Story Samurai Story Samurai ep#2 | May 8, 2024 001

Ari Block (00:00) Like he teaches me you know what answer as if we're in a bar drinking a beer. Okay? So I don't want you to be anybody else except you, and I want you to be the real and authentic you, and I want you to be personal. Meaning, you know, tell me real shit and, you know, if it's a fucked up story, that's okay. Right? Because that's how we grow. That's how we learn. So let me start with a real softball. We'll bring in the hard balls and with, you know, as we go. So tell me your proudest moment, not in your career. jeff green (00:19) Okay? I really believe that life is a journey I think I was well raised by parents who taught me not to have regrets. And so I have become a pretty quick decision maker, but I trust my gut. know, I'm one of those people who once I've made a decision, I don't find myself reflecting I wish I had done this differently or that differently. I'm very proud of the people that I put around myself and family is a big component of that through that, I've done things that I never would have thought possible. I like to try new things. from gardening metalworks, woodworking that's fun Ari Block (01:10) So, I was sitting with a friend and we closed this huge deal with Qualcomm, right? And I took him to a very expensive dinner and there was like jellyfish like swimming in the middle of the restaurant in this like water column. And... jeff green (01:10) Yeah. huh. Ari Block (01:29) And I tell him, that's beautiful. Is that the sunset? We were on the sea looking and it's low. That's the East or is that the West? And he says, no, Ari, that's, that's obviously the sun is setting. So that's the West. And then I say the following sentence to save grace. Like, where does the sun set in the East? And then he looks at me and I won't say the name of my employee. We're now, we're now great friends. I helped him get his, his, his next job. I'll tell you that story too. It's great. So, so he's like, jeff green (01:53) huh. Ari Block (01:58) Nowhere Ari, nowhere! This guy works for me and I pay his salary and at that moment I knew we had become friends for life. So, and then I tell the story to my mother and she says, well, Ari, you know, you're not the brightest, but at least you're good looking. jeff green (02:00) No way. Yeah. moments are perfect, right? Ari Block (02:21) I'm like, thanks mom, thanks mom. me. Look, she's South African and you know, like, like there's no, there's no mint, it's not, you know, there's no mincing meat. There's no niceness. It's like, you're good looking, like that, that works for you, you know? So there you go, play for your strats. It's like, you know, the sun does not set in the East. Like, I'm not sure. jeff green (02:40) Play with your strengths. It's good. Ari Block (02:47) Like maybe on a different planet where whatever planet turns in a different direction, like you go there, Ari. So much, as I said, the camera was shaking because I was writing so violently, but you said you don't have regrets. Okay, that's like everybody has regrets. So I need you to explain to me this. Why don't you have regrets? jeff green (02:49) Thank you. That's a good story. So I think regrets and looking back and saying the path not ventured or the decision made, but looking back saying, gosh, I really wish I had taken that job and regretting it. I don't. So I'm very genuine when I say I don't regret because I never go back and say the woulda, coulda, shoulda and spend time dwelling on it. Like if we really were in the bar right now, I wouldn't be crying in my beer going, gosh, I could have. You know, I could have bought more shares of Xerox and sold at this price or gosh, I could have done the Google thing at the time. You know, all those little things in life. I think things happen for a reason and in points in time. You know, my college career, I thought I would have a certain type of major. thought I might go into the FBI or the secret service. That was the path I was on. Had a back injury and surgeries at a young age. So I completely, you know, it was okay, I'll go into sales. It was something I knew I could do. and, and I've never looked back and gone would have, could have, should have, of like this regretting because I had back problems since the age of 20. It's been, it is a learning moment. I think it makes me kind of mentally tougher. It's like everybody goes through crap. You typically don't look at someone and go, gosh, they have this or that. And I think that's why. Leaders commonly have to kind of listen because listening not only with their ears, but with their eyes and with their sense and knowing what's going on in a room. Some of the best meetings I've actually in best business relations I've ever had, I've actually stopped meetings. I remember I was meeting with a high level prospect at one point and I was just watching him and I could tell something was wrong. And I said, I don't remember his name, won't use it on this, but is everything okay? is now is still a good time to meet. And he said, no, I just had a family member who had this diagnosis. I really think I should be there. And I said, stop everything. You call me when you're ready to meet again. We're done. I don't need to waste your time. You don't need to waste time. I left. It was about a week later. But everybody, hey, Jeff, you know, like that really took, you know, whatever. It was like, that's just being human. Right. And I've had the same thing with them. Ari Block (05:21) Wow. Wow. Jeff, Jeff, let me stop you right there. Like that is special, that is unique, that is not common. And I will tell you, I spoke to people, you know, dead as a dog, coughing, like almost, you know, keeling over and they just keep doing their thing. And they so like, Jeff, I need to stop you. And I need to say that, you know, I love your humility, but let me say to you, that is amazing. Absolutely. Let me, let me ask you this. Okay. So, so you said, You said well -raised, right? I'm a dad, I got three kids, you know, they're young. What does