Kohl's

091: Wade Fransson: This is not the tent

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader Podcast, where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host, customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference, retreat or team-building session? My keynote don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I’ll help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more.

Okay Fast Leader legion, today, this episode has been in the making for a long time I’m glad we’re finally having it. The person I have on this episode today is one of those folks that the more I get to know about them the more fascinated that I am and the more that they impact my life. While most as were born and raise somewhere, Wade Fransson struggles with how to answer this question. Born in Vancouver, Canada by the time he was nine he had lived in three countries and attended three different schools in California, Washington State and Sweden. This is the result of Wade’s unique background which includes divorce, a domestic kidnapping in which his father smuggled him out of the country and an international legal battle which was eventually decided by the Supreme Court of Sweden. All this and much more is detailed in his first book, The People of the Sign. The book ends in 1995 with the resignation from the World Wide Church of God, but Wade’s life was really just beginning.

His first inclination was to pursue teaching and he spent 18 months and fourth and fifth grade classes while pursuing those credentials. As much as Wade loved working with the children, he came to realize that to support his family in the way that he hoped, he would be forced to pursue administrative roles that held no appeal to him. So, he established a successful business which became a springboard into the corporate world where he held significant roles in noteworthy companies while pursuing an MBA. Along the way he has continued to struggle with the integration of his prior beliefs, his desire to practice true religion as defined by helping those in need and his desire for material success. The struggle which is common to all of us in one way or another is documented in the sequel to The People of the Sign, titled The Hardiness of the Heart.

Wade leverage the fruits of his experience as a successful corporate executive to build and manage a small real estate investment portfolio and establish the Internet start-up gohuman.com More recently he established something or other publishing soup a groundbreaking company that combines the potential of social media and self-publishing in their author driven publishing model. Beyond his job as a manager of IT strategic sourcing at Cole’s Department store’s, Wade is also the Board Chair of the Virtues Project, a global grassroots movement working to integrate virtues into all aspects of life. Wade now lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife and two children where he had successfully resisted all attempts to force them to add a dog to the family but he confesses that is likely only a matter of time. Wade Fransson are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Wade Fransson:    Absolutely, Jim, thank you so much for having me on this program. I’m really looking forward to it.

Jim Rembach:    And I am too. I’m glad to your finally here. I’ve given our listeners a little bit about you but can you tell us which are current passion is so that we get to know you even better? 

Wade Fransson:    My current passion really relies on all of those experiences that you just listed out and trying to integrate them, as I think you hinted at it into a coherent vision and view for humanity in which people can self-actualize in a way that contributes to overall society as well as striving more transcendent goals including spiritual goals that are often neglected in our westerns society and integrates all these things as you pointed out is actually quite challenging.

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. You’re talking about the challenging piece and even for me getting to know you more over the past couple of years now, is that, being able to think creatively in that way and convey it in a manner by which it doesn’t cause people to go “huh” is difficult. So, how do you actually make or as I may say it makes sense to you, how do you help others make sense of what you’re thinking and the vision that you have so that things move forward and people just don’t get confused?

Wade Fransson:    The hardest part there is really understanding where that other person is at. And getting to understand what it is that they’re looking at and how they might be able to understand some of the things that you wish to convey to them. If you’re talking this broad kind of integrated approach, it does somebody have a belief in a higher power or not and somebody believes that money and wealth are evil, or somebody believes that the biggest problem on the planet is global warming or does somebody believe that the biggest problem planet is the lack of energy. Understanding where people are coming from is the first most important point in order to build a bridge to help them understand what it is that you wished to convey to them. 

Jim Rembach:    You know that’s a very interesting concept that you’re talking about. And while I do spend a lot of time and effort both in my job as well as personally trying to craft messages that other people need to hear, now what I need to say there’s a difference there, not what I need to say but what other people need to hear. And the way that you just very quickly were able to identify where people are coming from, to me in itself is quite unique. I know for me I would use some of that for my own benefit, thank you for sharing. To be able to draw and create that connection with folks more rapidly so that hopefully we can get to doing things faster, we’re talking about moving onward and upward faster with the fast leader show.

