Ep. 83: Conquering Your Corporate Kilimanjaro with Guest Wayne Barringer

Ever wondered if it is possible to transform a disheartened team into a high-performing, harmonious unit? Join us as we navigate a remarkable journey with Wayne Beringer, the mastermind behind an astounding change at Boeing, where he raised employee satisfaction from a mere 52% to an impressive 90% in just five years. Wayne, with his diverse background in fields like marketing and PR, offers a holistic view on leadership that goes beyond mere job roles.

Wayne's story draws a parallel between his awe-inspiring experience of scaling Mount Kilimanjaro and his corporate journey of leading a large team at Boeing to its zenith. The same principles he used to confront and conquer his fears on the formidable mountain, he applied to transform a discontented team into a satisfied and high-performing one. His leadership style, a blend of balance and integrity, has been instrumental in creating a fulfilling workspace and enhancing the performance of his team.

Not just limited to his corporate leadership, Wayne compares the process of corporate transformation to climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the 'North Star' of your organization and hiring the best talent to fulfill it. Wayne's insightful narrative seamlessly weaves the lessons from his mountain climbing adventure into his corporate journey, providing valuable insights into leading a team towards greatness. Tune in to get inspired and learn how you too can navigate challenging leadership landscapes.

Jaro’s mission is to improve creative workplaces.

And Wayne’s team of corporate leadership and transformation guides has helped
improve leaders and creative processes, optimize cost models, and rebuild stagnant
cultures into more fulfilled, mission-driven ones—for companies like Boeing, Hasbro,
UKG, UW Medicine, SAP/Concur, CU Boulder, and more.

Wayne knows in-house, as previous to Jaro, Wayne was the Director of Creative &
Brand at Boeing – where he led one of the industry’s most challenging and most
successful cultural transformations. When Wayne began in 2013, employee
satisfaction was 55% and plummeting. When Wayne left in 2020, 88% of employees
surveyed indicated that they trusted, felt challenged and were fulfilled by their work
on the team.

Wayne also has taught at the University of Washington and long ago, ran PR firms
and ad agencies. Wayne gives back by actively supporting organizations such as Big
Brothers Big Sisters, Make-A-Wish Foundation and more. He has run a marathon
and climbed Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro – after which he named his company.

Transcript

Wayne Barringer: 0:00

If you're a leader, your responsibility is to lead your team somewhere fantastic. It's not just to endure every day, it's not just to open up your email, have a zero in box, go to all your meetings and go home and plop on the couch. That's not your role, and it can be more uplifting, more energizing to actually go do what you were meant to do and bring your team forward.

Kyla Cofer: 0:28

Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal Teach you how to be an extraordinary leader. Welcome back, leaders.

Kyla Cofer: 0:55

I'm introducing you today to Wayne Barringer. Wayne is a former executive at Boeing, where he took a huge group of employees from 52% employee satisfaction to 90% employee satisfaction in just five years. So he's going to walk us through today exactly how he did that. But not only that. He's going to tell us about a really cool experience he had climbing a big, famous mountain. I'm not going to tell you which one; you're going to have to listen to find out and he takes all of those experiences and shares with us a five-step framework on how to be successful and lead your team to greatness. Thank you, Wayne, for joining me. I'm really excited to share this story with our audience today. Wayne, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day and spending this time and sharing your story with me. I'm really excited to hear more details of your story because it's a really fascinating journey. So thanks for being here and joining me on the podcast today.

Wayne Barringer: 1:50

Thank you for having me. It's terrific to be with you, Kyla.

Kyla Cofer: 1:53

Well, Wayne, why don't you tell us a little bit about your story, what brings you here, and tell us about your expertise and your journey?

Wayne Barringer: 1:59

Yeah, so I founded, in 2020, a consulting firm that we call the Jaro Group, and that's a nod to one of the most transformative experiences that I've had in my life, combined with the consulting that I do. And in 2018, I got to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with one of my sons and a couple friends and some other fellow climbers and just had a transformative experience in many elements on that trip, and that is a parallel path that has I guess it's not parallel if it is now intersected with my consulting and coaching practice. So, for out of doing this, I worked about eight years leading a large in-house creative and communications team at Boeing and before that let a lot of ad agencies, PR firms, and then even worked at some university communications and taught a little bit. So I've done all the things that someone at this gray-haired station of career might have done in marketing and comms.

