This past week signaled a major milestone in the history of our company. We announced that Kyle Chapman is now CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, in addition to his existing role as President. His father, Bob Chapman, who has served as CEO since 1975, will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.
Barry-Wehmiller has been led by a Chapman since 1957, when William A. Chapman, Bob’s dad, became President after joining Barry-Wehmiller four years prior.
It’s a very exciting time for us here at Barry-Wehmiller. And to celebrate this moment, on this podcast we bring you a conversation between Bob and Kyle where they talk about the history of the Chapman family ownership of Barry-Wehmiller. They talk about a legacy of leadership. They talk about the transition, what it means for the company and our people. And what it means for the future. And you're going to hear a lot about how business can be a force for good.
We announced a couple of weeks ago the new revised and expanded edition of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, the book Bob Chapman co-wrote with Raj Sisodia, that chronicles Bob and Barry-Wehmiller’s journey. Bob and Kyle also talk about the book and its significance and Bob talks about his future. Spoiler alert: in addition to remaining chairman of the board, he’s going to continue to share the message of Truly Human Leadership for a long time to come. You can listen to this episode through your favorite podcast provider or through the link in the header photo above.
Transcript
Bob Chapman: A little bit of the history, my dad worked for Arthur Andersen, and he was called to do the audit by the banks. The banks wanted an auditor to lend them money because they were fragile. So, my dad got involved with the Wehmillers and, in the course of that relationship, they offered him to become general manager and treasurer.
And so, I don't know why my dad did it. You know, because he was doing well at Arthur Andersen. It scared my mother to death because the company was so fragile. But my dad took that position and joined the company in about 1953.
Kyle Chapman: And he was just an employee, a general manager for a number of years, right?
Bob: He was kind of general manager, treasurer initially. And the company was, the family was tired. There was no real family. Fred Wehmiller was still involved, but the family was looking to sell the company, and was engaging investment bankers to find a buyer, but nobody wanted to buy it. So, my dad invested, which to him was a lot of money, $30,000 in the mid-50s to buy some small piece of the company just as an investment.
So, our first investment was, and our only investment was that $30,000 in the mid-50s. And then Mr. Wehmiller died in ‘57 I think, right around mid-50s. So, my dad became President, but it was still a Wehmiller family company. The Barry family was gone. So, it was about 1963 or something like that, that a company out of Chicago, a receivables factoring company that lent money against your receivables, approached my dad and said, you know, you could buy the company. We’ll lend the company, I don't remember the amount of money, maybe it was $2 million, whatever it was. We’ll lend the company the money against its receivables, and then your $30,000 will be 57% of the company. My dad thought, wow, you know. It wasn’t his idea. He was approached by an investment banker. He actually went to the other executives and said, I'm not trying to control it.
If you want to put in some more money to participate in this. And they said, no, I think, I think I'll avoid that. So, that's how our family became controlling investor, which was in the mid-60s. So, our family became control from the Wehmiller family in mid-60s with this kind of challenging lending source.
I think it was called Talcott out of Chicago.
Kyle: Your dad did one of the original LBOs, the leveraged buyouts. Who knew that he was so forward-thinking? And then, when did he ask you to join the company and why?
Bob: The interesting thing to me, I think about this a lot, and I was never that close to my dad. We just didn't have a lot of interest. I was close to my mother, a happy kid. But my dad had health issues, and the company was struggling, and so I wasn't that close to them. And it wasn't until I passed my CPA exam my senior year in college. And I remember my dad walking down the driveway holding this letter I got because it took him three times to pass it, and I passed it the first time. So, the son all of a sudden blossomed in about 1965. And so, all of a sudden, my dad had a language, but we never, never talked about working in a company.
I wasn't interested. We didn't talk about it. And then one day in 1969, probably January, February ‘69, he approached me because he had started asking me, my thoughts on the company because I was working at Price Waterhouse doing perfectly fine, wanted to be a partner. He said, well, what do you think about setting up a plant in Arkansas where we could do conveyors?
