277. Leadership & Branding: Moving from Friend to Love with Doug Zarkin

What if your greatest leadership asset wasn't your product or service, but the emotional connection people feel towards your brand? In this thought-provoking episode, award-winning brand strategist Doug Zarkin challenges the idea that branding is just a marketing function. Instead, he positions it as a vital leadership responsibility—one that shapes how people engage with your organization at every level.

Doug, former chief marketing officer for Pearl Vision and author of Get Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone, introduces the idea of “sticky brands”—those that earn both high passion and high trust. He connects this directly to leadership, explaining that people are drawn to brands and leaders they believe in. Just like customers choose brands they trust and love, employees stay loyal to leaders who value and inspire them. Leadership and branding, Doug argues, are reflections of the same human principles.

He also offers practical insights on building teams, hiring for passion, and embracing the “three A’s” of Authority, Autonomy, and Accountability. Through powerful sports analogies and his concept of “thinking human,” Doug reminds us that creating emotional connections—with customers and team members alike—is the key to lasting impact. Whether you're leading a large organization or a small team, this episode offers a roadmap for turning brand loyalty into leadership success.

🌐 Connect with Doug:
• Website: https://www.dougzarkin.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougzarkin/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dougzarkin/

📚 You can purchase Doug's book on Amazon:
• Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKD7F4S4/

Chapters

• 0:00 What if Branding Was Leadership?
• 1:22 Hiring for Passion Over Credentials
• 6:07 Authority, Autonomy, and Accountability
• 13:06 Building Complementary Teams
• 21:50 Creating Sticky Brands People Love
• 30:50 Leading Through Vulnerability
• 39:17 Rapid Round: Leadership Wisdom
• 44:12 Closing Thoughts and Takeaways

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What if branding wasn't just about marketing, but about how you lead? What if your greatest asset wasn't your product, the emotional connection people feel towards your brand? Today, we're diving deep into the intersection of leadership, brand and human connection with none other than Doug Zarkin, award winning brand strategist, former chief marketing officer for poor vision, and the author of the book, get your brand out of the friend zone. Doug brings a fresh perspective that challenges the conventional wisdom of branding as a marketing function. In this powerful conversation, he shows us that branding is, at its core, a leadership responsibility. We explore how leaders can build brands that are brand led, consumer driven and human centric, whether you're a seasoned executive or an emerging leader, this episode will open your eyes to how clarity, empathy and authenticity can transform your brand and your impact as a leader. So grab your notebook and let's dive into a master class on leading with brand. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Doug Zarkin. Doug is an award winning chief marketing officer who helps people to build brands that they love, truly love, and he's also the author of the book called Moving your brand out of the friend zone. And we are going to be talking a bit about branding here today, but there's elements in Doug's book, lessons in there that are applicable directly in your leadership, the leadership of your team in developing a high performance team where people fall back in love with their jobs again, but also this element of what it means as a leader and your role in building a brand, and the way that you project yourself out to your customers and out to the world. So there's going to be multi threaded lessons in this today, and I'm really excited to get into it. So without any further ado. Doug, I'd love it if you would say hello to the audience and tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired you to write this book in particular?

Doug Zarkin: 2:20

First of all, thanks for having me, and for those of you that are listening, thanks for tuning in. What inspired me to write the book, especially as somebody who unfortunately, can't spell, was really a desire to make a difference. You know, for me in my career, the opportunity to lead people comes with an obligation, and that is to mentor, train and teach. You know, I firmly believe that inside everybody there's a superhero. You just gotta have the courage to put on the cape and fly. And my book really is designed to help help those that are coming out of school, think about how to build those sticky brand relationships folks that are in the early part of their career, how to really structure to achieve that next level of growth for your business and honestly, for yourself and for leaders like all of you, think about your personal brands. How do you want to be known? How do you want to have an impact on the organization, not just for the work you do, but importantly, how you do it? In the course of my career, I've had the opportunity to build, you know, several brands in the in the Fortune 100 and the one thing that I've learned that's critical is the importance of really digging in and strengthening your leadership muscle, identifying how to build a high performing team. You know, you come out of school and they teach you, you got to Excel, you got to be driven. You got to work the hours, got to put in the effort. And what they don't teach you is the importance of team. You know, you can climb the mountain quickly, but you're going to get to the top and you're going to take a selfie, bringing people along the journey with you. You get to the top of the mountain, and you can take a group picture. And so I've tried to learn over the course of my career, and I try to reflect it in the book about how to create that high performing team, what to look for when you hire. Most importantly, the importance of inspiring. And I hope the sum of all those parts allows you to not only strengthen the businesses and brands that you're responsible for, but also to strengthen your personal brand.