well -raised mean? jeff green (06:00) Yes. Well, you know what, I would probably age myself by saying, I probably different generation than today. You know, my, my parents, certainly the school of, you know, they had a job to do and I had a role to play in that. So their, their job was to make successful adults, not be our friend. You know, like I, I love my parents are knock on wood, fortunately still alive, still have the benefit of getting to spend time with them. Ari Block (06:27) Amen. Amen. Amen. It's wonderful. jeff green (06:36) and use them for advice and guidance, but also I don't have that type of relationship where it's my dad's my best friend or my mother's my best friend. That wasn't the relationship. So like when I say raise to learn, you know, raise to look someone in the eye when you're speaking with them, you know, sit up straight, the little things table manners, but it's the table stake things, the, the, the home training that you get in a lot of different cultures. Ari Block (06:40) Wonderful. jeff green (07:06) And I'd say I benefited from that, but also that hard school of my dad shook my hand when he dropped me off to college and said, if you get yourself into jail, you have to figure yourself how to get out of jail. And my family had... Ari Block (07:20) Wait, hold on, did you get yourself in or out of jail? jeff green (07:23) I never got arrested, no. I may have done stupid things as a young man in college, but never arrested, never anything like that. Never had to do that. But I also would say pushing my parents at a rule that we couldn't live within a certain distance from home. So we couldn't go home and do laundry. We couldn't come home on a seat suitcase. So it was about going off and being an immersive experience. Ari Block (07:26) I'm sure enough. Fair enough. jeff green (07:52) where we learn both a new culture, new friends, but how to be an adult. And I would say that is probably so well -raised. I think I just was well -raised in the sense of both manners, but also I do have a level of self -confidence that I attribute all to my parents. Ari Block (07:59) Amazing. I think that's absolutely amazing. That is - jeff green (08:14) And it ain't easy, right? So I would say, you said, you know, father of three, I would say you have to be, like you said, being honest. And I think that's like, it's kind of thinking about that honest, transparent, be the person you are at home as you would be in the workplace. But also you want your kids and your friends to be that way. And you surround yourselves with people like that, right? Ari Block (08:22) It's not. Yeah, it's not. Yes. Yeah. No, I, you know, as you know, and we make mistakes, right? Our parents make mistakes. And I remember having this conversation with my eldest and I said to him, look, I'm a human being. You know, I shouted at you. That was a mistake. I misunderstood the situation. I lost my temper. That's not OK. That is not OK. And, you know, this is the moment that you learn that your father is not a superhero. He is a man who makes mistakes. And what my superpower is to recognize my shortcomings and apologize to you and tell you that I make mistakes, you will make mistakes and learning from our mistakes. That's the superpower. You know, I learned that learning from your own mistakes is important, but we all are told that. But actually, there's a secret sauce. There's two more ways you can learn from other people's mistakes. And that is incredible, right? That's... That's something that I was taught by Linda Ginzel. She's an incredible professor at University of Chicago. And learning from other people's mistakes, that's amazing. And the third thing that I learned, right, and this is through, obviously through observation, et cetera, but the third thing I learned is that you can't really learn from your mistakes without writing it down. So I learned that you need to write down what you thought before you made the decision. jeff green (09:33) Okay. Ari Block (09:55) and then what you learned or thought you thought after making the decision, compare the two, that's incredible because then you see, well, your memory with what you think you thought. And that's amazing. jeff green (10:04) It always does, right? And no, I think that's a very big piece of it. Like reflecting on it and trying to actually work through it is really that good piece of it. That's why I think deep dives in both good and bad situations, especially in work environments with teams. Cause like you said, you learn from yourself, but you also learn from others is being able to walk through an environment, have an environment and a culture that you can discuss. Hey, I made this mistake. I think the military. Ari Block (10:20) Yes. jeff green (10:33) especially different types of military units do really good work with it. You know, like SEALs, Special Forces, where they have that extreme ownership concept. And, you know, it's not about mistakes, right? It's about what are we going to do about it and how do we make sure that mistake, A, doesn't become fatal next time, but also we learn from it. And I think... Ari Block (10:52) This is such an important topic, okay? So what you're talking about is this idea of organizational culture which leads to hyper growth, right? So what this is about is that if you're afraid to make mistakes, you're going to hide your mistakes, you're not going to take action. And I had a boss who was really a mentor to me. He said to me, he who does not do does not make mistakes. So explain this to me. What's your philosophy around... jeff green (11:02) Yeah. Yes. Ari Block (11:22) And more than the philosophy, because I think the audience is getting it, but how do you change culture? How do you let everybody understand that there is a culture of learning from mistakes, receiving feedback and all those good things? jeff green (11:41) know, I think one of the proudest successes in my career that I'm most proud about is working with people in diverse cultures. So I've been able to do that with really big corporations