Kyla Cofer: 2:52

So you spent a lot of time in marketing and PR and that led you to leading this creative group at Boeing, which has led you to Jaro Group and it's so funny because I knew the name was Jaro Group and I also knew you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, but I just now put that together the name of it. So I think that's pretty fun and I want to hear about your climb and how that's affecting you right now too. But first I want to chat a little bit about your experience at Boeing, because you had a really significant experience there. Can you talk about what happened at Boeing?

Wayne Barringer: 3:22

Yeah, so, as I mentioned, longtime ad agency PR firm entry-level worker all the way to leading an office of 50 for an international PR firm and other things. So I got to see a lot of different ways that companies and agencies operate and work and function and, truth be told keep this between you and me, Kyla, but I'm probably not as good a marketer technician as I am a leader of how those groups can operate and function for efficiency and impact and enjoy. So I did all that, wound up going to Boeing in 2011. And about 18 months into that job, I got asked to lead a 300-person in-house creative design communication team. That team was at that moment in 2013, really dysfunctional, really unhappy, really sort of fractured and scattered physically across about 12 different offices and collectively nice.

Kyla Cofer: 4:15

Were those offices around the world or just here in the US.

Wayne Barringer: 4:18

At that point it was in the US, so 12 different offices in the US, 300 people. About 40 of those people worked from home. This is in 2013, so we weren't as good at that then and the culture reflected all of that sort of I wouldn't even call it diversity. It was just stratification and fracture. On top of that, there were creative people, there were technical people, there were engineering-focused technical people. Which one of these don't belong was kind of the, as I walked in and observed this kind of what we did, and the day that I got there, the employee survey scores were 52%.

Kyla Cofer: 4:53

That's pretty low.

Wayne Barringer: 4:54

Like, if you study these things, it's about as low as it gets 52% is very low, for this is employee satisfaction.

Kyla Cofer: 5:01

That's correct. Was this all employees or just in your, the creative team, in the team that?

Wayne Barringer: 5:06

I inherited.

Kyla Cofer: 5:08

Okay, which was about?

Wayne Barringer: 5:09

300 people, roughly 300.

Kyla Cofer: 5:11

300 people. They are not happy in their jobs.

Wayne Barringer: 5:15

They are not happy.

Kyla Cofer: 5:16

And this is the team that you've just come to take on. Did you know that when you took the position, I did.

Wayne Barringer: 5:20

I sort of got myself into the job. My communications role was for one of the top executives at Boeing and he assigned me a project and he said, Wayne, we can't screw this up. So what did I do? I went to our in-house agency to partner and help create this brochure. That was a big deal at the time. First, some internal cons objectives that executive had. I was new to the company. I thought that was the right thing to do. It was except being an agency guy and now being a client of the in-house agency. It was an eye-opening experience about what was going on over there.

Wayne Barringer: 5:51

So I took it by myself to try and constructively go to the director of that department. At the time she was new. I said, hey, I love 30 minutes, I've been to agencies. I just want to share some best practices that might help your team. She said, if you're willing to talk, I'll give you all the time that it takes. Three hours later, in a full notebook and notes, she walked out going. Wow, I walked out going she's listening, she's going to help us get to a better place. Six months later I got a job offer to take that group over and I told you the rest of the short part of the story.

Kyla Cofer: 6:22

So you took that 52 percent and that dissatisfaction and you completely turned that around.

Wayne Barringer: 6:28

Yeah, so we did turn that around. It was very challenging but at the end of what we worked on in that group, the employee satisfaction was 90 percent.

Kyla Cofer: 6:37

That's significant. That's not a small leap. How long did it take you to make that change?

Wayne Barringer: 6:41

Well, it's a really common question and the answer sounds like a long time. So that first employee survey score was in 2013. The first time we got 90 percent was 2018, so five years.

Kyla Cofer: 6:52

I don't think that sounds like a long time at all, because making a change in a organization that's that large takes a lot of work, because you're not just changing one person's opinion, you're not just firing the bad egg the employee right, you're having to change a complete culture and a way of being, and changing it from 52 to 90 percent is a significant difference. How did you do that?

Wayne Barringer: 7:15

Yeah, it is a big difference, and you could feel the difference in every way, and so could everybody there. How did we do that? The first thing we did so let me just say that sort of our charter was hey, we've tried to fix this group for 20 years and this is our last attempt. So if you can't fix it, wayne, like we're done.

