Ken Blanchard inspires: "Leadership Like Jesus"

The success of his book, The One Minute Manager, was his "aha Jesus" moment. When this 112 page simplified manual in story form was published in 1982 it shared the profound management skills adopted by a generation of business leaders. It was an instant best seller and sold over 15 million copies and launched a career that has helped millions of people around the world and was the pre-cursor to more than 60 other business books that he has authored or co-authored over the past 4 decades, including "Lead Like Jesus" His story is fascinating and you'll hear him explain it in this episode of Amazing Greats.

KEN BLANCHARD AT A GLANCE

Best-selling author, leadership expert, and co-author of The One Minute Manager

Topics

Ken Blanchard · Leadership · Lead Like Jesus · Servant leadership · Christian faith · Grace · Forgiveness · Vision · Leadership habits · Faith and work

His Faith Journey

Presbyterian upbringing → drifted from faith → disappointment with church hypocrisy → rediscovered Jesus through leadership → became a follower of Jesus → developed Lead Like Jesus ministry.

This Episode Explores

• Ken Blanchard's leadership career and books

• Why he describes himself as a follower of Jesus

• His journey back to Christian faith

• How Jesus influenced his leadership philosophy

• The principles behind Lead Like Jesus

• Servant leadership and turning the leadership pyramid upside down

• God's unconditional love and humility

• Developing a personal vision and values

• Grace and forgiveness

• Leading positive change

• Ken's daily prayer and reflection routine

• Putting God, family and relationships ahead of career

Questions Answered

• Who is Ken Blanchard?

• What is The One Minute Manager?

• Why does Ken Blanchard call himself a follower of Jesus?

• How did Ken Blanchard return to faith?

• What does it mean to lead like Jesus?

• What is servant leadership?

• Why does Ken Blanchard emphasize God's unconditional love?

• How can someone develop a personal vision?

• What does Ken Blanchard teach about grace and forgiveness?

• How does Ken Blanchard pray each day?

• How can leaders create positive change?

• What role does faith play in Ken Blanchard's leadership?

Core Story

Ken Blanchard's decades of leadership teaching eventually became closely connected to his Christian faith. After drifting away from faith because of experiences with hypocrisy in the church, he rediscovered Jesus through a conversation about the success of The One Minute Manager. Studying the Gospels led him to see Jesus as the ultimate leadership model and inspired Lead Like Jesus. Ken describes servant leadership, unconditional love, grace, forgiveness, vision and putting God and relationships ahead of career as central principles for living and leading well.

Ken Blanchard: Leading Like Jesus

Amazing Greats with Greg Cook

Opening

Speaker:Welcome to the Amazing Greats Podcast, where we have a unique opportunity to talk with people you know from movies, music, sports, books, or politics. It's a real and raw conversation about their life, their career, and how faith has played a role in it. No preaching or teaching, and no church experience is required.

Today, join your host, a radio veteran for over 30 years from San Diego. Here's Greg Cook. Buckle up, and here we go.

Greg Cook:Thanks, Joe.

My guest is Ken Blanchard, who has authored or co-authored over 65 books, including The One Minute Manager, released in 1982, which sold over 15 million copies and was translated into over 40 languages.

Besides English, Ken, do you have another favorite version of The One Minute Manager in a different language?

The One Minute Manager

Ken Blanchard:Well, the first one was in Japanese, and that was really special because when our book came out, all the books that were big sellers in management were talking about Japanese management.

And so we were lucky because Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence came out, Nesbit's book on Megatrends, and ours all came out together.

It looked like America was tired of listening to Japanese management and they wanted us.

And so our first translation, though, was in Japanese, and it sold a lot in Japanese.

Greg Cook:Outstanding.

And in 2005, you were elected to the Amazon Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 best-selling authors of all time. Congratulations for that.

Some of your books include Raving Fans, Leadership and the One Minute Manager, in which you coined the term "seagull manager."

I've heard you use that term before, but for those watching who've never heard the term "seagull manager," go ahead and explain what that means.

