Unlocking Culture That Rocks With Jim Knight

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Episode Overview:

Music degree in college, 1st job was a Gatorland (alligator farm in Orlando), 6 years as a middle school teacher, 21 years at Hard Rock International as Head of Training & Development. Now, a keynote speaker, best-selling author, podcaster, and entrepreneur. Delivers 35-40 engagements/year around company culture, leadership, customer service, and building rock-star teams. Best-selling author of "Culture That Rocks" (2014) and "Leadership That Rocks" (2021). Co-host of Top 200 business podcast, "Thoughts That Rock". 

Additional Resources

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SKOT WALDRON:

Today, I have a rocking interview for you. I know, I had to say it, Jim. Jim Knight embodies the idea of a personal brand. Now, we didn't really talk about that that much, but as a brand strategist and looking back on what brand does for companies and for individuals, Jim has found his brand and he lives it. And that's what's so cool, right? Image-wise, sure, but that's not all that he does. Now, Jim has a very interesting background, a music degree in college. His first job though was at Gatorland. So if any of you know Orlando, Gatorland, that's where he did it. We have a little story in this interview about that. Six years as a middle school teacher, 21 years at Hard Rock International as head of training and development. And now he is a keynote speaker, a bestselling author, podcaster and entrepreneur. He delivers speeches all over the country all year long, talking about leadership and customer service and building rockstar teams. I said this interview was going to rock, right? Well, he's the bestselling author of a book called Culture That Rocks and Leadership That Rocks, and he is also the cohost of a top 200 business podcast, Thoughts That Rock.

Now I'm just saying, there's a theme here, right? Just wait till you start to listen to Jim, and if you're on video, turn your video on because his hair is rocking. All right, let's do this, Jim. See ya. Jim, it is super cool to have you, super cool.

JIM KNIGHT:

Dude, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much. I know we've probably been talking about this for, I don't know, maybe a year or so. Scott, just thankful that you've still let me into the party. I appreciate it.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well, I'm grateful you fit me into your schedule. I had to book you out a year ahead of time. That's how much in demand you are.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yes. That's how we're going to spin it, for sure.

SKOT WALDRON:

That is exactly how we're going to spin it. So highly demand, Jim Knight is on the call, everybody. It took me a year to get him but I'm grateful he is here. It probably took him a year to grow his hair out that far so that we could have him ready for the show.

JIM KNIGHT:

You would think. But let me tell you, I just got my hair cut last week. So you think it's high now, it was like another inch, inch and a half higher. So it takes a lot to keep this thing tamped down, if you will.

SKOT WALDRON:

Oh, I bet. I bet. I'm going to have to make you smaller on the graphic, on the cover photo, to get the hair in there, man. It's going to be so ... it's a challenge. But no, this is super cool. I'm excited to have you on, not only because of the content you create ... because I'm right in line with you. I've had a lot of people on that talk about culture, talk about unlocking the potential of people. That's what this is all about. But your style and your brand adds a fresh flavor to what we have going on here, and your background. So tell us about that first. Tell us about where you come from. Tell us about your whole emergence into what you do now.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. Well, first off, this has been a little bit of a working [art 00:03:20]. The shock and awe doesn't all of a sudden just happen overnight. It took a while. But my background really was, it started in music but it was classic, classical opera, choral music. I sang in a choir when I was in high school. I do have my music degree actually, and it's in music performance and education, but it's not like a lot of my rock and roll buddies. They wouldn't let me up on stage. But if I had to do a wedding or a funeral, I could still do that. So it's very formalized chops. But going through that, when you are in search of your music degree, you actually take classes like music history and music appreciation and theory. I think during that time and hanging out with a bunch of other musicians, my mindset changed it a little bit more. I was already into the rock and pop scene, but now I started to expand and looked at a lot of different rock and roll artists that were probably on the other side of the planet, so that affected me. I just felt like my life was immersed in the spirit of rock and roll.

I thought I was going to be a musician professionally but as most people find out when you go to college, to do that and make a living, you actually had to be good. So I changed careers. They say, those that can't do, teach. I think you've probably heard that before Scott. I became a middle school teacher. I did that for six years, starting off as a substitute teacher. Loved it. Took a summer job at Hard Rock. So Hard Rock International, which is the parent company of all the Hard Rock Cafés, Hotels, Casinos, music venues. I just took a summer job. My hair didn't go up back then, it went down. I had a mullet, two and a half feet. I could actually sit on my hair at one time. So to work in a business that allowed me to look and be, and say and do whatever I wanted to, and then they paid me to go and open up properties around the world and again, just be immersed in rock and roll. It was a dream come true and honestly, I fell in love with the people.

