Leadership Reflections: Unlocking Business Culture with the 'King of Culture Transformation', Stan Slap. New York Times Best Selling Author of "Bury My Heart In Conference Room B" & "Under The Hood"

What if your company's success hinges on a culture you've yet to fully understand? Join us on "The Good Listening to Show" as we unravel the secrets behind maximizing commitment across manager, employee, and customer cultures with none other than the enigmatic CEO of Slap Company, Stan Slap.

Known for his New York Times bestselling books "Bury My Heart in Conference Room B," & "Under The Hood" Stan brings a wealth of knowledge and wisdom on all things Business Culture to the table. Listen in as he shares his fascinating experiences, including the creative inspiration drawn from writing at Ian Fleming's desk, and reveals his strategies for staying inspired.

In a deeply reflective segment, Stan opens up about the four pivotal moments that shaped his life. From growing up with a resilient mother who faced numerous health challenges to the transformative influence of his therapist wife, these personal anecdotes shed light on the themes of resilience, empathy, and self-worth that permeate his philosophy. Discover how these life experiences intertwine with his innovative business model, which is founded on a profound understanding of organizational culture. Stan's insights are both moving and enlightening, offering listeners a rich tapestry of personal and professional wisdom.

The conversation takes us on an inspiring journey that highlights the critical importance of preserving humanity in business. Stan emphasizes accountability and empathy as key values that drive both workplace and societal success. Through historical contexts and poignant personal stories, we delve into the significance of legacy and staying true to one's values. This episode is a masterclass in thoughtful dialogue, blending serious reflection with light-hearted anecdotes, and ultimately underscores the power of a well-structured yet flexible conversation. Tune in for an unforgettable experience with Stan Slap.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. And there we have it. Welcome to a very special LinkedIn live recording a very auspicious day in the Good Listening To Show clearing.

Speaker 1: 1:02

This is a special Leadership Reflections series strand episode where I invite leaders or those within the leadership domain to share their leadership lessons learned along their way. And I'm really excited to have the wonderful, enigmatic king of culture, stan Slap. What a name to conjure. As soon as I heard your name, I thought I need to speak to this lovely man. Welcome to the Clearing, stan Slap. Honoured to be here, wonderful, you were passed the golden baton to be on the show by the wonderful John Phelps, and John Phelps asked me to ask you do you have any comedy stories you'd like to share about John Phelps? To start with, how much time do we have? Probably not enough reading between the lines there. So you are.

Speaker 1: 1:48

I called you the king of culture. That's not something you say about yourself, but you are the CEO of Slap Company and, if I may, looking at you, you're half rock star and half badger, and that is a compliment. You've got wonderful badger stripes of wisdom and I think of you as being a bit of a. I promise all of this is complimentary. You're thinking really You're a bit of a honey badger in that you're there to tussle and rustle and you work with the likes of companies who, of your own volition, don't have patience, shall we say, as one of their values. You're there to cut to the quick and you're internationally renowned and I'll stop blowing a bit of happy smoke at you shortly for achieving maximum commitment in manager, employee and customer cultures. Boom. So let's get you on the open road. If somebody hasn't got a context in knowing you, what's your favorite way, stan, of answering that horrendous question we've all got to conjure, which is, if somebody says oh hello, what do you do?

Speaker 2: 2:52

What's your favorite way of answering or avoiding that question? In a pure business value proposition sense, we maximize the commitment of the three groups that decide the success of your company your manager culture, your employee culture and your customer culture. That's what we do. Culture is the most overused, least understood concept in business and we understand how cultures really work and how to get yours to really work for you. I've written the New York Times bestselling books that define culture and we have achieved billions of dollars of impact in companies. 44 countries been doing it for 30 years.

Speaker 1: 3:26

I love the title of one of your. I know of two books, but there could be many more but Bury my Heart in Conference Room B. I love the book that that's riffing on, bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. Obviously I know you know that that was the whole point. And Under the Hood, I believe you've written on the very same desk in Jamaica that Ian Fleming wrote 13 of the James Bond books.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Not the entire book, but I managed. I was there and managed to write some of it, just so I could say I did.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Yes, yes, what a story and what a book launch that is. To launch your book from the very desk that Ian Fleming wrote. All that wonderful stuff, yes, yes, very good. So let's get you on the open road. There's going to be a clearing and this is a leadership reflections episode.

Speaker 1: 4:11

I'm intrigued to go deeper into culture and everything that you're here to talk about. Just a quick review about you it's been said of you that I've never met anyone who knows more about employee culture than Stan Slap. If you want to stay great or get great, make sure you read his books. So that's just the final bit of happy smoke at you. So go where you like, when you like, into the following structure. So first of all, we're going to talk about a clearing. Then there'll be a tree, there'll be a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 5-4-3-2-1, there'll be some alchemy, some gold, couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of shakespeare and a golden baton and a cake. So it's absolutely all to play for. So, stan slap from the slap foundation. My son is called stan, by the way, so I I liked you from the get-go and my favorite, my all-time comic hero, is stan laurel. So I'm sort of all over the name Stan, but I mean with the name Slap. You've got to have a company called the Slap Company.

Speaker 2: 5:08

Of course you have Okay, I mean I didn't. I can't take credit for that name. It's Dutch. The Dutch are very simple, monosyllabic people.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Do you have any siblings with similarly enigmatic names as well?