Ken Blanchard:Well, it's the most popular management style in America.

A manager tells people what to do and then they disappear. And then if they make a mistake, they fly in like a seagull, make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, and then fly out.

Greg Cook:That still cracks me up.

Also, Gung Ho! Turn on the People in Any Organization in 1997, Whale Done! The Power of Positive Relationships in 2002, and a couple of books that we'll get into a little bit more today, Lead Like Jesus and Servant Leadership in Action.

Ken, the name of your company is the Ken Blanchard Companies. How did you come up with that?

The Ken Blanchard Companies

Ken Blanchard:Well, I didn't particularly want it to be named after me, but all the research showed that people like to identify with something and someone.

And one of the top companies, the president—and it was named after him. I've forgotten the company right now—but he said people like to identify with people.

So everybody said, "Well, let's call it the Ken Blanchard Companies," so that they could recognize that it was me.

Greg Cook:And here it is a few decades later, and the name has stuck. So congratulations.

Ken Blanchard:Over 40 years and over 200 people working with us, so it's been fun.

Chief Spiritual Officer

Greg Cook:And you are the Chief Spiritual Officer. Explain what that means.

Ken Blanchard:Well, I've never been a good manager, per se, in strategic things and all that kind of thing. And so I'm a good head cheerleader.

My wife Margie, before one of her roles, headed up the Office of the Future, besides being president and all. And they studied what it takes in the future with companies and all.

It was really interesting that one of the key issues was the spiritual aspect.

And so I decided, "Well, I'll be the Chief Spiritual Officer," and head cheerleader.

So I've left a morning message now for 20 years for people in our company, and I do three things.

One, I praise people for things that have been done well.

People tell me who to pray for—somebody's hurting and all.

And then I leave an inspirational message.

And lately, my wife Margie and my daughter-in-law Madeline, who's married to my son Scott, and our daughter Debbie, they're helping out.

So they're doing one morning message a week. So I'm down to only having to do two.

But it just kind of keeps me thinking, "Okay, what would people like to hear? What have I read recently that might be inspirational?"

Greg Cook:Or lift somebody up.

Ken Blanchard:Yeah.

The Purpose of the Ken Blanchard Companies

Greg Cook:And the Ken Blanchard Companies, I should mention for somebody who's not familiar, it's leadership training and development, right?

Ken Blanchard:Absolutely, yeah.

That's what we really do. But our goal is to impact the behavior of people and organizations so that when they're at home at night talking to their family, they're gonna have positive things to say.

"I'm a Follower of Jesus"

Greg Cook:Now you describe yourself as a follower of Jesus. What does that mean to you?

Ken Blanchard:Well, I was on a big radio station a while back, and the guy said, "I understand you're very spiritual. What's your faith?"

I said, "I'm a follower of Jesus."

And he said, "Oh." He said, "You're a Christian."

I said, "No, I'm not. Neither was Jesus."

Christianity is never mentioned in the four Gospels.

So, to me, the action is following Jesus.

And I think in a lot of places, Christianity is a negative thing because we still have too many Pharisees in Christianity. They're out judging people and all.

And so Lead Like Jesus is the ministry we have. It's not "Lead Like a Christian." It's Lead Like Jesus.

Jesus is the man.

How Ken Became a Follower of Jesus

Greg Cook:Right. Now, how did you become a follower of Jesus?

Ken Blanchard:Well, I was actually named after a Presbyterian minister. My middle name is Hartley, and my parents loved this pastor, Bob Hartley.

He was the head of the Presbyterian Church in New Rochelle, New York.

And so I went to Sunday school and all those things, but it didn't have too much meaning for me.

In fact, in junior high school, I switched to the Methodist Church because they had a better basketball team, and I was playing on their team.

Then when I went to Cornell, and the Ivy League's not big on faith, I kind of drifted away.

Then I met Margie right after I graduated, and we decided to get married. And she said we ought to get back in our faith.

And we did.