I fell in love with the culture and stayed there for 21 years. Out of that, 16 of those years I had a training in development. If I could probably do that and do what I'm doing right now, I'd probably do both. But I wanted to be bigger than just that one little area horizontally. Even in food and beverage and retail, I sort of got known in those spaces. But I wanted to go vertical and get into just about every industry you could think of. So that's my whole jam the last 10, 11 years. I just want to impact and influence any industry, any company, any leader of any level because I'm a consumer and I'm on the hunt looking for people and brands that do awesome things. So that's sort of the quick skinny. I've had some other small little things in between, like my very first job working at Gatorland zoo. But other than that, I've had a really cool, awesome career, I'm not going to lie. But now I'm doing what I'm probably going to do the rest of my life.

SKOT WALDRON:

Okay. A couple of big questions that came out of that. I know everybody's like, what about 400 questions? Did you ever get almost bit by a gator?

JIM KNIGHT:

I have almost been bit by an alligator many times. I'll tell you how, but I have been bit ... and I still have a scar on my knuckle. You won't be able to see it, I'm sure, but from a boa-

SKOT WALDRON:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there it is.

JIM KNIGHT:

I worked a lot of positions at Gatorland zoo. It was an actual working alligator farm. I sold frozen fish to people they would feed the alligators. I drove a little miniature train. I worked in the snack bar and got to eat alligator meat every day. But probably my favorite was working in the photo booth. Now, I'm going all the way back to the mid-'80s. We didn't have anything but a Polaroid picture. But what I had to do as an employee in the morning, I would jump into a pit of alligators. There were probably 50 alligators in there, but they were only about a foot and a half, two feet long, maybe a little bit longer. They would jump in the water to get away from you. But I had to go and capture one, close their mouth, put duct tape on it, then climb out of that pen. Now the alligator can't bite anybody and you can hold onto it. That was the goal. Then I had to go into a snake pit, get one of these big large boa constrictors so that you could put it around your head. You can hold the alligator, have the snake, and we would take a picture, five bucks.

And that's how that was, and it was interesting. I would see people that had not a clue, a 100 yards away before they get all the way up on the photo area, look around. They're not sure what's going on. And then see the alligator or the snake and they would freak and run the other direction. But never got bit by any of the alligators, only the snake got me one time.

SKOT WALDRON:

Oh, that's awesome, man. I can't imagine. It's like, hey Jim, you can either work over here and clean the bathrooms and restock the shelves and things like that. Or you can take pictures, but first you have to catch the alligators and the snakes and then you have to tape them up. You choose.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah, you choose whichever one. I'd still think I went the right direction. It's still [inaudible 00:08:21].

SKOT WALDRON:

No, definitely. Oh, definitely. That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay, so here's the next question that is less important, but kind of what we're here for. Okay? So you have transitioned into company culture. You help develop cultures, leaders, teams, et cetera, but you do it like this rock and roll type of vibe. So tell me about that transition and why it's so important now for you and why you're doing what you're doing.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah, and I think you were alluding to it earlier, Scott. For me, it is a little bit of an edutainment factor. I see that speakers today can't just be educational and they can't just be entertainment. I do not pride myself or tell people that I'm a motivational speaker. I am not. I'm not going to come up there and do a song and dance in front of 1,000 people, and them run out of the room going, that was fun. That was funny but I didn't get anything out of it. That is not my gig. I'm an educator at heart so I wanted people to push back from the table and go, that was awesome. That was a great use of my time and I've got some nuggets to amp up my life personally or professionally. Mostly professionally. I focus on the business community more than anything else. We're going to have some laughs. We're going to have some Yuk Yuks along the way. But I'm always trying to walk the line, if I can do both. I think speakers that only do one or the other, they're not going to be as successful. So I've just prided myself on trying to figure out, how can I be edutaining? Now before that ... and I was talking about this before, being a musician, being a vocalist, having that degree, but then just being immersed in rock and roll for 21 years in that business.

When you can look and be and say and do pretty much whatever you want to, but yet, it is still a fantastic business. I mean, the Hard rock I worked in will probably do 42 to $43 million on any given year. That's a restaurant. That's unheard of. It's one of the busiest restaurants in the world. So your skills get really, really sharp. You have so many arrows in your quiver. I really do feel like I developed my hospitality gene, probably starting at Gatorland. But when you're in a volume like at Hard Rock, sense of urgency, attention to detail, eye contact, smiling, personality, having a wit, all of that stuff, you hone those skills really, really sharp. So I think I just learned and packaging all of that stuff up. And believe it or not, I still pull all the levers. I still pull the music, the education part when I was a school teacher, and the hospitality. But this idea that bands and brands are a lot alike. So I do a lot of those analogies.

When the team member, when the lead singer leaves and they replace him or her, things are going to change. When there's conflict, how do you deal with teamwork? How does everybody have a voice when they're writing a song or want to be on the album? So I do a lot of music orientation and a lot of analogies like that. And I think the essence of your question really is, I'm trying to get people to come to the party, come to the table in a fun way, in an interesting way, because I think most people like music of some sort. But can I sneak in some really cool culture, service, leadership elements for them to get better at their gig, whatever that gig is?

