodes.

I haven't had one person naysay a brand refresh until now.

So I think that might be a pretty big takeaway from this episode for sure.

You know, Gary, I want to chat with you.

You've been a leader for an incredibly long time.

You know, you've led WG40 since 1997.

Like, dude, I was like, I don't know, 10 years old in 1997.

A lot has changed.

A lot has changed.

What was it like being a CEO in 1997 versus being a CEO in 2022?

Take me into that.

Like, what was.

Was it the same or was it, like, was it way different?

Well, I'll tell you what was, is, was and continues to be the same people.

And Whether it was 1997 or now, people want to belong.

They want to know they matter, and they want to know choice.

Now, of course, things change.

You know, we had technology, but changed the way we communicate.

We had a lot of.

We had events that hit us over time, whether it be the great financial crisis Covid, you know, every.

You know, so it changed over time.

But what didn't change is what really matters.

People.

The other.

So that's what didn't.

I love it.

I love it.

I.

And I think people is where we struggle the most.

Right?

Like, it really is.

I think every organization struggles with how do we manage our people in a way that we are happy that we get productivity out of and that ultimately we're able to continue to grow the company.

Because every company is composed of its people, right?

You talk about any product or any company.

What you're really talking about is a group of people working for, you know, a shared cause, right?

Trying to build a shared vision and a shared cause, but trying to get everybody on that bandwagon.

And this is why I kind of wanted to chat with you, because you seem to have been very successful at getting People all firing in the same direction, no matter where they're at on the corporate structure.

And I think that can be really challenging, especially for people who, you know, they're just trying to provide for their families.

And I think a lot of the people working for WD40, that's what they were trying to do.

They maybe didn't see the whole vision about what WD40 was doing, but they did see the roof that WD40 put over their head.

They saw the food it put on the table.

They saw, you know, the college it paid for for their kids.

Walk me through how, how are you able to, to do that, to unify so many individuals?

It can't be easy.

Are there steps and things that companies can do to start that process?

Because I think all companies want to unify their people as much as possible.

They want to make sure they're looked after, but they also want to make sure that they're getting the right level of performance, that they're able to grow, that they're able to meet their quotas and their goals and the growth goals for the company.

And I think sometimes that can be really hard to manage.

Just about everywhere.

Is there a blueprint for success here?

Now the first thing I'm going to tell you is get rid of the word manage.

Do not manage people.

Manage inventory and bank accounts and stuff like that, but we do not manage people.

Our role is to coach people.

The number one role of any leader is to help those they have the privilege to lead step into the best version of their personal self.

So we took the word manager out of our vocabulary.

Everybody was called a coach.

And if you think about a coach, there's some attributes of a coach that are very aligned with what we do in business.

Firstly, a great coach has to understand what it takes to win the game.

A great coach never ever runs onto the field and kicks the ball away from player to try and score.

A great coach spends a lot of time on the sideline observing the play to be able to redirect the player when the play needs to be better.

A great coach never goes to the podium and picks up the prize on behalf of the player.

And importantly, great coach spends a lot of time in the stinky locker room because that's where you build trust.

That's where you understand your people.

You know, you don't want to be a micromanager.

You know, I invented a person called Alec, the soul sucking CEO.

Actually I have him here.

Here he is.

And, and, and Alec has some really, really bad behaviors that Create, you know this, these cultures where people do not feel like they matter.

His ego eats his empathy instead of his empathy eating his ego.

He is a Michael, she is a micromanager.

They think they're corporate royalty.

They want a fear based culture.

They're a master of control.

They're a know it all.

They don't value learning.

They must always be right.

They hate feedback and they don't keep their commitments and challenge that most leaders have is they're not aware of how damaging those behaviors are.

So, you know, I think again, great coaches are there to help people win.

Great coaches are there to help the team collectively play their best game.

And they need to be brave enough not only to reward and afford people for doing great work, but they need to not protect their own comfort zone at the expense of other people's development.

And that's when they're afraid to have those redirection conversations.

And those conversations become extremely uncomfortable when there's not clarity around what we expect from each other.

So I think you've got to care about your people.

You've got to be candid with your line.

No faking, no hiding.

I believe most people in organizations don't lie.

They fake and they hide because of fear.

You've got to help.

You've got to make sure that responsibility is assigned so people are prepared to take responsibility and accountability.

What do you expect from me?

To what standard do you expect it and when do you expect it by?