So, I'd give him my opinion. And one day he said to me, would you consider working on Barry-Wehmiller? I need somebody I could trust. So, my title when I joined the company was somebody he could trust.
It was that bad. My dad was concerned with his executive group that they were trying behind his back to sell the company because it was struggling. And so, he just lost his trust in his team. And so, my title was somebody he could trust.
Kyle: And in that title, you worked around all the organization, right? Engineering, manufacturing.
Bob: Yeah. I kind of came in with an unstructured, he had no idea what I was going to do. But we were we had a project with Owens-Illinois at the time and he said, well, maybe you can work in engineering and help the relationship between Owens-Illinois and our research department develop this product.
I said, OK, so my first job was in engineering. But the beauty in hindsight is that while my dad was running the company, I started working in manufacturing license agreements, customer service, finance. So, it's kind of like I always say, if you look at a clock and you look at the hands, it's pretty simple what time it is.
But, behind those hands, there's a bunch of gears that are working that allow us to create time. So, I got to look behind the company, and I looked at manufacturing, engineering sales, customer service. So, I had my kind of unintended management development program that gave me the richness of all these experiences in a pretty broken company at the time.
Kyle: And eventually, I think because of given how you were essentially running the company, without the title, but at some point he was going to make you CEO or made you CEO. And when did he do that? And what did you think that first day?
Bob: Back in the old days, I don't think we had CEOs. We had Presidents. He was President. And so, we are having dinner at Steak ‘n Shake, a local drive in. And he was leaving the next day with my mom to Australia, and we're having dinner at Steak ‘n Shake, a hamburger, and he looked at me and he said, you know, you're really running the company, when I get back from Australia, I'm going to make you Executive Vice President.
And then he died the next morning. So, he never got the chance to do that. But the six years we worked together, and I worked in every aspect of the business. And the interesting thing is when I joined the company, because we've been through so many challenging years, the amount of talent was limited. If I didn't have a brilliant idea every day, I knew I missed something because the opportunity to bring fresh thinking into the company was exciting and rewarding because you saw the immediate results.
So, when dad passed away, I was kind of ready to step into this leadership role.
Kyle: And back then, when you were just a smaller company, probably 18, 20.
Bob: $18 million in sales when he died.
Kyle: And you were running the organization now, what then did you think Barry-Wehmiller's legacy might be?
Bob: You know, when dad suddenly passed away, I didn't think about it, but my behavior said, because the first thing that happened when dad passed away was the banks pulled our line of credit. They said, look, it's one thing for us to lend to a 60-year-old gentleman, we've worked with, this 30-year-old kid, we're going to back out. So, in hindsight, that was pretty traumatic to lose your dad in your banking, you know, in the same situation. But my reaction was I ain't going down like this. I mean, I didn't think of it, but my behavior was, and I grabbed a hold of that company that had never made his budget.
It was struggling financially. The banks were asking to be taken out, and he died in October. He died three months into the financial year. In the first year, the first nine months of a 12-month period, I ran it. It was the most profitable period in the history of the company because, \ in reaction to dad's death, in reaction to the banks, I just grabbed ahold of the company and I brought incredible intensity.
I cut costs, you know, I brought intense focus, and our cash flow improved, and we paid off our banks. And so again, it was that intensity of dad dying and the banks pulling on us. The company looked like it was dying, and dad did die. And so, my reaction was I put everything I could in and turned the company around.
Kyle: Dad, what does it mean from your perspective for us to be privately held and family owned?
Bob: You know, I was raised in an environment where going public was a major event, a big celebration on Wall Street. And we had asked for, and as you know, we took, spun off two-thirds of the company on the London Stock Exchange in ‘87. Not because we were trying to get out of financial burden, we were trying to get out of debt.
So, we went public in London with two thirds of the company in ‘87 because it gave a chance to pay off our debt, take two-thirds of our company. So, we retain 30% of the public company. So, $35 million went public and $20 million stayed private. And the goal was really survival. You know, we've been through some really tough times trying to transform an old company into a modern company with no resources and not a lot of talent.