SKOT WALDRON:

Awesome. So you don't walk on stage with your Stratocaster and then start singing opera on top of it?

JIM KNIGHT:

I do not. My business partner actually does that and it's somewhat of a goof and we have fun with it. But I do not actually do any singing on the stage at all.

SKOT WALDRON:

Okay, I just wanted to make that clear.

JIM KNIGHT:

I will say, my PowerPoint backgrounds are Black Leather. I do a lot of those music analogies. I will have music embedded in my sessions. What I'm wearing, blinged up and all of that and all kinds of rock and roll elements. I will do that. I'm going to show up because I need the shock and awe. I need people to go, wow, this is different. And for that, if I can just get them a little bit interested, I'll start to weave in a lot of that stuff that I talked about before. But no, I'm not standing up there singing opera. I have had people ask, but it's not going to happen, my friend.

SKOT WALDRON:

Aw man, because I was getting close to asking you here. Okay, I'll avoid that one. All right, let's dive into the culture piece a little bit, because I want to hear your take on it. I've heard lots of takes on it. I got my own take, right, when we talk about this idea coming from the leadership space and doing what we do. How do you define and shape culture?

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah. Man, you're right. It is quite the buzzword and everybody talks about it today. I think if you go back 15, 20, maybe even 25 years, it wasn't that relevant. I mean, it was always relevant for us, but I think a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, they really didn't put a lot of weight behind it. It was always about the product. It was always about the top line sales. There were times for sure that I would walk in and have a conversation with the CEO and try and throw down the culture card and go, "We ought to do this because it'd be fun and cool," and whatever. And I would get laughed out of the room because it's not tied to any objectives. Here's the other part too, before I answer your question. It's such an esoteric nebulous thing. You can't actually touch it. You know when it's awesome or when it's not. You can see it a [model 00:13:44] way, you can feel it. It's an emotional attachment in a lot of ways. But because people can't put their hands physically on it, it gets a little bit, they get the mush-mouth, that if I ask anybody whether it's culture, bah-bah-bah.

Even when I would ask hard rockers who lived in one of the greatest cultures in the history of culture, they couldn't eloquently explain it. So I thought, if I'm going to write a book about it, if I'm going to go out and talk about it on stage, I better define what it is. This is how I define it. I think at its core it's just a collection of individuals, it's a collection of people. Each of those individuals have some pretty unique behaviors. And as you know, some of those behaviors are awesome and some of them not so much. But whoever's in the organization at that moment, that is the culture. They're going to think it's because of the environment, it's the product, it's the shared values ... which I would then go down to the root cause and say again, that's people, that's learned behaviors. I would always focus on that, versus, what I think a lot of people confuse culture with is heritage. They think about heritage, which is about the past, the way things have always been. You'll see people do that. They'll close their eyes and go, ah, it's not the way that it used to be.

No duh. There's a reason why, because it's based off of human behaviors. And if you could have started a company ... and I don't even care if it was something online or on the phone or brick and mortar, if you had any say so in hiring that first crew, whoever the initial opening staff was, you will not even open the business. You will delay it hours, days, maybe a week to get the right people. But then you fast forward 5, 10, 15, 20 years, you don't have the same culture unless you could have held on to those people. You don't even realize that people are coming and going. So when you wake and go, what happened to my cool culture? It's because you've replaced it with different people. And here's how I know, here's ultimately how I can almost prove this with everybody. Let's say, I love your company font. I love your logo. I love your corporate headquarters. I love every tool and process and handbook and job description, performance appraisal. I don't care what you have in place, I like all of that stuff. But everybody in the organization, particularly the leadership, I'm going to fire everybody and replace them all. Have I changed the culture? Probably completely but I would say, let's give it 90, 95%.

If you do the reverse, let's say, I hate everything about the business. I hate your logo, I hate your color palette. I don't like where the building is. I'm going to get rid of everything in there, but all of the people get to stay. Have I really changed the culture? Not so much. Maybe a little bit, I'll give credit to somebody. But if I can hold onto those people and I get the right rock stars in place, I will produce herculean results. It doesn't matter what it is I ultimately will do 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. So the problem is, every time somebody joins or leaves the company, the culture takes a hit. So if I'm the new guy and I'm only here three, four weeks, I bet you, I still made a dent in the culture. But if I'm the guy who started the thing, if I'm the president of the company, if I'm a district leader and I leave, broad sweeping impact and change. And the guy or girl that's going to take over for you, they're going to do things the way that they want to do. So once again, you're in this constant flux of change. So there are so many definitions and if I actually had 100 people in front of me and started asking, what is, how do you define it?

I would start writing it on a flip chart and I bet you, I won't disagree with anybody. I am in the 'everything is culture' camp. But the reality is, you can't work on all that stuff if you really pair it down to go, it's about the humans, the learned behavior, humans. You get that right, you'll have an unbelievable, unstoppable culture, whatever you want it to be.