Wade Fransson:    Look at one of the biggest challenges facing this nation and as the historical leader of the free world thus facing the entire world is the enormous and unbelievable polarization that’s happening in this country as typified by this year’s election cycle. Now with people that much at odds against each other, do you think we can have any positive progress in the world? Absolutely not. People are no willing to take each other down at any and all costs and it’s quite challenging then to be able to address people on both sides and not be painted black or white by either side in such a way that you could help them find some common ground, some point of understanding, in which we could forward on any topic or as a people or as a nation or on whatever it is that you wish to discuss. 

Jim Rembach:    That’s a very interesting point that you share. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the work that you do at Cole’s from a strategic sourcing perspective ‘cause I think it’s important in a lot of different ways to tour audience. A lot of the folks that listen to the show may have to go through a by-process in order to get solutions. And so that they have to build business cases. They have to present their ideas and try to get all of those things, so they have to coordinate a cross-multiple departments. They’re all ultimately trying to impact customer experience and make more sales, build their brands all those types of things. Now, when you start talking about the vast—just ideas and thoughts of all the things that you’re involved in—that’s one issue. But in order to move things forward and work across all these different departments and talk about strategic sourcing for such a huge organization for me I have to deal procurement people, right? And they have no the reputation of being….

Wade Fransson:    My condolences.

Jim Rembach:    Well, yeah, giving  me some empathy for that is appreciated. But how do you bring those two sides together where you got your internal stakeholders and that external vendor to get to the point where you can find an agreement? 

Wade Fransson:    That’s a fascinating question and one reason that I love what I call “my day job.” First of all why do it? Well, it pays the bills and it funds my other activities. Because I’m quite well compensated given that I am often negotiating deals in north of a hundred million dollars and you can imagine the dynamics in deals that large. So, I frequently get told by the people on the other side of the table that they’ve never met anybody like me in the procurement world, which I take as compliment. And that what I try to do is first and foremost build trust with them that I become their friend and ally rather than their enemy. The reasons that’s really challenging is because my own side doesn’t want that they want me to return every time with him blood on my knuckles and a few scalps showing them what I’ve done for them. And if I comeback with work pays on they’re going to say, “What the heck are you doing? You’re off the reservation here you should be fighting for us not chumming it with this guys, they’re not your friends.” And within our company, I’m likely in trouble for saying this but there’s this view that says, we should approach them as not our friends and you must fight and win, kind of thing. 

And I keep trying to tell my internal stakeholders, “No, that’s not how I get what Cole’s needs.” I don’t mind sharing this, I share this with the people that I work with on the other side table I’m trying to coach you out on a limb and then hold up the saw. I much rather get you to extend yourself way beyond what you would normally do in trust that I’m going to help you, and how do I do that? Again getting back to that PowerPoint I first say, “What it is that’s important to you in this?” Oftentimes something is very important to them that cost us almost nothing to give them and we can exchange that, that’s a really, really good horse trade, but oftentimes my side is like, “why should we give that to them” because this is antagonistic relationship like, “why shouldn’t we give it to them? Don’t you want a long-term strategic partnership with his company that you’re outsourcing $112 million worth of business to? Of course you do”. My difficult negotiations are not with those on the other side of the table, my difficult negotiations are with those internally to get—the person I’m supposed to be fighting with what they want. 

Jim Rembach:    That’s very enlightening in a lot of ways. I used to work for a large retailer. And I had the opportunity to spend some time in the in the buying department of different product lines that we sold within our stores. I had the experience of just witnessing some conversations from buyers that was just so nasty, where it was, give me everything and you’ll be left with nothing, and for my perspective we been taught as kids—you get more by being kind and nice and offering the candy and not being no ugly and nasty. How does that change?