And so, the ultimate goal when I was young, I was, boy, taking the company public gets great notoriety, mainly because it creates, in theory, great wealth. And in my career I've seen many companies go public and I've talked to many public CEOs, and I've never met one that likes being in public, because your ability to run for the long term is compromised by these short-term quarterly earnings and activist shareholders and analysts’ expectations.
And being a good steward of people's lives is more challenging in a public environment than it can be, because you can take a longer-term view as a privately held company, and you can do the right thing for the long term, as opposed to running it quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter meeting expectations. So again, after the public offering in ‘87 that was so unbelievably successful on the London Exchange, I think people sent in $1.1 billion in cash trying to buy our $28 million of stock we were selling. So, it was incredibly successful.
I thought, well, we'll do it again. We'll take the $20 million company, we'll do these acquisitions, and then we'll take it public because it was such a positive experience. Having lived ten years with our public company, we spun off being on the board of the public company. There's no way I'd want for our people to take this company public.
People say, well, don't you want to take it public? I said, absolutely not. I've never met a CEO that I think likes being public. They might be public and have to deal with that, but they don't like it. So, being private gives us a chance to make good long-term decisions for the right reasons.
Kyle: And then as you think about going forward in the next three decades, four decades, what do you want the legacy of Barry-Wehmiller to be?
Bob: Initially, I just want it to have a future. Probably something I want our team to realize in ’84, this was a turning point, in ‘84, we just got refinanced by an asset-based lender because the banks pulled on us again in ‘83. So, now we had a stranglehold on us, but at least we had a financing package.
I went to my finance team and said, you know, look it, I'm proud of our history that almost 100 years, our history. But our history does not give us a future. And inspired by Emerson Electric and their growth through acquisitions, I said, and not being an engineer, I couldn't design a new product. I said, we need to do acquisitions to give us a future.
That's why we began doing acquisitions, to get us into product lines that had a greater future. I had no experience, you know, in acquisitions. I just studied Emerson Electric and did it. And that aspiration to begin doing acquisitions and the other thing that when we began doing acquisitions, we had no money. So, if we failed on any one of them, it was all over.
You know, we would fail financially. So, we had incredible, so when we began doing acquisitions, the DNA we created was, well, we can't fail. We've got to make sure this is good. So again, it became part of our DNA when we said we got to create a future. We didn't do acquisitions for any other reason than to get into markets that had a better future.
Kyle: Well, and I believe you did them for more balance as well. Instead of having a single product line with a single customer in a single market, you wanted to build a more purposefully diversified platform. But now, as you kind of established that, and you could see that there was not just a future next month or next quarter, but now you could see a future for years, where were you hoping Barry-Wehmiller’s legacy would evolve to?
Bob: Well, let me go back. In ‘84, when I began doing acquisitions, I just wanted to acquire product lines that had a better future. That was my simple thought. In ‘88, after the public offering, and I sat back for nine months and thought about what I had learned since my dad had died, until I had the ups and downs of the company, and I'd studied Emerson Electric, a word that is very important to me to develop, which is balance.
Our largest customer was a major brewery that had been our largest customer since 1901. In 1985, when we were very financially fragile, we enjoyed a great relationship with this historic customer for decades. And one day, a gentleman retired who had been the chief engineer of this customer, and somebody else was promoted. And that person who was promoted, a good guy, decided maybe there was better technology in the world than Barry-Wehmiller.
And they placed the biggest order in their history with a foreign company at 40% below our costs. I thought the one thing we could count on was this, this industry, we'd served 100 years and this major customer for a decade. And when that happened to me, that left a real scar on my mind because Barry-Wehmiller didn't change.
Somebody retired, and our future dramatically changed. So, in ‘88, when I had a chance to start again, with this again, $20 million business and the public company, I said balance. I want to make sure that we are not dependent on any one customer, any one market, any one technology. Should things change, we are going to hurt our people and their future.
So, balance became a huge word in us, so we weren't concentrated in any one industry or any one customer.
Kyle: And then balance took you into the late ‘90s when you started having a series of epiphanies that the book is all about. How did that change your outlook for what Barry-Wehmiller’s legacy could be?