SKOT WALDRON:

That leads me into asking, which I asked a lot of people on this show, then what's the problem? What's the biggest mistake companies make then, as a result when it comes to culture? They're messing things up. Some people got it spot on, right? But the biggest mistake you find, I'm curious.

JIM KNIGHT:

Lip service. They're doing the exact opposite of what I just said. They're focusing on the product. They're so focused on getting the thing first to the market, better than every competitor, perhaps at a cheaper price. They're focused on tactical, practical things. Which again, I know you have to do those. I believe that is price of admission type stuff. You have to do that, yes. But if you tell me ... and let's just pick, in my background I look at restaurants all the time. There are so many restaurants in the same competitive set. Unless you really are the first that's ever done this, whatever this is ... you can pick, let's say the burger category. There are so many gourmet burger places. If you tell me that your product is so different than everybody else, I'll give you some credit. The reality is, it's probably not. I bet you, it's just like the other 10, 15 that I can name. Then you start to go to the next rung. What's the environment like? What's the atmosphere? What's the temperature and the lighting and the scent and all of that vibe that they're inside the four walls. Is it really that different? Maybe it is. If you tell me it is, I'll give you credit once again. The reality is, most of the time it's not. And by the way, both of those, product and environment, can be copied. Anybody can steal that.

The next rung, the next one is so much bigger, the service. The way you made me feel, which is based ... again, I'm using the language of human behaviors, it is based off of the people. There are too many brands like Southwest Airlines, like Chick-fil-A that swear, the only reason they are where they are is because of their culture and that is because of their people. You can't steal my people. Go ahead and copy my products, copy my procedures and my processes, do whatever you want to, to create the environment, but you can't get my people. If you can't do that, you can't copy the culture. So I think the biggest problem that leaders have, it's lip service. They say they care about the culture but really they're focused on the physical, practical, tactical stuff that they think is going to make a difference, which will get them started. They're in the game. That's not what helps perpetuate the brand for all time. It just means, maybe this year you're going to get to be number one. But now you're a one-hit wonder because somebody else is going to pass you by. Somebody's going to open across the street doing the same thing that you're doing at a cheaper price.

That's when I get to come in and point to a date on the calendar and go, "You're going to go out of business. You can't compete on that stuff. What you can do is get the right people that nobody else can get." And to me, unique people create unique experiences that'll parlay over to the customer, the guest, consumer, the client, whatever the end user is. When you get that right, man, you're world-beating now.

SKOT WALDRON:

You're preaching, man. You're preaching to the choir here, and that's not a music pun on purpose. I keep making those and it's not just because you're on the show. So here's the thing, man. I talk about that all the time when it comes to ... and love or hate Chick-fil-A, whatever. Nobody loves or hates Chick-fil-A because of their logo. You don't go onto Google or on Glassdoor and read, yeah, Chick-fil-A's logo sucks. I hate that place. So when I talk ... and I come from the agency background. I created a lot of brand communication work for decades for companies, it's about the essence of who they are. And when you talk about that, I always say, "What is the first thing you think of when you think of Chick-fil-A?" And some people say, well, the chicken sandwich or waffle fries or something, because it created a little bit of a brand around that. But then a lot of people say, "My pleasure." They've coined that phrase. And my kids, this is just a testament to Chick-fil-A. We went to a Wendy's and got our frosty out of that thing in the drive-through. I said "Thank you" and the kid said, "My pleasure." And my five-year-old son in the background goes, "Did he work at Chick-fil-A?" He connected that to that experience.

So here's the thing, and I always make this point, you can duplicate the chicken sandwich, exactly like you said, right? That's price of admission. That's just what you got. You got to have a good food or nobody's going to go in the first place. But then, how do you differentiate yourself in a way that causes people to not only want to come and buy from you, but cause people want to come and work for you? And to belong to people that believe what I believe, in a sense that it builds a tribe of people that are aligned and going to conquer. And you put this in there, a company that can be so bold as to close on Sunday during NFL football games in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, here I'm in Atlanta. They're losing tons of revenue and I haven't looked up that number yet, but that's a ton of revenue.

JIM KNIGHT:

They are, yeah.

SKOT WALDRON:

But it's based on the values and the principles and the culture they're trying to create with people that want to believe that certain type of thing. Anyway-

JIM KNIGHT:

That's funny, I-

SKOT WALDRON:

... I'm on my soapbox but you sparked it, man. You sparked it.

JIM KNIGHT:

No, it's funny because ... and I use them quite a bit in a lot of my sessions. It depends on what part of the country I'm in. Some people-

SKOT WALDRON:

Oh yeah, for sure.