We even ran a junior high school program for a big Presbyterian church in Ithaca, New York, when I was getting my PhD.

Then our first teaching job, we went to Athens, Ohio. I taught in the business school, and the pastor there in town we really liked. He was a wonderful guy, but he was leading the student sit-ins against the Vietnam War.

His congregation fired him in the most vicious thing we had ever seen.

And so we said, "If that's what Christianity is all about, you can have it," because we had seen a lot of hypocrisy, and we just turned our backs on it.

And our kids were young then, and unfortunately, at 18, if you said, "Give me the Lord's Prayer," you'd have had to hurt them far away.

We drifted.

So it wasn't until The One Minute Manager came out and was so ridiculously successful that good old friend of mine, Phil Hodges, came down and took me on a walk on the beach in La Jolla and said, "Ken, why do you think this book is so successful?"

He's a big believer.

And I said, "I don't know, Hodge, but God must be involved."

And he said, "Oh, thank God."

The minute I started mentioning God, people started coming into my life.

I got invited to be on the Hour of Power with Robert Schuller. And I get on there and Schuller said, "I love The One Minute Manager. But you know who's the greatest one-minute manager of all time?"

I said, "Who's that?"

He said, "Jesus."

I said, "Jesus, really?"

I mean, because I'd never thought about Jesus as a leader per se.

And he said, "Absolutely."

He said he was really clear on goals with his disciples.

"Isn't that your first secret, one-minute goal setting?"

"Yeah."

"And you and Tom Peters, you didn't manage management by wandering around. Jesus did. He went from one little village to another. If anybody showed any interest, he'd praise him, heal him. Isn't that your second secret, one-minute praising?"

"Yeah."

"And if people stepped out of line, he wasn't afraid to give them a one-minute reprimand. He threw the moneylenders out of the temple. Isn't that your third secret, one-minute reprimand?"

"Yeah."

So he said, "The greatest one-minute manager of all time."

After that, I started to read the Gospels and just started to laugh, Greg, because everything I had ever written about leadership, Jesus did with these 12 incompetent guys he found.

You wouldn't have hired that lot.

He was a situational leader. He was a one-minute manager. He built trust and did all the kind of things we teach.

So that's when I really got aboard and really became a follower, because I was saying, "Wow, Schuller was right. He's the greatest leadership role model of all time," and also a pretty amazing leader of our faith.

When Faith Is Tested

Greg Cook:Right.

So I want to speak of your faith. Has your faith been tested?

Ken Blanchard:Well, you know, I told you it was tested back when I thought I saw some hypocrisy and all that kind of thing.

And then when I started Lead Like Jesus, I got criticized by the religious right. They said that I was a New Age disguised as a Christian, you know, and all.

And so I just wrote back and sent them my blessings and all that.

So it's always been a test.

I think when you're out front about the Lord, it's a test.

And I was fortunate to be able to do some programs with Zig Ziglar, and he was the one that taught me how to mention Jesus in my sessions without offending people.

He said, "Because if you just talk about how it has impacted you and you're not trying to convert anybody, they can't take it away."

He said, "You can't cut off your right arm if that's a part of you."

And so it's been a fun journey.

Following Jesus Every Day

Greg Cook:Excellent.

Now, day by day, I mean, do you pray daily? What's it—how do you follow God on a daily basis, or Jesus on a daily basis?

Ken Blanchard:Well, Greg, one of the things when I wrote a book with Norman Vincent Peale—and he's another person who came into my life.

In fact, Norman and his wife Ruth said to Margie and me, "When we're on our final journey, the Lord's always had you on his team. You just haven't suited up yet."

But with working with Norman, we decided that we all have two selves.

We have an external, task-oriented self that's used to getting jobs done, and a thoughtful, reflective self.

Which one wakes up quicker in the morning?

The alarm goes off. What do you do? You jump into your task-oriented self.

John Ortberg, a great pastor, always said to me, "Why isn't it called the opportunity clock? Or it's gonna be a great day?"