Wayne Barringer: 7:33

Because I was like hey, I'm just the new guy here at Boeing, like no, so I felt a little bit like a scapegoat, but I ran toward the gunfire, and so the first thing I noticed was we had four leaders that were leading that group of 300, none of which had had any agency experience, any other relevant marketing experience outside of Boeing. The things that they emphasized and talked to their teams about every day were not productive. They were what they were expected to do from the leaders they had at the time, but I couldn't find a way to get those leaders that were there turned around. So the first thing we did after six months of kind of looking at it, my boss and I, we let those folks go.

Kyla Cofer: 8:13

But you didn't do that right away. You did. It said six months. So in six months you kind of you were doing like an inventory to figure out what was going on first.

Wayne Barringer: 8:21

That's right, yeah, so I'll back up even further. Great point One of the very first things I did was scheduled six 20 to 30 person sort of listening sessions around the country Because, as I mentioned, we had 12 different offices so I couldn't go to all 12, but we went to six of the biggest and just got people together in a group. So it didn't turn into a one on one sort of gripe session, but it was a group sort of I just want to hear what's working, what's not working, why isn't it working, what are the clients or stakeholders think, et cetera. Got a tremendous amount of honesty through those sessions. Almost everything that we wound up changing. People said needed to change in those sessions and people also said in those sessions you're going to ruin this organization. I don't know why you're even doing this. We always have leaders that come in and then they leave Just really difficult things. So they were eye opening as well.

Kyla Cofer: 9:10

So you came in to do these listening sessions. You're new in this role. You're still kind of trying to figure out what you're going to do and how this is going to play out. So you go and you're trying like tell me what's going on, Let me get the overall big picture, and they tell you we don't really want you here and you're going to fail. How did you respond to that? Well, it was awesome.

Wayne Barringer: 9:31

Now I tell you I had never been in a situation like that ever in my career because I worked at ad agencies. They are PR firms and they're the fun places, right. It was, I think if I didn't have the kind of support that I had from my boss, it would have been much more sort of debilitating is kind of the wrong word, but sort of just like wait a minute, what have I done here? I certainly have those moments, but I had a knowing of what needed to be done to fix this. I just I did, and anybody who's listening. We all have those moments in life, and for some they happen more than others, where you have a situation and you just know the right thing to do. And I just had that knowing about what to do with this group.

Wayne Barringer: 10:06

My whole career before it had been to prepare for, you know, a master's degree in how great creative organizations can function and it was pretty evident to me to see where the dysfunction was, why it was there. And then they all validated that in these listening sessions. And then I also get to see the inner workings of what was being emphasized by the leaders on a day-to-day basis down into the teams, and I knew that was not helpful either. So, yeah, it was scary, but I also had this knowing and I also had support, and I just said, hey, I'm here and we're either gonna sink or swim, and I'm gonna swim until I can't.

Kyla Cofer: 10:43

So so I'm just gonna go for it and try anyways, and we're gonna just do this thing. So you paid attention, you listened, you realized that those four top leaders needed to go, that it just wasn't going to work. Did you replace them? What did you do once you let those go which is hard to do, let's just acknowledge that's hard to do. It's to let people because you know that affects them and it affects everything. That's a hard decision to make.

Wayne Barringer: 11:05

I've never told this story in public before. But the day before I was supposed to do that, I went to my boss and said I can't do it. Like, I want to figure out a way to help these guys get better. And she put her arm around me and said Wayne, you know what the right thing to do is. We've had six months. You're gonna do it, you're gonna have courage and we're gonna do it together. And it was the best thing ever, because and we help people through similar journeys now None of the situations I've had as the Jaro group founder and CEO, consulting clients, has ever been quite what this was.

Wayne Barringer: 11:37

But there's always situations where you know somebody just isn't the right fit. You've tried to teach, you've tried to coach, you've tried to rehab and 99% of leaders just let that fester. Why? For the same reason, I almost did. Well, I'm not comfortable, I'm gonna ruin their life. I, I, I, I, I. It's not about that. It's about the other 296 people in your organization who are being negatively affected by the way those folks are leading. So I just am really grateful for my boss, Loretta, at the time, who said no, you know what the right thing to do is. You've been telling me, Wayne, for six months, we're gonna do it.