Wade Fransson:    It gets to the heart and core of what I call the reptilian brainstem despite light syndrome that’s hardwired into our DNA. But again my interests are broad so I recently read in scientific American an article about man as a species becoming the most invasive species the planet has ever known and I tie there things in with my spiritual understanding going back to the book of Genesis and understanding how does this tie in with the Adam and Eve story which most consider just a fable that has no basis in any kind of fact. And I actually find ways to integrate this very divergent views, science and religion can be integrated, can be understood as united. So, anyway, man becoming the most invasive species, lo and behold man became the most invasive species when it learned certain aspects of cooperation. And this is in evidence in hunting facts whether the wolves or the orca whales that managed to excel as a species because they’ve learned certain elements of cooperation. You know, we often hear about dog eat dog but in nature dogs don’t actually eat dogs and yet that is fundamentally a world view that we have, oh, it’s a dog eat dog world. Really? In what sense has it ever been a dog eat dog world? When in history has a dog ever eaten a dog? And yet that idea influences our thinking and our actions in so many ways, it’s just insane. And yet that’s trying to coach somebody else out on a limb away from their minds and in their thinking to get them to broaden their world. You have to understand where they’re coming from and what silly, or ridiculous, or insane ideas occupied their thinking. And try to help create a crack and little light in on that. 

Jim Rembach:    Thanks for sharing that. As you were talking I even start thinking about my experiences with customer service just the other day for example. I see the connection, hopefully others will, is that I receive an offer via e-mail about receiving in a subscription that I have for some backup software an extra month of I signed up and I went through the process and for whatever reason the transaction didn’t go through, never got a notice of it otherwise but then I kept getting an expiration notice. And so I called them up and said, “What happened? As far as I know I paid for this.” And they said, “Oh, we see that the transaction didn’t go through, we can explain why.” And I said, well—she goes, but I’ll do it for you now. I said, “Okay.” So, then she started giving me the offer without the free month. And I said, “Wait a minute, I got an offer for a free month.” And she goes, “Well, go back through and click that e-mail” When I did it said, “This link is expired.” And I said, “Can you just go ahead and give me that….hold on one moment I need to get the supervisor’s approval.” Why did I have to spend an extra couple minutes and then you spend in the supervisor’s time just to give me one darn extra month which I already have an e-mail we confirm but it goes back to what we’re talking about is doggy dog, I’m giving you this—it’s policy—and it’s amazing what we’ve done to one another just from a customer service and customer care world with that type of thought process and mindset. 

Wade Fransson:    In going back again to how these things are integrated. So, I’ve created a model which I would love to publish sometime if I ever have the time to write a book about procurement and sourcing and doing deals and negotiations. I view the service provider network, the vendors those partners as a different species. They’ve grown up in a different ecosystem. They’re successful, we want to do business with them and because they’re successful they’re one of the best companies, we love them, whatever is it they’ve created, whatever value they have, they hold out for us. But they’ve developed that in a slightly different ecosystem, they are different species. And we as the customer we’re successful in our world they want to do business with us but we’re different species. So here are these barriers even at the cellular level a single celled mechanism has a semi-permeable membrane through which things come in and out of the organism. And the between DNA and RNA is critical and important that there’s a book of biology of belief that would claim this that will blow your mind and change your opinion about what you are genetically capable of or not capable of and the power of your thinking and choice to re-create yourself into something much grander.

Anyway, that semi-permeable membrane so Lex what it leds in or leds out and this single cell then develops and become the species that’s selectively protects itself the flight light syndrome hardwired into our DNA. We can override that and we can form a relationship in which we move the friction between the flow of value between these two species and now two species that essentially would be competing with each other and would be protecting themselves and defensive and trying to win it can suddenly become symbiotic and the flow of value can be much faster. So what I tell the vendors typically is at some point in the negotiation here’s my goal, you currently have our competitors as your customer, my job is to create a competitive advantage in that, I don’t care what your relationship is with our competitor you can have it because I’m going to create something that exceeds that the full value between you and us will exceed the flow of value between you and our competition based on this agreement that we’re going to reach, contract that we’re going to put in place to document it and that every time I do a deal I’m thinking competitive advantage, competitive advantage, my relation with IBM, my relationship with Microsoft, my relationship with Google is better, stronger, faster than their relationship with any of my competitors. So, in my little piece of the cold world in my little procurement role, I’m aligned with the top line vision of the company and I’m helping us achieve the competitive advantage and that what excites me about going into work every day. And it integrates with my thinking around, how can I be better human being, how can I have better friendships with people, and relationship with people, so that’s who and what I am and that’s how I roll, for better or worse.