like Aramark and Xerox, but I've also done that in very smaller companies like Heumatic and Marquee. And when I really get to the core of that is when I started with Kumatik, they're a Swedish based company operating it at the time in 17 different subsidiaries. I was brought on to lead the Americas part of that business as CEO, managing director, but it operated in 120 different companies. And that culture was different in all 17 different operating countries. Right? So like learning the culture, how do I do that personally? Ari Block (12:25) amazing. Amazing. jeff green (12:30) When I first met with the CEO and the board and they were hiring me, I was told, Jeff, you know, we're Swedish. So a lot of the culture is collaborative. That means there may be times where it feels like you can make the decision, but we all want to talk about it. And we all want to at least be, feel like we're part of that process. The other part is we want you to make mistakes. So go out and make mistakes. Don't make the same mistake five times in a row. And I'll never forget when Michael Hulling said that to me, right? Ari Block (12:58) There it is! There it is! jeff green (13:00) Right? But five times in a row. And I'm thinking, right. And it was the same mistake. It was go make mistakes. And I remember very simply, Ari, just recently during my interview process now, I had someone who said, well, you'll never make mistakes. We're looking for a leader who will never make mistakes. And at that point, I really liked the opportunity to come out of it. And I said, I don't think that I'm the right fit because... Ari Block (13:02) The same, but the same mistake, right? That's key. Yeah, not the same mistakes. That's right. That's right. jeff green (13:26) I do learn from mistakes and I do make mistakes. I can't say I'm ever going to make the same mistake twice, but I will make new mistakes. And whether that's misjudging an employee, maybe misjudging a situation, you know, there's a lot of little mistakes we do on a daily basis, right? But I would say that learning culture and then understanding the culture as it exists before you get involved in it is so crucial, right? You can't go in. So I always like to say there's the due diligence phase. Ari Block (13:48) Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes. jeff green (13:55) Then there's kind of the absorption phase, a learning phase as a leader. And then there's when you can feel like you start tweaking it. But when you start to tweak it, building in that toll gate or the ability to retweak it, right? So it's always easy to go here on paper, this is the greatest new organization we're ever going to do. And here's what we're going to do. And then you go launch that having the ability to go, we made a mistake. We shouldn't have made these changes in these three locations. It won't work there because they have a slightly different culture. Ari Block (13:57) Yes. Yes. Yes. Alright. jeff green (14:24) Right? Because, you know, a Swedish company who felt they had a global Swedish culture, you went to France, they believed everything had to be in French. Everything was a very French culture. So they weren't selling as we're owned by a French, a Swedish company. They were, we're a French company who happens to have a Swedish product and there's the quality. But, you know, in the U S it was, we have Swedish quality, think Volvo, think all these things, very good product, but we're an American company. So. Ari Block (14:28) Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yes. jeff green (14:51) Building that culture globally is really important. And like you say, building it, I like to say it's communication and then the listening, right? So like good organizational cultures come from how you communicate and bi -directionally, because you got to listen to those involved in it, because I've been in so many different cultures where it's three or four different levels of the same culture. And it's always a little different, right? What it means to me is always a different thing. Ari Block (14:55) That's amazing. The listening is key, right? It's amazing. Right. That's amazing. I mean, I think that a lot of people don't have the emphasis that you do on listening. They think they get it and they don't have the ability to rethink. And what rethinking, if you're familiar with the literature on this, it's the ability to basically say, was I right? Did I get this correctly? Do I have all the data? Were my assumptions correct? And I think that's such a fundamental concept. By the way, I would highly recommend that that our audience goes and reads the book. It's wonderful, this concept of rethinking. Unfortunately, a lot of my stuff will come from my two favorite heroes, Daniel Kuhneman and Amos Traversky, and then all the derivative work. I'm going to say a Nobel laureate right now is the derivative work of that, but yeah, nudge is a little bit derivative work. Richard Thaler is great. I studied with him, but yeah, I think the greats is really Amos Traversky and Daniel Kuhneman, which unfortunately Daniel died last month, which is a huge... huge, huge loss to humanity, I think. But that's amazing, this concept of rethinking and examining your biases. Amazing, amazing, amazing stuff. man. jeff green (16:29) And it's, I do find it's constant work, right? Cause I do really think I'm a good listener. My wife is excellent coach and mentor. Cause she sometimes says you're not a good listener, right? And then how do you rethink, right? But like you say, it's sometimes it's not listening in the moment. It's like listening, you know, you wake up in the middle of the night and I've had these moments where, yeah, the very next morning I call, you know, whoever I was working with the day before and say, you know what? I really kind of. Ari Block (16:32) Yes. jeff green (16:55) you said this, and I did this, right? Like I immediately jumped to the problem solving. Did I give you enough time for us to explore it the way you wanted to? And I've learned that, like that does not always, especially when you're timeframes, end of the quarter, all those little things, it's so easy to become the problem solver, right? And one of the hardest things that going from an individual contributor role to a management role, like is relying on the people that now are Ari Block (17:01) That's right. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. jeff green (17:24) you know, feeding you right. And one of my good friends, he he we were sales managers together at Xerox. And you know, they're my idiots. They're no one else's. So if you call them an idiot, we're gonna go we're gonna have words. But I can say to you, you won't believe what these people did today. But you know, like learning from that and being able to get that because you eat as a manager, especially in sales, you eat from what everybody else kills, you're no longer out there with the long gun, killing every day. So it's up to you like have I given them all the right tools. Ari Block (17:33) We're gonna, we're gonna, yep. Xerox is, Xerox has the smartest people. That's right. jeff green (17:54) and I get back to that extreme ownership. Like if the team fails, it's because of something that I didn't enable them with. And so what do I need to do to get better? Because yeah, I wasn't in the field when it didn't go right. Ari Block (18:02) Right. But Jeff, you've answered the most important thing about how do you change culture. You give a personal example. You show people that it's okay to make mistakes and you tell about your own shortcomings and you fix it and you show that there's no harm, no foul by going through self -improvement. I mean, Jeff, that's, I have goosebumps. That's amazing. Like, no, really, that's genuinely great. I, you know, I, I unfortunately have known leaders. that are not consistent in their behavior and they're kind of great for the first three months and then they have a mental breakdown and the real thing comes out. And that's incredibly concerning, right? Because it means that they have to be on their best behavior to give this consistent behavior of like, I would rather you have been a dick on day one, at least then I would have known what I'm dealing with, right? But I mean, that kind of... jeff green (18:43) Yes. Right. consistency over time. I think that I, you know, I like the way you just said that Ari, because consistency over time, I think we've all experienced, at least I have, is that leaders who, you know, you join with and you're, wow, I'm just like, I love working with this person. And then, you know, that first pressure quarter, pressure event and things slightly change. And then, you know, it's a little crack, right? Ari Block (19:09) Yes. Yes. jeff green (19:19) And I've had the benefit mostly of working with really strong leaders, but I've had that challenge as well. And I always try to like that learning from others. Like, what would I do differently in that situation? And sometimes you say, I probably wouldn't have done maybe everything differently, but maybe I would have communicated differently or maybe I would have tried something different. Ari Block (19:29) Yes. Jeff, you are an absolute delight. I know, look, I'm kind of an asshole, right? Like I'm the guy that will tell you upfront that I'm a little bit of an asshole. And I will be the person, I told my wife, she made an amazing lunch and we had guests over. And I pointed out that wasn't as good as it is normally, right? That's the level of asshole I am because I believe that transparency and good feedback is really important. jeff green (19:40) Well, thank you. Ari Block (20:03) So I will give that kind of feedback and it will be blunt, it'll be in your face and yeah, I'm self -African and it's a cultural thing. But some people will call that I'm an asshole and that's okay. I accept that as part of who I am. But this thing of consistency over time, that's huge because I'm consistently an asshole and the same type of asshole. And if you fucked up, I'll be like, hey, that wasn't good. This was great. So when I give feedback and I say this is an absolute delight, you know it's real. Because I will tell you when you do something wrong, right? And God, nobody knows that better than my family because with them I have absolutely no shame. jeff green (20:45) Yeah, well, we talked about the concept of culture and cultural consistency, but that self identification to it because like, you know, I've had the benefit of leading teams of leaders all over the world, right, and leading a team of people in Sweden, people in the Netherlands, Germans, English, and then, you know, Northern European, typically as direct or as even sometimes as black and white as you can become. It's Ari Block (20:49) Yes. Yes. Mmm. Yeah, yeah, extremes, yeah, yeah, yeah. jeff green (21:13) this way or it's that way and extremely direct. And then you have a team that I had three leaders, Italy, France, and Spain, Southern European, a lot more emotional. Yes, the meeting was supposed to start at one o 'clock. Yeah, lots of, kind of like me, I'm very, I do talk to with my hands. But I know the meeting started at one o 'clock, but we weren't done with the cigarette break. We weren't done with this. We were like, it's a rolling start, it's like NASCAR. Ari Block (21:22) can. Yep. Yes. That's right. jeff green (21:41) but very emotional, like empathy, leadership, and one of the, you know, I learned a lot about the true meaning of empathetic leadership through some of the, my people that I've really had the benefit of working and spending time in France, Italy, in Spain, because it is about, yes, sometimes we would say that we need to spend two hours drinking coffee and just chatting, or could we have had the meeting? but some of the things that come out of that two hours was culturally much more. Ari Block (21:41) Right? Yes. Yes. jeff green (22:10) important than anything else we could have done in the kind of let's get down and renegotiate the contract or let's go do this. Ari Block (22:16) I would argue that that long lunch ride or wine, I