Mick Spiers: 4:18

That's great, Doug, you've really framed it beautifully. And I love the journey that you picture there with the metaphor of climbing the mountain. I think that's great. We prescribe to a famous African proverb on the show. We reference this a lot. If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. But the other element I'm hearing with you. It's also more fun when you do it together, because when you're at the top of that mountain, you got friends with you, and you can actually, actually celebrate. And there's a certain exhilaration with that team feeling. How does that sit with you?

Doug Zarkin: 4:53

You know, in the book, one of the things that I loved was the opportunity to add in those team pictures, the. Events, the celebrations. You know, if you do a two day off site with your team as a leader, end that off site with a meaningful event. And when I say meaningful event, it has absolutely nothing to do about the business. It's about the relationships. You know, one of the things that I learned from my time at SLR Luxottica was the importance of the expresso chat. And basically, that's a metaphor for what do you do in the first five minutes of a meeting? You don't jump right into the topic. That's the American let's get it done quickly and move on. Take the time to have the banter. My Monday morning status meetings with my team, we spend 10 or 15 minutes, and it may seem very inefficient just talking about the nonsense with our families. What did we do this weekend, what's going on in our lives. Getting to know the people behind the role allows you to figure out how to inspire those people, to get them not just vested, but invested, how to unlock that passion. You know, I always say you can teach somebody the skill, but you can't give them the will, and that's one of the things that I focus on when I hire. I'm going to hire for passion, because I can teach you the job, but I can't give you that inner fire that really makes you do the right thing when nobody's looking.

Mick Spiers: 6:12

Yeah, really good. So I'm hearing here a deeper connection that, like all businesses are human businesses. I think Simon Sinek might be one of his sayings. And if you don't understand people, you don't understand business, I think, is the rest of it. And what I'm hearing from you is, when you got that deeper connection, they're going to want to do things with you. They feel you're connected to them, they're connected to you, and they want to go the extra mile. And then I'm hearing this word passion and hiring for passion. So tell us what that looks like. Doug, so a lot of people that listen to the show end up being hiring managers, and there's this hustle between hiring for skills versus hiring for attitude. Let's call it. What does hiring for passion look like for you?

Doug Zarkin: 6:57

So a great example that I call out in the book was early in my agency side career. My first career was was on the agency side, and I remember I was hiring for an account executive, and I had narrowed it down to two finalists. One finalist came out of an Ivy League school and very impressive. And in the final interview, I asked this person, why should I hire you? And the first thing they said is, you know, I'm highly educated. You know, I know what I'm doing, and I can bring tremendous value. The second candidate came out of a community college and didn't have as much experience, and he said, You know what I know what I don't know. And I can't promise you that I'm not going to make mistakes, but I can promise you I'm going to do my best to not make the same mistake twice. I want to learn. I know I have a lot to learn, and more importantly, I know that you can help teach me. And I went with the second candidate, because there was a fire, a hunger, a curiosity. Somebody who walks in the door believing they have all the answers has none of the answers, because it is impossible, even with experienced leaders that you bring into your organization to know exactly what to do on day one, except for the fact that day one, it's all about taking steps back to step to take steps forward. Your responsibility as a leader is to drive home the fact that it is absolutely okay for somebody to come into your organization and say, I don't know. That journey of learning has to begin with an admission and a humility to understand that, I don't know. Yes, you may have skills tactically, but you gotta understand the love language of the business. You gotta understand the peculiarities of it. And as leaders, we tend to bring people in, and we expect them to deliver immediately. We've gotta make an investment in them and so they can make an investment back in us down the road.

Mick Spiers: 8:42

Down the road. There's multiple elements I'm picking up when I listen to you there, Doug, the passion is there. The fire is there. So you you mentioned that the next one was the mindset recruiting for the mindset and the mindset of resilience, that they know that they're going to make mistakes, but they're going to learn from those mistakes, and they're going to try again. So you're not going to hire someone that's going to give up at the first hurdle. If you think about climbing that mountain, they're not going to give up when things get tough. They're going to try and try again. And then the open mindset that they don't think that they know all the answers, lends itself towards co creation, and that's why you're there as a team. You're not there because you're all individually brilliant. You're there because you can co create something greater than any of you individually could if you deeply listen to each other and you keep an open mind and go, Well, this is what I'm bringing to the table. But let me hear from you. Doug, what are you seeing here and what are you seeing here to the next team member and and before you know it, you're kind of on that team environment, on that mountain, and you're co creating something together. So I heard more than passion. I was hearing mindset, open mindedness, the fact that they don't think that they know everything is going to be more important than the person that says, I know all the answers. You. Teach me anything? Doug Zark, and I know what I'm doing. How does that sit with you?

