Any Dumbass Can Do It with Garry Ridge

Any Dumbass Can Do It with Garry Ridge

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast. Today we're joined by Garry Ridge, the legendary former CEO of the WD 40 company who turned a household product into one of the most iconic brands on Earth for 25 years. Garry championed a culture of learning moments, proving that when people feel they belong, magic happens.

He's a global leader, a bestselling author, and a coach to top CEOs sharing wisdom that transforms not just businesses. But lives stick with us. You don't wanna miss this episode.

Outro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development CapitalBD.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Welcome to episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast, and it is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you all today, Garry Ridge. Garry is a visionary leader, renowned advisor and professor. With over 35 years of experience transforming global brands and workplaces as chairman Emeritus of WD 40 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, Garry now partners with Forward-Thinking Organizations, helping them build cultures where people feel safe to innovate, empowered to grow, and passionate about their purpose. A powerful speaker and author, Garry'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 to engagement and success.

His upcoming book, Any Dumb Ass 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. Garry 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.

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

Garry Ridge: Good morning. Who are you talking about?

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh. I'm just gonna start this episode, Garry, 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.

Garry Ridge: 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 and are very different.

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

Garry Ridge: Oh, well, well at least we know one thing. People matter.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. That's right. My gosh. WD 40, you spent 35 years leading WD 40 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 WD 40 to clean my bike chain and lubricate my bike chain.

And I just, I 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 WD 40 for me.

Garry Ridge: It's interesting, Kelly, you'd say that because at WD 40 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 led in with your memory. And that, that warms me because, you know, 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.

Kelly Kennedy: It's incredible, honestly, like, and I can't wait to go into it today because I've never really heard the story of WD 40.

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 ha does not have a can of WD 40 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, and many places around the world, which is incredible for any brand, period.

Garry Ridge: Well, I know that, you know, we're in more houses than Coca-Cola. That's pretty interesting. And now 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 loam, the little red top yet, but that's what that the company continues to do under great leadership now of our new CE.

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 the little red top for the very, very first.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. And there's that other like, really incredible thing with every one of those cans is eventually they run out and you gotta buy another one. So I don't, I can't tell you how many cans of WD 40 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. A hundred percent WD 40 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 WD 40. Not to mention the hundreds of other other use cases for it, you know, incredible product and seriously, huge fan.

But I wanna get into that today. How did you end up on that journey, Garry? 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 Garry Ridge? Take me back to childhood.

Garry Ridge: 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, and it's interesting, that's where my connection to WD 40 started.

I was a management trainee for a very large retail organization in Australia. I had a passion for retail and I was working well in the company and I got to know one of our wholesalers who actually happened to sell WD 40. And after a couple of years, the wholesale 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 WD 40 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 oil brand. I put two great brands. I could really, I could really, you know, sharpen my marketing saw with the opportunity to work with two great grades and working for the licensee that gave me the opportunity to fly to the United States once a year and to to attend the WD 40 sales meeting.

And that's where I met the people at WD 40. 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 Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. So that's probably how I got the attention of the of the then president of the company.

And then so, you know, I was back and forth a number of years, got to know them. And about the mid eighties WD 40 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 WD 40 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 Garry, this is a private conversation. We're thinking about, you know, 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, interestingly enough, Kelly, and he had retired at this time, and I said to dad, what do you think if I went and worked for WD 40? And he said, you can't go wrong with that stuff, son. Yeah. So the number one rule in life, Kelly, is listen to your dad. So I joined him on July 4th, 1987.

I joined them in Sydney with a faxed machine under my bed. I opened the Australian subsidiary, and then for the next six or seven months, we stood up the company and bought people. And on January 1st, 1988 we started trading. And I spent a lot of time then in Asia you know, building our distribution network.

In 1994 or thereabouts, I was having a conversation with my boss, then the president of the company. And I, I said to him, is there anything else you'd like me to do? He said, funny, you should ask, do you wanna 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 that understands global markets like you do. Why don't you come over here and 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 wow. I spent a lot of time then in Europe, we'd opened a subsidiary in Europe, it needed some work.

And then in 19 80, 19 97, he decided to retire. And for some reason the board of directors of a US public company thought this, you know, dumbass Aussie guy might be. 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. 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 WD 40.