Kyla Cofer: 12:14

Okay, so we made that decision, and then what happened?

Wayne Barringer: 12:17

The next day we went on the journey of finding the replacements. I decided that I was going to hire a mix of people. I wanted to find one person to replace who had a really strong art creative director in-house background. I hired somebody from Disney. I want to find somebody with agency experience of some sort At an executive level. We found somebody from Edelman. I wanted to find somebody else who maybe wasn't as hard driving or somebody who could kind of glue us all together from a personality perspective and maybe their experience was a variety of places. It didn't matter. Hire somebody just like that too. So those three women were absolutely powerhouses. I get a lot of opportunities to do things like this for change in that group, but they really did it on a day-to-day basis. They were so excited about that opportunity, they bought into that vision and that changed everything.

Kyla Cofer: 13:11

Well. So I'm glad you said that, because we talk about this a lot at leadership school is that the leaders, we are the ones who have that vision and bring other people along towards that vision, and you have to get people to buy into it. So the team that you had brought along this vision passed that to these leaders, made sure you had the right leaders in place who could be on board with that vision, and then brought everybody else along the way. You had quite impressive, significant results because of this.

Wayne Barringer: 13:37

Yeah, it was the preeminent decision I think that I made that we were fortunate enough to be able to make and wound up, choosing exceptionally well, being fortunate to have a great candidate pool for each of those folks that we hired, and they came in super excited. They all started on the same day and on that day we had a two-day workshop, just the four of us, and we mapped out the road ahead, and then they were able to go into their organizations and see for themselves and we made changes based on their observations as well, et cetera. And then we just started going down the group and deciding what managers below them were going to be able to be on board with the vision. Gave them the vision, gave them training. Some of them were, some of them weren't.

Wayne Barringer: 14:19

We just started basically rehabilitating the whole group and we always and I love to hear what you think about this, Kyla, too but if you're going to rehab an organization, if an organization is not performing, whether it's a football team or a creative team or anything in between, the leader is responsible. It's the leader's responsibility. It may not be their fault, but it is their responsibility. And if it's your responsibility, if you're going to go assess what the issues are very objectively and then go to work at optimizing the strengths and neutralizing the kryptonite, and if some of the kryptonite are some individuals or a manager that you've had for 10 or 15 years, it's time to do that.

Kyla Cofer: 15:00

Well, I think it's important too how you said that all the leaders were on the same page, because you get a lot of personalities when you have that many people that you're working with and when you've got people who that's their job is to lead the organization. If they're not on the same page, then all the time that you could be spending on rebuilding and shaping an organization is spent on just trying to get along and trying to. I don't know, leaders, we kind of get in fights, right. We're fighting back and forth to each other, like no, my idea is better. No, my idea is the way to go. No, we're going to do it this way, and if you guys can't work together in that, then there's no success to be had.

Wayne Barringer: 15:39

Well, let me not give a false impression that we had no fights. You can imagine the dynamism of the moments. It was very challenging the environment, the task, the day to day, all of that. And I didn't hire wall floppers. So these were strong, smart, opinionated, energetic women that were; they just happened to be women, they were on board as well. So we had disagreements and we came together and we made that place a much more fulfilling place to be.

Kyla Cofer: 16:10

Because you knew your vision right. So the disagreements you knew where you were going. And so when people disagree at that level, it's because they're passionate about it and they're excited about that vision, and they have different ways of going, but ultimately it's that goal that you're working towards and that goal guides you and directs you.

Wayne Barringer: 16:30

Absolutely right. We had disagreements on the how. We never disagreed on the why. So the why was always clear, always visible and always just in the hearts of us and everybody else. That wound up kind of going through that and making it through that and making it the great place that it turned into. That's awesome.

Kyla Cofer: 16:49

Well, let's shift a little bit. I mean, I think you spent five years there, so I feel like in our short time here we could talk quite in depth about that, the rest of that experience. But I do want to shift because I want to hear a little bit more about Mount Kilimanjaro and how that is shaping the framework that you are doing with Jaro, because you're doing some really cool things. So I want to tell our audience about that and how it can support and help them in their leadership journey as well.

Wayne Barringer: 17:10

Yeah, Thank you, I appreciate that. So all of that angst was kind of we had sort of overcome and I still went out of. Coach was kind of coaching me through parts of that. And that coach took a group of his clients on a rock climbing trip to Joshua Tree National Park and all we had to do was get there and he set everything else up. It was kind of a thank you for our work together.