Bob: Yeah, and I would say from ‘88 to right around 2000 when you're talking. So, we had some cash now from the public offering. We started acquiring companies. Things were going well. We were doing fine. But as you mentioned, and in ‘97, I had this revelation, oh my God, business could be a powerful force for good in the world if we simply cared for our people.
And that, so what happened, prior to that, my education, my experience, I saw people as functions for my success. I was a nice guy. We had a nice company, but there were engineers, accountants, you know, factory workers, union workers, etc., I described them as functions. And that day, the series of revelations, the lens through which I saw people was reversed.
And I saw people as somebody’s precious child who was placed in my care for 40 hours a week, and it changed everything. So, the way you see people affects the way you treat people. And it changed everything for me through those revelations, which I felt was some higher power, making us a way of the way the world should be, where people learn to care for each other.
So, Kyle, as you know, from my experience in public accounting, I was concerned that the company, not be a … fill its positions with family members. You know, through my auditing experience, I saw a lot of broken companies were families that were hurt from these performance issues.
And so, I adopted a rule, and my dad agreed with it, that we would not just make a place everybody could work, and that I felt that was the right thing to do for the team members of the family. So 16, 17 years ago, things changed.
I shared with you my thoughts on why I joined the company, what made you leave a very successful career and join a company that at that time was right around $3 or 400 million, right?
Kyle: Now, we were right in 2008, right at $900 million, right around a billion. It's a good question. And your discussion on history, we rarely talked about Barry-Wehmiller as a family. And everybody knew we weren't working at Barry-Wehmiller, which I still view is one of the greatest gifts you ever gave me because it pushed me to really excel at University of Virginia, get into the private equity world, with Bank of America, which was fascinating and got to learn so many different industries and how to structure deals and how to, you know, get that DNA in my blood, but see totally different things. Then went into Swett & Crawford and worked in insurance services because I wanted to get out of just being an Excel guy and actually having to execute strategy, not just talk about it.
And then one day, you and Chet approached me about a really unique opportunity. One of the reasons I left private equity to get into a private equity-owned business was I wanted to have a more well-rounded experience. And you all said, hey, we're tired of the private equity world. We think there's a better way out there. Do you want to come help us start this, or come start it, so that just opened up a whole new world to me, because Barry-Wehmiller was never on the radar.
And so, the opportunity to come back and create what at the time, we called hybrid equity Forsyth Capital Investors, now BW Forsyth Partners, it was the opportunity to bring something that the world desperately needed to the market, right? We were able to blend the best of private equity. There were some really good things, high energy, high finance, structured growth, accelerated growth through M&A with the best part of a strategic acquire.
People that are long term bring real operating value. And there weren't many businesses like that. Then on top of that. So we blend those two operating models, and on top of that, we were able to bring a permanent capital mindset. We were trying to just build great companies. We called it at the time. We were just trying to build mini Barry-Wehmillers, the permanent capital mindset and then the fuel of investing in people and having cultural strategies, just like we have financial strategies, operational strategies, M&A strategies because of the success of Barry-Wehmiller, because of those epiphanies you had, because of the Guiding Principles of Leadership, that was a core value where we were able to bring in this new model and, you know, it was really exciting to me to bring something totally different, something the world probably didn't even know they needed, and a model that we could kind of truly balance people and performance in harmony and hopefully create a following. I think every private equity firm should do what we're doing.
I think every public company should do what we're doing, and Forsyth was the platform for me to be able to do that, and it was a, it's, I wouldn't script that for many people to bring their family members in by starting a private equity fund or a hybrid equity fund. But it allowed me to build something that, me and Ryan Gable, to build something that felt like our own, but that was taking unbelievable resources from Barry-Wehmiller and build these wonderful businesses.
But, you know, as we got bigger, you know, good things started happening. We started sharing resources and experiences, back with Barry-Wehmiller. The coolest thing is that at the time, joining in 2008, 2009, during the financial crisis, is not a great time to start a new private equity fund. But what it did, it did two things.