And then your job is just to help people win.

Win, win, win.

You know, our Cyber Promise at WD40 was a group of people came together that was our just cause and that's what we did.

And in our employee opinion surveys, you know, we had 93% employee engagement.

98% of our people said they love to tell people they worked at the company.

97% of people said they trusted and respected their coach.

Now the coach was program manager.

Yeah.

And the reason they trusted and respect their coaches, they knew that the coach was there to help them win.

That's because they hate the boss.

Wow.

Wow.

My gosh, though.

But how do you get so many people in leadership positions that are ready for that level of responsibility?

Because I think it takes a special leader to coach rather than to just try to get results.

Right.

Like, how was WD40 able to do that?

A friend of mine, his name is Charlie Maloof, he has a, a chain of Ashland Furniture stores in, in Charlotte in that area.

And he says you cannot microwave culture.

It takes a crop approach and that's how it's simple, it's not easy and time is not your friend.

So it's consistency.

It's a bit like our persistency around our brain.

You know, you've got to live it every day.

You've got to embed it in behavior.

You've got to be tough minded and tender hearted.

So it takes time.

You know, you cannot sprinkle fairy dust on an organization and change culture.

No way.

It takes time.

But you've got to have the fundamentals in place.

You've got to have the things in place that are important to build a great culture.

And if you think about building a great culture, one of the things you need to have place.

Firstly, you've got to have a people first mindset.

You're coaches, you're not managers.

You've got to have a brave accountability and behavior.

You have to have a clearly defined, authentic purpose.

You have to have a hierarchical set of values that protect people and set them free.

You've got to have transparency and a simple vision.

You've got to have learning moments that reduce fear.

You've got to have belonging, acceptance and connectedness, respecting all people.

And you're going to have those four pillars of care and accountability and responsibility.

Wow.

Talk to me.

Were, were these things developed before you got there or were these things like the values?

Was this something that you had to sit down and develop when you took charge or were these, were these values already part?

Was the mission already there?

Was the vision already there?

Was that something that you had to bring to the company?

Well, there was a different mission, vision, advance.

Because we are a different sort of company.

You know, when I went through my program at USD and I started to look at, okay, what is our purpose?

What is it going to look like to the future?

Our values took us about a year to get them, embed them, socialize them, have people aligned with them.

Yeah, this is work.

It's not, as I said, it's not fair.

So there was nothing wrong with the company.

It just wasn't the company that is going.

It wasn't the culture that was going to take us to when what got to quote Marshall Goldsmith, what got us here wasn't going to get us there.

Yeah.

My gosh, you know what, what do you think is next?

What do you think is coming next?

You know, the new CEO.

Do you think there's big changes coming?

Well, Steve's been in place for two years now and you know, he continues to.

He understands our brand brilliantly.

He understands culture is a competitive advantage.

Sure.

We all do different things, but the core is the same.

I mean it's all about.

And there's still a long growth road in front of the company.

So come and do it.

Well, I tell you that my kids will know WD40 well.

I will be an avid supporter long until I'm dead.

I'm sure it's not going anywhere on this side of the world.

So you've left a hell of a legacy with WD40.

I just wanted to congratulate you on an incredible, incredible career working with an incredible company.

And you know, I.

You've done a great job.

There's no two ways about it.

Your leadership has taken that company to a whole nother level, has put it in, you know, like I said, I'm sure almost every household in North America at one point or another.

Incredible.

And so great job, great work.

Well, it wasn't about me.

I mean it was about the people I had the privilege to lead.

So that's what's important.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I want to get into it.

The new book.

The new book, Any dumbass can do it.

I can resonate with that.

I'm a dumbass sometimes, so why not I.

Talk to me about the book.

What is any dumb ass can do it?

Learning moments from an everyday CEO of a multibillion dollar company.

That's a hell of a title.

Yeah, well, I am now, as you know, as our friend Chester Elton is the apostle.

Appreciate of appreciation.

Yes.

I am the dean of dumbass.

Yeah.

So you know, the title was deliberate in that I think a lot of leaders think that building great cultures is overwhelming.

But it's really not if you know what the ingredients need to be and you're going to do it consistently.

You know, I honestly say if I was able to lead an organization that build a great culture.

Anybody.

I'm ass Aussie, like one time traveling salesman from Australia, as someone called me once.

But I think it's really about the sort of, you know, I, I think that business has a opportunity and a responsibility to make a positive difference in the world.

