In this episode, we deep-dive into the world of strategy and leadership. Learn how to navigate challenges, drive organizational success, and leave a meaningful legacy. Remember, Great leaders actively shape their legacies! Don't miss this episode.
Guest: Alex Brueckmann, WSJ Bestselling Author, Brueckmann Strategy Consultants
Website | https://brueckmann.ca
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbrueckmann/
Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn
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Episode Description
In this episode of the Soulful CXO, host Dr. Rebecca Wynn welcomes Alex Brueckmann, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author and strategy facilitator for executive teams. They delve into leadership legacies, the importance of shaping organizational culture, and the impact of transparency and diversity in the workplace. Alex shares valuable insights on how leaders can actively shape their legacies and navigate the complexities of modern business environments. Learn from the shared analysis by Alex of Alfred Nobel, Patagonia, Volkswagen, and others. Listen now for valuable insights!
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Resources
The Strategy Legacy (on amazon.com)
https://a.co/d/6GEfWqD (Amazon)
Secrets of Next Level Entrepreneurs
https://a.co/d/6dbcUjc (Amazon)
Secrets of Next Level Entrepreneurs (Podcast)
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/secrets-of-next-level-entrepreneurs/id1676141792
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The Power of Shaping Your Legacy | A Conversation with Alex Brueckmann | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn
[00:00:00] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Welcome to the soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn. We are pleased to have with us today, Alex Brueckmann. Alex is the Wall Street Journal, bestselling author of The Strategy Legacy Secrets of Next Level Entrepreneurs, and Creating the Strategy Legacy. He's a strategy facilitator for executive teams, bringing his wealth of experience to companies from high growth startups to Fortune 500 companies.
His reputation as a global keynote speaker precedes him as he delivers actual insights on a range of topics from strategy and leadership to executive development, to audiences around the world. Alex, it is so great seeing you again. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:46] Alex Brueckmann: Thank you very much for inviting me and thanks for the warm intro, Rebecca.
[00:00:50] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Well, you asked me just to go ahead and jump into it. So I have a key question to ask, I want to make sure I get this right. I've seen your writings. I've [00:01:00] read your books are excellent as well as things that you post on LinkedIn and in your newsletter. You've said several times, "Great leaders actually shape their legacies." What do you mean by that?
[00:01:16] Alex Brueckmann: What I mean by that is that you do have a legacy if you want it or not. And if you want to have a positive legacy, that just doesn't happen on its own. You need to do something about that. You need to embrace that challenge in a way. And legacy really is, um, I'm not talking about the house you hand down to your next generation.
I talk about the legacy that you shape as someone who influences the lives of countless people. If you're a leader in a, in a, in a large organization, there are literally tens of thousands of people that you influence directly or indirectly. And that doesn't end. Where the employee base [00:02:00] ends, these people go home, they have families, they have friends, how they leave their work, how they talk about work, how work influences them, shapes how they show up for their friends and families.
And when I talk about legacy, I really talk about three different kinds or layers of legacy. The legacy you leave as a leader, um, that I already alluded to, kind of the culture that you create, the workplace that you build and how you lead, how you influence people directly and indirectly. But you also shape the legacy of your organization as such you, the higher you climb in an organization, the more you represent that organization towards society.
And all its layers from politics to, um, anything around, um, responsibility that you take in, in, in social things and social questions. And obviously those legacies [00:03:00] are, are there. If you take a look around any company, you think about, they do have a certain legacy. They do have a certain, they have, they have history with them that when you think about it, About that history, certain things come to mind and those things can either be really, really positive.
Think about Patagonia. Their legacy is absolutely amazing in terms of environmental protection and the work environment that they create. Um, and then you can think of other players who have a really, really bad legacy, um, or a poor legacy or a doubtful legacy. And as a leader, I strongly believe that it is.
It is almost unethical not to work on that legacy because it's, it's bottom, bottom line and financial metrics aside. It's what people will remember you for, um, once you've moved on to the next company or once you've retired or maybe even [00:04:00] long, long, long, long after that.
[00:04:03] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: One of the things I did not too long ago here when I was thinking through my WHY and things along those lines is. I wrote what I would want to be remembered for. And a lot of times people don't do that company wise, but you have a story along those lines, right? About a person reading an obituary that was about them, but it wasn't about them, but it changed their life.
Would you mind sharing that with the audience? I think that's an excellent story.