Wayne Barringer: 17:31

And on the evening before we were going to rock climb none of us had ever rock climbed, by the way he took us to dinner, bought us a steak dinner. The wine was flowing. Right before we left he said oh hey, I want to show you a 15 minute slideshow. I'm taking a group of people to Mount Kilimanjaro in September this was like February. Do you guys want to go? And we're like hell, yeah, we want to go. Of course, Nobody ever mountain climbed, including me, Nothing like that. But we all said yes, in the spirit of the evening, We'll come the next day. And I was like what have I just agreed to?

Wayne Barringer: 18:05

I started looking up what Mount Kilimanjaro is and where it is and how high it is and, by the way, it's in the middle of Africa. By the way, it's 19,300 and somewhat feet. By the way, oxygen gets thinner when you go up and, by the way you can probably hear, I have airway vocal cord challenges. My airway is about half of what most people's is, so like now I'm like wait, I can't do this. Now, where has that? Or have you heard that before from me?

Kyla Cofer: 18:32

You're not a huge fan of saying I can't do this and listening to that voice, are you? That voice is?

Wayne Barringer: 18:36

just obnoxious, and I will say I've listened to it. Right, we all have, and it doesn't turn out well most of the time when you do. So yeah, so we went on that trip and, as I said, having gone through the experience that I just described and having gone through this physical experience, so many parallels, the most amazing of which is the awesomeness that is when you complete it. All the struggle, all the challenge evaporates because it's so awesome to complete it. That was just a great learning, one of the many great learnings from climbing that mountain.

Kyla Cofer: 19:15

You made the top.

Wayne Barringer: 19:16

We were the first group that our guide had taken in 23 trips where all eight of us made it to the top and to the bottom.

Kyla Cofer: 19:24

Yeah, that's amazing. Congratulations, that's a huge accomplishment. You said you did it with your son.

Wayne Barringer: 19:30

My oldest son went. My youngest son was just starting his freshman year of college. He and we sort of decided taking the first three weeks of school off. In retrospect I would have had him go, but he was in that dad mode and so whatever. Then I emailed 35 of my friends said, hey, going on this trip? One guy from that group decided to go. Then somebody else from work's husband also wanted to go, whom I didn't know but now is a very good friend. Then there were four other people that were on that rock climbing trip. That I really didn't know very well.

Kyla Cofer: 20:03

Hey leaders, have you ever considered starting your very own podcast? Podcasting is a really amazing way. I want to just say for myself my own experience in creating this leadership school podcast. I have grown my business, I have learned, exponentially. I've had a ton of fun and my confidence level has increased 10 fold by continuing to show up and put on a really great show.

Kyla Cofer: 20:28

If I could help you to start your very own podcast without feeling overwhelmed, without the confusion of what do I do or how do I start, without dealing with all the self doubt, would you take me up on the offer? If so, what I want you to do is, right now, go to podcasterschool. net. That's podcasterschool. net. You can start out by taking the quiz on what kind of podcast should you create. From there, go ahead and schedule a call with me and let's check. I want to hear about what your potential ideas are and what would make you interested in starting a podcast. It's such a fantastic way to really increase your knowledge, your business and really get yourself out into the world.

Kyla Cofer: 21:04

Take a look at podcasterschool. net, take the quiz, schedule a call with me and let me help you get started on your very own show. Well, what an experience. How does that affect what you're doing now? I mean, you named your business after this. Now you're doing consulting. You're no longer at Boeing, you're doing the coaching and the consulting, which is really interesting. I find a lot of most leaders are doing that. You go through the ranks and then you get to a point where you're like I'm going to teach other people how to do this. Tell me about what that looks like and how your experiences are shaping that.

Wayne Barringer: 21:35

I think the biggest thing that I started to realize is all the fear that I had about that Boeing experience and all the fear that I had about Kilimanjaro, like we just talked about, is just not worth listening to. Here's the main point. Everybody not everybody, many, many leaders have the same fear maybe not at the level of intensity that I did about transforming that Boeing organization, and so they avoid it. They don't do it and they don't have leaders, like I did that say no, I'm going to be there with you, we're going to do it together. Also, 99.5% of the people on this planet do not climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Why? For whatever reason, they can't, or they legitimately can't afford it, or they can't take the time, or all those things can be overcome. The thing I learned about Mount Kilimanjaro is if I can climb that mountain with the challenges that I just have and I'm fine with those things, they're just part of me. Anybody can climb it. And the same is true with organizational transformation. If I was able to do what we did at Boeing, anybody can do it. So the parallels are really really tight. One of them is sort of emotional and intellectual and the other one is physical, but they're both some of the same premises.