Speaker 2: 5:24

No siblings, they got it right the first time.

Speaker 1: 5:27

There's only one, stan Slatt. We like that. So where is what is a clearing for you, stan Slatt? Where do you go to get clutter-free, inspirational and able to think?

Speaker 2: 5:40

I'm going to answer that conceptually, physically and emotionally for you. I'm going to answer that conceptually, physically and emotionally for you. Conceptually, I'm an introvert. I mean, give me a stick of gum and a mirror and that's enough human interaction for the entire day. So, conceptually, I think from that perspective, I'm in the woods. A stack of books, a box of donuts and a pump shotgun in case anybody breaches the clearing is probably my happy place. Physically, I'm an achievement, as I know you are too, chris, and the people you interview. I'm an achievement nut job. But my happy place is physically, ironically, when I'm not accomplishing something and I can't find that driver that I use on a regular basis. And there are a couple of things about this question. There are a couple of times where that was really acute for me.

Speaker 2: 6:35

You were talking about the James Bond writing on Ian Fleming's desk, and that desk is at a place called Golden Eye, which was Ian Fleming's home in Jamaica and then was bought by this guy, chris Blackwell, and turned into a very small elite resort. And I happen to have a chance to be there and one of the rooms, his suite of rooms, was Fleming's actual home there, and while we were there was Chris Blackwell's birthday and we were invited my wife and I were invited to his birthday party, and so he and he's got a small place in this small place that he uses as his home when he's there. He lives elsewhere in Jamaica. My wife had to use the bathroom. He said, well, just use my place. And she came back down to the circle where we were sitting outside and she whispered to me what is he like? 14 years old, like I passed by his bedroom and he's got a poster of you two and a poster of Bob Marley on either side of his bed. What it's like? How old is this guy? And you know Chris, like in the seventies, I said, well, the difference between that and any other tween is he was the guy who found Bob Marley and put him on Island records, his record label, and also discovered you too. So really, it's just he might as well be putting his P and L, you know, blown up on on both sides. So, yeah, so Chris is the guy and this is not about Chris, but Chris is the guy who founded Island Records. He discovered Bob Marley and recorded him, discovered U2 and a lot of other bands.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Anyway, we were there at this fabulous resort, it's his birthday, it's Jamaica, everybody is properly seasoned, shall we say. And after his party with his fabulous dinner, it's his resort, fabulous dinner, fabulous service. We go to the bar and Rita Marley, bob's sister's there, a couple of guys from his band, arcade Fire, hanging out, the waves are crashing gently on the. It's weather like you can't even feel the weather. It's just like, it's just likelike you can't even feel the weather, it's just like, it's just like. And I thought I don't care, I could get a couple of banana trees, a couple of goats, do a couple of keynotes, I can make this work. I don't need to do anything else. I like all that achievement trigger just doesn't work. So I think about that and I think about that and I think about something similar to that.

Speaker 2: 9:10

I was in Bali many years ago and we're staying at the Four Seasons Resort in Jimbran Bay, which is this beautiful place got its own plunge pool. I'm in the plunge pool in Bali on the ocean, and there's a call that comes through from the desk, and so it was a hotel phone. So then my wife asked me this hotel phone and it's my book agent. And she said because we were pitching my books. And she said so listen, I heard from the publisher and they want to buy your books for a half a million dollars. I said whoa. She said. I told them no. I said whoa, she said. So they said a million dollars. I said whoa, she said. And then we went from there. I said whoa, and Diane my wife has a photo of me on the phone in the plunge pool in Bali, basically going whoa. Life doesn't suck so.

Speaker 2: 10:08

But I mentioned this because around four or five o'clock every day, on the beach next to this resort which is this a public beach there's 20 or 30 shacks that operate as restaurants and whenever the catch comes in from the ocean, they just cook it up. So around four o'clock, the smoke starts getting you this freshly grilled seafood and you just find yourself migrating over there. So we're over there. It was like the sun was setting. I mean, they're taking stuff right out of the ocean, grilling it up and serving it to you and we're at this wooden table in the sand and I said is there any chance? You can move? We can move the table into the ocean? And they said sure. So they picked it up, picked up the seats, put it into the ocean. The sun is setting, the seafood is fresh, the water is like coming, and I said well, this is like this is, I said.

Speaker 2: 11:04

My wife said what a great day. And I said this is perfect. You couldn't want for anything else. She said I meant your book deal and I said oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like I had completely forgotten about that. This, this, so it's my happy place physically is when I lose that ambition trigger yes, and just get a greater perspective.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Finally, my long-winded answer to your question emotionally, my happy place is solving a strategic puzzle. I am oddly energized by complex problems that have no apparent solution and I look at everything and advise others to look at this way as an equation. And when I'm trying to solve a problem, I advise any listener, any watcher of this podcast start on the right side of the equal sign. That's what I do In our offices. We have a 25-foot glass whiteboard. I go all the way to the right. I write an equal sign.