would say that is the negotiation of the contract because when I evaluate partners, I'm evaluating, not the T's and C's, I'm evaluating their family, I'm evaluating how they carry themselves, I'm evaluating their consistency, I'm evaluating how they treat other human beings. And I would argue is that, As you get to know each other, you build this magical thing called trust. And if you have inconsistency, or if you don't trust other people, that means I can't trust you. I think that's an issue, right? So I think lack of trust, these kind of paranoid behaviors that are like, sure, if somebody treats you bad, you should be like, okay, either you decide not to work together and that's okay. jeff green (22:50) Yes. Very fair. Ari Block (23:12) Or you decide, okay, we work together, you screwed me, next time I'll screw you, like that's business, right? Yeah, you screwed me, it's fine. jeff green (23:16) Right. It's a great example because you remind me of somebody I used to work with and one of the tactics or observational points that interviewing especially managers and more senior people, part of the feedback loop, it wasn't just the people that interviewed the person, it was the person at the receptionist desk. It was the admin. When they walked by, did they say hello? Did they smile at you? Ari Block (23:29) Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yes, thank you. The mollies of the world. That's right. jeff green (23:45) Like you say, you go out to lunch or dinner with somebody, how do they treat the waitstaff? You know, like, are they nice to the waitstaff? Do they, are they personable? You know, cause if they're nice to you, it's one thing. They're kind of, you could be like, they're sucking up, they're good. But if all of a sudden they're really mean to the go get me a cup of coffee and, and don't look at me or this coffee is horrible. I think that's a reflection. And that's something that's really important. Cause I always do do that. Like if someone spent, you know, even five minutes. Ari Block (23:50) Yeah, thank you. Thank you. jeff green (24:13) you know, hey, what did you think of Ari? he was really nice to me or he asked me personal questions. that's great. Or, he asked about the culture here and I told him what I thought. great. And that gave me an opportunity to go, well, what did you tell him about the culture? Ari Block (24:27) I love that. I gotta do a shameless plug. So I have a friend, her name is Karen Eber. She has a book, which I listened to the whole thing in one sitting. It was on 1 .5 speed, so like it was faster, but one sitting. And the book is called The Perfect Story. It's by Karen Eber, that's K -A -R -E -N, and then her surname is E -B -E -R. jeff green (24:31) Sure. Okay. Ari Block (24:55) It's got a green pencil, the green pencil of hope, if you're familiar with the color green. But that's a different topic. So in her book, which I listened to in one sitting, she talks about, and I think it was Molly, right? And Molly is that person. They were like, what's the name of the receptionist? Now, if you don't know, this was a professor, he gave the students a test or something, and they were like, what's the name of this, the cleaning lady or something like that. I can't remember. And her name was, I believe if I'm remembering correctly, Molly. And there was one question, and if you got it right, you got a hundred percent. If you didn't know that name, you failed. jeff green (25:19) Right? Okay. Ari Block (25:38) That was the test. Now, I hope I'm not mixing my stories, but go read the book and tell me if I didn't mix it with somebody else's story. But that book is absolutely amazing. Actually, we'll have a speaking event with Karen soon. She'll be speaking in front of one of my communities. So, you know, happy to extend an invite to you, Jeff, to join. That would be wonderful. It's critical, right? Because if you don't care genuinely about... jeff green (25:42) Okay. That would be great. Ari Block (26:07) the person at the reception or the cleaning lady, like, why should I believe that you're going to care about your employees? Why should I believe that you're going to care about your stakeholders? Why should I believe that you're going to care about your customers? jeff green (26:20) Well, and I think it's all with Story Samurai and playing it all back together. For me, what was impactful and powerful so far has been it's the stories we tell ourselves, it's the story we tell our others, then it's how we tell our own story, right? And that's why I've always said, you know, like, what kind of employees do you not like working with, right, or find challenging? The ones that lie to themselves are the ones that I find the most challenging, right? Because I... Ari Block (26:45) lord. lord. jeff green (26:48) People who lie outwardly, sometimes it's different, right? It's like, I don't want to admit a mistake, maybe the culture's not right. But when they're lying to themselves and it's driving the behavior. Ari Block (26:53) Yeah. Yes. Give me a juicy fat story, no names, no companies, just give me the story. I want to hear the pain. Like, what were you dealing with? What was the story? What did the employee do? jeff green (27:06) Well, I actually, I can think of unfortunately a few of them, but especially as a sales leader, as driving global sales, you know, you're relying on large deals, you know, typically you're managing via a CRM, you know, you're, you're deep inside a sales force or whatever tool you're utilizing. You're doing updates, you know, as a, as a more senior leader, especially in diversified organizations, you may not be day to day involved in the deal, but I happened to, especially on large deals over certain size at most companies. Ari Block (27:36) course. jeff green (27:36) You know, involved in the, is there anything I can help? Can I be helping in any executive way? You know, let me understand the strategy, next steps, what's going on. Honestly, in this situation, we were getting all the good, all the good news. We weren't getting any