Wayne Barringer: 22:43

One of the most powerful parts of the Kilimanjaro experience and it's why we renamed my company, Jaro, Jaro Group is as daunting as it was and as planful as we made our training. We would have never made it without the guides that guided us up that mountain. And it's not just hey, here's your guide plan, follow it and get to the top. It was day four. I blacked out, I didn't know where I was. Probably, was dehydrated a bit at 15,000 feet, and my guide showed up in front of me and took the backpack from my back and put it on his back and said follow my footsteps, don't meander, and we'll get back to camp. And that's all I had to do. And three hours later I was back at camp and three days later I was on the top of freaking Africa.

Wayne Barringer: 23:30

It was fantastic. That's what we try to do when we work with clients. It's not about benchmarking reports and giant PowerPoint slide decks. It's about we're going to work the plan with you. We're going to help you overcome your fear. We're going to help you get to where you said you want to go. We're going to be with you every step of the way. And I just think the synergies and everything about it are so parallel. That's why we changed the name.

Kyla Cofer: 23:53

First of all, that's extremely powerful, and I love the correlation to the mental mountains that we climb and the literal mountain that you climbed and thinking about, especially for young leaders, for entrepreneurs, small business owners, for people who are really trying to grow to climb that corporate ladder. Think about it as terms of ladder, but the corporate mountain really trying to get there, or even just our lives. I mean, come on, this is in 2023, we have a lot piled on top of us. We've just came through a pandemic. That is, though it's officially over, it's not really over for some people, and you've got an economy that's struggling, housing markets going crazy. I mean, sometimes just getting up and going through your day feels like a mountain to climb, and when you're trying to improve yourself, better yourself, go forward and meet these goals that you have, they are mountains that we climb, and to hear you say that if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Kyla Cofer: 24:52

I've heard so many leaders say this, and it's hard when you haven't done it to believe it. It's hard to go well, that's easy for them to say. We say well, that's easier for them to say because they've done it, or but yeah, but they have all these experiences and all these resources that I don't have. But you didn't. You didn't know what you were doing when you started Boeing. You had never climbed a mountain before. You followed people who could teach you and lead the way, and you had that support and you'd went forward anyways, and you tried.

Wayne Barringer: 25:19

Yeah, I totally agree.

Wayne Barringer: 25:20

And there's things in my life now that I'm scared of right or I don't think I have the this, that or the other for it, and that's why I just think that that guide experience on the mountain and my boss, who put her arm around me, and the team that I wound up forming, like it's so important to have the right group together that can help you when you're stuck, can call you on your BS right, can help you through sort of getting rid of that, that voice in your head that stalls you out. It's just been so true for me that every time in my life when that experience has presented itself, that sort of togetherness, it can pretty much do anything.

Kyla Cofer: 26:00

And you really can. It feels it can feel impossible. It can feel daunting, especially when you're at the bottom of the mountain looking up, but when you're at the top of the mountain looking back down, you go. I did this, I made it.

Wayne Barringer: 26:13

So the day that we got the employee survey back that was 90%. I almost didn't believe it, just like the day that we hiked all night to the top. So the last night, Summit Night is what it's called, it gets to the top at dawn, at sunrise, and to look over that, basically the whole eastern part of the African continent, from 19,000 feet and see the orange and red and yellow, I couldn't believe it. You know, I told my wife like I'm crying up here, like but not I can call her up there. But when I got down I was crying like she's like yeah, because you're on a mountain in the middle of Africa, man, like so it just hits you in ways that you can't anticipate that are so fantastic. And again it's a similar parallel. So I would just say don't not do it because you're not sure if the rewards are gonna be good enough. Like the journey's well worth it and the rewards, if you do achieve it, are beyond.

Kyla Cofer: 27:03

The journey is worth it. It really is. Even if you hadn't made it to the top like that which you said not everybody does like, there's something in that journey and in the doing that we grow and become stronger and become more into who we're meant to be, and that's really amazing. When people are working with you with the JARO group, you've mentioned to me previously that you have a five step framework. Can you walk us through? I think you've kind of did it already, but can you tell us the step by step, your five step framework and what that looks like?