[00:04:28] Alex Brueckmann: I think that is a relatively well known story, um, about Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel prize. Um, and when you think about the Nobel prize, you think about, Oh, what a great person that must've been. Actually, Alfred Nobel had a really, really doubtful, um, brand, personal brand if you want during his lifetime, because he was actually the one who invented TNT, nitroglycerin.
Um, and that, that invention was being used for all kinds of terrible things from, uh, gangs. [00:05:00] Raid banks to, um, just all these terrible wars that, um, held a tight grip on many European countries, um, during the lifetime of Alfred Nobel. And, um, when he read his own obituary, which was a mistake because actually his, it was his brother who had died, but the journalist made a mistake and he wrote the obituary about Alfred Nobel.
Um, he read the headline, the Merchant of Death is dead. And that shocked him to his bone and from there, he, um, he already was a relatively grown man, an elderly person at that point, but he had a few more years to rethink the legacy that he wanted to leave behind. And what he then did was he put basically all his fortune into, um, what then later became the Alfred Nobel Foundation, um, who is funding the Nobel prize every year.
Out of the interests of the fortune of Alfred Nobel to those [00:06:00] people who have brought the biggest advance to mankind. So he kind of went from the merchant of death to one of the biggest beneficiaries of making humankind better.
[00:06:11] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I always think that's a great story because a lot of times people forget that you can course correct.
And you can go ahead and change and you can learn and people forget about that. You know, they might think they're 30 or the 40 or the 50 or 60 or 70 and they don't think that they can change. And that's a great story to show that.
What do you tell people who feel like, my company has been around for such a long period of time and we just run this way and. We can't change the perception of us. One, if it's good, we can't, we'll never be bad. People will never think bad of us. Or if people have a negative brand reputation of us right now, I can't flip that around.
What do you advise people?
[00:06:50] Alex Brueckmann: There are countless examples of that. This is just simply not true. There have been great companies that. Became well, [00:07:00] let's say a little shady. One of my favorite examples is, um, Volkswagen buying, uh, producing amazing cars, really, really high quality cars, very high standard, um, and well known around the world and then came diesel gate.
And all the scandals that came with it. And I mean, there are ex Volkswagen managers who sit in jail right now for that. Um, has this impacted Volkswagen's image? Yes, it has. Has it impacted the legacy of Volkswagen? Yes, it has. But that doesn't mean it's, it has, so it can go both ways, right? It can go.
Either ways, at this point, um, depending on how leadership shows up and how they, um, actively shape the coming years can have a big influence on their legacy as leaders. When you think back about the CEO and his leadership team. That was [00:08:00] responsible for the company around the time when diesel gate happened.
Um, their names will always be no, no matter what great things they did in the decades before their names will always be ultimately attached to diesel gate. Um, that's a negative example. And then there are tons of positive examples where companies had a terrible reputation and over time found ways to shape the, the way that they show up to shape public perception and, uh, not through marketing, right, but through, through actions and through changing the way that they operate. And, um, we have to remember that our lives are really short, to be honest. And the time that we have to, to make a positive impact on people, um, is relatively short.
And when I take a look at the, the leaders that I work with, um, Some of them have less than 10 years at the helm of the organization before they then retire, maybe, um, or [00:09:00] others might have had 20 years in several companies. And then there are a few that have had a long tenure on, at the helm of an organization.
And I think 10 years, 20 years. Even if it doesn't sound that much, actually, it is a lot of time. It is a lot of time that you have to, um, impact people in a way that they can show up differently at work, at home with their friends. Um, and you do have the opportunity to turn a company around, um, in a relatively short period of time to reshape how this company, um, produces value, adds value to its stakeholder groups.
And, um, I mean, it's, it's just a question of perspective. If I had five years at the helm of an organization, I would, I would be excited about the opportunity to shape that legacy. It is enough to do that.
[00:09:52] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: So it really is the core walking the walk, not just talking the talk?
[00:09:57] Alex Brueckmann: Exactly.
[00:09:59] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: A lot of times [00:10:00] companies, as you alluded to.
It's our branding for the website, our purpose, our vision, our mission. And personally, I'm so over it. There's times where I've actually consulted companies, I've been with organizations and I've alluded to their vision and their purpose and why I'm there. And I've even had an interviews where people are going, where'd you get that?