JIM KNIGHT:

... it's not their cup of tea. I'm definitely getting some tomatoes in the face. But you can't knock on them for their business practices. And one of the things, you're right, they're closed on Sunday. You'd think they'd be losing money, but yet today they're generating something like $4.9 million on average per location per year. And their direct competitor aren't other chicken places, it's McDonald's. McDonald's, which is open 24 hours, they're outside the United States. They are everywhere. They have no problem being open seven days a week and they only generate about 2.5 million. Chick-fil-A generates twice as much, even with that one day close. So they definitely, there's an army of just people that fall in love with them. I had this great moment that happened in a Chick-fil-A, if you'll give me a split second. It was so cool. I'd already put in my order and you know how those ropes are in most of these brick and mortars.

And this was pre-pandemic, but I had stepped back from the counter and I was waiting for my food to be delivered. I saw a little girl who had walked up to the counter and she was carrying a $5 bill. She was dressed up like a princess because I'm in Central Florida, I'm in the Orlando area. So I know when I go to eat, drink, shop, stay, play, do whatever, there are little four, five-year-old girls dressed up like Cinderella or Elsa or whoever. Not because they're going to the park that day, just because that's what they want to wear. I could see what was going on. She had a $5 bill, walking up all by herself. The mom standing over on the side watching her daughter buy her own, I think she was buying one of the ice cream drinks they have there. And the kid behind the counter, again, as soon as she approached he went, "Hello there, my lady." He just sort of bowed and did a hand [floors 00:24:33]. I thought, oh, that was kind of cool, but this is sort of what I expected Chick-fil-A. That's not what rocked my face off, Scott. It's what he did immediately after that.

He then went, "All hail the princess." Everybody working on that line; the person at the drive-through; the manager, the other cashiers, they all stopped, turned to her, bowed in unison and then went back to doing what they were doing. I lost my mind. I was like, this is not done at every Chick-fil-A. This kid, this 19-year-old, however old he was, is just doing this on his own. And somehow he coerced all of his buddies to get into the act. I'm thinking, how much did that cost? How long did it take? But yet, he's creating memories all day long. That little girl ... and now the mom's crying over there, they're never going to forget that the rest of their life. It is not about that chicken sandwich, which by the way, it's awesome. I love that chicken. But it's not about that. It's not about their drive-through. It's not about how clean the place is. I could go on and on about all that. I look at their people and go, man, they're doing something right. And when I was a consultant and I had people tell me all the time, "Oh, there's no good talent out there," yeah, there is. Somebody's getting them before you.

There's a whole bunch of really good awesome people out there. They happen to be working for awesome brands. It'll take a lot for you to pry them away from those companies but they're out there.

SKOT WALDRON:

That's so beautiful, man. And that is a brand impression, you're right, that's going to be created for life. And that's not about the logo and it's not about the chicken sandwich. It's about the culture they've created inside that store, that manager of that shift or that store, whatever, has said, "This is what we're going to do." And everybody's like, "Yes, we're doing that. And now it's created loyalty from inside and outside that organization.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah, and it just reinforced it for me. I wasn't even the one getting the experience but I saw that. And again, it was like, check, they got me for another year. This is too cool. You're right.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well, that's when we talk about that idea of serotonin, right? Simon Sinek talks about that a lot, right? He said, I was walking down the street one day in New York City and there was somebody there. Somebody ran into them and all their stuff fell down. One person keeps walking, but somebody came behind them and helped them pick that stuff up. That chemical flows through the body. First of all, the person wanting to help gets a kick out of that. The person being helped gets a kick out ... endorphins, right? And then the person watching it also gets a chemical flow. Now we're multiplying culture and good health to everyone. So that vibe is what we're creating. That's what you felt, right, when you were there. You're like, dude, this is amazing. And now you're telling me about it, I'm getting a kick out of it. Multiplication.

JIM KNIGHT:

And now it's going to go out to thousands and thousands of people on your podcast.

SKOT WALDRON:

Millions. Come on, man.

JIM KNIGHT:

Did I say thousands? I meant millions. Boom.

SKOT WALDRON:

Boom. Okay, on the next thing. Are you ready? All right, so you do a lot of speaking. What makes you unique? So if I'm out there and I'm looking for some speakers ... and speakers, there's a lot of speakers with tall hair.

JIM KNIGHT:

Are there?

SKOT WALDRON:

Yeah. I don't know. So let's say, what makes you unique besides the tall hair? What's going on?

JIM KNIGHT:

I was alluding to it earlier. I think it's, first off, the music orientation I think helps. It helps because people are just looking for difference. I've seen many, many speakers who by their title alone ... by the fact that they're the present CEO, maybe however many letters, however many years of experience, they by default are allowed up onto the stage, can talk about whatever. But then maybe they just can't deliver the message with any type of bravado, any excitement at all. My goal, I don't care if there's four people or 4,000 people, I want to absolutely bring the thunder. I think by having music and the orientation and the hair and the blue jeans, and all of that stuff, that helps. But then, I was talking about this earlier, I'm trying to walk the line because I'm so keenly aware ... I'm mediocre in a lot of things, Scott. I can do one thing, I can hold an audience, man. I think I know the temperature of the room. I know what my next bullet point is. I know exactly the phrasing that I want to use. I know what music's about to be played. I know who's talking about me in the audience positively or negatively.