Wayne Barringer: 27:28

Yeah, you bet. So we work on organizational change and the whole idea is how do you improve if you want to rather improve your team's efficiency, impact and joy and fulfillment? We've got a recipe that we made, all the mistakes and some of the successes for sure, perfecting it, Boeing and all my previous experience and things that I gather and stuff like that. Usually, when groups call consultants like me or others, if they're not looking just for one on one coaching, if they're looking for organizational stuff, they often say our process is broken, we have a process problem or gosh, can you help us implement this technology tool that will fix all of our problems? The SaaS companies are very good at marketing their tools is the easy button right, just pay, you know, whatever the monthly subscription is for 1000 seats and abracadabra, everything's going to be great. Well, guess what? There are more SaaS tools on the shelf, particularly in creative organizations in the US, and there are more process maps that are sitting on the shelf not being utilized. Why? Because those two pieces are the most frequently asked to solve, but when you implement them, all they do is exacerbate or shine a light on the problems that we consider to be upstream from that. So we have a five step process. Those are the last two process tools.

Wayne Barringer: 28:52

The first part of the process is like we talked about a minute ago at Boeing what is the North Star? What is the why, what is the purpose of your organization, why does it exist and what is it supposed to be doing for the company? If you can get clear on that and articulate that with some inspiration and create a group of advocates, not just people who understand, advocates for that North Star, that's the first step. If you can't do it, don't do anything else, because if you don't have that, you don't have air cover above and you don't have people that are relevant to you getting the job done on your site. So what's the strategy? What's the North Star?

Wayne Barringer: 29:30

The second step is what is the org structure without people's names? What roles in an org structure do you need to fulfill that North Star? Not in job description terms, but almost. Like what's the two sentence role? And again, no names. You're not allowed to put names at this stage, because what I did, what everybody does, is they go. Oh well, Susie will be great for this role. Well, Susie doesn't have any experience in that role, right? How do we know Susie? Let's put it through a filter. So what structuring roles fulfill that North Star?

Wayne Barringer: 30:03

Step three talent. Who is the best talent that you can imagine for these roles? Then process that talent that you put in place should define what the processes are. And then tools Based on the process. Here's the tools that you need to help that system run Five steps. I'll tell anybody all the steps for it. They want to do it themselves Great. What I'm here to tell you is doing it yourself. If you've ever done a home repair by yourself, you always call a handyman after you open up the wall on go what have I done?

Kyla Cofer: 30:35

Well, it's just like the mountain, right? You could tell me all the steps I need to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. But standing right there on the bottom of the mountain, even if I know all the steps and know the path, it's still going to be pretty hard to do. It would be really great to have someone who's done it before, especially if something goes wrong.

Wayne Barringer: 30:51

And most people are less likely to take that first step when they're standing at the bottom of a mountain like Kilimanjaro if they don't have somebody with a plan, if somebody they know is gonna guide them up. In fact, this is interesting it's in their sync sort of flip corollary between these Jaro things and the Kilimanjaro and the consulting. 80% of corporate change efforts organizationally fail. You can look it up. 80%.

Wayne Barringer: 31:16

Fast Company and Harvard Business Review, I think, is the first place I saw that stat. I've seen it as high as 90 and as low as 70. So I use 80, because that's the two sort of averages, right? About 75% of people that try Kilimanjaro make it. So we can" do corporate change in the US. 80% of the time it fails, but 80% of people that try Kilimanjaro make it. What's the difference?

Wayne Barringer: 31:40

There's a law in Tanzania where if you're climbing that mountain you have to go with a certified official guide. You can't do it on your own. Why? Because Tanzania would have death and failure and human tragedy, because it's seven days without water and food and all the things. So I just think that's a very interesting opposition corollary. If you want to try it yourself, I'll give you all the answers, happily, because some people can do it. I'm not saying nobody can do it, but boy, does it change the game when you've got some of you who knows what they're doing, who's been there and who's committed to your safety and your success. And that's what we try to do.

Kyla Cofer: 32:19

Well, and that's what we all tried to do when we went to college right, we went to college because there were people there who could teach us the skills, because they'd done them or assumed or had learned to do them, and we could learn from those people.