And you're like, it's literally on your website. That's what you're supposed to be standing for. What do you advise companies to do along those lines that got into this branding that we have to say this, but it's not in your heart and soul. Soulful CXO, right? If it's not in your heart and soul, it's just a, that's not going to go ahead and lead you to the clients.
It's not going to lead you to the sales. It's not going to lead you to the workforce. I think that you really want to have.
[00:10:46] Alex Brueckmann: It's going to do the opposite. It creates an image of you that you then can't live up to, and you're actually doing the opposite of what you intended to do. Um, a lot of the work that I do is around organizational identity.
So as a [00:11:00] strategy facilitator, obviously people think of strategy first, and yeah, that's the core, and I use the strategy process often to help my customers build more than just the strategy. And that will touch things like, who are we like beyond the strategy, who are we as an organization, and then we would often talk about.
How do we show up? What is the culture that we create? What are the pillars of culture like behaviors based on values? What are these values? And then often they would be like, we have these three, four values. They are on our website and I look at them and they are purely moral values. They have no uniqueness to them whatsoever.
They're basically just saying. We're decent human beings. That's, that's all that says there's nothing unique about it. Um, and then you would take a look at purpose statements and mission statements and vision statements. And all these things have a place if you use them intentionally for the right reasons and not for marketing purposes, you don't [00:12:00] need those to have, you don't need to have those on your website.
Um, maybe your purpose statement. Yes. And the impact statement. Yes. Because they have a reach beyond your financial metrics. They have a reach beyond your, the confines of your business. But everything else, your vision statement, your mission statement, that that's for you. That's something that fires up those that work with you, that fire, fire you up, that make you get out of bed in the morning because you want to be part of bringing that future picture to life.
Um, these words, these terms like vision, mission, they have been so overused in the public, um, space in the public sphere that. It's almost, uh, people start rolling their eyes when you, when you talk about these things, because they have lost their mojo to a certain degree, because they were used in ways that they were never intended to be used for.
So, and the issue is everyone thinks that they know what these things are. So imagine [00:13:00] an executive team, eight people, 10 people, everyone has a different history. Everyone has read different books. Everyone has had different educational backgrounds. And now these people sit in a room together and one of them goes like, we need a new vision statement.
I bet that eight people in that room out of those eight, nine has a different understanding of what that actually means and entails and how you use it. Just by having a vision statement, nothing changes. It's about how you, how you use it, how you use the narrative, how you create. That pull for your strategy, that's, that's what your vision does.
It paints that desired compelling picture of the future of your organization. And your strategy is basically the few handful of the few choices that you make to get to that desired picture. Um, it is, it is a very, very interesting space to be in just out of the reasons that we just discussed.
[00:13:57] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: It's kind of like anymore where I, [00:14:00] when you talk about words that don't have a whole lot of meaning anymore, one of the things is transparency. We believe in transparency. Transparency versus non transparency, you know, what does that even mean anymore?
[00:14:13] Alex Brueckmann: Well, transparency is, um, it's a funny term because it's just like vision or strategy.
Everyone has a different understanding of what transparency means. And I think the biggest, um, biggest misconception is that transparency means sharing everything with everyone. That's not transparency. That's just, you know. Being unfiltered, um, transparency means I know, I understand what someone, for example, in my team, what type of information they need to be able to do their job and to understand the bigger picture and to give them direction and space to self, um, to self steer, um, Transparency does not mean I overshare, I over communicate.
I tell you more than you need. I tell you everything 10 times every day. That's not transparency. Transparency done [00:15:00] right is. Purposeful information sharing with the idea or the goal that the person who receives the information, who experiences me as a transparent person can build trust toward me. Like transparency in itself is not something desirable.
Transparency in itself is, it's just nothing of value. If you, if you use transparency, use it for the purpose of building trust between you and other people. Otherwise it's just aimless.
[00:15:32] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I've seen companies say we're transparent. So everyone has access to everybody's files, calendars and things along those lines.
And I'm like, that's nothing to do with
[00:15:41] Alex Brueckmann: transparency. It's just mad.
[00:15:44] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Exactly. And you're like, so then people just troll everybody's files to see what's going on. And you don't get any work done. , today's workforce for a lot of people, it's more than just a paycheck. They want to go ahead and see what the company is standing for, [00:16:00] that they have longevity and that.
They have a positive impact in some way, not only about the company, it's not about always the dollars about the greater good. A lot of times, how do you advise companies about that? Cause I think a lot of times we see that companies think it's only about either you, you believe in my greater good, therefore you'll take a really low paycheck or we pay you so you shouldn't even care about anything else.