One is it allowed us to get deeply connected to Barry-Wehmiller. So, we were helping all these operating reviews, and we were helping new modeling, and we were looking at acquisitions, and we were getting to go into the operations with you and the other senior leaders at the time. So, that gave us great exposure. And it also allowed us to refine our message a bit more.
And so, I wouldn't want anybody to have to start it in that period of time. But it was a wonderful time to start Forsyth Partners.
Bob: Yeah. As I look back, Chet Walker, you had introduced me to Chet because he was your leader at Bank of America. Phenomenal guy. And we'd have these discussions, which I also had with Chuck Knight at Emerson, that the private equity firm feel was more about financial engineering, and we needed more operating skills.
And one day, Chet kind of said, what if we could combine our operating skills with our financial skills and create this better model than private equity, this hybrid equity where we take a longer-term view? You know, we are not here to buy and sell companies. We're here to create better companies. And back to the word balance. The other thing Forsyth did is it opened doors.
It brought your experience, Ryan's experience, Chet's experience into some fields like Cor Partners, insurance services that we never would have considered in the past. So, the beauty is that two plus two equals eight. In other words, it brought your experience with our experience, Chet, kind of being the bridge between the two. And you and Ryan had a chance to build something that I don't think exists in this country, which is a very intentional hybrid equity which actually brings Barry-Wehmiller’s values and experiences, not just the finances we provide it, but more importantly, the values and experiences that you've deployed in the company. So, it improved our balance and improved our breadth of impact we made and the credibility of our message. So again, in hindsight, we never would have made this up, but it just was because I was having these debates with Chuck Knight and Chet about private equity is just about financial return that we need to bring a human aspect to that where people are cared for, not just used.
And so, I think I was incredibly touched when Chet told me not long ago that Forsyth Capital massively exceeded his wildest expectation. He had great expectations, but he's so proud of what we have achieved in the field that he came from private equity to now hybrid equity. It's good to see a gentleman of that caliber so proud of you and Ryan and the team and what you've done.
Kyle: And fun fact, last year Forsyth’s revenue was about what Barry-Wehmiller’s was when I joined 17 years ago.
Bob: And the balance again, the balance that we have is dramatically improved, which is one of the benefits and one of the reasons we got into it. It just improves the portfolio. And yet the operating skills, Cor Partners, you said Cor Partners like the Design Group, Afinitas is like a machinery company, you know, medical devices. So, it's really amplified our ability to have balance, and then the return has been exceptional.
You know, Kyle, when you joined, when Chet and I invited you and Ryan to join and start Forsyth Capital, we really didn't think beyond Forsyth Capital in terms of what it meant.
I will say that before you joined the firm, I had a direction to the board that should something happen to me, the company should be sold because I couldn't imagine anybody just the company wandering without a real strong leader. So, I just thought the best thing to do is to sell a company. And when you join the company with your background, it gave me some hope that our legacy could then continue.
And so, when you look at Forsyth Capital and the history of that and what you've done and the way it's added to the impact we've made, when you think back on that, you know, again, I didn't think beyond you just creating Forsyth Capital. I didn't think about your promotion. I was incredibly proud, though, five, six years ago when the board approached me and said, you know, Bob, Kyle is ready to be President.
You need to let him be President. I said, sure. I mean, it wasn't an ounce of hesitation. And the way you stepped into that, and one of the things from my perspective, I’m interested in your perspective, that meant a lot to me, is what you've added is, you brought, I know how you did in school, you know, I know how you did in college.
You brought an intensity and different skill sets than me that have taken this foundation we created, and you’ve given it a better future because you brought in a lot of your colleagues, your team members that you've recruited into the firm. So to me, what you've done is you've dramatically enhanced what was already doing well, but given it a better future.
So I was incredibly proud that the board wanted me to promote you to that. It wasn't me saying, you know, I want my son to do it. You earned the respect of the board. Profound respect to the board. And, how did how did it feel for you when you were approached to become President?