Kyla Cofer: 32:31

And that's what a college degree is meant to do is to teach you, or an apprenticeship, an internship, any type of education that we pursued, it's because we're trying to learn from people who've done it and so that we can go and do it ourselves.

Kyla Cofer: 32:45

And at this point in the history of the world, there is so much knowledge to be had and we can learn how to do everything. And for us, our own experience we might not have had the experiences of learning how to do everything, but we'll figure it out and then it'll be our turn to share that and to be the guide and to teach other people, which is what you're doing and which so many leaders do, and I'm just so grateful for, because, I mean, that's what we've all had to learn that way, and how many of us had thought that things were impossible until someone told us it wasn't. You know how many of us thought that the voice that you have listened to when you said it was too hard and you're gonna listen to that voice saying you can't do it. I've listened to that voice so many times. We've all like you said and it's way easier to listen to that voice when we don't have someone telling us that it's wrong.

Wayne Barringer: 33:31

Yeah, it's exceptionally easy to listen to that voice because it tends to cause us to not do things, and not doing things is inherently easy. Easier sometimes, I'll tell you, like climate, mount Kilmawyer was not a picnic, right. You're sleeping on the dirt, it's 40 degrees or less. It's you know all the things that you can imagine sleeping on a mountain in Africa. And we had help, like we had guys that were incredible out when it's carry stuff and bringing water, because you just can't one person can't carry enough water for a week, and then food and all that stuff. So, to have somebody to help you do something, do the right things, like you said, who's been there, who's seen it and knows you can do it, it completely changes the success ratios, for sure.

Kyla Cofer: 34:14

Well, yeah, Wayne, this has been such a great conversation and I would love to continue, but we need to wrap up. So is there anything you wanna make that you feel like may have been left out, or wanna make sure that our listeners hear any final pieces of wisdom? I?

Wayne Barringer: 34:27

just think that, as I and you probably see this too talk to people in corporate America today, there is so much suffering. You alluded to COVID and we're still kind of dealing with the after effects of that. I think it's accelerated, but it was there before. It's just not necessary. It doesn't have to be that way and the solutions are as clear as what we've talked about today. Not easy, but they're not complex. We just create complexities by listening to all the voices. So if there's one thing I wanna encourage people, it's if you're a leader, your responsibility it's to lead your team somewhere fantastic. It's not just to endure every day. It's not just to open up your email, have a zero in box, go to all your meetings and go home and plop on the couch. That's not your role, and it can be more uplifting, more energizing to actually go do what you were meant to do and bring your team forward. So I'll stop there, but that's what I really leave everyone with.

Kyla Cofer: 35:23

Absolutely, and I haven't been to church in a while, but that sounded like a sermon. I'm loving this. It was great, Wayne. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and your expertise and just sharing your stories. It's just really inspiring and I'm just really grateful and honored to hear and share your story with you, thank you.

Wayne Barringer: 35:41

Gratitude and honor is mine. Thank you, Kyla, it's been fantastic and fun.

Kyla Cofer: 35:47

So I started this podcast because I wanted to learn and grow in my leadership journey and I have been so incredibly inspired by the guests and the conversations. So once the interview ends, I actually keep the conversation going because I have found that sometimes the richest part of the conversation is when we feel like the interviews is over and we can just kind of have a relaxed, more casual conversation. Also, if you've noticed, if you've been following this podcast for some time, I used to ask every guest two questions what does integrity mean to them and what does balance look like to them? Well, I haven't stopped asking those questions. We're just putting those over on our Patreon page. So go check it out at patreoncom slash leadership school and for $6.50 a month you can support this podcast.

Kyla Cofer: 36:34

It takes a lot to produce every single episode and honestly, I could use a little bit of support. So anything that you're able to contribute would really mean a lot to me and would able to help me to continue to bring these high caliber guests in to have conversations on what does it look like to be an extraordinary leader and how do we practically do that. So those conversations are continuing over at patreoncom slash leadership school, where I'm asking guests some extra questions, some bonus questions, and you'll get some bonus content over there, so be sure to go check it out. Thanks so much for your support and thanks so much for subscribing, listening and sharing this podcast. It really does mean a lot and I'm so honored to show up here in your podcast feed. Hey, thank you so much for listening. If you've liked what you heard and you want some more tools and resources to help you on your journey, go check out kylacofer. com/ free stuff.