This is what makes a good speaker, a good teacher, a good cop, when you're just so aware and in tune. If I need to spin on a dime and change things, or incorporate somebody into the talk from the organization, all of that stuff I'm able to do. But it's only because in my mind I have this story arc, whether I've got half an hour or it's a three-hour workshop I'm going, what kind of journey am I going to take them on? Because I know they've got to have some inspiration, they've got to be motivated. I know they need to have some laughs. I might be able to get a tear out of them. That's not my normal Feng shui but it does happen in almost every session because of some videos and some things that I might share. But as I go throughout, I'm thinking at the end of however much time I have, what are they going to do? What are some meaty takeaways that they can run with? Even if, let's say, I gave them 10 things to run with, I bet you seven, eight, maybe even nine of those, they're going to look at you and go, "I already do that. I crushed number five. I'm awesome at number eight." Great. Keep doing what you're doing.

The majority of the time, there's usually one or two that either somebody in that room's not doing at all or the company is looking around going, oops, we don't do this at all. We can always amp up. I don't even care what the measurement, whatever the metric is. I'm driven this way. I personally know, if I won every year every award there was in turnover, top line sales, bottom line EBITDA, customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction, I don't even care if I turned around and I had no competitors, I would still want to win. I would always want more. I am just hungry like that. So if I can take that passion, that commitment ... again, whether there's two people or 200, I'm going to absolutely bring it and hopefully take them on a journey so that when we're done they go, "That was great. That was awesome. I'm going to be so much better." Even if they got one thing out of it, we're all going to win. So again, I'm using the backdrop of rock and roll as just a medium to get them to the party. Once they're in the candy store, I like to think I can get them to buy some candy.

I can get them to do something once they're there, and hopefully it starts with all of this other stuff that comes with it. But if I wasn't worth my weight in salt, all this would be really expensive wallpaper. It'd be me putting on a façade and just doing a bunch of karaoke, versus bringing something original to the table.

SKOT WALDRON:

That's awesome. I was about to say, talking about the idea of music, rock and roll culture, give me an analogy. Give me some gold, man. I need something you can give, impart on me and the millions of people out there listening right now, give me an analogy that draws a correlation here, what we can take away from this.

JIM KNIGHT:

I've got a couple, and here's what's interesting too. Before I give these two you really have to think, if you're going to make a music analogy or a band and a brand analogy, you have to pick artists that almost everybody is going to know. Because if I pick somebody that I love right now ... if I say The Struts, nobody in that audience, maybe one or two people. So you've got to come with The Who, the Beatles, the Stones, U2, those types of things. And even that, I'm starting to find a couple of people in the audience, they haven't heard some of these artists, which hurts big time.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well, you're just an old man. That's what it is.

JIM KNIGHT:

Well, and that is the case. Well, I maybe have 10 more years in me, so if I could squeeze a few of those artists still, I'll do it.

SKOT WALDRON:

Let's do it.

JIM KNIGHT:

Here's one analogy. So when I'm talking about communication and collaboration, I will use U2 as an example. So I maybe have just come off of the fact that I know the most successful companies in the world have a shared mindset. It isn't because of their products or they were first to the market, like you were asking before. It's because they communicate, communicate, communicate to everybody. They have more all staff meetings, department meetings, one-on-one meetings. There's more pieces of paper in the employee break room. They can text their employees. They might do more E-learning, whatever it is, it says, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of that. Because they're trying to disseminate information. Because these companies realize, the more I can get everybody focused on the right thing ... everybody knows where true north is, and when we're all singing off the same sheet of music, I'm more likely to get the result and then some, versus telling people to figure it out. There's no leadership. There's no mentorship. Do the best you can. And what you get is people flailing, going in every direction. So I end this whole concept that was a truncated 10-minute sort of spiel, with U2. I go, "Think about U2," and I put the picture up. I go, "Does everybody know who this band is?"

And of course, inevitably there might be one or two hands of somebody who doesn't know. There might be 1,000 people, there are a couple. But for the most part, everybody knows U2. They're the biggest band on the planet. It's four people in that band. So what happens is, I've animated two arrows that will come down and point to the bass player and the drummer. I go, "Who are these two guys?" If they're the biggest band in the world and everybody knows who they are, what are their names? Inevitably, most groups won't know Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. They know that it's the bass player and the drummer by default. Because they probably know Bono. They might know The Edge, the guitarist, but for the most part they don't know. We call them the other two dudes in U2. And the analogy that I make is ... and I've seen a lot of interviews with Adam and Larry a long time ago, where they say that every single time they're performing at a U2 show, every single gig, they're trying to do the exact same thing they did the night before. No changes, zero. Those two guys, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. They're the engine that just keeps it going.