Speaker 2: 12:00

What I want to know is what is the problem that really needs to be solved, which isn't typically the apparent one, because if you can get that, the left side of the equal sign is just math. Well, you have to add this, subtract this, divide that and multiply that. If you start on the left side you're going to be very busy, but you'll never get to the right side. So when that math all appears and is coherent, that's a happy place. And my other happy place emotionally. My boy is 16 now but for many years, as he discovered his own music and the music he loves, he would want me to get in the car with him and just drive around town so he could play his music and explain to me why he loved that. And it's indescribable how profoundly beautiful those moments are, just driving around with him chattering away and playing me his music. So those are my happy places.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And what a great, sumptuous answer. And what have you decided to call Stan Slap Jr? What's he called?

Speaker 2: 13:11

His first name is Sawyer, after tom sawyer, and his middle name is rocket uh, as in rocket ship, because he can blast off and go any place he wants to go in this life.

Speaker 1: 13:15

So sawyer, rocket, slap I'm glad I asked that question as well and thank you for those sumptuous. The potpourri of different clearings and I'm still dining out on the fact that you're actually with a stick of gum and a clearing with a shotgun was the first part of that answer.

Speaker 2: 13:27

Yeah, you could, just we could have stopped right there.

Speaker 1: 13:29

No, no, but I loved where else you went, and also the in-flemming desk and all of that. And then the only other thing I wanted to say is the comedian in me is I would not want to swim ashore at the wrong moment when everyone's barbecuing in jamaica yes, yes, yes so what a wonderful series of clearing.

Speaker 1: 13:45

So we're going to stick a tree into the middle of your jamaica scape, I think. Agreed with that. So a tree. And then this is a bit samuel beckety deliberately existentially waiting for godot. I'm now going to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How'd you like these apples? A couple of comedy props coming in as well, and uh. So you've had five minutes, stan, to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention. And that's where the random squirrels are going to come in, because of my referencing the film Up where the dog goes. Oh, squirrels. So what never fails to distract you. And, by the way, I'd love to hear more about your mathematical equation stuff. That was a really rich, lovely einstein sort of mathematical board, and I love the fact it's 25 feet long as well. And then the one will be a quirky, unusual fact about you. So over to you to shake your tree as you see fit uh, okay, four things that have shaped me.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Um, um, I think my experience growing up, uh, my mother was tragically very ill. Um, for a lot of her life and all my life growing up she ended up having 32 major operations and so, um, my family was kind of torn up physically too, but she was such a positive force for living. She used to say that I never worry about things On my good days. I put deposits in that bank, that positivity bank, so I can call on them when I really need them. Her outlook of living, enduring what she had to endure and the crushed hopes and dreams and constant fear and anxiety and for my father, who wanted a well-ordered life and got anything but I think in many cases, looking at what the future was going to hold was more of the same would have just left.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Neither one of them gave up, and I think that that's that shaped me, as, as I'm somebody who never gives up on anything or anyone I believe in, period. I think my, my wife, has shaped me as well. My wife is a therapist on her way to becoming one of the rare Jungian analysts and done a lot of work with severely disturbed children and has helped a lot of them. She hasn't done anything for me. I mean, I think you know, unfixable is the word she mutters Like she thinks I don't hear Is that something she just mutters Okay, unfixable.

Speaker 2: 16:31

I would say mutter, mutter is like she doesn't intend me to hear it, so declares it is probably. But anyway, when we first met we happened to be out shopping someplace and we got horrible service from somebody on the couch, just horrible. And I take service personally as well as professionally, because I know what has to happen behind the scenes, culturally, in order to cause either a fabulous evangelical service experience or a miserable resistance service experience. But anyway, it just triggered me. I almost went over the counter at this guy. I was so pissed and we, you know, and he was just and he was angry. He was angry like, just like, like, what are you like? Shouldn't you be in? You know what are you even doing? Like, dressed and working. So anyway, and we walked out and I was just like on this guy. You know, we're all the way down the block from the store and diane hadn't said a word through this entire thing and this is your first meeting, so she hasn't spoken yet.

Speaker 2: 17:36

You've just shared spoken yet no, I'm the one who's going over. He's so pissed off at everything and now at me for something. I'm the customer, I haven't done anything, I and just like you could see like this guy is going to explode and and like willing to risk his job, willing to risk, and, and Diane just said he must be feeling so small to be that angry. And I thought it was just this epiphany of oh my God, that's what's wrong with the world today.

Speaker 2: 18:09

We are made to feel so small. Anybody trying to sell us anything, chris, anything, anybody who needs something from us as a consumer, a constituent, a partner, a parent, an employee, a manager stands to profit from us not having a strong sense of self, because if we don't know what's true for us, everyone else has unusual influence. And so it's this constant let me make you feel small to sell you something, to feel bigger for a while and this constant I mean we're just so used to it, it's the air that we breathe has got everybody crazy and that shaped the work I do and the purpose of the work. Just that one perspective simply stated about the world that he must be feeling so small to be that angry. A couple of other things that have shaped me, my definition.

Speaker 1: 19:03

That was the first thing your future wife said to you. That was, those were her first words and a first impression, not the first thing you know, but that's the first probably podcastable thing.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Yeah, no, it was. It was just the first thing in that that experience. Yeah, she didn't say anything when it was happening. She didn't say anything when I was raging on about it for the block or two after we left the store. She just said that. Enough said.