And I have a lot of scar tissues and a lot of learning moments over time.

So the real objective of the book was to take all of those and put it into 26 or so chapters of, you know, what did we learn about the power of culture?

What did we learn about connectedness?

What do we learn about the learning moments?

All of the things that we learned over those past 20 something years is now in a hardcover book called Any Dumbass Could Do It.

I'm hoping that it will help leaders be confident and have and provide honestly tools that they can take and adapt and change if they want to help them build organizations where they have people who go to work every day and get contribution to something bigger than themselves, who learn something new, who are protected and set free by a compelling set of values and go home.

Happy people create happy families.

Happy families create happy communities.

Happy communities create a happy world.

And we need a happy world.

And business can make it.

Yes, leadership is challenging.

I think, you know, I don't think anybody is born a leader.

First off, I know we go with like there's born leaders.

I think leadership is learned.

I think it's embodied as well.

And I think confidence is a huge aspect of leadership.

Right.

You're clearly an incredibly confident person.

You know, I'm not sure if you felt imposter syndrome when you were, when you were offered the role of CEO of WD40 back in 97, but I know I've struggled with imposter syndrome.

I know I've struggled with confidence.

You know, what are some of the secrets from someone who has run a multibillion dollar company?

How were you able to foster confidence in yourself?

Understanding that in most circumstances I'm probably wrong and roughly right, which is important.

But then again, there needs to be discipline.

At the end of the day, Kelly, we're just these basic human beings bumbling our way down this pathway.

And in the bushes are what I call thieves that run out and take us off the path.

And they're thieves.

Agreed.

There are patience and ego and all these, these things.

So something I learned back a long time ago was I asked myself the question, am I being the person I want to be right now?

And as part of my coaching, I coach CEOs now.

And the first stage of my coaching with them is awareness.

Are you aware of who you want to be?

Then can you describe who that person is?

So, you know, on my computer screen and on my little notebook, I have a little sticky notebook says, am I being the person I want to be right now?

And then I have a list of who is that person?

And I say, I want to be grateful, caring, pathetic, reasonable, a listener, fact based.

I want to have a balanced opinion.

I want to be curious, I want to be a learner and I want a sunshine, water, shadow.

And I have to remind myself about it all the time because the world and all these thieves will take me out of who I want to be.

And I guess it's firstly awareness and then it's intentional.

So the second stage of My coaching is now that we are aware of what we want to be, what are we going to intentionally do to be that person, and that from that becomes our actions, if you will, and our behaviors.

So we're not perfect in any way, shape or form.

The three most important words I learned in my whole life are I don't know.

And I am so comfortable with those three words.

So I, I think I didn't have imposter syndrome because I knew that if I didn't know or if I weren't, wasn't capable.

If I was brave enough to depend on others to help me, they would.

But if I thought I had to do it, then I would have had imposter syndrome because I'm consciously incompetent and probably wrong and roughly.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I, I grew up working in organizations with punishment culture, as I think many did, I'm sure yourself as well, right?

Like, you know, you were very forward thinking.

I think, I think running organizations, Fear based culture.

There you go.

That's the right word.

Yeah.

So, yeah, yeah, every once in a while.

But I think many organizations, you know, in the 90s, even, even 2000, even now, are still running on fear based culture, which really, like, like I said, really kind of breeds that.

Like, oh, like, I sure hope I know enough that they think that I know because I don't know what I need to know.

Right.

I think most of us have struggled with that.

Like, you know, when I got into business development, I remember being asked, hey, you're really great at dealing with people you want to be in business development.

In college, I never even learned about business development.

I went to business school.

Right.

Like, it wasn't so.

I remember hopping on my computer and googling it.

What is business development?

But yeah, like, I think I've had plenty of situations in my life where, you know, I felt, I felt like an imposter.

And I've coached many people myself who have felt like imposters.

Right.

But I think it, we all feel that way because we, we all don't have all the answers.

And yet I think a lot of people are expected to know answers that they, they just don't have.

But we live in a time where you can find them out, right?

Like there's somebody who knows.

You just got to figure out who to ask.

About fear.

Fear is one of the most disabling emotions we have.

You know, think about a deer crossing a road, right?

A deer's crossing the road.

There's headlights coming towards them in a car.

They stand there and they look at the headlights because they're afraid what happens?

Live idea, that's what we create in organizations is we create the.

