Villains Have Nothing To Teach Us - Steve Williams

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got, brought to you by Smith and Howard. I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer, JB and today our guest is Steve Williams. Steve is a leadership consultant, a speaker, and an author with more than 45 years of experience in the electronics industry, where he built a reputation as an expert on leadership, quality, and management. Now, over the course of his career, he has written six books and published more than 200 articles focusing on what actually works in leadership and in business. Now, if you think you've heard it all when it comes to leadership styles, think again. Steve, welcome to the show. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Thanks, Sean and JB I'm glad. Glad to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. I love the show. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Thanks. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Well, Steve, I'm excited to learn about the worst advice you ever got. What was it? [00:01:00] Speaker B: So the worst advice I ever got was that villains have nothing to teach us. [00:01:07] Speaker C: All right, villains. I love that. [00:01:09] Speaker A: We're excited. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't love a good villain, right? So who gave you that advice? And I don't know, does it sound reasonable to tell me how. Who gave it to you and how you. How you took it? [00:01:21] Speaker B: So I. I think where it comes from, it's just the conventional wisdom on leadership we've been beat over the head with for centuries. The. The idea that the good guys are the only ones with the right tactics. That's basically the default way leadership's been taught since as long as I can remember. Study the good guys, stay safe, avoid controversy. The people who told me that, play it safer, giving me the advice that my book argues against, there's a. There's a certain poetry in that. [00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. You know, when did you start to maybe think it. It could have some deficiencies or be. Even be wrong? [00:01:58] Speaker B: You know, I. I've always been, you know, a bit of a contrarian. And somebody tells me that I can't do something, I'm gonna go ahead and try and do it. So, you know, no, I did not heed that advice. And, you know, time after time throughout my career, I've been in leadership positions. I would. I would learn the hard way of what worked and what didn't work. And what really, really surprised me was that the things I was learning about these historical villains, if you will, is that the things that made them so successful, in some cases, 2,500 years ago, still apply today. I was in the Milwaukee airport one day on the way out, I'm in the Midwest, and I picked up a book in the Bookstore in the airport called Leadership Lessons from Attila Hunt. And I thought, wow, that sounds really interesting. So I picked it up. I read it on a trip, and the more I read, the more I kept thinking, wow, the stuff that he was doing back then, you could put in the Fortune 500 company today and it would still work, or a mom and pop shop or any place in between. So I started to apply some of those things, and I thought, wow, the results were kind of amazing. And I thought to myself, well, if there's one guy out there that we can learn positive leadership lessons from, there's got to be a lot more. The defining moment. I guess you're talking about that light bulb. Aha. Moment. I taught for the master's program for a dozen years. I was about in the. You know, in the middle of a lecture I'd done probably a dozen times, and I looked around. I had a room full of smart, ambitious MBA candidates, and half of them were totally someplace else. It wasn't because my presentation. It wasn't because the material was wrong. It was just lifeless. It was bad, boring. The theory was kind of. Kind of dressed up as wisdom. And again, we're studying the good guys and positive role models, and honestly, that's not all that exciting. So the next week, I took a risk, and I walked in and said, what if the best leadership lessons weren't in any business school textbook? What if they came from history's most controversial figures? And I saw the whole dynamic of the room change. People leaned in. They started to argue with me about it. They got uncomfortable. They got curious. That was that. That was the light bulb turning on that. That, you know, I got something here. This. This does make sense. And it's not just me who thinks so, because it just. You know, it just brought this class to life. [00:04:23] Speaker A: I can see that pull. And I could. I can see. I could see that happening. So to continue down this path, what did you start to notice when you went deeper studying these. These villain characters? [00:04:34] Speaker B: I. I studied. Gosh, I tried to cover about 2500 years of history and kind of pick somebody from each significant era. One of the things I learned that was really surprising. The common theme that I discovered to a person in the book was that every one of them, their first. Their first option was to try to resolve whatever conflict they were in peacefully. They. They wanted. They, you know, Blackbeard, you know, you know, half of his battles, they never drew a sword because the opposition was so afraid of the brand and the name Blackbeard that they surrendered when they saw him coming, that was a win. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Win. [00:05:17] Speaker B: I mean, if. If they didn't lose their men and they didn't lose any materials and. And they could capture another army or a country or a ship without shedding any blood, they preferred that, you know, they only resorted to violence when peace didn't work. And I found that really fascinating. [00:05:33] Speaker C: So you see, like, those kinds of, like, patterns emerging when you're looking at villains, like, not so black and white. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, who would have thought that Napoleon and Attila the Hun were great negotiators, you know? You know, one of them, you know, negotiated with the Pope to try to save Rome. I mean, it. It was amazing. Where you'd think, ah, they're just gonna come in here and take over by brute force, but, you know, in the context of their setting, and in most cases, you know, the first half of the book is primarily, you know, warlords and mobsters and things in their world. You just don't think of them in those terms. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Steve, it kind of feels to me like getting back to. You said it was kind of in the ethos is what we're always taught. Right. Are we aligning leadership patterns and effectiveness to morality? Do we have to be moral to be effective leaders? I guess. [00:06:30] Speaker B: That's interesting. And this is the second edition of the book. The first edition, the subtitle, was Lessons from History's Most Ruthless. And some of the feedback I got was, does that mean I have to be ruthless to be a great leader? So I changed it to Notorious to. To kind of get away from that. And. And that was probably a good bit of feedback because people have a difficult time separating the behavior from the lessons. You know, I want to be really clear. The book's not a moral defense of anybody in it. Al Capone was a violent criminal until the Hun killed a lot of people. I'm not asking anybody to celebrate that, but I'd ask them the question instead. You know, these figures had to be very effective leaders become so successful. So you're really willing to ignore these timeless lessons that can help you in your career just because you're having difficulty separating the act from the lessons. [00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah, Steve, it's a great point. When you think about each of these and others that we could all come up with in our mind. They were able to draw a following too. Right? Leaders are leaders because people are following whatever they're doing. So what is it about these, you know, these notorious people that allowed them to create a following? [00:07:56] Speaker B: People don't follow a great vision, they follow a great leader. And there's a. You know, every one of these instilled trust within the people they were leading in various ways. Some of them did it by, you know, promoting, you know, meritocracy in their organization. You know, they would. They didn't care about, know, birthright or. Or where people came from. They would. They would promote the best person for the best job. One of the lessons that, you know from. From Attila, again, is that at night, he would make sure that his soldiers ate before the generals did. So he took care of his people. People. You can only force people to follow you for so long, and then they're going to quit. You know, they've got to want to follow you. And each one of these people had a different way of getting, you know, call it charisma, call it effectiveness, call it whatever you want, but the people that they led wanted to follow them. They'd march through hell for them if they asked them to. People aren't going to. They're going to see through the poor leaders and the insecure leaders, and they're going to gravitate toward people who are walking a walk, leading from the front and leading by example people. And I think that's what most of these leaders did. Yeah. [00:09:19] Speaker C: I'm reminded of a line from Batman, Christopher Nolan. He's like, you know, you either die the hero or you live long enough to become the villain. You know, And a lot of these people, I like that, you know, it's like you're doing everything that you're doing, and if you die kind of like early enough in what you're doing, it's like, oh, no, look at him. He was a hero. He did all this. We also hear that, you know, the history is all from the side of the winner. So, you know, there's some skewing there. Why do you think you were kind of like one of the first people to realize this? As you're saying it all, it seems obvious, right? Why do you think people aren't using this? [00:09:59] Speaker B: I think because the fact that it's uncomfortable, it's not what people are used to. And it's funny, you know, everybody that's read the book says, man, there's some really great stuff in here. You know, there's