Kyle: When I was approached to become President, I was shocked. I mean, it was remember, I was interim CFO during Covid for eight months and thought when that was done, I was going to be on my merry way back to Forsyth Partners. And you all approached me about being President, which is phenomenal. It's been a heck of a five-year run.
I mean, it's unbelievable. We are so fortunate, as you said, to have started with the foundation that you and the great leaders that you've brought up in the organization have built. We couldn't be doing what we're doing without the phenomenal foundation. But there is so much more to go do. So, like, the things I'm most proud of over the last five years is the talent, both folks that have been attracted to us because they want to be a part of something bigger, they want to be a part of a movement.
The talent that we've developed internally, which I think is phenomenal. So, the blend of that has been, it's just one-upping the other's game. It's phenomenal. The achieving results by design, not by accident, is something that is has been really reassuring, right? It's easy to come up with strategy and PowerPoinst to make it look good and say, hey, this is what we should do.
But to be able to go execute on a game plan. Our ability to do that has been solely from the talent we brought in. And then when you think about what we're doing now, I mean, market-facing organization where we truly understand the markets we're going after, and you see some of these customers that are doing business with us because of our talent, because of our services. And I think in our market-facing approach is allowing us to build innovation muscles, dad, which five years ago were there in pockets and required kind of heroic performances by individuals.
But today, it's more systematic. And what I'm really, really proud of is that we are aspiring to be a place where people can go home fulfilled but perform with excellence and come and give their best to us and feel cared for and feel invested and be able to go home and still be wonderful community members, wonderful family members, etc.
And so, I think we're an actual proof point for the business we are trying to build. And if we keep doing, if we keep on this trajectory, people will have to follow us because our performance will be good and we will, in fact, be living up to our purpose of building a better world through business.
Bob: I think one of the things that, we talk about step change all the time, but one of the things that I think you brought to the company, which I think is foundationally important because prior to you join us, we had this EVA way of tracking our share price. We did extremely well. The company was doing well, but an outsider would look at our company, at our EBITDA performance, our profitability performance, to say nice, but not impressive.
You know, obviously. And so what you said, which meant a lot to me, was if we have a good business model, which we do, it's been proven, if we have talent that can capture the value that we should perform at or above industry norms, I mean, we should expect that, just like if you have a child to test out a high intellectual level, you know that they should do well. And so, I think what you brought to me was, you know, if we don't focus on financial performance, that represents the potential, you know, the potential of this culture, the potential of this business model, the combination of the two, people are not going to follow us.
If we really want to change the world, we need to create performance and caring culture in harmony, which we've done, in spades. So, I think that message, which you have embraced through step change thinking, has brought a whole new way of thinking. It's not profitability to get rich. It’s profitability to validate the stewardship of the people. We have the privilege of leading to say you can care for people and create human value in harmony.
They're not in disharmony. That was probably the biggest thing. Plus here, you know, obviously the talent that you brought into the company is exceptional. And so, the beauty is here, we stay with this company, that it's a combination of almost 150 adoptions. Some people call them acquisitions around the world with unbelievable potential.
Just in the companies, we have to just perform to the expectations of our team members and our customers to show what this talent can do to capture the value of the markets we currently serve, and continue to attract incremental talent as we grow to continue to attract additional acquisition. So, we're not doing this to try and hit some profit number or some liquidity goal to sell it.
We're doing it because we think the combination of exceptional financial performance and exceptional culture will cause people to pay attention that we can care for people. It validates our message beyond just words. OK? It shows that you don't have to give up financial performance to care. In fact, by caring, you actually enhance the potential of the company.
Kyle: Well. And our goal is to also prove that you don't just have to be a family-owned business to behave like this, right? You can be a private equity-owned business, you can be a public. And that's the world we're trying to open up because they are where most of the businesses that are creating crappy cultures exist today.
Bob: Yeah, I just had a listening session with a bunch of new team members. And what you hear of other cultures really saddens me that we want our kids to get a job where there's an 88% chance they're going to work at a company that doesn't care about them. And so, we believe we've been blessed with a vision of what business could be that could profoundly change the world as we know it, where people feel valued not used, and create a sense of dignity in the people when they are part of an organization where they feel safe, cared for and they go home better husbands, better spouses, better parents, better community members. So, we think our model could actually heal the brokenness in the world because we have people in our care for 40 hours a week.