Doug Zarkin: 10:05

I mean, it's spot on. You know, early in my career, and I think early in a lot of people's careers, you're focused on making a difference as an individual. When you reach the point of where it becomes a leadership opportunity, you have to recognize that your mindset has to shift. It's not about letting everybody know you're the smartest person in the room. It's actually about being the smartest person in the room, and that often means not letting everybody know that. It means asking good questions, provoking giving others the opportunity to have a voice, have a say, to make the business theirs as much as it is yours. Leadership really starts with listening. It really starts with the humility and the appreciation to know that you're not expected to have every single answer. You may be expected to make every decision, depending on the organization, but the best leaders are happy when members of their team step up and want to be accountable. They're sort of the three A's when I build an organization, and I talk about this in the book, I'm looking for people that want the authority to make decisions. They want the autonomy, meaning not a micromanaged culture, but importantly, they want the accountability for those decisions. And if you can create a leadership structure with the three A's, what you're going to have is that people become invested and not vested, as I said earlier, they do the right thing when nobody's looking. And what you end up getting is better thinking, more evolved thinking. Doesn't mean it's going to be perfect, because it's never about perfection, it's about progress. But if you can drive home that culture of authority, accountability and autonomy, you're going to get a lot further faster.

Mick Spiers: 11:50

Yeah, it's really good, Doug, and I'm loving this authority, autonomy and accountability. And I'll share a thought here. A lot of people think that people shirk responsibility or shirk accountability, but the truth is, is what they don't want to do is take accountability for something that they weren't set up for successful. So if they weren't empowered with the authority to make the decisions that influence the outcome, why would they want to take the accountability if they aren't given the autonomy and the trust to do it. Why would they want to do it? And the final one is, if they're not enabled, if they're not given the tools, you're setting them up for failure. So I'm loving the attitude of your your three A's here. I think this is the key to getting people to step in and take accountability. Is that they when they do feel empowered and trusted, when they feel enabled, when they have the level of autonomy and decision making authority that they can get on with it, that's when they'll lean in. So if you're listening to the show and you say, yeah, no, this doesn't happen in my business, people don't take responsibility. They step back, they don't step in. Have a think about what might be missing for them. Why are they not taking accountability? Is it because they haven't been set up for success? What are your reflections on that, Doug?

Doug Zarkin: 13:09

You know, I wish we lived in a world where there was absolutes. You know, what you just said is meaningful, but it also doesn't overshadow the reality that you could give somebody the authority to make decisions and the autonomy in which to do it. And unfortunately, as leaders, we run into people who aren't accountable, who will point a finger, will defer, will not step up and take ownership. And I would say, as a leader, that's probably one of the areas where I struggle the most, most with in terms of having those kind of people on my team. You know, I want people who want the ball, but carrying the ball comes with a responsibility. You know, one of my favorite athletes of all time, as you can see from my background, I'm a tennis player. I love the sport. I think it's an amazing metaphor for business. Billie Jean King says pressure is a privilege. What we all do as leaders, leadership is a privilege, and being part of a great team is a privilege. It's not a right. And so if you've got people on your team that are looking to hide versus looking to thrive, that's somebody you may want to change out. And that doesn't mean that every single person on your team has to be an a you know, one of my favorite leadership lessons came from a very famous basketball player named Shane Battier. And Shane Battier wasn't an amazing basketball player. What Shane Battier did really well was enable people that he played with to deliver their best. He played on the Dream Team with Lebron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Paul, and he made them better. He knew how to dish the ball to everybody. He knew defensively, what schemes they were going to run. He elevated everybody's game and as a leader, if you can identify who your Shane Battier is on your team, who makes the entire business that you're running run? Well, hopefully you have more than one. It's a person. And you really want to lean into and they may not give you, you know, 15 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, but if they can make the team smarter, faster, thrive, that's somebody who absolutely is worth having. Not everybody on your team is going to be an alpha leader, and that is okay, but everybody on your team has to understand what success looks like that is where there is an absolute black and white, yes or no.

Mick Spiers: 15:24

Yeah. Really good Doug. There's two powerful messages in there, and human beings are not all the same. That's what makes leadership so complex. Leadership is a privilege. It's also a responsibility, but it's not for everyone the same things that we teach on the show every week, and this is a good lesson for everyone to listen to. It's not going to work for everyone. To work for everyone, and some people are not suited for the right those roles. But what Doug is telling us here that doesn't mean that they're a bad fit, and you just got to let them go. You got to find the right hole for them. Eventually, they might not be the right fit at all, and they might not belong, but if you've got the right person in the right role at the right time and the right interfaces between each other, where they understand each other's roles and what they bring to the table. And I loved your analogies. I'm going to add my own and go, you know, would Michael Jordan have been as great as he was without Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen? And they all three of those play differently. They have three completely different human beings.