No. Alarm—jumping right into your task-oriented self.

You're eating while you're trying to get dressed, and you jump into your car. In the old days when you couldn't go to work and you were on the phone, and all that.

You're at one meeting, another meeting, and you get home at night and you're exhausted. Finally fall into bed, fall asleep.

Don't you have the energy to say goodnight to somebody who might be lying next to you?

Next day, you're out of there again.

And pretty soon you're caught in a rat race.

And I love Lily Tomlin, the great philosopher from Hollywood. She said, "The problem with a rat race is even if you win it, you're still a rat."

Good point.

So one of the things that I learned is that you have to enter your day slowly, and that's what I really try to do.

What I do in the morning is I have a recumbent bike, and I get on that and I'm on that for about 30 minutes.

And I read a bunch of faith-based material like Jesus Calling, The Daily Word, just all kinds of really good stuff that kind of gets into my mind, the important role that God plays in my life.

And then at the end, I go through my prayers.

I use the ACTS formula for prayer.

A is adoration.

I start off and say, "Praise you, Lord. You're really unbelievable. I mean, look what you've done even for a deadbeat like me."

Confession is when you really kind of fess up the things that you might have done that you wish you had a second chance at.

Or you said you were gonna do it, and you didn't.

So, if you can't think of things to fess up for, then you probably lie about other things too.

What are you thankful for?

I'm just so blessed with Margie and my life and our little dog Joy and our home and our company and Lead Like Jesus and so many wonderful people and opportunities.

And then the last is S, which is supplication, which is really asking for what you want.

What are you praying for?

And in Lead Like Jesus, we have a formula that says to people in the morning, sit on the side of the bed and first put your hands on your knees and think of all the things you got to do that day.

Lay them down at the foot of the cross and let the Lord take care of them.

Then put your hands in an upward standpoint and shut your mouth and say, "Lord, you got anything to say to me today?"

And listen.

Most of us, when we pray, we don't listen enough.

And it's amazing. You know, God does want to talk to you.

A friend said that the way you can tell if God's talking to you is if you think of something you never would have thought of yourself.

I'll give you an example.

When I'm driving in the car by myself, I don't turn on the radio anymore.

I haven't, because of a suggestion from my buddy Wally Armstrong, who was a great golfer, and I wrote The Mulligan book with him about golfing and Jesus.

I imagine that Jesus is sitting next to me in the car.

So I talk to him, tell him what I've been thinking about. "You got any suggestions?"

And I'll never forget when our pastor left our church a few years ago, and he was a good buddy.

I'm driving home, and I said, "Well, Lord, what do you think I can do about all that? They're looking for an interim person and all that."

A little while later, all of a sudden I hear, "Why don't you be interim?"

I didn't hear a voice that said it, but that idea came in my head, and I never would have thought of that myself.

So I called over to the church and said, "I got a crazy idea. What do you think if I'd be the interim?"

They said, "You'd do that?"

And somehow they got it past the presbytery.

So I had a wonderful time for a little over a year and a half, helping organize the church and getting the four pastors all preaching.

And we just had a wonderful, wonderful time.

Leading in the Church

Greg Cook:So, sidebar—Ken and I go to the same church.

And I remember when you were doing the sermons, and you were great.

But I had a private conversation with you one time. We talked about it, and there's a lot of work that goes into a sermon.

I mean, I feel for preachers who deliver 30-minute sermons because we see 30 minutes, but we don't see all the work that goes into one.

One of the problems is not a lot of leadership in churches. The pastors are doing 45 messages a year.

Ken Blanchard:I mean, if you try to give 45 messages a year to the same audience, you don't have any time to do leadership.

I remember I asked Norman Vincent Peale—he finally retired at 80—"Norman, why'd you retire?"

He said, "Well, Richard, someday you'll realize it's easier to find a new audience than a new speech."

Lead Like Jesus

Greg Cook:I want to move to your book Lead Like Jesus.

On the cover it says, "Lessons from the greatest leadership role model of all time."