And I didn't wanna be called at two o'clock in the morning asking 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 Dalai Lama 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, no, no. 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 some worse sense. I still didn't know how to. 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 a information session and Ken got up and spoke and he said, most MBA programs get people in the head. We gotta 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, I wrote a book with Ken Blanchard. Paul, yep. Helping people would not vote. I basically took all of the learning that I got from that program and started to implement it in the company and what worked.

I turned up the volume on what didn't work. I turned down the volume one and slowly but surely we built this amazing culture that was really based on, on, on a couple of things. One, a culture where people knew they belong. 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.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, I listened, I listened 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 gonna 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 need 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 outta COVID, it was that there was 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, 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 do, 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'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 WD 40 organization or from other organizations where, like, what are you doing?

Garry Ridge: And, you know, the reason that I took this journey was really the, 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 WD 40 years, GA. I'm Garry Rich, I'm the consciously incompetent, probably wrong and roughly right, chairman and CEO of WD 40 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. Yeah. And I can't, you can't make people do anything. You can only create an environment where they find pleasure in what they're doing. And that's why our purpose was so important. You know, we, we talked earlier, create positive, lasting memories not to sell oil in a can.

And anyone can sell oil in a can. And yes, I did get pushed back you know, in the first year or so. And, and I wanna tell you something, the culture at WD 40 company was not broken. It just was not a culture that was ta gonna 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 gonna take us to the world. So, yeah, I got pushed back. You know, I'm the first year, or you know, people said, you drinking too much, you can beard's Kool-Aid. You know, 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?

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 were embedding the Learn 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 pushback even from my board of directors back then. You know, they. And of, what do you mean what?

So gimme the results. That's what we're 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 plan. 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 gonna maximize the economy of our business.

So, strategic plan, write it, mark it up, Greg, professor Marks up. Congratulations Kelly. 70 out of a hundred for your strategic plan. 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, is taken away, and 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. Yeah. It's so simple. It's so, so simple. But it's not easy.

Kelly Kennedy: And time is not your friend. No. Not to mention execution is flipping hard.

Right? Like, I, 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, we weren't, we, you know, 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, let me give you the, the real essence of wd. Back in 1953, the company was called Rocket Chemical Company 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. Yeah. Number 39 didn't work either.

Guess what? 40 worked. Amazing. So that's why it's called WD board. This place in 44. Now, I'll be very honest with you, I'm so, so, so pleased they didn't give up at 39 'cause we wouldn't be having our conversation today and I'm so pleased 39 didn't work. 'cause I don't think WD 39 sounds anything like as good as WD 40.

Kelly Kennedy: No.

Garry Ridge: 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 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 gonna be something better, something bigger, something more exciting.

Kelly Kennedy: 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.

'cause tomorrow's 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, I think the first step is to get comfortable with, you're gonna 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? 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 OC Tanner 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, what? Our second value at WD 40 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'd say what positive lasting memory is that gonna create, particularly when we've got into product innovation and develop, you know, if we developed a new delivery system, we'd well, is that gonna create a positive, lasting memory for our end users?

If it's not, we're not gonna do it. So again, curiosity, questioning itself.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, one of the questions that I have is somebody who's been in business development and marketing a really long time, how in the world did you get WD 40 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 WD 40, so is everyone I know, it's probably sitting on the, 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 WD 40 so bloody successful? How did you do it?

Garry Ridge: Focus, Basically focus. Firstly, you've gotta have a product that's an honest buyer. And WD 40 is an honest product. It does what it says it's gonna do.

It makes heroes of people. So it takes, you, 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 leave 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, had a trade fair, an auto trade fair where we were sampling automotive mechanics and workshop workers with a south W 40. And the Chinese word for lubricant is, and the Chinese word for sample is young P.

So here I am, this, Aussie guy and the young thing thing, trying to give away samples of blue. Yeah. 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, a motor stand, a stand with 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, a string handle on, and they were lining up and I thought, they don't want my WD 40, what's in that damn bag?

So I walk over, I look in the bag, there's nothing in the bag. Big learning moment. The bag had value. It was the size of the bag that actually was a great size for a scoop of rice that they'd take to their local corner store, all wherever together. 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.

Ah. 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? Let's be serious. You know, 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 the US and other places. So I'd say focus, it's 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 people work. And then the, the secret sauce is the, the culture, the people.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. I love that you touched on, you have to speak to people in a way that they understand. 'cause I, I talk about that all the time. 'cause 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 to 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, in 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.