Speaker 2: 19:31

My definition of culture is a unique definition company born of ignorance, backed by science. So I make everything up because it seems right to me and then I have to sweat it like a meth addict, you know, like like looking for next week because to see if it's actually real. We've not anymore. But in the early days when we were forming our IP and our solutions, because I probably sold it to somebody, just because it made sense to me right. So when, when I decided which is a whole different story that we were going to be in the culture business, again, culture is the most overused, least understood concept in business. That's now. Back then when we started, it was just ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 20:17

I read all these books about culture. I read that Levi's has the margarita meat. I read all that stuff and it was all fascinating. None of it really made sense to me. So I created my own hypotheses that if this was a culture, would this actually be the case in business? Anyway, it all made sense and I thought well, I think this makes sense. I have to send it to a very reliable authority. So I wrote a letter to the Oxford Department of Anthropology and I wish I had the letter, chris, because the first sentence I remember said please don't hurt me, because I said there's no chance. This is right. How could some bonehead in a room in San Francisco come up with an entirely different view of anthropology?

Speaker 1: 21:00

Did you say Mr Bonehead? I love that.

Speaker 2: 21:02

Yeah, is it the wrongest thing you've ever heard? Is it just like? And I didn't hear back from them from from like six months. I thought, yeah, okay, and then I got a letter back from them and I thought this is going to be like the prison censor, where they just kind of and they said, no, actually we've never thought about this way Culture as a self-protective organism that is created whenever people share the same living conditions and so band together to share beliefs about the rules of survival and emotional prosperity. It's an organism and its purpose is to protect itself. But this is totally accurate. I thought, oh my God, I have my own definition of culture blessed by Oxford. I still don't have a business model. Are blessed by Oxford.

Speaker 2: 21:46

You know I still don't have a business model, but I have not such a bonehead. Obviously I got lucky. You know you give a thousand chimpanzees, typewriters, somebody's going to. So I got lucky. But anyway, from there it became. Well then there must be three cultures, because the rules of survival and emotional prosperity and sources of information are different for managers than they are for employees, and customers have in common a dependent relationship with a company that puts them all in the same jungle. So that led to oh, there are three cultures, still no business model, still no way of paying for anything with this. And from there it was what if there was one problem within each of these cultures that had the biggest impact on any company but that even the biggest, smartest companies have been chronically unable to resolve? What if we could resolve those? Wouldn't that be a business model? I mean, I didn't know if there was such a thing, but it was a great idea. And anyway, to skip the suspense, we cracked the code on those. That became our business and that became all the success we've had since. So that original bizarre epiphany about culture, it's vetting and where we took it, that has definitely shaped me and all the work we do.

Speaker 2: 23:02

And finally, you asked for four things, I think, my travel around the world. We work in 44 countries, including, just as an example, 14 countries in Africa. I just got back from work with a client in Nigeria and we're asked well, how can you do this in all these different countries? Well, with all respect to their social and geopolitical distinctions, we're talking about the culture, not that culture. We're talking about the culture, the relationship between a culture and its company, which is remarkably the same in many ways. But anyway, during that process, I have seen people in their distinctive environments, in their communities, and seen the differences, but seen the commonality of humanity and there's just such good people all over the world. And my experiences of being able to travel to the extent that I've traveled, has definitely shaped me. So those four things.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Wonderful answers. Thank you so much, and now three things that inspire you, stan.

Speaker 2: 24:07

Well, I'm a big music freak. You can't tell from where we're sitting, but behind all these books I have a Marshall half stack amp I can blow the power grid in the neighborhood and a bunch of guitars and instruments, um, um and uh. And behind that, uh, about 5,000 albums and CDs and digital library of and it's 2,999 songs. Why it's not 3,000 songs, I know you're going to ask, is because it's about quality not quantity. So it's 2,999. And what fascinates me in that process, all carefully annotated and stuff, is the Big Bang. When was something done for the first time? When was it not simply derivative From Charlie Parker in 1939, who was the first to realize that the 12 semitones on the chromatic scale of a saxophone can lead melodically to any key?

Speaker 2: 25:16

So he broke the entire concept of music for dancing and it became music for listening. Liberated Black gave jazz back to Black musicians. That ultimately spawned guitar solos and classic rock, I mean, but just this initial. He could hear something in his head that had never been done before. All the way to Elvis, you know, you got a teenage boy singing about sex to teenage girls, to the alarm of every teenager's parents. That's the exact formula for rock and roll. And what he did in his first couple singles of taking blues and turning into rock and roll and taking Bill Monroe, blue Moon of Kentucky country and western turning into rock and roll, and the alchemy and serendipity that happened, that big bang definitely inspires me.

Speaker 2: 26:03

I would say humanity inspires me, chris, during the pandemic, and the pandemic to me was in many ways an amplifier. You know, people who were good people it just turned up became better people. People who were bad people in companies that were bad companies just became worse. So it moved you, it moved the dial, no matter what you were. And during the pandemic I started asking our company to just scour news stories local news, international news and find every example you could of just people doing great things, selfless, simple, humble things for other people. I think it's still on the website slapcompanycom. We tapped it out of 500, and I said, okay, I mean point made. They're just jaw-dropping, heart-throbbing of service to others. Heart-throbbing of service to others and that simple, unadorned, uncompensated gesture of humanity, whenever and wherever that happens, inspires me. And then I think the third thing would be the English alphabet. Man, take 26 of anything and try and do as much as you can with the letters in the english alphabet. It's just phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 27:25

What a concept boom, wow, great, beautifully eloquent uh interpretation of the three things that influence you. Now this is where the squirrels come in. Oh squirrels. So what? Two things never fail to grab your attention, irrespective of anything else that's going on for you.