Now, Kyle as I mentioned, I was very proud that the board, approached me about promoting you to President because to feel that it's not me going, I want my son to run. They came to me and said, Kyle has got exceptional talent. He should be running. He should be President. I said, absolutely, but I still kept a CEO title because, you know, I had three and you know, and I jokingly said, you got to still be nice to me because I'm the CEO and Chairman and largest shareholder.
So, actually, probably a few months ago, I was thinking, you know, it's actually the board that came to me with the idea of promoting a new President, and I feel great about it. Not an ounce of resistance. I thought it was the right thing to do.
But it occurred to me that given the progress you've made and your team and the vitality of the company and the fact that you've continued this caring culture, matter of fact made it more vibrant, that it should be me that comes up with the idea at this time.
To me, it was very meaningful to me to open up the board meeting basically to surprise, everybody except for the executive committee to say that, you know, my dad appointed me, was going to appoint me executive vice President the day before he died. He never got a chance to do that because he died the next morning.
I wanted to make sure that you knew that it was my decision, that it was your time. You're doing the job. You earned that. You earned it. It's not that I'm going to step back or anything. It's just you are actually the CEO of the company, and you should have that title. I'm still the largest shareholder and still Chairman of the Board.
Kyle: Yes, sir.
Bob: So, it was very meaningful to me. And it was my decision, not the board. And of course, everybody completely agreed. And, and I'm very proud that I got a chance to recognize you and what you've achieved and what you mean to the future of this legacy that we have the privilege of being a part of.
Kyle: Well, I appreciated the very surprising announcement that none of us expected, but, you know, it won't change the way I've been doing anything. You and I have been working together incredibly well. I complement your grand vision and things, and I think I've taken some elements of what you've wanted to do. And maybe, with our team, we've accelerated a bunch of things, and we're living out this, this legacy, this future.
Actually, I think we're even exceeding some of our dreams. Your dreams. We're doing things you never thought we'd do. And it's just, it's such a great opportunity. And we literally are just getting started. The opportunities are so immense.
Bob: Yeah. And, you know, you and I both know our primary responsibility is to make sure we have a business model or people in our span of care feel safe and valued and that they have a future. And I think you have added dramatically to that. And this transition should be a beautiful transition. I always say you can quit a job, but you can't quit a calling.
And so, we have a chance to continue to work together as father and son, as two stewards of these 12,000-plus people, showing the world that you can create human and economic value in harmony. And so, our partnership, in this is the greatest joy in the world.
Kyle: Absolutely. Dad, what I hope in this role, you now feel comfortable that the business is on solid footing and, as largest shareholder and Chairman of the Board, that’s your right. But, you know, I really hope that you see us trying to continue to build a business that's living out all the things you're talking about out in the world.
And I hope it also frees up your time to spread the message more and get more impact. And, you know, just be, how are you going to keep getting our message out there through education issues, through our foundation? What are some of those things you're excited about doing?
Bob: Well, in terms of my role, by making you CEO, I'm just acknowledging what already is exists. You are the CEO. You're acting as a CEO. It's not like I'm giving up anything. OK. And for the last couple of years, you know, since you become President, I've been more and more involved in and trying to take this blessing we've been given and bring it to the world through speeches, through the podcast, through the new edition of the book that's coming out.
So, I would say to … and there's parts of the business that I think, you know, I have some experience, I'm very passionate about commercial excellence, just like operational excellence. So intellectual stimulation is fabulous. I mean, I can't imagine sitting at home playing golf or going on cruises. I love the involvement of the business. I love the people.
I love what we stand for. And, as you recall, I use the example because you were a star in high school and basketball, and then your son, Will, followed you in basketball and was doing very well. And I said, Kyle, can you imagine if you're sitting in at your high school watching Will play basketball?
And all of a sudden says, hey, why don't you suit up and go down and play? And all of a sudden you see Kyle run out, passing the ball with Will. Can you imagine a greater joy than playing the spot?