Jim Rembach:    It’s definitely a unique situation when you talk about somebody who’s in a procurement world and I think anybody who’s ever dealt with procurement will see that. Your diverse background and a lot of the things that you had exposure to, your own continued effort to try to find this connection both spiritually and physically, there’s going to be so much inspirations that you have and we like to share quotes on the show, is there one that just stands out for you that you can share?

Wade Fransson:    There’s so many but I’m going to share two.  The first one is related to my role as chairperson of the Virtues Project international Association, this global grassroots movement that was endorsed by the United Nations and that has curriculum that’s being used in school systems in a variety of countries. And one of the quotes related to that that I love is by a man named `Abdu’l-Bahá, whom some may know, I’m actually a Bahai religiously today and `Abdu’l-Bahá is known as the master or the exemplar, the perfect example of following the teachings. 

His code is “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues” and this of course integrates with this, “Search for truth, being truthful in your discussions with anybody else.” So, truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues. And as a former Christian minister and one who believes that Jesus Christ is everything he said he was, everything that he revealed about himself is absolutely true, people just don’t know what that was, I don’t understand what that was, but he said, “To be a follower of Christ, the sign of somebody who actually follows Christ is quite simple, John 13:35, “By this shall all men know you that you have love one for another.” So you want to find people who are truly following Christ it’s people who exemplify love to each other. So you take truthfulness and love and you’re pretty much guided all wrapped up. 

Jim Rembach:    Simple plain truth. Alright, I know that there’s so many different fascinating stories like I had said is more I get to know you there’s more that I learn—I think people would make that reference about peeling back the onion I think you have unlimited layers. We all’ve had to get over humps, you went over several even as a child when you had not had no control over any of that, is there one that can stands out to you that’s really made that huge impact that you can share? 

There is absolutely. So, the moment that I’ve repeated to myself in difficult situations is, “This is not it is not the tent.” And what that means to me is, when I was at junior in high school after all these really traumatic situations that I was all emotionally wrapped around the axle because of what it occurred, what had been done to me the fact that authorities had lied to me and manipulated me and there was nobody I could trust. And then between my Junior and Senior of high school my dad decided he’s going to build a house on a piece of land where there was no water or electricity and unfortunately this land was in Alaska so I ended up living it a tent for 10 months through the Alaskan winter in 20 below weather. 

And going to school, I had, Jim, class first thing in the morning and I would try to get a shower. I’d come out and my clothes would stink and smell like smoke, I was tent boy at school in addition to having to survive living in a tent. While in that tent, I have this stove that I try to use to heat up the tent, of course you would go out in the middle of the night so it help and it didn’t help. And I had that stove blow up in my face and it burn off an entire layer of skin, which was not only excruciating it was terrifying and then I went into hypothermia as result of this and blah, blah, blah. So, that was an absolute low point. So, from time to time in my life I’ve said this is not a tent, I would get through this. 

Jim Rembach:    Wow, great story. And I think we all can relate to that in one way or the other. Now, we talked about many of the things that you’re involved in, from the self-publishing platform to of course working at Coles, being a father, your faith and also the Virtues Project, you’ve got tons of things. So, I still can understand how you get things to move forward, but that’s yet for another show. But if you start looking at a lot of these things, even maybe that we haven’t covered yet, what one of your goals? 