Speaker 2: 27:46

I would say competence. Competence by anyone doing anything, save the planet, be a waitress, whatever, just competence, wanting to be the best and all that's embedded in that never fails to move me. It just touches a warm place, it makes me feel warm and it makes me feel safe. Just to be near competence, to witness competence, to read about competence Again, it's not the scale of the accomplishment, it is the competence mindset. Scale of the accomplishment, it is the competence mindset. And incompetence grabs my attention too. Yeah, exactly, yeah, right, yes. And then I think social revolutionaries and revolutionary movements, they can be again quiet, local acts, they can be grand scale acts. So from Black Willessa to Vaclav Havel, to Betty Friedan to Nelson Mandela and from Tiananmen Square to Stonewall, to social revolutionaries and their movements never failed to grab my attention.

Speaker 1: 28:53

So those two things, I guess, Thank you. And then the one is a quirkier unusual fact about you, Stan. It's like we couldn't know about you until you tell us well, interpol would probably be better.

Speaker 2: 29:03

But, um, I don't know, man, I um okay, I give you something, um, because it's it happens to be right here. So, um, so the tenor sax. So I play the saxophone. I say I play the saxophone, my wife says you have a saxophone, it's not the same.

Speaker 1: 29:27

I like your wife, she's quite testing.

Speaker 2: 29:29

I say I can play any song ever written. She says yes, not intentionally and not twice. I say okay, all right. That's jazz right there, I love that. That's jazz. Right there, I love that.

Speaker 2: 29:40

That's jazz right there. But I think that, yeah, I say it's intentionally atonal, you don't even get it. Yeah, so, but it reminds me. You know, chris, think about the things that you do, and I think many of those who attend this podcast or listen and watch this podcast we get into a competence zone and we stay there and we burnish that and we polish that and we prove that and we're very competent about the thing. I never take my competence for granted, but I've been doing this a long time and feverishly, with an accomplishment ethic, and I know what I'm doing in my field, feverishly with an accomplishment ethic, and I know what I'm doing in my field. Yes, and this thing reminds me of how, of the journey of competence all over again, because I think if you're competent in a busy world, you tend to stay in your lane and just you know it's great, it's like I'm competent at this.

Speaker 2: 30:33

This thing, it's the hardest thing. It's recognized as the hardest instrument to learn to play. I am the poster child for that. I mean, I start to tune up and my gentle Labrador retriever dives under the bed and refuses to eat. Oh no, he's playing again. Neighbors may complain, I can't hear it, so who cares? But it reminds me that every great thing began as something fearless and that there is joy in incompetence on the way to competence. Not to dwell on incompetence, but on the way to incompetence. And that's what this instrument means to me, I mean, I say it's an instrument, my wife says in your hands.

Speaker 1: 31:16

it's more of a weapon. Again, I like Mrs Schlepp. That's great. You should have her on.

Speaker 2: 31:20

you should definitely have her on, at least, at least for counterpoint.

Speaker 1: 31:23

I'm trying to represent both points of view here it's good for all of us to have tough crowd and obviously mrs slap. What's mrs slap called? Sorry if I'm being diane slap, love that. Um, was she happy to take on the name of Slack? What was her maiden name?

Speaker 2: 31:38

Odding. But right before I met Diane, I happened to Courtney Love, the singer. Courtney Love, kurt's ex. She did a series of Bruce Weber shots in Vanity Fair wearing men's underwear that were just so gorgeous and compelling. And we had we had eminent Geldo Zenya, the famous high end menswear company, as a client. I was with the CEO of Zenya and I just I had a copy of Vanity Fair. We're on a plane and I said look at this. And I said, man, what I'd love to have that, she said. He said what the pictures? I said yeah, I mean love to have that. He said what the pictures? I said yeah, I mean the original pictures would be great. He said so I mean you don't want to meet her. I said yeah, I want to meet her. And he said for what? Like a meeting? I said not a meeting. He said you want to date her? I said yeah, I want to. You know at least one date? Yeah, he said I think we can set that up. I said you're kidding me. He said what will you do for me? I said we will discount our work for you by $10,000 and then bill it someplace else. He said oh, ok, great.

Speaker 2: 32:53

So we were at a party in a Hollywood party the next night and a lot of fashion people were there and this was a fashion shot. And he brings over the publisher, vanity Fair, who said this is Stan and he wants to meet Courtney Love. And the publisher, vanity Fair I can't remember his name said what like a meeting? I said no, not like a meeting. And so he said you know, she doesn't really look like those pictures were air. But let me explain how these pictures, I said it doesn't matter, the rougher the better, right.

Speaker 2: 33:23

So so they said yeah, I think we can set that up. I said you are kidding me. This anyway, I'm going somewhere. So this? So? So they actually were starting to send them. I think what do you do on a first day with Courtney Love? You know, miniature golf, score some heroin? Maybe score some heroin, then miniature golf, I guess it probably doesn't. Even I had to give it some more thought. Meanwhile, this movie comes out about this documentary that said she killed her, the last person she dated. Seriously, I thought this is gonna be great. Anyway, my company immediately jumped on this and because they said if you and Courtney got married, her name would be Courtney Loveslap.

Speaker 1: 34:09

I'm so happy that that had a punchline.