[00:16:26] Alex Brueckmann: There are companies that, um, like it's a spectrum, right? And there are companies everywhere on this spectrum, and there are companies who I wouldn't even expect to have a higher purpose. I mean, if you take a look at gambling, online gambling, where is a higher purpose?
If you take a look at, um, tobacco companies where it's a higher purpose, you, you can make up stuff, of course. But that is just, it's hollow and, and shallow and people would see right through it. I know people who work for [00:17:00] big oil and gas. I know people who work for tobacco. I know people who work for online gaming companies.
Um, they're not there because it's a very purposeful work that they're doing. Often it's because they just like their colleagues a lot and they like the work environment and it's fun to be there for them. Um, and they pay well. And that's, that's what matters for them. Um, and then there are people who find their joy and purpose through the work that they do.
They have a different relationship to the work that they do. It's a bigger part of their personal identity. Those people will not just show up for a paycheck and for, I don't know, free food in the kitchen. You know what I mean? It's just, they need, they need way, way more than that. They need to see that the 10, 12 hours a day that they might invest have Meaning for them because they create something that is bigger than themselves and being part of that creation process is just super important.
So I would never go out there and be [00:18:00] like, every company needs a purpose because it attracts the next generation of young people. They need that. That is just brushing everything with the same brush in the same direction. That's just not true. But if you have something that you can stand for, be aware of it.
And use it in purposeful ways because it attracts the right kind of people. And if you then can live up to that promise that you make, um, you have an ally for a very long time.
[00:18:30] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Some companies have four, some have five generational people in the companies.
I don't mean that you've been there for five generations. I'm just talking about those are the generations are in there and each generation sees the world different. They see work life balance different and they see that their purpose is different in goals. How do you advise companies to try and navigate that?
Because I think companies fail to put that into their strategy. And I think they really [00:19:00] should because they're alienating a good part of the workforce because they're not tailoring certain things to other generations. For example, if you're a startup and you only are tailoring to the younger generation, you're missing A lot of knowledge because they've been there and done that and they can help train up a younger workforce and the, what they don't know yet and vice versa.
A lot of times the younger workforce won't be attracted to a company that might only have the older workforce, but a lot of times they knew no new technologies, have new way of seeing things. How should companies try and bridge that?
[00:19:38] Alex Brueckmann: Two things that I would like to say to that, first of all, I'm not an expert on anything generational.
Now, having said that, I actually don't believe in this whole concept of generations. If you take a look at beyond the age, we know right now, [00:20:00] Um, that generations are merely marketing labels to put us into boxes so that we can, so that companies can market to us based on, well, a certain need that they think we might have.
And that is true for adult diapers, for example, and that is true for baby diapers, but everything in between for me, that that's just nuts. Um, you see 20 somethings. Driving a Porsche 911 and you see 80 somethings driving a Porsche 911. The question is an entirely different one. The question to me is how can a company understand what's driving people and then create an environment that helps those people live up to these values.
In the end, it's about values. What do we value as human beings? We all value the same things. We just put different labels to it. And if we dig deeper and deeper and deeper. [00:21:00] Um, we will figure out that at some point it comes down to two or three fundamental things. If, if you, if I ask you what your values are and you give me two or three values that drive you, my question would always be, what does that value give you?
And if I ask that question five, six, seven, 10 times, you will reach the same word, the same level of emotional connection to that word that I reach to the same word, but my starting point might've been entirely different. We know from research that we have as human beings around the world, regardless of where you are, it's.
Around 30, 35 values that we have, but if you dig into those, they all come down to two or three fundamental things. And if we understand those fundamental things, or if we understand that fundamentally we are not really different, we just have different ways of articulating it and what these things mean to us, um, then we realize.
[00:22:00] Age generations, they disappear to a certain degree. And what we can then do is look beyond that and understand on a deeper level why someone is here. Why is someone who's 70 years old who doesn't have to work? Why do they still work? Why is someone in their thirties who might be 40 years younger? Um, why can they work well together?
It has nothing to do with generations. It has to do with seeing. Through those labels and understanding that as human beings, we have something to contribute. And as long as someone has something to contribute and does that in ways that other people can learn from it and understand it. Um, I believe that learning and education goes both ways.