of the bad news, right? Like true decision making process. So it was always, well, and it was, you know, when, when will you follow up? Well, I have a meeting next week with them. Ari Block (27:39) Yes. Yes. That's a red flag. jeff green (28:06) At the end of the day, long story short, wasn't having the next step meetings, but wasn't reading the signs and wasn't able to really communicate outwardly and didn't want to, didn't really have anything else prospecting. It was a very large deal, you know, so, you know, top 100, fortune 100 company. So it was a make you or break you kind of deal. but when you're not able to really understand when, Hey, I'm dealing with a director of something and and you know, you start to get questions from my Jeff Green or an Ari who says, well, is there anybody else involved in this decision making process? You know, they're pretty big, you know, hey, I was just on LinkedIn and I saw that so and so I have a connection over there. Maybe I could talk to them. Nope, they're making the decision of all by themselves. It's just all about budget. And then all of a sudden it, you know, the deal goes away and and they really well, it's just because of price. Those were the, so it's, it's, that's not the real story, right? So that, no, they, they believe it to their core, right? They believe it, you know, they, like, you guys are just too expensive. Ari Block (29:09) And they believe that, like that's... So that's, wow, I have no words. You know, you mentioned mentally tough, right? You were talking about your parents and growing up and being mentally tough. I call that grit. Would you, would you? Yep, I highly recommend it. jeff green (29:28) Great, yeah, which is a great book. Duckworth, Angela Duckworth, she, yeah, I was going to say, great speaker too. She spoke at a conference that I would, and excellent. Ari Block (29:42) Would you argue that this lack of grip, it causes victimism, where they are basically a victim? It's not me, I have no control, I'm the victim, our price is too high. jeff green (29:54) Right. I definitely think it can. And I think both grit can be both systemic. So it can be environmental and it can be like team culture because a culture can quickly fail. Right. I people genuinely like to be part of winning teams. And I've been kind of muddling this concept in my brain of can you have a highly performing team like winning Super Bowl team without a Ari Block (30:06) Yes. Yes. jeff green (30:23) good general manager or, and vice versa, right? Can you have an excellent management team without performance? But you really have to have both to achieve. Like you look at some of the greatest teams ever and then defining what great is, right? Like I'm a Chicago Bears fan. Yeah, the Super Bowl in 85 didn't necessarily have the greatest quarterback, right? Didn't necessarily have the greatest offensive line. Ari Block (30:44) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. jeff green (30:50) had the greatest defense potentially of all time as it. You can argue whether Ditko was a great coach or got greatness out of players and the same thing, but all of those ingredients together got that team. And I think the one thing you can honestly say about that team getting back to grit is they had a combined level of grit, right? Like everybody had that same DNA of we're going to do whatever it takes to be the best. Ari Block (31:05) Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. jeff green (31:19) and you look at somebody like Jason Kelsey, who just retired, and I read a lot of his excerpts and things that he didn't come out of, you know, necessarily the greatest program. And he wasn't, you know, you read the press, you know, in the NFL draft releases, right? Like they didn't expect him to be potentially the greatest center ever. I think that guy has grit. And I think grit is very important. I think nurturing and culturing as a leader and a coach and mentor is important to keep someone's grittiness level up. Ari Block (31:40) Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes. jeff green (31:49) because it's easy to get ground down a little bit and you know, like on those deals and that's why, you know, that fine balance of not taking over a deal, you know, cause I would, I would say I'm a pretty darn good salesperson and I was a good individual contributor. I've always been a better coach and mentor. So I moved into management because I got better results, but I enjoy it a lot better. I actually like being behind the scenes and not, you know, the quarterback. Ari Block (32:02) Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Me too. jeff green (32:16) It's kind of fun to be able to say, hey, try this, try this, try this, and then we'll try that differently next time. But all that gets to, I like your element of grit. I think it's really important, but I do think there's that coaching, that constant practice component of grittiness. Ari Block (32:31) Yeah, But so this employee that I was talking about before, the same one that, you know, told me, Ari, no, the sun does not set in the East. He was a hardcore engineer. And I told him, look, I'm going to make you into a salesperson, one of the best. And he was like, Ari, sales is icky, you know? Because he's imagining, right? jeff green (32:40) Yeah. Okay. Ari Block (32:58) the door -to -door, he's imagining the sales cars, you know, and I'm like, no, I'm gonna teach you something that I have personally coined as relationship -driven sales. And I'm gonna teach you, you know, maybe I coined that phrase, maybe I didn't, but you get me on the concept, right? And I'm gonna tell you how sales is all about building trust. Now, so we went through this process and I gotta tell you, like yourself, I enjoyed... jeff green (33:09) Mm -hmm. Ari Block (33:27) the elements of mentorship more than anything else. So he went from being a engineer coding to selling millions of dollars to Qualcomm. Now he so happened also to do the developments and all that, but he closed the deal. And that's, and, you know, after he was, you know, it started small, right? He was closing, first one, I think was $60 ,000. Then he closed a hundred and a hundred and something. Then he's closing quarter million dollar deals. jeff green (33:30) Mm -hmm. Ari Block (33:56) and not just with Qualcomm. And they trusted him. You know, Qualcomm, like, holy shit, like, these guys are doing cutting edge stuff. They trusted this guy, right? Because he's awesome. And I'll tell you the surprising thing, nobody wanted to hire him. jeff green (34:04) Yeah. Ari Block (34:10) Nobody wanted to hire him. And then when he left Siemens, I was if you ever need something, you give me a call. So he called me up and said, I need the reference check. I'm like, OK, no problem. So the reference, the manager calls me up and they start talking. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah If anything goes wrong here's what's going to happen. I am going to write you a $5 ,000 check right now and you will deposit that check if anything doesn't check out and if he's not the best hire you've ever had. You deposit that, my money to you. I hired him on the spot. He came back to me and he was like, what the hell did you tell them? I just got hired and they were like, and he works there and they love him, right? He could not get hired. jeff green (34:33) Okay. Thank you. Ari Block (34:53) He told me nobody will hire me. I think that's huge. So I wanna go in a completely different direction. FBI, secret service, we gotta go there. Like I think the audience is like, go back to that Ari, like what's that about? Sorry. jeff green (35:01) Okay? Yeah. I was a young man, right? You know, who doesn't want to go into the, you know, take a bullet, do that kind of thing. Ari Block (35:17) That's not important. What is important is the why. Why did you want to do that? jeff green (35:19) Okay. So I had the benefit of some of my friends and schoolmates growing up through high school. They had parents in the FBI and I had some level exposure and then just had the opportunity to research it. And it just seemed like, I don't know, I was never really interested. Ari Block (35:43) Don't give me the bullshit answer. Give me the answer from your heart. Tell me the truth. Why did you want to go to the FBI? jeff green (35:46) No, I was never, I thought there was very absolutely something noble about serving the country. You know, I think there's very, whether it's military, I didn't, I really didn't see myself going into a military branch. I saw myself going into FBI or secret service and, and serving at a high investigative level. You know, the investigation part of it, and certainly the protection part of both jobs were very interesting. And both happened to have, you know, back in the early 90s programs where you could get out of college and not have the years of military experience or the, and you could go into different programs. And that was what I was very interested in doing. So I wanted to be like. Ari Block (36:28) Yeah. So I have a hypothesis, Jeff. I think there's two types of CEOs. I think there's the psychopaths that are very friendly. They don't give a shit about anybody, but they come across as the most friendly people in the world, right? Well, there's a lot of those and they're, you know, they can be great CEOs. They don't have to necessarily be dangerous to anybody or themselves. And then my other category of CEOs is the protectors. I think that's what you are. I think that's what you are. And I think that's wonderful. And, and, jeff green (36:33) Yeah. huh. Ari Block (36:57) I'm gonna make a guess here and then if I'm right, you tell me the story, okay? Okay. I'm gonna guess that somebody came after your team, you told them to fuck off and it made you angry. So you tell me that story now if I'm right. jeff green (37:01) Okay. Well, I would say I've had more than one time where I've had to defend a team or a decision, right? And I would say, I don't know that I have a story I could actually tell about that. Ari Block (37:27) Can you make it like, like no names, no anything, just give us the general concept of what went wrong and how did you fix it? Cause sure, we get angry for a moment, but then we move into fixing shit. So, so give us the... jeff green (37:39) Well, you know, actually, and you can tell me if you don't like if it's not pertinent, right. But at Xerox, I was a sales, you know, managing accounts had a very large account. We had a situation with the account where we need to modify their agreement. They were, you know, they were asking for some modifications to their contract. It was a large enough client, so there was multiple levels within Xerox that were executive decisioning. So I would say, I would call it armchair quarterbacking. And they told myself and the specialist who was assigned to me that you need to go in there and tell them this to the contract. And it was something that I knew immediately the customer was not going to go for it. The senior vice president, bleep, bleep his name, but he, you know, very much I knew this was not going to... Ari Block (38:25) No. jeff green (38:32) go at all. And my manager, the manager, the vice president all said, no, you need to go and you need to, you know, go have the meeting and you tell me how it went. So we drive over from the office, maybe it was a 10 minute drive from the office. You know, we're looking at each other. My colleague, this is not going to go well, but we're going to do it. You know, we're just going to, we're going to sell it. We get in this conference room. There's the SVP, there's his, you know, our day to day contact. Ari Block (38:43) Right? Right. jeff green (39:02) go through this, you know, the dog and the pony show of it. You asked for this. We heard, we listened. We're going to do this. And here it is. And you can see the numbers and, and he looked at, he looked at the numbers and he said, this is complete bullshit. Like you're telling me you're, you're telling me the following. Yes, sir. This is the best. This is what you're giving me. Ari Block (39:21) I love that. I love that. jeff green (39:33) Yes. He looks at the two of us. He closes, you know, Manila folder and he throws it across the table. And it's like, think of the matrix. Like it literally bounces the two of us. You know, it goes, no, it goes like stimming through the two of us. Lots of expletives from his side of the table. We're like, there's like a ficus tree. If you remember those big trees in the corner, he grabs it, you know, stands up, grabs a tree. Ari Block (39:35) I love that. Hmm. jeff green (40:01) and then throws it across the table. So again, Matrix like, you know, slow motion happening in my room bounces. He leaves the room. His office is right next to the conference room. So you just hear all this excellent like you got to be at Franchitemy. You got to be this. His, his, you know, his vice president is like, I think you guys ought to leave. I think we got to get you let's calm the situation down. Give me a call in like an hour. I'll let you go know next step. So we were in the car. Ari Block (40:04) I love this guy. But I love this guy. jeff green (40:31) Ari, we're like, that didn't go well. You know, my colleague is like, we knew it wasn't going to go well. It's like, I don't know that we knew it was going to go that bad. We go back to the office. Everybody's still in the conference room. We were having the war room. The vice president says, well, how'd it go? I said, it didn't go well at all. Completely refused to it. Okay, well, I just spoke to him on the phone. She could have led with that. I just spoke to him on the phone. I'm going to give him everything he originally asked for. Ari Block (40:36) Yes, yes. Hmm. Hmm. jeff green (41:02) And I'm doing lunch with them right now, so I'll go get it signed and Ari Block (41:09) I would quit on the spot. I gotta tell you, I would quit on the spot. jeff green (41:13) So, no, it was, so I'm looking at my boss at that time. She's at now gone. So it was a setup, right? Like it was completely, you know, and it's kind of like, you got to take one for the team. So I said, I'm going out. And so my colleague and I, we went to an establishment where we can get adult beverages and we, you know, we, we spent the rest of the afternoon and we did not go back to the office that day. Ari Block (41:36) Mmm. jeff green (41:41) I did go back to the office because I was loyal to the company. But what I take from that moment, so you go back to I think the original tenure of the question where you kind of tell off is, I didn't have any respect for that leader anymore. And I always, like we talked about earlier, I never ask anybody to do something I'm not willing to do. Because I never want to be the one that Jeff Green tells his story to in a broadcast. Right? Because... Ari Block (41:54) No, it was done. That's right. No, that's right. That's right. jeff green (42:10) No, and it really like defending your team. Like I would defend myself and my team. But, you know, again, like I said earlier, my friend, Darrell and I, as sales managers, there's a lot of things people put you through in a team environment and hopefully you build a high performing team and there are just things that you're able to do. But if someone attacks your team, you know, like one of my faults as a leader, especially like in business reviews is I have this habit and one of my mentors, Robert, will say, You need to let your team speak, don't speak for them. But it'll be like, tell me what you did last week and I'll jump in for the, so, you know, it's something you got to learn, but you know, it's like being the parent of your team or you want to defend them. And, and I had that nature. I do think it's very valid for you to say I'm a protector. I absolutely will protect my team. And sometimes you have to protect your team with information, right? Like sometimes you have to be very clear in communication of we're about to go through. Ari Block (42:42) I love that. Yes. Yes. jeff green (43:07) six months of what none of us are going to like because we are trying to do the following with the company or the numbers look like this. So we have to do a restructuring. Here's what we got to do. This part's public, this part's not public or whatever you're allowed to share at the time. But sometimes it's a communication of the bad message before the good message. You got to get the team through. Hopefully that story worked for you. But yeah, it was one of those. Ari Block (43:30) No, that was absolutely delightful. Unfortunately, we've all been there and we've all been thrown under the bus. We've all been manipulated in that way. Honestly, I think that's evil. Like you should not be throwing your team under the bus for you to come in, swoop and save the situation. Like that tactic should not be in your book. And I wish there was a way to identify if an executive uses those dirty tactics. So. If anybody listening to this has a story or has learned the method to identify senior executive leadership who pulls that shit, please come and send me an email. Tell me about this because I want you to be our next guest and educate everybody else on how to do that. That would be absolutely amazing. Jeff, you are a delight. And as I said, I do not say that lightly. jeff green (44:20) Very good. Appreciate that. Ari Block (44:25) I will say thank you so much and we will have to have you back again because this is, I mean, there's like 10 things I didn't ask you that I wanted to get to. So I don't know if you can... I have this... jeff green (44:35) I'd be happy to come back. This has been highly enjoyable already. So I very much enjoyed this. Hopefully some of it's usable, but I would say all of it. Now, and I, hopefully the audience as well got something out of my own little brain, right? So I think that's all we try to do in the world. Ari Block (44:42) Absolutely. Yes, yes. This is no you. This was a delight. I am very grateful and I think this is wonderful. And I can't wait to talk to you again. jeff green (44:59) Likewise, thank you again. Ari Block (45:01) Wonderful.