Kyle: I dreamed about that all the time, but I can never find my shoes.
Bob: We'll get you another pair of shoes. So, the chance to do this with you in this beautiful transition. So again, the amount of involvement we have now in education, trying to transform education to create these human skills, there's no question that there is more need in the world. For me, getting out and sharing this message. But the validation Barry-Wehmiller has of the story, because the story, it's not an academic theory.
This is what we're actually doing. And so, this partnership, I'm just acknowledging the way it was actually happening. You are the CEO, you're running the company. I couldn't be more proud, and I couldn't be more comfortable. And you'll take it to places that I couldn't take it. And so, for our team members, I feel we're giving them a better future again.
There's no real change happening. You know, I've been very involved. And, you know, I think I gave 80 speeches in the last year around the world. And the new edition of the book, the work we're doing in education with our foundation, the Leadership Institute. I am not worried about, you know, getting a paycheck. You know, I'm not worried about my job.
I'm worried that in the time I have left on this earth that we leave a legacy that will last well beyond our time, that we’ll start healing the brokenness in the world where people feel cared for and not used.
So Kyle, what do you hope that our team members feel about this new edition of the book?
Kyle: A few things. One, I hope they feel immense pride, that they are proud that the culture that they are hopefully experiencing on a daily basis was good enough to write a book in the first place. And that enough people have read it and are following it and are quoting it that it required a second edition to be written.
The other thing is, I think the team members today will have an opportunity to feel more connected to the message because we wrote this ten years ago, those stories were in the late ‘90s and 2000s. We have a lot of new team members and their stories in here in the updated version that people can really connect to, and feel more a part of. Not just the old Barry-Wehmiller, but this is the current Barry-Wehmiller, the vibrant Barry-Wehmiller that continues to grow.
And I think, you know, lastly, our team members should feel a commitment to it. This wasn't a one and done book. And we wrote it, we wrote down what our culture means to us and they should be able to cite it chapter and verse to, you know, in this in the sense that if we are not living up to it.
And so, I just think they should feel like we are doubling down on our commitment to prove to the world that people and performance can exist in harmony, not in sacrifice to the other. And if other leaders would just embrace this, I actually think there would be a movement that business could be the most powerful source for good.
Bob: Our hope for the book when we wrote the book was that it would become a textbook of leadership, eventually be taught, used in business schools to teach people these human skills combined with their academic skills. So, our hope for the book, remember the first third of the book was kind of technically called The Hero's Journey, my journey through these revelations from management to leadership. And then the two-thirds of the book was a how-to. Now, these new chapters have added what is the impact of doing. And so, our hope is that this will help us stay accountable to these beliefs that we've not only it's not just about Bob, this is something we all believe is the way to lead people.
And the book captures that, and they'll call us and hold us to this belief, this North star of caring for the people we have the privilege of leading. That is our hope that by documenting it, that we can share it and that we can continue to live it and be an example to inspire others to follow us.
Kyle: I mean, you've taught about this book thousands of times and people all want to believe and all want to follow.
And so, you found that we keep getting connected to people you would have never thought we'd be interested in our business model. And it opens new doors or new case studies or new teachings. And so, the network effect is real, so when you think about our team members, if we if we're all spreading, we have 12,000 hearts across the world. If we're all spreading it and putting out there, the network effect will be amazing.
Bob: Yeah. I think the other thing I'd say for the book, internally and externally, is that it says what we believe in and how to execute a business philosophy to realize what we believe. I don't want it to be about me or you. I want us all to believe it. But so, by writing this down and put it in writing this is what we believe becomes a found. Just like the Guiding Principles of Leadership, it becomes a foundational document that guides us, that keeps us on that north journey to caring. And so I think it the fact that with the team working together with Raj and me have captured the profound learnings we've had, I believe it will dramatically influence business education around the world in the future to start healing this poverty of dignity. When we're taught to use people as opposed to care for people to achieve our goals. So, I think to me, it's a way of actually holding ourselves accountable to this message.