What made Jesus the greatest leadership role model of all time?

Ken Blanchard:Well, to me, the important thing about leadership isn't what happens when you're there. It's what happens when you're not there.

And here, over 2,000 years later, we're still talking about him.

He took these 11 inexperienced—12 inexperienced guys—and he set them up to go out and spread the Gospel.

And it was really amazing.

The important thing is not when you're there. It's what happens when you're not there.

And when he was no longer here in person, that group was amazing. They all their lives spread the message.

I mean, how many of your followers are willing to die for your message?

He just took that group and got them all pumped up.

Talk about a clear vision.

What's your purpose? What's your picture of the future? What are your values?

He said, "Come with me, I'll make you fishers of men."

The picture of the future was to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then values.

Disciples knew the Ten Commandments were too many. They said, "What are the biggies to Jesus?"

He said, "Love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself."

And these two commandments can handle it all.

How Do We Lead Like Jesus?

Greg Cook:Yeah. How do we lead like Jesus?

Ken Blanchard:Well, what you really need to do is to be a servant leader, because Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

When I talked about servant leadership initially in business, I think I'm talking about the inmates running the prison or trying to please everybody or some kind of religious movement.

But there's two parts of servant leadership.

I just talked about the first part, which is vision and direction and values and all.

Jesus really kind of nailed that and then had some goals under that.

It's the responsibility of the hierarchy to make sure everybody knows what business you're in and where you're headed and all that.

That's the leadership part of servant leadership.

And then once that's clear, now you turn the pyramid upside down, and now you work for them.

When Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, he was symbolizing for them what they needed to do.

He said, "Just as I have done for you, do for others."

He said, "Even I have come to serve rather than be served."

And so what we really need is—too often leaders are protecting the hierarchy and thinking all the brains are in their office, and so the energy is moving up the hierarchy.

As a customer, if you're dealing with their front line and you got a problem, they won't solve it because they'll say, "Have you talked to my supervisor?"

So you're talking to a duck. They're going, "Quack, quack, it's our policy. Quack, quack. I didn't make the rules. Quack, quack."

And what you want to do is talk to an eagle, who soars above the crowd.

So I think that's what Jesus really did. He developed his people to risk their lives for the ministry.

In fact, they all were killed, I think, except one—I think John.

The Habit of Accepting God's Love

Greg Cook:I've got a copy of the book here, Lead Like Jesus.

And I highlighted a couple things I want to ask you as we talk a little bit more about this book.

You talk about the "being habits," and specifically the habit of accepting and abiding in God's unconditional love.

What does that mean?

Ken Blanchard:Well, the biggest problem to leading like Jesus is the human ego.

We say that ego stands for "edging God out."

And there's two ways that you edge God out.

One is false pride. When you act like you have a "more than" philosophy, you think you're brighter than others and all.

And the other is fear of self-doubt, when you have a "less than" philosophy.

Both of them, you're focused on yourself.

But the important thing, which is really interesting, is that even the people who act like big deals—the people say, "Yeah, they're the egomaniacs"—the guy who wrote I'm OK—You're OK said the worst life position is "I'm OK, you're not."

And he said all the research shows that people that act like that are really covering up "not okay" feelings about themselves.

So one of the first things I think is important for leaders to realize is that God didn't make any junk, and that they're beautiful, that they have a lot of talent.

They don't have all the skills that they need to do their job, but they're okay.

And the really good leaders who are able to serve and be there with their people are people who are comfortable with themselves.

And they have humility.

A lot of people think, "Well, humility is weakness."

No. I think it was C.S. Lewis or somebody years ago—somebody who gave me credit for it—but said, "People with humility don't think less of themselves. They just think about themselves less."

It's just so important that you trust the unconditional love of God.

He loves every single one of us, and that's really important.

I was on a call this morning with Miles McPherson, who's a great pastor in San Diego at The Rock Church, and he wrote a wonderful book called The Third Option.

The first two options are, you know, "I'm me, you, you," and "you're Black, I'm white," and you get this.