things I can put to work tomorrow to make myself a better leader. And I think it's just that natural human nature reaction that there's good guys and there's bad guys. Right. And each has a role. Right? You learn from the Good guys, you, you try to avoid the bad guys. And I think that's what, you know, people are fighting their natural instinct that's been drilled into them since they were born that you can't, you know, that the good guys don't make mistakes and the bad guys never do anything right. I mean, that's what kind of is ingrained in everyone's, I guess, way of thinking and mindset. And I think that hold holds a lot of people back. You know, when I, when I became a John Maxwell certified leadership coach, the, the one thing that Maxwell teaches you is leadership is influence you. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's what each one of these people did. They had influence, some of it directly, some of it indirectly, but they understood that, you know, people are not going to follow them just based off of brute strength and brute force or fear. In the long term. They had to find another way to get people to follow them and, you know, and, and really buy into their vision long term. [00:11:32] Speaker A: Steve, curious response to your book's response to taking this path. Right. You mentioned what happened in the class, but did people react negatively to make, were you accused of endorsing these people? Like, I'm curious as to what the visceral response was from people as you started to go deeper down this path. [00:11:55] Speaker B: The first publisher I went to said that that title and this topic are going to turn people off. Nobody's going to want to read about the bad guys in this kind of a light. And I just had to keep trying and trying and once I got a few people to actually read the book, then it started to pick up some momentum and they thought, well, get some reviews in, get some endorsements. Actually. Jack Canfield, you know, wrote all the Chicken Soup books. He, he endorsed the book. He wrote the forward to the book and that helped a lot. That gave it some credibility and that helped me overcome a lot of it. That hey, if, if this world renowned author thinks there's good stuff in here, maybe I should take a look at it. [00:12:41] Speaker C: Well, there's gotta be some of that too. Like if you don't have, like, if nobody, if you have no critics, like you're doing something wrong. You know what I mean? Like, there's no world where everything that you're doing is right and the best way and the thing. So it's like that's, I mean, that makes sense to like you want a little pushback. That means, oh, okay, you know what I mean? Like, let's get right into the villains. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And people, people, you know, Especially today, you know, you need every advantage you can get. And, and to, to disregard this whole other aspect of where can I learn positive lessons from? Would be foolish in my mind. [00:13:20] Speaker C: Are there any lessons that you use, you know, when you're going through your leadership stuff and you're talking to people that you've pulled kind of directly from your learnings? [00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah. To follow up on that, give us a good case study, like tell us something specific about one of these notorious people that, that, that you use your favorites, so to speak. [00:13:40] Speaker B: You know, one of my favorites, you know, kind of is, is from Genghis Khan, where one of his lessons is shatter the status quo. And I think that's, that's a leadership trait. That's, that's kind of been ingrained in me at birth. I talked about, you know, somebody telling me, I can't do it. I'm going to try and do it anyway. Right. So, you know, a lot. I think, I think what I would call a leadership, a poor leadership epidemic we've got right now in at least American business is, is people are afraid to shatter the status quo. Right. They want to go along to get along. But my mindset's always been, I challenge everything, right. When I work with a company, I ask them four questions. When you ask them, why are you doing it this way? The typical answer is, well, that's the way we've always done it. And weak leaders will accept that and say, okay, you know, we tried that, tried something else that didn't work, but you've got to drill a little bit deeper. So, you know, my, my consulting business, I work with companies to improve their business processes. So every single client, we start out, and I work with every one of their process owners, I ask them four questions. I said, one, how's this process currently being performed? Second question is, why are we doing it that way? Third question is, are all the things we're doing adding value to the company? And then fourth, is there a better way to do this? Anything that's not adding value, we should get rid of. And things that are working, we got to find a way to streamline and improve them. So I use that lesson every single time with, with every one of my clients. Shatter the status quo. Challenge everything. Don't accept the status quo. It was Steve Jobs, you know, one of his lessons kind of goes along with that is be a heretic. Right. Go against the grain, you know, don't do things the way everybody else in the world is doing it. There's a reason that we haven't had an innovation in music until Steve Jobs and itunes came along. I mean, that's how I look at things. And I think there's some commonality there. And. And. And again, that's. That's a problem with. In my mind, current leadership in America is people are afraid to rock the boat. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Why do you think that is? [00:16:00] Speaker B: My opinion is the root of what I personally call a leadership epidemic is just the mindset of probably 60% of people that are in leadership as being insecure leaders. Everybody knows about the Peter Principle, right? You promote somebody because they're your best salesperson to become the sales manager without giving them any leadership training. Right. So that's kind of a double whammy, because you could lose your best sales generator, and then you could also cause chaos in your sales department if this person doesn't know how to. How to lead people. That's two different skill sets. So we've got a lot of leaders that probably shouldn't be leaders in the first place. And the poor ones surround themselves with, you know, yes. Men and women that. That are unwilling to, you know, to share their knowledge and try to grow the people that are following them that they're leading, give them potential to become a leader themselves. So I've learned that, you know, from, of all people, Sonny Barger, who ran the hell's Angels for 50 years. They are a violent outlaw motorcycle gang and some of the toughest people around. But he kept control over that group for five decades by giving his people, his leadership team, a voice at the table. He didn't rule as a tyrant. He wanted their diversity of opinions. He would say, here's what we have to get accomplished. And he could have said, we're going to do it this way and that's it. But he would ask the opinions of his team sitting around the church table, which. The motorcycle equivalent of a conference room. And. And they would talk about it, and he would listen to them. And he knew that he needed to give his people the opportunity to tell him when he was dead wrong. And I've always taken that position myself, is, you know, insecure leaders are afraid to hire people smarter than them. Right. They're worried about their job. They're worried about sharing too much knowledge, and they won't be needed anymore. I think that's dead wrong. I think the whole leadership epidemic stems from that. I've always wanted to surround myself with people smarter than me. Right. The best way and the fastest way that they can advance is to make me look good, hopefully, and I'll move up, and then they'll move up into my spot. And I think that people today, they just want a bunch of people surrounding them to think like them that are going to agree with them no matter what. I want people pushing back. When I've got a bad idea, I want them to tell me, hey, Steve, you're nuts. That's not going to work. And here's why. The diversity of opinion makes us smarter. Group think makes us dumber. And I think that's kind of what causes this whole, what I call epidemic. [00:18:57] Speaker C: Sure is. That whole line, if you're the smartest person in the room, go get in a different room, find another room. Right, Find another room. You don't want to be the smartest. It's like, I'm the smartest one here. What's happening? I got to get out of man. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Exactly what, what fascinates me about all this is I. I had a class on leadership, and the first day the student showed up and I said, all right, I want you to tell me who you think I'm describing. And I said, this is someone who was decisive. This is someone who built loyalty. This is someone who created a strong brand. This is someone whose reputation preceded them arriving. Who would you tell me that is? And you know, people would say, you know, or Churchill or whatever, and your response would be, no, I'm talking about Blackbeard, or no, I'm talking about Attila the Hun. [00:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:19:46] Speaker A: And, and, and really that gets to the core point of all of this, right? Is there is a line that is more of a morality or a humanistic piece that gets crossed, but everything else is the same. The difference between Churchill and Capone is not a lot. It's a little. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Right? It is, it is. And you're right, that's. That's the battle that, that or that's the, the pushback that you get when you talk about a subject like this and, you know, learning from unconventional places and people. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, it's separating the, the morality from the lesson is the key. And that's, that's been my journey, is getting people to buy into, you know what? I don't care where you learn it from, if it can help you take advantage of it. [00:20:41] Speaker A: Well, Steve, I have to say our podcast we kind of feel like is a self help podcast, but we don't describe it that way because we come at it from the worst advice people ever got. You're doing a lot of the same thing here by talking about great leadership traits from villains Right. So it felt like a very natural meshing of your story and, you know, what you're promoting and what the podcast promotes. So, I mean, I can't help but thank you for, you know, contributing your time today, because I think our podcast listeners have gotten used to getting the best out of the worst. And that's exactly what, you know, you taught us today with this entire, you know, concept of, you know, villains do have a lot to teach us. So thank you for coming on board today and. And giving us your time. This has been fantastic. [00:21:35] Speaker B: I really appreciate it, guys. And. And I love your show. I love the. I told my wife, this is going to be a fun one. Listen to the title of this show. And he goes, oh, my God, that is great. And I just think you're. You're. Your format. I've listened to a bunch of your episodes, and I think it's just so helpful, and you're kind of taking the same approach I did. Right? Not, what's the best advice you ever got? What's the worst advice you ever got? [00:22:01] Speaker C: Yeah, best. [00:22:02] Speaker A: Boring. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's boring. Exactly. [00:22:04] Speaker C: Right? [00:22:05] Speaker B: Everybody's got a story about the best advice, Right. I want to hear the bad stuff. [00:22:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Give me the best. What can I learn? [00:22:12] Speaker A: Let's be honest. We all love Kaiser Sose or, you know, any of the bad guys from Daniel Day Lewis. [00:22:19] Speaker C: Being any bad guy, you're like, let's go. [00:22:21] Speaker A: There will be blood. Come on. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Why don't I own this? [00:22:26] Speaker A: Well, listen, thanks again. Great to know you, and great to have you join us today. [00:22:31] Speaker B: Thank you guys for the opportunity, continued [00:22:34] Speaker A: success with the show, and jb I really like this conversation with Steve. It lines up almost perfectly with what we're trying to do on the show. We don't ask people for the best advice ever got. We ask them for the worst. Not because we're trying to be cute, although I know you like that part of it. [00:22:50] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [00:22:50] Speaker A: But because sometimes the lesson is easier to see when you come at it from the other side. And that's really what Steve is doing with leadership. He's not saying, we should celebrate villains. He's saying, wait a minute. If these people were able to influence others, build loyalty, create a brand, negotiate, challenge the status quo, and ultimately get followers, then maybe we should study that more. [00:23:15] Speaker C: Yeah. And, like, you know, that was the takeaway. You know, learn from the worst so that you can lead, like, the best. Again, kind of what we're doing with the show. Right. It's just a great angle because it makes you Stop and go. Okay. I don't even. I hate that this makes sense, but it really does to me. You know, Blackbeard understanding branding and Attila the Hun understanding how to, you know, take care of his people. Genghis Khan shattered that status quo. Sonny Barger understood the leaders and people around them that were. Who can tell that they're, you know, who can tell them when they're wrong? You know, sometimes it's just surrounding yourself with syncophants and yes men doesn't. Doesn't work. And all these are great examples of how to be a good leader. Like, obviously, did they do terrible things? Yes. But they still have something they can teach you about being a leader. You know, minus the murdering. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. I mean, look, we all understand if it bleeds, it leads. And I think that's a little bit of his push here. And believe you me, I sure don't need to say this, but we'll go ahead and say we're not endorsing any of the behavior of these examples, the lessons we can pull from them. I mean, it gets to a bigger point that learning only from safe, conservative examples limits what we can understand. Sometimes the most useful lesson comes from the example you would normally ignore or reject or dismiss or not even pay attention to for social taboos, any of those types of reasons. But true leadership is true leadership. And it's true with the advice. [00:24:44] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You know, bad advice, the bad example, the weird story or uncomfortable angle. That's usually where the interesting stuff comes in. And that's what we're doing here. [00:24:52] Speaker A: Well, we hope this has been one of those interesting things you find in the bad advice for you, our listeners. And a big thank you again to Steve Williams for joining us. His book, if you missed it, is called Notorious Leadership Lessons from History's Most Notorious Leadership. And if this conversation made you rethink where leadership lessons can come from, go pick it up. And after you do that, come back next week for another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.