Garry Ridge: Absolutely. You know, 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. And if you are clear on the target, make sure the message is aligned with what they can hear and what they'll understand. And that, that exercise that I, I shared with you or that story and in Beijing example of that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's a really great example. You know, one of the questions that I have is, is WD 40 the same WD 40 that I had when I was a kid? Or has there been like, are have we had, like, are we at WD 99 and we just haven't changed the name?

Garry Ridge: 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 re 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. 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 styrene, a s spiral notepad in pencil and it's trade secret.

The core ingredients have remained the same basic, and since there.

Kelly Kennedy: 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?

Garry Ridge: 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 forms. It's. Yeah. Yeah. It's deliberate.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, how many people know the secret? How many people know the formula?

Garry Ridge: I don't know these days. I didn't know it for many years.

Kelly Kennedy: Really?

Garry Ridge: Yeah. I didn't care to know. I didn't meet it. Sure. The only one's gonna get kidnapped for the formula. It wasn't gonna be me. That's right. But in the end, I did know it. I signed off on our secrecy agreements 'cause I was doing some work on it. But I've been, yeah. But I, I, I signed the scientists at the company, obviously know it and yeah, know it.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely incredible though, like when you think about it. 'cause you're right, it's like you need to know the formula and you gotta keep the formula secret. I don't care whether you're Coca-Cola or whether you're WD 40, right? Like there's a secret formula here of how we do things and I, 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.

Garry Ridge: 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, let's start talking at 4 billion because it's not just the, the formula has to work, but it's the trade dress that blue and yellow.

You know, we were very, very diligent around registering our trade dress act. Mm-hmm. You know, and funnily enough, we never, ever, ever changed the trade dress 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 WD 40.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely, yeah.

Garry Ridge: 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 the little red top and the culture that makes it great, then that's $4 Billion Dollars.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. That's incredible. And, and, okay, now we gotta 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 WD 40, right? Like, you're absolutely right. You could take all the writing off it. I would know exactly what it is. And I think, I think a lot of people, whether they use WD 40 or not, would what goes into building. And I get it, you've been around seventy years.

Sure it's a long time. But why is it like, what does it take to build brand awareness on that scale?

Garry Ridge: Consistency. Consistency. It's very simple.

Consistency. That's it. Don't, don't be tempted to changing something. You know, I, over my period of time, Baron, I don't know how many times I had agencies and whatever come on, but hey, 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. 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 wanna do that? No, I'm not gonna do that. I love that.

So, you know, it's consistency around, around the period of time we never changed it. We were very good.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing. 'cause 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.

Garry Ridge: 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, it's old. Wait a minute. There's that 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.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I, 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, Garry, I wanna chat with you.

You've been a leader for an incredibly long time. You know, you've led WD 40 since 1997. Like, dude, I was like, I don't know, 10 years old in 1997. So, 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, I'll tell you what was, is, was and continues to be the same people. And whether it was 1997 or now, people wanna belong. They wanna know they matter and they wanna know, they make choices now, of course. Things changed. You know, we had technology that 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, yeah.

So it changed over time, but what didn't change? What matters the other innocent. So that's what

Kelly Kennedy: 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 with, 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, 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, they're just trying to provide for their families. And I think a lot of the people working for WD 40, that's what they were trying to do. They, they maybe didn't see the whole vision about what WD 40 was doing, but they did see the roof that WD put 40 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 wanna make sure they're looked after, but they also wanna 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, 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 the vocabulary. Everybody was called the 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 a player to try and score. A great coach spends a lot of time on the sideline, observing the play to be able to. Be direct, 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, a great coach spends a lot of time in the stinky locker room. Mm-hmm. Because that's where you build trust. That's where you understand your people. You know, you don't want to be a micromanaging. I, I invented a person called Alec, the sole sucking CEOI, 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 micro sheep 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 ab applaud 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.

Those conversations become extremely uncomfortable when there's not clarity around what we expect from each other. So I think you've gotta care about your people. You've gotta be candid with you. No lying, no faking, no hiding. I believe most people in organizations don't lie. They fake and they hide because of fear.

You've gotta halt, you've gotta 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 that, when do you expect it by and then your job is just to help people win, win, win, win. You know, our tribal promise at WD 40 was a group of people who came to get from each other.

That was our just course. 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've worked with the company. This one, 97% of people said they trusted and respected their coach. Now the coach was quote their manager.

Yeah. And the reason they trusted and respect their coach is they knew that the coach was there to help them win. That's 'cause they hate the boss.