The third option is to realize we're all children of God.

And if you look for that pearl of goodness in that brother, regardless of their race, their creed, their color, their nationality, and dig for that pearl, you'll find it.

Even if we disagree on certain things, let's look for the pearl.

Developing a Compelling Vision

Greg Cook:Perfect.

Developing your own compelling vision—one of the chapters in the book.

How does one do that?

Ken Blanchard:Well, as I mentioned, Jesus had a compelling vision. He wanted to make people fishers of men.

What it is, is sort of decide: What business are you in?

My purpose is, "I'm a loving teacher and example of simple truths that helps myself and others to awaken to the presence of God in our lives, so we realize that we're here to serve rather than be served."

And it takes a while to say, "Okay, what are a couple of nouns that characterize you?"

So I said, "Teacher and example."

And then what's a couple of verbs that you use to influence people?

So I said, "Help and motivate."

And then the last part is, what is a perfect world?

My nouns are, "I'm a loving teacher and example of simple truths that helps and motivates."

Those are my verbs.

And then my picture of a perfect world is where people are awakened to the presence of God in their lives and they realize that they're here to serve rather than be served.

So it's a process that everybody can engage in.

And then your picture of your future is an interesting one.

I push people to write your own obituary.

And people say, "Oh, wow, that's a tough deal."

Why wouldn't you want it?

I even made a tape for my own funeral.

I often said, "If you're watching this, I guess I'm not here."

But what would you like to say about yourself?

What's your obituary?

And then final is, what are your values that are going to drive your behavior?

My values are spiritual peace, integrity.

My father was retired as an admiral in the Navy and said, "Ken, in life, the only thing you really have is your integrity. Can people count on you?"

And then love, and then joy.

And in recent years, I've added physical well-being just to keep myself focused on staying healthy.

Greg Cook:I guess it was about five or six years ago through the church, there was a men's retreat, and you took us through that exercise.

And that was an amazing thing, just to wake up and set that vision.

And you're right. Unless you write something down or have something, the memory fades and the vision falls by the wayside.

Ken Blanchard:That's right, yeah. And you'll be able to keep it right in front of you.

Grace and Forgiveness

Greg Cook:One of my favorite things is talking about grace—God's unwarranted favor we all receive.

In the book, you talk about the habit of grace and the habit of forgiveness.

Go ahead, if you would, just touch on that.

Ken Blanchard:Well, it's interesting.

I found out that Peter Drucker, who was kind of a mentor of mine in this area of leadership, had become a Christian.

He had grown up in Europe, and I think he grew up as a Jew.

And I said, "Why did you become a Christian?"

And Peter had this great German accent.

He says, "There's no better deal."

"What do you mean?"

He said, "Who else has grace?"

He says, "Justice—you do something wrong, you get the penalty you deserve.

Mercy—you do something wrong, you get less than you deserve.

Grace—you do something wrong, somebody else takes the hit."

He said, "There's no better deal."

Jesus came down to take the hit for us.

So grace is just realizing that God loves us no matter what.

And if we do something wrong, as long as we fess up to it, it's really powerful.

And what goes hand in hand with that is forgiveness.

And the first thing about forgiveness is you gotta first forgive yourself.

Greg Cook:Yep.

Ken Blanchard:And if somebody's wronged you, forgive them.

You could go and tell them you forgive them, but don't do that to help think you're gonna get something back from them.

You do it to get it out of your system.

If you don't forgive somebody and you keep on doing it, it's like doing your own death all the time.

Learning to Forgive

Greg Cook:Now, have you ever had an instance where you had a hard time forgiving somebody for something?

Or is, at this point, that natural?

I think we can all think of an instance where there's somebody we've had a hard time forgiving, or maybe not quite forgiven.

Some situations take longer than others.

Ken Blanchard:Yeah, I just think it depends on what you're doing.

I've had a few people that have really disappointed me by things that they've done.

And I kind of forgave them in my own heart, but never kind of went to them with it.