Doug Zarkin: 16:25

Kobe Shaq. I mean, Kobe, Shaq, a great is another great one? You know, we see it in team sports more than any any place else, the complementary skill sets in building a high performing team, you are looking it's casting. And I don't mean that from a dei perspective. I mean that for attitude, impact, skill set, personality. Dei, when it comes to building a high performing team, is as much about what's going on in the head as it is about what physically they look like, diversity of thought, diversity of style, having, you know, two alphas in the same room, you're going to get this. You want to create an environment where people complement each other, hold each other accountable, but bring the best out of each other. And I think there are so many tools that are available. One of my favorite is the predictive index, which, you know, I showed my wife my predictive index, and she was just like, geez, Doug, I wish I had this when we were dating, because it was spot on. It gave her like a really good roadmap for the kind of person that I am. And I think as leaders, we want to use these tools to help us understand how we can put people in the right seats on the bus, to use that analogy, but equally as important, figure out how we motivate those people once they're in those seats. Some people may need more immediate gratification, more public recognition. Others may be just very happy, just to not get any criticism. So we've got to learn about each of our people on our team to figure out how to get the best out of them.

Mick Spiers: 17:53

Yeah. Really good. So powerful lesson there on adaptive leadership and and treating people the way they want to be treated, and getting to know them. Because, you know, some people want to be stood up on the stage and applauded, and other people, that's their worst nightmare. They want a private kind of acknowledgement in the background with the right people in the right seats on the bus when you're talking. I was also thinking, I think this is an important lesson as well. It's not just the players that are on the court, either, everyone from the person that gets the kit ready the bag people, through to the General Manager, through to the coach. You know, let's keep on going with the the bulls for a second. Phil Jackson, he's completely different to those players that are on the court as well, but he's equally important, and it's that magic ingredient of when everyone is playing their role and playing to their strengths, and interacting and holding space for each other, listening to each other. This is when the magic starts to happen. And I think about in your industry, and I don't know your industry as well as probably I would like, but I'm thinking in marketing, imagine if you did attract 17 star players that are the best at making the pitch to the company. Well, you don't have 17 people make the pitch. Or you said Alpha style, right? Imagine having 17 alphas in the room. That would be that'd be awful, and nothing would get done. Equally, imagine if you had 17 creatives, creatives that are very imaginative and they can create the brand narrative, but no one does anything. So you need people with the ability to lead and inspire. You need people that have got that creative juice. But then you need doers. You need people that are going to put rubber on the road and do things. And if you're if you're hiring and just recruiting people look like you and smell like you and don't have a different set of skill sets, you're just going to end up with a train Smash, right? Is that what I'm hearing, Doug?

Doug Zarkin: 19:49

Yep, not everybody is the quarterback. You know, a successful play in football. You know, you got somebody who blocks, you got somebody who runs the route to take the DB deep so they. You can run an under route and, you know, have that guy go for 50 or 60 yards, and you can go to analogy, sport analogy. To sport analogy, because I think sports is a such a good metaphor for business, but that's part of the reason why us as leaders, it does take time to assess the power of our team. You know, a team needs to gel. They need to figure out how to work together. You know, even this guy over my shoulder. You know, as a giant fan, lt was a transformational player, but lt success was driven as much about him personally as it was about what was happening with the other guys on the field. You know, he would create opportunities for others to be successful because the offensive line was double teaming them, or in some cases, triple teaming them, leaving the opposite outside linebacker either not covered or singled to sack the quarterback. So I think again, not to get too sped sports metaphor heavy, but we build teams, and we have to let them marinate. We have to let them gel. And that doesn't mean sitting back for two years in waiting. Sometimes you make a bad hire, and you kind of know it pretty quickly, but other times, you just got to see how the team works together. Learns how to work together. And as leaders, we have to have the patience to be able to do that, and also we have to be patient with ourselves into how we lead. You know, people will leadership is leadership can't be rigid. There are principles that we hold ourselves to as leaders and we hold ourselves to as people, but every person we interact with, we've got to read as to what gets them excited every day, and if we can pair that up with how we give constructive feedback reinforcement, we're gonna get the best out of them.