But if you go talk to Bono or The Edge, oh no, they don't want to do the same thing. They want to do something totally different. They can actually see people that were just at an event at some other city. They were in Athens the night before. They were in Atlanta today. They don't want these people to have the same experience, so they want to mix it up. Bono might actually change the set list because the audience wasn't in the state of mind that they needed. But that's what the lead guitarist and the lead singer are supposed to do. So I make the analogy all the time of Adam and Larry. Everybody has a part to play in the band. And when you understand the role, when I can get all four of these people go in the same direction, I'm producing world-beating results like U2 does. So in my world ... and it would depend on what group I'm talking in front of. Let's say it's hospitality, it's restaurant or hotels. I'm not just talking about the bartender, the server, the front desk agent. We always focus on them. But you forget about receiving, engineering, the housekeeper, the bus or the dishwasher. When I can get to them and they understand the role that they play in the culture and what we're trying to do, now I've got the Verizon network behind me, man.

We're all headed toward true north and I am absolutely going to slate the results. So I use U2 in that moment around communication and collaboration. You got to be like U2. You've got to get everybody singing off the same sheet of music. I can't tell every company what that is, but the answer is probably, you could do more. You think you're awesome at communication but really it's one of the downfalls of a lot of businesses. They don't do enough. Not if the goal is, Ollie, Ollie, in come free. I need to get everybody to head toward true north. So those type of analogies, it's interesting enough, but I'm not going to just talk about U2 and playing the space because then it becomes campy. It becomes theme-y. It's a fine line between trying to be cool and theme-y. So I'm trying to make sure I don't ever step over that edge, if I can help it.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well played, man. That's awesome. I love it. I love it. The other two dudes in U2, that's awesome.

JIM KNIGHT:

Yeah, and you can do that with a lot of them. I mean, you could probably pick Bon Jovi. I've heard people pick that. Springsteen and the E Street Band. You probably know the two or three main people. You don't know the rest. There are others. But again, you got to come with a band that most people will know. I do another analogy with the Stones. I won't do the whole thing here. But basically every time they put out a new album ... that's the whole gist. That will take me 10 minutes to do it. It'll be the lowest selling album that they've ever done. They realize that, because nobody wants to hear the new Stones stuff unless you're a complete lover of the Rolling Stones. But they absolutely will spend any amount of money, because they're the top grossing act every time they tour because it's an experience. You want to see Keith and Mick do their thing at 75 years old, and see if Keith Richards is still alive. It's not the new product, it's the experience itself. So when I'm talking about experiences, I talk about them. I use the analogy of an amplifier quite a bit. So I go, "Listen, if I had an acoustic guitar ..." and usually I'm in a venue where you could hear it if I was strumming acoustic.

But an electric guitar, you've got to have the amplifier. If you don't plug that thing in, it's just pling-pling-pling. It's nothing. You've got to have that device to take all the stuff that you talk about and ram it through an inflection point. And I might be talking about the humans, the employees, I talk about the brand ambassadors, they are the amplifier. Or if I'm doing one of my Leadership That Rocks talks, the amplifier's going to be leadership. I think that all of the people that are in that room, they're the ones who are going to make the difference in the brand. So it depends on how I'm using it, but I try and pick them sparingly, when I can and when it makes sense. So it's not all storytelling with a bunch of rock and roll stuff. Like I said, you still got to come with some meat to the bone to get people to go, I get it. Because there's a couple of business people, rock and roll is not going to be their thing. That's the throwaway part.

So you still got to come with the stuff that's going to make their business much better.

SKOT WALDRON:

That's really good. I mean, and just thinking about knowing your people and going off ... I was thinking about, while you're talking about the amplifier thing, there is a time and a place for the acoustic, and there's a time and a place for the electric and the amp and whatever pedal you're going to use. I mean, there's different applications for different things, right? If I'm playing an unplugged set, there's different people there that are expecting something, right?

JIM KNIGHT:

That's right.

SKOT WALDRON:

And if I bring something else, it's going to be like, wait a second. I really like that song but that's not what I'm here for.

JIM KNIGHT:

That's right.

SKOT WALDRON:

So I think for leadership to be able to be aware of their audience and be aware of what they're bringing to the table at a specific time, that's going to be really powerful. Now, you wrap all of this up into books. So you not only talk about this stuff, you not only live this stuff, you write about this stuff, right? You have books coming out. You're expanding into multiple books. Give us the lay of the land there, and then how people can get ahold of those.

JIM KNIGHT:

Sure. No, I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity. The first book I did was in 2014. I started writing it about five or six years before that. It's called Culture That Rocks. And it's a hard cover, it's color. It's pretty dense, it's got a lot of information in there. Because I thought, honestly Scott, that was the only book I was going to write. So I put everything in there from things that I learned. It does have some Hard Rock eddies and stories. It's got a little bit of some autobiographical stuff about me and some learnings. But for the most part, there are a lot of companies and individuals that I talk about in a variety, a wide swath of areas when it comes to culture. What I learned from that is that I probably could have expanded on the three main pillars in the book. So what I'm now doing is, I am deconstructing this book. Instead of a black and white color hardcover thing, that I've got smaller, thin, black and white versions. I'm taking the three main topics from out of that first book, which is leadership, customer service, and employee engagement. So this last year, the first one in the Culture That Rocks series ... I'm going to put it up to the camera there.