Kelly Kennedy: 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 WD 40 able to do that?

Garry Ridge: A friend of mine, his name is Charlie Malouf, he has a, a chain of Ashley Furniture Stores in or 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 consistency around our brain. You know, you've gotta live it every day. You've gotta embed it in behavior. You've gotta be tough minded and tender hard. 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 gotta have the fundamentals in place. You've gotta have the things in place that are important to build a great culture. I mean, if you think about building a great culture, one of the things you need to have place, firstly, you've gotta have a people first mindset. Your coaches.

You're not managers. You've gotta 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, and, and set them through. You've gotta have transparency and a simple vision. You've gotta have learning moments that reduce fear.

You've gotta have belonging, acceptance and connectedness, respecting old people. And you've gotta have those four pillars of care, candor, accountability, and responsibility.

Kelly Kennedy: 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? Or was that something that you had to bring to the company?

Garry Ridge: Well, there was a different mission, vision, and values, because we were a different sort of company. You know, when I went through my program at USD and you know, I started to look at, okay, what is our purpose?

What is our, what is it gonna look like to the future? Our, our values took us about a year to get them, help them, embed them, socialize them, have people aligned with it. You know, this is work. It's not, you know, as I said, it's not fair and bad. So there was nothing wrong with the company. It just wasn't the company that was going, it wasn't the culture that was gonna take us to win what got to quote Marshall Goldsmith, what got us here wasn't gonna get us there.

Kelly Kennedy: 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, Steve's been in place for two years now. Yeah. And, you know, he continues to, he understands our, our brand brilliantly. He understands culture is a competitive advantage.

Sure. He'll do different things, but the core is the same. I mean, it's all about, and yeah, there's still a long growth road in front of the company, so. Go on and do it.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I tell you that my kids will know WD 40. 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 WD 40. 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.

Garry Ridge: Well, it wasn't about me. I mean, it was about the people I had the privilege to lead. So it's what's important.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to get into it. The new book. The new book. Any Dumb Ass Can Do It. I can resonate with that. I'm a dumb ass 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 multi-billion dollar company, that's a hell of a title.

Garry Ridge: Yeah. Well I am now, as you know, as our France, Alton is the apostle appreciate of appreciation. Yes, I am the dean of Dumb Assery. So, 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 are going to do it consistently.

You know, I I honestly say if I was able to lead an organization to build a great culture. Aie, like one time traveling salesman from Australia or someone called me once. But I think it's really about the book. So I, 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 scars issues 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 did we learn about the learning moments?

All of the things that we learned over those past 20 something years as now in a hardcover book called Eddie Damas Could Do it. And I'm hoping that it will help leaders be confident and have and provide honestly the tools that they can take and adapt and change if they want to help them build organizations where they've.

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 that.

Kelly Kennedy: 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, 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, I'm not sure if you felt imposter syndrome when you were, when you were offered the role of CEO of WD 40 back in 97, but. I know I've struggled with imposter syndrome. I know I've struggled with confidence. What, you know, what are some of the secrets from someone who has run a multi-billion dollar company?

How were you able to foster confidence in yourself?

Garry Ridge: Understanding that on most circumstances, I'm probably wrong and roughly right which is important. But you know, then again, there needs to be discipline. You know, at the end of the day, Kelly, we're just these basic human beings bumbling our way down this pathway line.

And in the bushes are what I call thieves that run out and take us off the path. And they're thieves of breed. There are patience and ego and all 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, you know, I coach CEOs now, and the first stage of my coaching with them is awareness.

Are you aware of who you want to? 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 be right now? And then I have a list of who is that person. And I say, I want to be grateful, caring, sympathetic, reasonable, a listener, fact-based.

I wanna have a balanced opinion, I wanna be curious. I want to be a learner and I want to throw sunshine and more a shadow. And I have to remind myself of that 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 intention.

So the second stage of my coaching is now that we are aware of what we want to be, what are we gonna 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 were 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've had imposter syndrome because I'm unconsciously incompetent and probably wrong and roughly right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I grew up working in organizations with punishment culture. I, 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.

Garry Ridge: Good best. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Every once in a while. But I think many organizations, you know, in the nineties, even the, even two thousands even now are still running on fear-based culture, which really, like, like I said, really kind of breeds that like, oh shit. Like I sure hope I know enough that they think that I know.

'cause I don't know what I need to know. Right. I think most of us have struggling with that. Like, you know what, when I got into business development, I remember being asked, Hey, you're really great at dealing with people. Do you wanna be in business development? In college, I never even learned about business development.