Speaker 2: 34:12

It had a punchline and that was being set up. When I met Diane, I pulled out of that arrangement that date Her people were looking for. She probably didn't know anything about this, I don't know if it got, but her people were looking for times and our office was looking for times and Diane just shut that down. So but I think when you asked her name it could have been.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Yes, that's a lovely extra bonus chaser. Lovely story with a beautiful what a shame, this is being recorded live. I I empathize no, I love that I love both of our reputations.

Speaker 2: 34:52

I love spontaneity.

Speaker 1: 34:53

I love random that let's go extra squirrel right there. I love that brilliant. At least one squirrel. Yeah, we have shaken your tree beautifully and now we stay in the clearing move away from the tree. Next we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. You're giving me this by the bucket load anyway, but when you're at purpose and in flow, uh, stan, what are you absolutely happiest doing in what you're here to reveal to the world?

Speaker 2: 35:19

well, I, I think, doing our work. You know, chris, there are. I mean, you have your family, you have your community, your, your friends and your physical community, um, but other than that, there are three large containers for all of us of humanity. Uh, there there's politics, there's religion, which is often misused and abused from its original gorgeous intention, and there's business. Those are the three large containers for the practice and process of humanity in our world.

Speaker 2: 35:57

If we lose humanity in business, we're doomed. If we lose humanity in business, we're doomed. When we save it, company by company, even manager by manager, then we will have saved ourselves. And culture is where the humans gather in business. And so, in the work that I do and that my company does, when we can reposition these three cultures manager, employee, customer as newly precious, leverageable, measurable business assets back to a company, then we cause the company to protect them, because the company will protect anything that's an asset, especially if they just learn to squeeze more out of it. Well, you can't protect these three assets without protecting the humanity that they represent and without discovering or rediscovering your own humanity along the way.

Speaker 2: 36:45

So the work that we do is designed to make the business case for humanity. I mean, we'll make the business case, we'll get the results. We've achieved billions of dollars for companies and directly influenced performance improvement. But the reason we do it is to make the business case for humanity, and I think, as part of what that does, there are two characteristics values, call them, whatever you will that I think are absolutely essential to you qualifying as a human being.

Speaker 2: 37:18

I've been telling this to my son since he was in the womb you come up with your own values, live your own life, but you have to have these two things, and those are accountability and empathy. And if you have those, the world is going to be okay. If you don't, again. I mean we have raging in this country. We've had national examples of people without those two things, and so I think that when we do that work, we also foster accountability and empathy. So making the business case for humanity. And when we do that work whether I'm writing books, whether I'm giving keynote speeches, whether my company is actually involved in deep cultural analytics, whatever it is that is probably when I'm in the zone the most.

Speaker 1: 38:06

Lovely and I just love that quintessence of a quote. Of culture is where humanity gathers. Fantastic.

Speaker 2: 38:17

Okay.

Speaker 1: 38:17

Okay, so now I'm going to award you with a cake. So do you like cake? First of all, stan's lap.

Speaker 2: 38:24

I love cake and cake. I think cake loves me Because it sticks around for a while after I've consumed it.

Speaker 1: 38:32

Lovely, and what cake would you like? It's a metaphorical cake, tragically, but if I get to meet you someday I'll give you a cake.

Speaker 2: 38:38

A chocolate fudge layer cake is fine. You know that's fine, That'll do. Okay, I just want to make sure there's no real cake. This whole podcast is a deceptive.

Speaker 1: 38:46

It's all metaphorical Unless. I hope to meet you someday in person and I'll make a point of splotching a chocolate cake in your face. Yeah, that's for you. So you get to put a cherry on the cake now. And this is stuff like what stuff like.

Speaker 2: 39:09

What's a favorite inspirational quote? Uh, stan slap, that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future. Oh, uh, there's some great quotes by charles bukowski, the, the poet and writer. Um, there's one, um it's actually, I have it on a sticker on my laptop. I'm calling, I'm talking to you from my laptop, so I would have to, um, hang on, hang on it, just you know hold the line caller as we access the buchowski uh.

Speaker 1: 39:29

Also, you'll be delighted to know it's not a memory test, so I'm very happy that you take the time to look it up yeah, okay, so it's uh, it better be good because we're waiting now.

Speaker 2: 39:38

I think it's pretty good. If you're gonna try to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision, it could mean mockery, isolation, but you will ride the perfect wave. There is no better feeling If you're going to go. Go all the way. So I like that and I mangled it. It's a much longer quote. He also said kindness is the best we can do. I love that, but my all-time favorite quote is by this British writer, now deceased sadly, terry Pratchett, and I just love this quote. Okay, it and I just love this quote. Okay, give someone fire and they're warm for a day.

Speaker 1: 40:32

Set someone on fire and they're warm for the rest of their life.

Speaker 2: 40:41

I just said enough, said that reminds me of teach a man to fish, and then you can go burgle his house at the weekends. That's also great. Well, while he's, fishing that's great yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:46

Same thought. Yeah, what's the best piece of?

Speaker 2: 40:54

advice you've ever been given, Stan.

Speaker 1: 41:01

Forgive yourself.