We paralyze people because of fear.

Now, that doesn't mean we're going to put up with incompetence.

Not at all.

But incompetence, the offset to the incompetence is learning.

So if you think about the real role of a leader, they're a coach.

And a great coach is a learner and a teacher.

So we as leaders need to be always learning ourselves and encouraging it within the organization and always teaching.

And if we're doing that, then the fear will become less because we know that if we don't have the answers, we'll find it.

We'll look at the answer.

We'll find someone can help us.

We'll be able to move this to the positive side.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gary, what do you think is going to be important for leadership as we move forward?

I know time changes all, but like you said, we're always dealing with people.

Do you think leadership will always be the same or do you think like this, like new advent of AI and all these other technological changes, do they change anything or is leadership of people always the same?

Do you think there's new lessons or new ways that we're going to get better at leading, or do you think we're kind of at the pinnacle of being able to lead right now?

It comes down to since the beginning of the time, people are people.

The caveman wanted to belong, wanted to matter, and wanted to make choices.

Whoever the space man is into the future will want.

You know, we're all, we're all, we're human beings.

We're tribal creatures.

And one of the things that I'm bothered about is how post Covid, we've created this loneliness business environment where people aren't coming together as much as they used to be able to discuss and debate and feel wanted.

You know, we can't be totally have to come together.

You think about it, you know, when people get put in solitary confinement or total isolation, they go crazy.

Yeah.

And that's why, you know, leaders today have to be brave enough to say we're going to bring our people together.

Not because we don't think they're working when they're out at home, but connection is so, so important.

So as you know, Kelly runs out the front door in the morning and gives his husband, wife, or significant other a high five.

They've got to be able to say, I'm so excited that I'm going to fill in the blank today because we are going to work on fill in the blank.

So, leaders, what is to fill in the blank that excites people?

Bring them together so you can help unlock those creative juices that only get unlocked to their fullest degree when people are there together exploring what those juices are.

Yeah, I agree.

I struggled working from home.

I did in the beginning.

I'm really great at it now.

But I feel like I had to learn it.

It was like a learned skill where I literally.

Gary.

I had to lock myself in my basement.

That was the only way I got anything done.

I couldn't because I didn't associate home with work.

And so my brain didn't go to work when I was at home.

And so I literally sectioned off a room in my basement.

I locked myself in there, and probably for six months, that's what I did.

I didn't let myself out of that room until.

And I'm.

Now I'm really great at it.

But actually, I have the opposite problem now.

Now I can't get away from work because work has become home.

It's like, I don't know, take your pick at it.

But I'll tell you, I loved.

I loved working in the office for that very reason.

Like, I worked with a great group of individuals.

We worked hard.

We had a shared purpose, a shared goal we were working towards.

And if I needed to get something done, I could just go down the.

Down the road to Jerry's office or whatever to get something done.

Right.

So there's something to be said about working with people, and I think we're slowly kind of starting to remember that.

But, you know, I'm not sure what the future looks like.

I think Hybrid will probably be the work, the workplace of the future.

Yeah, I think Hybrid's fine, but there has to be a deliberate move to make it Hybrid.

Yeah, let's come here.

Sure.

But let's say we're going to come together, fill in the blank number of days a week to do exciting work.

Yeah, no, I definitely see it.

I also see the challenge of, like, an organization feeling like, well, now I got to buy or rent an entire office, and I only have people coming here two days a week or three days a week.

Right.

It be interesting to see kind of what happens or if they'll justify it for that.

Oh, but it's also out of balance.

You know, I mentioned to you before I started recording that I'm also on the board of a company called Gorilla, based out of Cincinnati.

And you know, they have hundreds of people working on the factory floor making that wonderful product.

They can't make that in their bedroom at home.

No.

But why should then the people who work in the office have that privilege?

So I think, you know, there's another side of that where and Perilla were brave.

You know, they brought their people back together three or four days a week, however many ideas, because they wanted to respect the people that are working on the factory floor as well.

Yeah, you know, that, that's unfair.

I mean, it's just not right.

Yeah, no, I actually, I agree completely.

I agree completely with you.

It's just, it's interesting because it does now offer that weird paradigm shift where people are like, okay, what do we do?

Because you're absolutely right.

Like the product doesn't get built if the people aren't working on the factory floor.

So why should the executive team get to work from home?

Starbucks and Amazon, you know, Amazon said everybody's coming back to work.