I went to business school. Right? Like, it wasn't it, 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 gotta figure out who to ask.

Garry Ridge: Yeah. 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? Yeah. Buy, buy beer.

That's what we create in organizations, is we create the, we paralyze people because of fear. Now, that doesn't mean we're gonna put up with incompetence, not at all, but incompetence. The offset of the incompetence is a. 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 we'll find it. We'll look at the answer, we'll find someone can help us.

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

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Garry, what do you think is gonna 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 gonna get better at leading? Or do you think we're kind of at the pinnacle of being able to lead right now?

Garry Ridge: It comes down to, since the beginning of the time, people are people. I, the cave man 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. You know, 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, 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.

Yeah. 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 gotta be able to say, I'm so excited that I'm going to fill in the blank today because we are gonna work on, fill in the blank. So leaders, what is the, fill in the blank that excites people.

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

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I agree. I I struggled working from home. I did in the beginning. I'm really great at it now, but I feel like I, I had to learn it.

It was like a learned skill where I, I, I literally, Garry, 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 for Ali for six months.

That's what I did. I didn't let myself outta 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, I think hybrid will probably be the fu, the work, the workplace of the future.

Garry Ridge: Yeah. I think hybrid's fine, but there has to be a deliberate move to make it hybrid. Yeah. You know, let's come. Yeah. Sure. But let's say we're gonna come together, fill in the blank number of days a week to do exciting work.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, I I definitely see it. I, I also see the challenge of like an organization feeling like, well now I gotta buy or rent an entire office, and I only have people coming here two days a week, or three days a week. Right. It'd be interesting to see kind of what happens if, or if they'll justify it for that.

Garry Ridge: Oh, but it's also out of balance. You know, I've mentioned to you before, I we started recording, but I'm also on the board of a company called Gorilla Pool based outta 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? Mm-hmm. So I think, you know, there's another side of that where, and Perilla were, were brave, you know, they brought their people back together, three or four days a week, however many it is. They wanted to respect the people that are working on the factory floor as well.

Yeah. But you know that, that's unfair. I mean, it's just not right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I actually, I agree completely. I agree completely with you. It's just, it's interesting 'cause 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?

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

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Garry Ridge: No, it doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way. Sorry.

Kelly Kennedy: 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? There are different positions and, and a business doesn't run on an exact equality. Right. How does, how do you balance it?

Garry Ridge: Well, I don't think it's equality.

I think it's fans, you know, what's the difference between someone who works as a, a clerk in an accounting department and someone who's working on a shop floor, you know, running a $2 million 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.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Garry Ridge: And, you know, that's what's, I don't think it's, hierarchy or fairness. I mean, if I was, not that I'd ever be good enough to, you know, lead some organization like hubs, 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 there, they're there in the stores at 4:00 AM 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 are doing that in our own, because we are privileged. We get the work at home.

What, right? Yeah. We've gotta, we've gotta send a positive message. We've gotta show them. We we're here to be the leaders we're supposed to be.

Kelly Kennedy: You're leading by example. You're saying that if I'm going to ask you to come into to your workplace at 4:00 AM I'm gonna also come into my workplace. That's what you're saying.

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

That's the offer.

Kelly Kennedy: You gotta be down, you gotta be in the trenches to understand the trenches, is kind of what you're saying. Love it. Love it. Garry, you know this takes us to the end of our interview today, but before we do, I wanna 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?

Garry Ridge: Well, I'm not chairman of other boards. I sit up on, 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, I, and I have CEO scar tissue, so, you know, I coach public company CEOs if they're in the new role of, you know, 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 on the, 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. I, I'm visiting a couple of times a week, some of my learning moments and my scar, so 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've helped leaders build cultures of belonging where love, forgiveness, and learning inspire a happy, more connected world. That's my third. Amazing.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And Garry, if people want to get in touch with you, CEOs listening, maybe want to coach with you or, 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?

Garry Ridge: My website is https://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 you.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. I mean, I, I get that. I, I totally understand the, eventually at this point, I feel the same way.

Garry, 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 Garry Ridge. It has been an honor incredible.

I, I, I love the work you've done. I love the product WD 40, and I just wanna thank you for everything you've done for the world.

Garry Ridge: I wanna 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.

Kelly Kennedy: Until next time. This has been episode 276 of the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: 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 @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.