Speaker 2: 41:06

And who gave you that advice? If I may dig a bit bit deeper, I think it was probably my wife a long way look at chris. I mean we this is not the place at the time really but I I did, and people have had it much, much worse. But I had kind of a fractured childhood, my mom being that sick, yes, and I was the only child. I ended up living in a series of foster homes. We never knew whether she was going to survive or not. It just really blew up the family and I think there's two very bad things that can happen to you. There's a lot of very bad things that did not happen to me, that has tragically happened to others, but two bad things that can happen to you.

Speaker 2: 41:44

As a little kid, you can find out that the people who love you the most can't protect you and you can find out that you can't protect the people that you love the most. And I kind of got both of those lessons and the world stopped making sense to me. I lost very early on a sense of cause and effect. It didn't matter if I was trying to be a good little boy, this situation I was still in this horrible place and my mom was sick and maybe dying, and my family was split up. I couldn't do anything and so and I thought I should be able to do something.

Speaker 2: 42:13

As a little egocentric kid, I thought it was all about me, so it must be that I was failing, and so I kind of grew up believing that I didn't deserve to live my own values. I didn't. I was working off an original sin and, um um, man, it drove me in a lot of wrong directions and a lot of unfulfilled potential, and it took a long time to realize, man, there was nothing you could do. And you don't have to repeat that cycle. You can actually. Now you're a grown-up and you can do things. You can build a business that does these things In your own relationships. You can do it. I have a single criterion for friendship, chris, and that is weight-bearing. I want my friends to. I'm not expecting the ceiling to fall in, but if it does, I want them to be there, and it's the criterion I hold myself to as a friend.

Speaker 1: 43:10

I want to be weight-bearing for you. I've never heard of that.

Speaker 2: 43:13

That's fantastic I think just along the way it was like you got to take yourself off the meat hook here. Okay, you know, because otherwise it's, this is going to own you for your entire life. And so you know, I couldn't do anything there as a little kid. As I got older, as I became a parent myself, as I became a business owner and of influence in my own sphere, I could do something, but I had to just think you just don't deserve anything because you failed.

Speaker 1: 43:47

You ended up remembering, to remember that you have choices.

Speaker 2: 43:50

Yeah, I have choices. Yeah, and that there was in that particular situation. It was beyond me. There's nobody that could do anything other than what they were doing. I carried that around for decades, many what they were doing. I carried that around for decades, many, many more decades than I should have. That I deserve to be punished. So, anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's that.

Speaker 1: 44:13

And you've covered two questions in one there, because there was another one coming which I'm just checking that we've covered this, which is, with the beautiful gift of hindsight, what?

Speaker 2: 44:27

notes. Help or advice might you offer to a younger version of yourself? I think maybe we have. I think it's yeah, I think it's probably the same thing. It would be to forgive yourself and to take those lessons and to do good. Chris, I think, if you look at any of us, how do any of us justify the incredible gift of life? How do you pay back for that? I mean, I think what you do is you give to those who are less fortunate than you. You practice empathy and kindness. You seek to make the world both a better place and not a worse one. That's how you give back, and I think that that was probably what I'd want to say to my younger self is just give back, just give back, it'll be okay. Just give back.

Speaker 1: 45:21

Thank you, I'm glad we rung the sponge out of that slightly deeper as well. We're ramping up to shakespeare shortly to talk about legacy, but just before we get there, this is the pass the golden baton moment, please. So now you've experienced this from within. Who would you most like to pass the golden baton along to, to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going?

Speaker 2: 45:40

uh, there's a guy I haven't told him about that this baton is coming. But there's a guy, his name is Roy Clark and he operates a recruiting and consulting business in South Africa, joburg in Cape Town, called Clark House, and he is such a fierce advocate of humanity and competence so he does a lot of stuff that it really doesn't have anything to do with either of those fields in his business. And you know, in our countries, our history, we have some turbulent current history in America certainly that could determine, oh, you know, the end of democracy, that kind of stuff. But most of our history is hundreds of years old or more.

Speaker 2: 46:28

In South Africa it's very recent history, it's not generations past. You could be relatively young and you still grew up on one side of apartheid or another, and it's still such an acute issue and the reverberations of that. And Roy just steps right into that and is just such a beautiful cat and so well-spoken, lucid and clear and heartfelt. In the same way that we feel the need to bring humanity to business. He does too, and I think it'd be great to get that perspective from that country and growing up in that country lovely.

Speaker 1: 47:04

So right, right, thank you so much. Thank you for that wonderfully precious gift. And now, inspired by shakespeare and all the world's esteemed and all the bitter women, billy players, we're finally going to talk about legacy borrowed from the seven ages of man's speech. How, when all is said and done, stan slap Slatt from the Slatt Company, would you most like to be remembered?

Speaker 2: 47:27

Man? I don't know. I think, certainly, as I would want my son to say, my dad was the coolest guy I ever met, until I became the coolest guy my son's daughters have ever met. But I think you know, really, chris, I think for all of us living through these times, you know we're going to have to continue to answer a question for a long, long time. We're going to have to answer it to our company, to our culture, to our customers, but also to our community, to our children, to our conscience.

Speaker 2: 48:04

Who were we when everything inside of us and around us was really challenged? And I think my legacy would be that I held on to what's true. I didn't make the business case for humanity. We did seize the world and we screwed with it in the best way. I did have an impact, and it was a good, sustained impact to refresh and return the importance of humanity. I realize that's egomaniacal and then, but I think whoever I've touched with the relationships I have in the work that we do that would say, yeah, you reminded me that humanity is essential and possible.