Mick Spiers: 21:39

Yeah, really good, Doug, so I'm loving everything that we've discussed so far today, and strong finish there on kind of situational leadership. How are we going to adapt to what does this current situation call for from the leader and the team, and then the adaptive leadership again, about getting to know your team and understand what what is their fire? What gets them out of bed every morning so that you can inspire them and create the environment where they can do their very best work? So I want to summarize a little bit of what was said so far, and then transition to this word brand in a moment, right? So, so we're hiring for passion, we're hiring for mindset. We're looking at how we can develop a team that have got complementary skill sets, where they connect with each other, where they understand each other, and that they can build something that's bigger than the the sum of the parts, right? So that's where the magic is, is going to happen. And I loved what you said about let it marinate. You can't force this. You can create the environment where it fit, where it does marinate, but you can't force it. You got to let it happen, because all of those individuals in the room are bringing something to the table. It needs to mix, all right. So I want to bring that now to your book and this word brand. And you said two really interesting things in the start. You said sticky brand, about the outward like and how do we create a sticky brand where people keep coming back, and then you said, personal brand? This is where I want to take the conversation now, Doug, let's start with the outward world. What does this we hear this term a lot. What does a sticky brand look like to you Doug Zarkin?

Doug Zarkin: 23:15

Yeah. First of all, thank you. If I said two great things, that's awesome. I would settle for just one a sticky brand for me, I call it brand love is when you have a high degree of passion and a high degree of trust between your brand and your consumers. And you know when you have that, when you're able to forecast sales appropriately, when your existing customer base is coming back with a frequency that you are excited about, when your existing customers are advocating for you on social media with Google reviews, when they're doing the heavy lifting for you, you know that's when you know that You have real brand love. Your personal brand is equally evaluated through that passion and trust, X, Y axis, and the way you know that is by the way in which your people perform. Talk about you when you're in the room, talk about you when you're not in the room. And why people leave an organization. People tend to leave an organization primarily because of the person they work for versus the company, although I've experienced both as leaders. Are they passionate about working for you? Do they get inspired by you? Do they do that right thing when nobody's looking and then, do they trust you? Do they trust when you ask them to do something, do they trust when you give them feedback? Do they trust that you're searching for the best interest of them? Do they trust that you're looking at them as a person? Passion and trust are two very powerful words that really drive how you measure where your brand is. Right? Relative to market competition, but also where you are relative to your leadership journey.

Mick Spiers: 25:04

Yeah. Really good. Doug, so a few things there. I like the the words passion and trust there, but but leading up to that, what I was hearing there, when I think about the word love, love is a feeling. So what is it like to experience you? What's it like to experience you as a leader. What's it like to experience your brand, your company's brand, from the user's perspective, and then the the part that I really caught on to is, well, what are they saying about you and for the brand? It's third party trust, right? If that's more powerful than anything that you can put out as a message from the own company. What are they telling their friends about your brand? So I'm going to say it's the same again, between the company and the employees or the or the team members. Are they referring your brand on to their friends and saying, Oh, you got to try this. But the same thing as a leader, what? What are the team members saying about you when you're not in the room. Are those positive things? Are they? Are they? Are they grumbling and and to your point, that you know people, you know there are a number of reasons why people can leave a company, but the most common is they leave a boss that didn't treat them with respect and give them the time of day, where they didn't feel seen, they didn't feel heard, they didn't feel respected. So the feeling, this feeling of love, which is what I want to go to now and then, this third party trust of, what are they saying about you when you when you're not in the room? So this feeling of love, Doug, what does love of a brand look like? What does love of a leader look like? And I'm thinking about the name of your book, which is really compelling moving your brand out of the friend zone. What does it look like to move from friend to that feeling of love? What does that look like for a brand and for a leader?

Doug Zarkin: 26:50

Sure. So the definition of brand, a brand, is nothing more than a shared set of emotions, attitudes, feelings and perceptions and why I entitled The book, what I did is that, if you think about before you found that special someone, you know you dated, and there may have been a time where you had feelings for somebody, and you finally made that move to express your love, and they came back and said, Well, wait a minute, I don't have the same feeling about you. And that happens in brands as well. When you think about brand love, it is really about the intensity of the passion and the intensity of the trust they have in your brand. And the easiest way to really appreciate that feeling is how sticky is your brand relative to new competitors coming into market. You know, let's take the Ritz Carlton, for example. That's a brand that that has done an amazing job in creating brand love. It wouldn't matter to me, in my favorite, you know, Caribbean destination, if a four seasons opened up down the down the beach, or, you know, insert, you know, a Mandarin Oriental opened up down the beach. I'm loyal to the Ritz Carlton because they really treat me as if I am their only guest. You can look at your existing customer base, their behavior, their frequency of visitation, and really get a sense very quickly as to the intensity of passion and trust that they have in your brand and when they're in brand love, which is high Passion, high trust, that's kind of in the upper right hand quadrant. You know it because your business continues to deliver against target. Where you find yourself not in brand love, but maybe in brand like maybe in the friend zone, is when you look at your existing customer base as a percentage of your revenue, and you realize that it's starting to shrink, that's when you know that they're not as intense about the passion and trust they have in your brand because they've gone to somebody new or somebody different.