Wade Fransson:    My goal is to absolutely leave the world a better place than I found it. In all my interactions and everything I do and yeah it does absolutely focus on my children. My daughter is now eight and I looked at her the other day and I realized this is the age of my little sister when we came back from Sweden. And my little sister had forgotten English completely. When we were smuggled out of the country, we were split up to live with three sets of aunts and uncles. And we were totally immersed in Swedish society and we lost all sense of who our family was. And when we were reunited with our mother, my little sister can communicate with her because my mother can speak Swedish and Lisa didn’t speak English at that time. And mother was also an alcoholic at that time and so that made it even worse. 

So, looking at my daughter at age eight I’m thinking the investment that I’m making in my children, and I was on the school board for three years as well as on Montessori school where they go and totally sold on that program as far as an educational platform for people. Knowing that my children have just so much more of a foundation than I had and yeah, you can survive that tent and that stove blowing up in your face. But you’re scarred in a number of ways. And you have so much baggage and you can spend your whole life just working on yourself to get yourself to a place where you can be healthy and survive and much of my life were spent getting to place where I can be healthy and survive. But I’m hopeful that my children will have all that dial by the time they hit adolescence, they’ll already be out serving community in ways that it took me four years to figure out how to serve humanity. My desire was to serve humanity but in the typical social workers syndrome often the people doing social work have more problems than the people they are trying to help. I hate to say that as a sort of a blanket characterization, but it’s true. It’s not a c criticism of them, I admire and applaud them for working on themselves through the act of helping others, there’s no better way to work on yourself. But imagine if you start from a position of strength rather than one of weakness with the right intent, how much more you can actually (25:08 inaudible)

Jim Rembach:    And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions. So, move onward and upward faster by getting significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey personas with emotional intelligence. With your entity mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

Alright here we go Fast Leader listeners, it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Wade, the Hump Day Hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Wade Fransson, are you ready to hoedown?

Wade Fransson:    I am ready.

Jim Rembach:    Alright.  What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Wade Fransson:    I still struggle with all that baggage and interpersonal relationships, still catch myself acting in ways that I’m not proud of based on not having really gotten stability and balance within myself.

Jim Rembach:    What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Wade Fransson:    That’s a tough one.  I think in terms of leadership, it’s all about vision. It’s all about setting the culture. You really need to have a clear vision and establish the right culture to succeed. 

Jim Rembach:    What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success. 

Wade Fransson:    An analytical mind. Just unpacking of problem asking why five times and getting to the bottom of what is the real underlying issue here.  Now taking superficial answers not dealing with symptoms, getting to the core of the problem. 

Jim Rembach:    What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Wade Fransson:    This isn’t exactly the tool but it’s an example of the tool. When I was in high school I learn how to type and what I mean by that is it’s a technical skill, I type 81 words a minute and when I learned to use Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel really learning to use a tool really well. How do I accomplish things across all of these methods? I know how to use the tools to get things done in a fraction of the time that it takes other people to get them done. 

Jim Rembach:    What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners, they could be from any genre?

Wade Fransson:    Well, mine of course, but other than that, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a seminal book for me that helped educate me on philosophy, human relations, and just was a fascinating read. I tried to pattern my book a little bit—my first book a little bit on the model of the way that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is written. It’s not what you think from the title, amazing book.

Jim Rembach:    Okay, Fast Leader listeners you’ll find links to that and bonus information from today show by going to fastleader.net/wadefransson and will put links to Wade’s books as well. Okay, Wade, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one, what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why? 

Wade Fransson:    Humility. I would take humility because we cannot possibly achieve even a fraction of what we could achieve through our own efforts, and humility is what will enable other people to want to work with you. 

Jim Rembach:    Wade is was an honor to spend time with you today. Can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you? 

Wade Fransson:    Sure. Wade Fransson I’m the only Wade Fransson know to Google, my name doesn’t sound that unique but it is. So just Google me and any site will come up, my books, my website, wadefransson.com, probably my publishing company. You can also just get me at wade@soopllc.com.

Jim Rembach:    Wade Fransson, thank you for sharing her knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster. 

END OF AUDIO