You might be able to see in the top corner it says, number one Culture That Rocks. It's the first in that series called Leadership That Rocks. That one is for up-and-coming and new and middle managers. Because that's one thing that I learned quite a bit, that the leap from being a staff member, maybe even a low level supervisor, to now you're managing people and budgets and closing and opening. There's not a lot of training that's out there. There might be some internally but people needed I think a third resource, a third-party, non-threatening sort of approach. Again, all immersed in that rock and roll vibe. So there's a lot in there but it's all about leadership. The one that will be launching October 4th ... which is National Customer Experience Day. It's perfect for me, it's called, Service That rocks. And that's about creating some unforgettable experiences and really getting customers to become raving fans of the brand. And then next year in 2023, it'll be Engagement That Rocks, which will be all about employee engagement. I'll probably go through the entire employee life cycle.

I believe that if you can have an unbelievably great strategy, if not multiple strategies in every area ... from the time you start thinking about hiring somebody, to the time you separate from them; recruiting; interviewing; hiring; training; developing; communicating; rewarding; recognizing; even terminating if it comes to that. I think there's a litany of things that you could do in somewhat of a kinder, gentler approach these days, because you can't [muscle 00:42:03] the results anymore. Not with Millennials and Gen Z. They'll laugh at you and they'll just go somewhere else. You got to think, how can I do all these things with excellence in every area? Especially if you believe my definition of culture, it's about the humans. If I can get that right, man, a lot of my problems ... maybe not all of them but a lot of them will be solved. And I don't have to go out there and deal with the customers as much, because I have people who are actually making the donuts. They're the ones who are the frontline workers doing the work. So those are the three books that'll be in that series.

And if you put them together, they would make up a more relevant culture that rocks, if you will. And then that's it. I'm going to retire. No more books.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well played, man. Well played. That from a brand strategy standpoint, nailed it. Well done.

JIM KNIGHT:

I wish I would have gone the other direction. My friends say, boy, it would have been nice ... and I believe this, if I had written a bunch of small ones and then you put it together. Deconstructing a book is not a lot of fun, I can tell you.

SKOT WALDRON:

Yeah, I can imagine. It's a lot of work.

JIM KNIGHT:

The other part that you had asked is, everybody can reach me through my website. All roads lead to that. It's the easiest way to find out anything; books, podcast, the training that I do and that is called Knight Speakers. My last name is Knight, knightspeaker.com. You can find pretty much whatever you want to there.

SKOT WALDRON:

That's so cool man. Even videos of you singing opera, right?

JIM KNIGHT:

I'm sure you can find that somewhere on YouTube. You might have to Google those. Those are not on my website.

SKOT WALDRON:

Okay, done. Done.

JIM KNIGHT:

But they're out there somewhere.

SKOT WALDRON:

I'm looking that up. All right, man. This has been so cool. It's so fun having you. You've got a great personality, a great vibe to you, and people got to be lucky to have you as their speaker at one of their events. So I look forward to seeing what you do, man, blazing those trails. Keep it up.

JIM KNIGHT:

I'd love to have you in the audience at some point. But I also know, just to throw a little bit of love your way, the things that you focus on, I know it's performance, it's behaviors, it's culture. I'm honored to be on the show and just be spotlighted this time. So I really appreciate it, my friend.

SKOT WALDRON:

Well, you're literally a rockstar.

JIM KNIGHT:

I'm trying, in my head. In my head maybe.

SKOT WALDRON:

I know that was fun. That was fun for me. I hope it was fun for you. There were some really good, interesting things you need to take away from that interview. And the idea of what Jim brings to the table and the perspective that he brings, and the way that he brings it, is really, really impactful. I hope you heard that because I experienced it just interviewing him. Jim has offered me, in the meantime, some great suggestions. He is a giver, so contact, get in touch with Jim. His books, his speaking, everything he's doing right now is pretty groundbreaking in the way that we're doing it here in the leadership space. You don't see many people like Jim out there. He's got that. That brand positioning is all him. Customer service, culture, developing people in the way they want to be developed. His experience has added a lot of value to this interview and I hope you took away some great, great a-ha moments from them. Thanks, Jim. Good luck with everything you're doing. If y'all want to find out more about me, you go to Scottwaldron.com. I've got interviews. I've got all kinds of stuff going on there. And like, subscribe, comment on my YouTube channel, please. That's where most of these videos live, as well as on my website. And then connect with me on LinkedIn.

Okay everybody, let's do that. See you there. Till next time on another episode of Unlocked.