Mick Spiers: 28:53

Yeah, really good. So I'm hearing the indicator at the end there of the result. How do you measure that experience along the way? So you're saying it's about the experience of what they feel about your brand. And I'm going to say that they feel like they matter to you, right? So you the example that you gave, which was a really powerful one, where they feel like, Oh, I'm I'm the most important customer in the room right now. They make me feel like that. How do you measure it along the way? Before they leave?

Doug Zarkin: 29:21

Oh, easy. Google reviews is probably the best Star score. We live in a feedback culture. If you're doing really well, it's very easy to know if you're doing really poorly, it's very easy to know the hard part's in the middle. The hard part is temperature checking, and the easiest way to really temperature check is to get out of the boardroom as a leader and get into the front line of your business. If you're an E comm business, Work customer service, phone line. If you're a brick and mortar mortar business, work in a store you're talking to one of the few guys that is proud to say that he was an Avon lady. When I joined Avon, I spent the first six weeks going door to door as an Avon representative to learn the infrastructure of the business to. In the love language to help me understand the operational rigor leaders are expected to lead. But you don't always lead from the front. Sometimes leading from the back or even leading from the middle is more effective, and the more you can understand your business, the more you can figure out where you need to insert your point of view, or at least drive your curiosity so that you can be a more effective leader and drive more effective vision. You know, leaders are head coaches. We need people to run the plays. We need people to tell us that that played works or it has a better chance of working before it even goes into the quarterback or to the defense of Captain. The way we do that is by really having our finger on the pulse of what's going on.

Mick Spiers: 30:41

You're really good, Doug, there's two powerful things there, and language is a powerful thing. And to hear you say the word proud to be an Avon man, all right, so the fact that you you're not there now, that's that's in your past, and the fact that you still say proud today speaks volumes of the culture and what it felt like to work at Avon. And then the second one was, how are you getting that measure of what was going on you? I'm going to be crassy for a second and say, You got off your butt and you went on the shop floor and you went out and saw what you didn't measure it from the boardroom. You measured it from the shop floor.

Doug Zarkin: 31:17

No, I mean, learning your business from behind a computer screen is, I think, at the intersection of dumb and stupid. To be candid, you gotta, you gotta go out and you gotta let people, you gotta touch and feel it. You know, it's gotta become, it's gotta be visceral. You know what's going on in your business? Because it's in your bones. You can anticipate. You can get a gut feel. You know, there's facts and there's feelings that we deal with as a leader. They're both really important. They're not equal. And the key thing as a leader is determining what is a fact versus what it is, what is a feeling, engaging your level of appreciating that input accordingly.

Mick Spiers: 31:54

Yeah, really good. Okay, so we're some powerful business lessons there about how we measure customer sentiment and stay in touch and have our finger on the pulse on the business. Want to immediately now translate that to team leadership, and I want to give this example, Doug, and we'll work backwards from here. The same thing can happen with our people. You you before you measured things by how many customers are we losing? How many customers are walking out the door and going somewhere else. One of the things I see in many businesses is the exit interview. Someone's decided to leave the company, and all of a sudden, in the exit interview, you hear about all of the things that they weren't happy about. How do we make sure that we don't wait until the exit interview to get that information, because it's too late, then they're already out the door.

Doug Zarkin: 32:41

Coffee, chat, 10 Minute, 15 minute touch bases, walking by someone's desk, if you're in the office, randomly, just saying, Hey, listen, you got 15 minutes for me. Just asking, Hey, listen, I think you're doing great as a leader. What can I be doing better lead with the vulnerability of asking for feedback. You know, a strong leader needs to be good at giving feedback, but you also got to be really good at taking it. And you know, I found the people that I've enjoyed to work for the most are open and curious about what they can do better, versus telling you that everything that's wrong is your fault. And one of the things I try to do with my team is listen, schedule 10 or 15 minutes with me this month. Just to catch up, I want to hear what's going on. How's your life? How's work, you know, what are you feeling? What are you seeing? Is there anything I could be doing better? Ask those provocations, and if you open yourself up to being vulnerable, it's not about a character assault. You may find, you may find that you call somebody you know Fred as opposed to Frederick, and that may drive them nuts. Okay, how do you know that if you don't ask for feedback? And that's a terrible example, but it's those small moments you know. You may, you may start out every status meeting by wanting to really get a sense of how everybody's weekend was and what did you do. And you may have somebody on your team who's really private or is going through a lot of drama in their personal life that doesn't want to talk about it. How am I supposed to know that? Unless, say, Listen, I know you're interested in what's going on, I got a lot of drama. Could you me a favor? Maybe not ask me that question. Okay, great.