Starbucks have said everybody's coming back to the office.

And I think about it, but, well, you know, how do the people at the Starbucks stores, where really the action happens, feel about the fact that they've got to go there and make coffee and do all this wonderful stuff, yet the people who are their quote unquote leaders are sitting at home.

Yeah, no, it doesn't work that way.

Sorry.

My goodness.

Yeah, it, it really does kind of come down to how can you foster a community of equals if not everybody is equal?

But yet again, this is my question to this.

But is not a hierarchy of people.

There can't be necessarily equality in a hierarchy though.

Like, that's where it starts to get kind of confusing.

What's your take on that?

Like how do you have equality from, you know, the person on the shop floor to you as the CEO?

They're different positions.

And a business doesn't run on an exact equality.

Right.

How does, how do you balance it?

I don't think it's equally.

I think it's fairness.

You know, what's the difference between someone who works as a clerk in an accounting department department and someone who's working on a shop floor?

You're running a two million dollar piece of equipment that's precisely filling X product.

I mean, I think the conversation of leadership has to be more around, hey, we are expecting people to do certain things.

We as leaders need to show the way.

We need to be the light.

And you know, that's what's, I don't think it's hierarchical.

Fairness I mean, if I was.

Not that I'd ever be good enough to, you know, lead some organization like Starbucks, but I'd be saying to the leadership team, what sort of message are we sending to the people who are the.

The foundation of our business?

Where they're.

They're there in the stores at 4am in the morning and they're crunching coffee and they're doing what makes us great.

What message are we sending them if we're not coming together and showing them how we're doing that in our own home because we're privileged.

We get to work at home.

Right.

We've got to send a positive message.

We've got to show them that we're here to be the leaders.

Supposed to be.

You're leading by example.

You're saying that if I'm going to ask you to come into.

To your workplace at 4am I'm going to also come into my workplace.

That's what you're saying.

And that's when I talked about a great coach spends a lot of time in the sticky locker room.

That's the locker room.

You got to be down.

You got to be in the trenches to understand the trenches is kind of what you're saying.

Love it.

Love it.

Gary.

You know, this takes us to the end of our interview today, but before we do, I want to learn a little bit more about, like, what services you offer.

I know that it's not just books.

You're not just chairman of multiple boards.

But you mentioned executive coaching.

What else are you doing these days?

Well, I'm not chairman of other boards.

I sit up on the advisory board.

I coach.

I Coach, I think six or seven CEOs right now.

And I don't do rehabilitation coaching.

In fact, one of my coaching clients is the head of a Canadian public company, which is really fun, but, you know, I.

And I have CEO scar tissue.

So, you know, I coach public company CEOs.

They're in the new role of what do they expect?

You know how you've just gone from having quite unquote one boss to a board of directors and a whole bunch of shareholders.

And, you know, how do you.

You can't please all the people all the time.

So I do that.

I speak globally on the topic of corporate culture and how to build great cultures.

So I do that.

I write on LinkedIn.

Please follow me if you can.

Can I. I'm listening a couple of times a week.

Some of my learning moments and my scar tissues, I do that.

So, you know, I've just completed my 25 year apprenticeship in leadership.

Now I'm putting it and my purpose is I help leaders build cultures of belonging where love, forgiveness and learning inspire a happy, more connected work.

That's my Amazing.

Amazing.

And Gary, if people want to get in touch with you, CEOs listening, maybe want to coach with you or apply to coach with you as well as maybe hire you for a speaking engagement, what is the best way for them to go about doing that?

My website is www.thelearningmoment.net.

there's a Connect with me there.

Come straight from my email so you can get with me there on LinkedIn.

You can direct message me on LinkedIn and I'll eventually answer.

Amazing.

I mean I get that.

I. I totally understand the eventually.

At this point I feel the same way.

Gary, this has been incredible.

I honestly cannot wait to read your book.

By this point it will be out.

There will be links everywhere.

The book is called Any Dumb Ass Can Do It.

Learning Moments from an Everyday CEO of a Multi Billion Dollar Company.

We've been chatting today with Gary Ridge.

It has been an honor.

Incredible.

I love the work you've done.

I love the product WD40 and I just want to thank you for everything you've done for the world.

I want to thank you because it's through voices like you that we can get the message out that life's a gift.

Don't send it back.

Until next time.

This has been episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the Business Development Podcast.