So I would say as companies, we need to get rid of those labels and the thinking of generations. Generations. Yes, they do have tendencies. We do see [00:23:00] tendencies that they think certain ways that certain things matter more to them than they did before to other generations. But fundamentally speaking, we're driven by what, what we value and what we value is fundamentally the same thing.
It comes down to the same two or three core things around. Being loved, being accepted, feeling safe, that is what we, that is what we all want.
[00:23:23] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: One way is looking at skill sets, complementary skill sets when you build your teams along those lines. And then you will get people who have different experiences in different area, as well as living in different geolocation areas.
Should go in to help build your company better because the broader skill sets, broader experiences helps you reach more people who are more similar to those type of people.
[00:23:49] Alex Brueckmann: It's in the end how you define diversity, Rebecca, right? Um, do I define diversity by ethnicity and gender and which Ivy league [00:24:00] university someone went to?
Well, I mean, you can be really ridiculous about the topic, but if you take it serious, um, diversity. It's just, you can have five white men between 54 and 56 in a room and they couldn't be more diverse. They might look the same. They might've went through to the same school, but they could be extremely diverse just in terms of background, how they think, what type of experience they bring, what type of skillset that they bring.
Diversity is all kinds of things. And obviously, um, age diversity and the experience that comes with it. Um, also plays an important role
[00:24:40] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: For companies who haven't thought this way. And this discussion right now is a new way for them to think. How can they be better going forward in the future?
[00:24:50] Alex Brueckmann: If you start with strategy and then build your business structure, your organizational structure, your, um, workforce and the capabilities that the workforce has [00:25:00] based on your strategic goals, then you're doing the right thing. I don't think we should start. Um, at the end, we should start at the beginning.
Um, of course there are organizations that want to hit some DEI metrics and there are organizations that, um, feel they need to be, um, the leader in certain. I don't know in certain areas that look great to the outside world, but that often don't have much meaning in itself. They, they are a self serving motive rather than something that is truly valuable for each stakeholder.
If you work in an organization that has a great DEI score and you're still. Um, you know, toxic work environment that is not really helpful for you as an employee. So I'd rather, I'd rather work for an organization that can tell me clearly what my role is and how that role contributes to the bigger picture, how I will be [00:26:00] supported in learning and developing in ways that I can do the best possible job so that I can find satisfaction and motivation.
And through that, belonging in, in shaping the common success that, that to me would mean way more than just looking at a company website, seeing great purpose statements, seeing great DI metrics and a great place to work batch.
[00:26:25] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Do you find a commonality when you work with startups and larger enterprises that there is a certain area that they seem to consistently be lacking in that they need to, work on?
[00:26:38] Alex Brueckmann: Oh, that's a good question. Um, there are some similarities, interestingly, that if you think about it for the first time, you probably wouldn't think about, um, the first one is that regardless of size, a lot of these organizations don't really have a strategy.
Written down clearly articulated business strategy. Now, the reasons are entirely different ones, [00:27:00] obviously, whether you are a startup, maybe just around for two or three, four, five years, maybe, um, versus being a fortune 50 company, but, um, the effect of that is the exact same in the organization. Um, what we typically see is when organizations are completely overloaded, when people are starting to burn out, when they have to do lists that are just a mile long and whatever they do, it just doesn't get any, any shorter.
The s these are symptoms. Of the same problem. And that problem is often that there is no clarity about what the priorities really are. And if you think about priorities from an organizational perspective, if we're really talking about strategy, because strategy is the handful of choices that you make to win in your marketplace, as Roger Martin described it.
And in the end, that means is what are our priorities and how do those connect? It makes sense together. If you do not have [00:28:00] that, And I, and I've seen this just recently with a client of mine, 10 priorities today, 10 different ones tomorrow and next week, a hundred new ones. It's just burning people out, completely overloading the organization.
And, um, that is surprisingly similar to small businesses or startups in high growth phases, uh, compared to large organizations.
[00:28:23] Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Unfortunately, our time has totally run short. I want to thank everybody for joining us on this episode. And thank Alex for being here. Please go ahead and look at the descriptions.
You'll have all of his contact information. You'll also have links to his books and other articles along those lines. Subscribe to the Soulful CXO Insights newsletter. Please like and subscribe and share this show.
Alex, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your insights and wisdom with us today.
[00:28:53] Alex Brueckmann: It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much, Rebecca, for putting the, um, soulful CXO show out there. Great content.