Mick Spiers: 34:15

Really good, Doug. You can't fix what you don't know about. So if you're not listening, you won't be able to fix it and and the examples that you're giving, like the people listening in the audience might be thinking, are they really small things? But all of those small things compound. It compounds on how they experience it might start small, but it starts to snowball in their own mind, and they don't feel valued, they don't feel seen, they don't feel heard by doing that, all right, so really good. So we need to get out there and ask for feedback. Have our finger on the pulse of the team sentiment. Now, similar to what we have said about the business, the other element you said before was you said the customer, you want the customer feel like you're the most important customer to them. How do we do that in the team environment in a way that's still fair? Inequitable to all the other team members. How do we make our team members feel special? Make them feel like they're the one, but we have to do that with all of the team members to make sure they all feel that they all have a role there.

Doug Zarkin: 35:11

Yeah, you know, I talk about this premise in the book, this notion of thinking human. You know, imagine in business, we treated every customer that walked in our door or went to our website or called our call center as if they were the only customer that day. What would we do? How would we treat them? Imagine in your personal life, if every friend you had treated you as if you were their best friend, what an amazing world we would live in. Now let's get to teams. Imagine if every team member felt as if they were the most important team member, and the way you do that is by soliciting input, oftentimes, starting with the junior people. You know, I love mixing it up, calling on different people to give a point of view. Hey, what do you think? How does this make you feel? And I do that, not to get somebody to trip up. It's not like I'm calling on you for the right answer. But I want you to know your value is important. I want you to know that what you think, how you feel, what you believe, is important. Marketers and leaders in general, need to create a degree of personal investment in the businesses that we lead for our teams, if somebody takes the business personal, they're going to have opinions. And as leaders, you can't ask for that personal investment, which is really doing the right thing when nobody's looking and not ask them to give you feedback or play a role in how that brand or business evolves.

Mick Spiers: 36:53

Yeah, really good, Doug, I'm going to say it's a double whammy here. This is what people want in the workplace. They want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, they want to feel that they matter and that they want to feel like their opinions are valued, right? And the double whammy is, if you're genuinely listening to them with an open mind, you are going to end up in that co creation space that we spoke about at the start of this show, where you're going to make smarter decisions because she collected more inputs and more perspectives. And the third element here, Doug, is that I'm going to posit to you and hear your view on this, that people are okay with the idea that the decision might be different to their input, as long as they feel heard.

Doug Zarkin: 37:39

Yeah. I mean coin to you know, tell me what you know, tell me what you think doesn't mean that we're going to do what you want to do.

Mick Spiers: 37:44

Yeah, exactly, yeah. All right, really, really powerful. Doug, I've loved this conversation. We've spoken in a lot of different chapters here, where we're hiring for passion, we're hiring for mindset. We're developing this high performance team where everyone has a role. It's a all got complimentary skills and coming together the brand, having a sticky brand of the company, where people it's the way that they feel about the brand, the way they experience the way that they talk about your brand when you're not in the room, will they refer your brand on to their friends and the same thing with your personal brand, and then treating people like they are the only customer that day, treating people that they are the most valued member of the team. But it's through giving them the time of day to to make them feel seen, to make them feel heard, to make them feel valued. There's actually, and I'm going to say, thinking human. You're a human. How do you want to feel when you interact with your boss. Now, how other people feel when they interact with you? And the same thing with the company brand. Think about the brands that you love. How does it feel? And how can you create that with other human beings? And you want to have that exhilaration of having an inspiring boss, well, so do your people as well, right? So thinking human is a great way of summing that up, Doug, and I know that's a big part in your book. So I'd like to now take us to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests, Doug, so what's the one thing you know now? Doug Zarkin, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Doug Zarkin: 39:18

There's no such thing as a right way, and there's no such thing as a wrong way. There's just a way. And focus less on being anxious about screwing up, focus less on trying to be perfect, and just focus more on carving out your personal way of solving a problem or building a business and building your own brand.