Speaker 1: 48:52

Where can we find out all about you and your wonderful slap company on the old interweb?

Speaker 2: 48:58

Well, the website is slapcompanycom, and do I have two minutes to explain that? Yeah, sure, you may be wondering why isn't it, since my name is Slap and our company name is Slap, why isn't it slapcom? And that's because slapcom started as a sex bondage site. That's a good answer. That's a good answer. We didn't realize this. This is going way, way back to when companies were first beginning to understand the concept of websites and I thought I guess we should have a website. And the reason that I thought that is we kept hearing from our clients I love your site. And I said we don't have a site. They said, really, I'm on there all the time, not just at work, all the time and I've ordered the videos and that little buzzy thing. I said what are you talking about? We don't even have a site, seriously. So I got on, typed in slapcom. I was, oh my God, okay. And I said, okay, this is a true story, chris.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2: 50:02

We just can't have this okay. So we contacted the people at Slapcom. I said listen, I guess conceptually you could say we're in the same business but you're a little bit more overt about it than we are.

Speaker 1: 50:14

We're slapping you about culture and you're slapping them literally.

Speaker 2: 50:15

Literally. And I said you know, it's my name, it's our company name. We can't have this, so let me buy the site from you. And this was decades ago. I said we will give you $10,000. And they just snorted me. It was a very successful bondage site do no doubt to all the clients that we've sent there in a convertible. And they said no, oh, my God, okay, so creativity is a value of mine.

Speaker 2: 50:41

So I gathered everybody in the company and this was early days in domain registration. I said go through every thought, every couple of combination of words and stuff you can think of that this company could use as a site and let's register. It's 10 bucks a piece, but let's register all of them. And we gave like 120 names that we thought better reflected their true value proposition. And we gave like 120 names that we thought better reflected their true value proposition. And I called them back. This is true. I called them back at Slabcom and I said OK, you can have any and all of these names and we will give you $25,000. And they just got out of here.

Speaker 2: 51:18

And so now I'm pissed, Now I know that this situation exists and now I can't stop thinking about it. So I called our attorney. I said Scott, listen, you need to go crazy with these people. I can't. We've offered them money, we've offered them this, we've offered them that, we've reasoned with them and they won't move. You need to get tough with them. Ok, this has got to be solved. And he's a senior partner at the firm and you know. So he said I want it. I said get tough with them, scott. I've tried reasoning, I've tried money, I've tried alternatives. Get tough with them so we don't hear anything back. And now it's like I can't think of anything else.

Speaker 2: 52:00

And so weeks and weeks go by and I called and I said Scott, did you contact Slapcom? He said yes, I did. I talked to their CEO. I said did you get tough with them? He said yes, I did. I said. And he said they like that sort of thing, great, great. So when the carrot becomes, when the stick becomes the carrot, all hope of successful negotiation is lost. So I said we got to have a website called Slap Company dot com. Now, since then the Slap dot com has changed hands and it's been offered to us, but we don't know where those hands have been. So we had Slap Company dot com. I'm. My direct email is stan at slap companycom. The books are available on amazon, barnes and over. Whatever books are sold and wonderful, great answer.

Speaker 1: 52:48

That's the best, longest answer to where can we find all about you on the internet?

Speaker 2: 52:53

bury my heart excellent.

Speaker 1: 52:56

Bury my heart in conference room b under the hood. Yes, buy those books. So, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, in the good, listening to show stories of distinction and genius leadership reflections, is there anything else you'd like to say, stan?

Speaker 2: 53:11

I just said that I I appreciate the work that you do and then and the principles that you um, that you champion in your own competency in doing it. So I was honored by the invite and you know I owe John for that. John owes me a thousand things but it takes one point off the scale. For John it was karmic debt and I just I'm honored to be invited and I hope that it was what you wanted and that it provides some sort of value to others.

Speaker 1: 53:40

It was everything I wanted and more so. Thank you so much. So, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for being here on LinkedIn watching as a LinkedIn live too. This has been Leadership Reflections. Just to remind you, it's for business leaders or those that work in the leadership domain, as one of several series strands, that I have to get on the open road of sharing your leadership lessons learned along the way, and we've learned some wonderful, profound life lessons from you, stan Slap. It's been a real gift having you on the show. So, um, would you like to say anything else? No, ladies and gentlemen, I'm in Chris Grimes, but, most importantly, this has been Stan Slap and good night.

Speaker 1: 54:14

You've been listening to the good listening to show with me, chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how care of the series strands at the good listening to showcom website. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, please do so, and if you'd like to have some coaching with me, care of my personal impact game changer program, then you can contact me, and also about the show at chris at secondcurveuk On X and Instagram. It's at thatchrisgrimes Tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts. So, stan, you've just been given a damn good listening to in the Good Listening To show. Could I get your immediate feedback on what the construct and the structure of this was like for you?

Speaker 2: 55:06

I've done a lot of podcasts because nothing like this. I thought it was great, it was provocative, um, I went places I hadn't planned on going and uh, um, I think it's great and you're a great tour guide, um, even though it's a land of your own devising. Um, so we need you. Uh, but I thought it's great and you're a great tour guide, even though it's a land of your own devising. So we need you. But I thought it was great. Man, go ahead. Wonderful.