But I think what you're trying to do is just get it out of your system and realize that, as my wife says, they're doing the best they can given their level of awareness.

She says that's really what grace is all about.

Leading Positive Change

Greg Cook:Well said.

Another thing—leading positive change. How do we do that?

Ken Blanchard:Well, I think that I watched my son Scott with a company when you're all of a sudden down 30 or 40 percent in sales and everything.

The first thing is to re-vision, set the vision.

Say, "Okay, given this situation, where are we heading? What are we gonna try to do?"

And he comes out with a weekly message to the whole company.

One of his values is to be forthright.

So what he says in his weekly message is what he knows, what he doesn't know, and what he wishes he knew.

And it's just keeping vision out in front with people so that they know what's happening, what's going on.

So often people will go behind closed doors and start to make changes, and the people out there working with them don't know what's going on all of a sudden until somebody announces a whole bunch of layoffs.

So it's just continually communicating with your people.

Positive change.

Change is defined as trying to move from a present set of events to another set of events.

And the first thing that you need to do is help people define where we are right now, so they all know that.

Scott was really clear:

"Here's where we are with present sales. Here's where we are with this and all, and here's where we need to go."

So we've had to make some amazing changes, particularly around using technology.

Because before COVID, all of our training basically was face-to-face.

And we did, I think in 2019 or so, maybe a couple hundred online programs.

Here we did 3,500.

So we just transferred all of our stuff to high tech.

But we needed to do that, and I think it was really clear.

Scott would communicate what we needed because all of our training was just drying up, just like, you know, we've taught all your speaking dried up.

Servant Leadership in Action

Greg Cook:You simply adapt, I guess, from the circumstances.

This book I want to ask you about, Servant Leadership in Action, which came out a couple of years ago.

Why don't you explain what's in the book, and then I'm gonna ask you also to share a couple of stories from the book.

Ken Blanchard:Well, first I want to say, who's my co-editor of the book?

Yeah, my wife, co-editor on that book.

She worked so hard in that that our editor from Berrett-Koehler said, "Ken, I think you need to put Margie on the cover of that book."

And I said, "Wow, that's a great idea."

And what I wanted to do is—I think servant leadership is so important, and I just didn't want people to think it was just me.

So I went out and got major thinkers to write short articles.

Most reading books, the articles are too long. These articles are all six or seven pages.

And so I got people like Simon Sinek and Brené Brown and Marshall Goldsmith and Patrick Lencioni and, you name them.

My wife Margie wrote an article, Lori Beth Jones and Phyllis Henry, who started Lead Like Jesus, wrote articles.

And about half the articles were faith-based and half of them weren't.

We had 45 different people writing articles, including Jimmy Blanchard, who was president of Synovus, a financial services company that won the "best company to work for" so many times from Fortune that they asked him to stop applying to the All-Star Group.

And he operated completely in a servant leadership model.

He told people when he took over as president years and years ago that the Bible was going to be his leadership textbook.

So it's really kind of fun to see those kinds of things.

The Erwin McManus Story

Greg Cook:The Erwin McManus story—Erwin was one of the contributors. Do you remember that? Remember the story off the top of your head?

Ken Blanchard:Oh, I'm trying to think of it. Why don't you remind me?

Greg Cook:Well, he got done preaching, was getting out of church, and it was pouring where he was.

His wife said, "Hey, we've got a bunch of kids that we've got to take home. They need rides home."

And Erwin was tired and basically wanted to go home and was exhausted.

His wife said, "We've got to take the kids home."

So he shrugged and said, "Okay, I'll do this."

They started dropping the kids off.

As they were dropping the kids off, they drove by a homeless guy in the rain.

And his wife said, "Hey, we need to stop and see if we can help that guy."

And Erwin said, "No, I want to go home."

And she said, "Yep, we've got to do that."

So they ended up dropping off all the kids, and his wife said, "We've got to go back and look for that guy."

And so they did. They found the guy, and Erwin did something for him, helped him out.