Mick Spiers: 39:40

Yeah, really good. There's a few powerful things in there as well, thinking about what we've discussed here, that you know, your way is not the only way, and keeping an open mind, coming back to the accountability and the trust with people, they might have a different way of achieving the outcome that is equally as good or even better than the one that you come up with that I think. It's a powerful element of what we've been talking about. As well as an author yourself, Doug, what is your favorite book?

Doug Zarkin: 40:06

It's either Catcher in the Rye or Zen in The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And I read both of those books in high school, and they affected me meaningfully. Zen in The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was really a journey of introspection, and, you know, resonated on a level that I didn't realize until I had finished the book about sort of that self discovery, self empowerment, you know, self help, Catcher in the Rye, you know, Holden Caulfield, I think one of the most interesting characters in literature. I haven't read Catcher in the Rye in a very long time, and I'm actually due to reread it. But that book stuck with me because I could relate to Holden in certain aspects of my personal life, and anytime you can see yourself in the characters that you're reading about, you're going to have an affection to it.

Mick Spiers: 40:56

Yeah, nice one. Okay, thanks for sharing. What's your favorite quote?

Doug Zarkin: 41:01

Dr. Seuss, oh, the things you can think, if only you try.

Mick Spiers: 41:05

Yeah, nice one. I like your action orientation, by the way. Doug, everything you've said, and you spoke a lot about not being scared of failing and stepping in and trying something. There's a lot in like, if I think about the quote you just said, and think about the thread of our conversation. There's a lot there around action orientation and actually trying something, and not being afraid to fail and go again.

Doug Zarkin: 41:28

I have a deep, you know, there's, there's, don't, I don't want to kid your listeners, or yourself or you. I absolutely have that, you know, a fear of failure and anxiety about not being good enough, but it pushes me to work hard. It pushes me to think thoroughly. I try not to open my mouth unless I believe what I'm saying can be an effective answer. But you know, I have a lot of successful failures in my personal life and in my career that have hopefully made me a better person, better father and better executive.

Mick Spiers: 42:00

Thanks for sharing that, and I think it's really important. So listen to this in the audience. So even Doug, who comes across, I'm going to say this to you, Doug, straight to you, comes across as fearless. The fear is there, but the courage is to act despite the fear. The Courage is to act despite the fear. Yeah, okay, all right.

Doug Zarkin: 42:18

Gotta have the courage to put on the cape and fly.

Mick Spiers: 42:21

There we go. I love it all right. So there's going to be people listening to this and who are truly inspired by what you're saying, from both a leadership point of view and also a company brand point of view. How do people find you and how do people find your book? If they would like to know more?

Doug Zarkin: 42:35

Sure, well, with a last name like Zarkin, I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. My book is available on on Amazon and paperback and Kindle, but you can always go to my website, dougzarkin.com and learn a little bit more about my background and how I think and more importantly, hopefully something in everything that I've done and continuing to try to do helps to really give you the courage to put on the cape and fly, to help you realize your own potential, and to give you a tool, or tools that you can bring back to your business to figure out how to make you even more effective. You know, I don't believe again, that there's anything like a manual or a playbook. It's a modern day guide to strengthening your brand's value equation, and that's your personal brand as well as your business brand. Because you're on the journey, you know a guide will help you navigate, but you play a part in how you go from A to B, and I hope I can do that for you.

Mick Spiers: 43:35

That's a really inspiring finish there, Doug, thank you. And so a reminder, the book is moving your brand out of the friend zone, and you can connect with Doug,dougzarkin.com and reach out to him on LinkedIn, and you know, or whatever your preferred channel is. And thank you so much, Doug for sharing your story, but most importantly, sharing some life lessons here, some lessons in life, some lessons in leadership, and some lessons about company brands I've I feel rich of this conversation and know the audience will as well. Thank you.

Doug Zarkin: 44:05

Thank you, my friend.

Mick Spiers: 44:07

What another powerful conversation there with Doug Zarkin, and I hope it made you rethink your definition of branding, because what Doug shared with us is not just about marketing, it's about how we show up as leaders, how we create connection and how we stay human in a world full of noise, from leading with clarity to building trust through culture, Doug reminded us that your brand is not your logo, it's your legacy. If you found value in this episode, please share it with someone who you also think needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and let us know what resonated most with you. I'd also like to remind you that we're starting a new program where we're answering your questions on the show our Q and A format, so if you've had a question or an issue or challenge that's always been. Asking you about leadership, and you'd like some advice and guidance. Please send your question through you can do so anonymously, or it can be named in the next episode, I'm going to be joined by Kelly Lester, the owner and founder of onyx rising, and we're going to be discussing what it takes to be the voice for the voiceless and why inclusive leadership matters. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Farris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.