And his wife, at the end of witnessing that, said, "That's the greatest sermon you've ever preached."

I mean, it's an incredible story.

Ken Blanchard:Yeah, so I think that's wonderful.

If you're gonna be a follower of Jesus, you gotta do something with that.

That's why she's saying that's your greatest sermon, because he went back and reached out to this person.

Because Jesus basically said, "Let's go out and serve the poor and the hungry and all that."

And I think a lot of churches often become social clubs and forget that there's a group out there.

I remember in my first sermon when I took over as interim pastor, I said, "I hate to tell you all, but you're not our customer."

The only reason you're here is we want to pump you up and give you some good ideas so you can go out there and serve.

The Tamika Catchings Story

Greg Cook:Be an ambassador for him.

Also, the Tamika Catchings story in the book.

Tamika played for Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee. Another amazing story.

Her dad was a professional ballplayer.

Tamika was deaf, and her coach, Pat Summitt, basically said, "Tamika, you need to do something about that."

And Tamika thanked her.

It was just that idea that somebody like Pat Summitt could have just let that go, but felt compelled to speak to her about improving that situation.

Ken Blanchard:She never wanted to wear hearing aids because she thought it was ridiculous.

And when Pat said something like that, she said, "I better do something about it."

Of course, she became one of the greatest college women players at the time.

Greg Cook:And anyway, that book again—

Ken Blanchard:I was a great, great coach.

Greg Cook:Yep, Servant Leadership in Action.

Putting Relationships First

Greg Cook:Ken, anything else I should ask you at this point?

Ken Blanchard:Somebody asked me what is the most important relationship besides the Good Lord in my life.

Of course, it's Margie.

I never forget I was on a program with Tom Landry, the great Dallas Cowboy coach.

Somebody asked him, "Coach, how do you stay so calm in the midst of this crazy game of football?"

And if you ever remember Landry, he didn't scream and yell. He just always seemed calm.

And he said to the person who questioned him, "Oh, it was pretty easy for me. I have my priorities in order."

He said, "First comes God, second comes my wife, third comes my family, and fourth comes my job."

"So if I lose a game on Sunday, I got a lot left over."

He said, "Unfortunately, some people out there, when they lose a game on Sunday, they have nothing left over because they think they are their performance."

And he said, "No, I am my relationship to the Lord, my wife, and my family."

Nearly 60 Years of Marriage

Greg Cook:Yeah, that's the proper perspective.

Speaking of Margie, how long have the two of you been married now?

Ken Blanchard:Next year it'll be 60 years. How's that?

Greg Cook:Congratulations.

So here's the follow-up question when you've been married 60 years:

How many of those years have been happy years?

Ken Blanchard:Well, I'd say 60 of them.

Greg Cook:Good, good answer.

Ken Blanchard:We had some issues when I was out traveling a lot and Margie was working on her doctorate, and we were kind of passing in the night.

So we had to go and get some counseling just to get back together.

That was an interesting time.

But overall, it's really been good.

The fact that we've been willing to get the help—we've gone to Marriage Encounter, which the Catholic Church started, which is fabulous.

We've just done a lot of stuff.

And I'm actually doing a session for our church on Leading Your Family Like Jesus.

So I think it's important.

Closing

Greg Cook:Okay.

Well, Ken, I appreciate your time. I know that you are on Facebook, you're also on LinkedIn—

Unknown:Twitter.

Greg Cook:Twitter.

So if people want to follow up and follow you, thank you.

Ken Blanchard:Thank you very much.

Also, look up LeadLikeJesus.com.

Greg Cook:Ah, thank you.

Ken Blanchard:Or Ken Blanchard Companies.com, and you can find out what we're all doing.

And it's fun.

And your wife, Renee—you married way above yourself.

Greg Cook:I know that.

And Ken reminds me every time we get together. He reminds me of that.

So Ken, thank you again. Appreciate your time.

Ken Blanchard:All right. Take care of yourself. God bless.