RON TITE

>> Craig Gould: Ron Tite, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast.
Ron, you’re, a renowned author, a dynamic speaker, a, seasoned executive at the nexus of creativity, commerce and leadership. As founder and chief creative officer of Church and State, you’ve advised some of the world’s most respected brands on how to communicate with clarity, authenticity and purpose. And purpose is something we’re going to talk a lot about today because you’re releasing a new book titled Purpose of Purpose, which is a follow up to your bestselling book, Think, do say. But Ron, I typically like to start all these conversations, with one common question, which is if we rolled back, our time machine to young Ron. Ron, what was your first job? What are your memories of your first foray into, our labor market?

>> Ron Tite: Well, I, if. When I think back, it’s probably to, 1980. And by the way, when I was, I was 10 years old at that point in 1980 and my voice sounded like this. It was just like, hi, how you doing? I’m Ron. Ty. Nice to meet you. It was like tiny. my first, there’s an interesting story with this actually, and I think and a really great lesson in there. so my first job was a paper boy. I was a paperboy for this paper called the Oshawa this Week newspaper. And here’s what’s funny about it. So the Oshawa this week was a, it was a voluntary payment paper, that totally weird model, but it was, there were so many ads in the paper that they didn’t need you Know, kind of subscription revenue to make it profitable.

>> Craig Gould: This was like Patreon.

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So an interesting story with this paper was that it was it was voluntary payment. Like you didn’t need to pay for it if you didn’t want to. There were enough ads in it and the paper boy would go and say, hi, I’m collecting for the Oshawa this week newspaper. And if you wanted to pay, you could pay 350 or something. And the, the carrier got most of that money and if you didn’t want to pay, you could just say, no, thank you. So I delivered the newspaper in my apartment building. I lived in an apartment building and the person before me who delivered the paper did not live in the apartment building. And we’re talking a rough hood. It was a really rough neighborhood in the south end of Oshawa, Ontario. So nobody paid for the paper because they didn’t have the money. And they just, now they’re like, they’re not paying for it. But when I took over, Ronnie tight, I live in 408. You’re not gonna not pay to see you in the elevator. So my conversion of not paid to paid went through the roof. And I won. In 1980, I, because of that year over year growth, I won carrier of the year and I got to throw an opening ceremony pitch at a Blue Jays game. all because people want to do business with people they know. I think I, that’s what I took the lesson from. It was like, look, they knew me, they trusted me, they were friends and acquaintances. And so therefore they paid me when it was someone they didn’t know, they didn’t want to pay that person. But, I shawa this week, that was my first job.

>> Craig Gould: That’s kind of the starting DNA of your career. do you see fingerprints of that on even what you do today?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, like, I think that whole like it, like talk about a sales call, it was like, hi, I’d like to sell you something that you don’t need to buy, you don’t have to pay for this. And, and it was that the tonality of that wasn’t a pressure filled tactic to get somebody to convert. It was the long play. It was the long play about relationships. And it was the long place that when I was. Because I hate that confrontation of like, I gotta sell you something, I hate that confrontation. And so how do you remove that confrontation is you make it a more organic relationship and so that it’s less of an ask, both for you and them. And I think that’s still. Yeah, that carries through today and how I, how I do business.

Your new book Think do say purpose of purpose is coming out

>> Craig Gould: Tell me about purpose. you know I, I’ve read your book Think do say purpose of purpose is, is coming out. Is it a continuation? Is it just a longer meditation on this same principle? Is it looking at more examples? What’s the germ of the idea on purpose of purpose?

>> Ron Tite: So the germ of the idea, maybe I’ll answer that kind of the second part first. The germ of the idea was that I was sick of hearing about purpose and hearing organizations that got it wrong. That for the last five years kind of coming out of the pandemic, and we can point to the reasons why. I know why it happened. But you know, as the world started to have a hate on for business and started to blame business for all of its, you know, social injustices and everything else from human rights and equality to sustainability, everybody pointed at business and said it’s your fault. And so business responded the way business responds, which is, we’re just going to write something, we’re just going to tell you that we believe in something more and we’re not going to actually focus on the hard work to get there. And so business was consumed with purpose to sound good. And business was consumed with purpose as a method of pr. And so business embraced a purpose that had nothing to do with where they made their money. And the consumer’s response to that is just one of kind of well this is bs, it doesn’t work. And so there were two things at play there. One was the consumer going, I’m not buying it. And the other thing was business completely lost its way by focusing on things that it should not have been focusing on. All those things that business were wrapping up in purpose of human rights, inequality and sustainability. Those are expectations like for you to come out and proudly say we believe in human rights. I hope so. You know, to use the kind of, you know, the Simon said, a golden circle approach, like, well, that’s kind of how you do your business. But that’s not why you do your business. And why you do your business needs to be strategically linked to where you make your money. And if you embrace that purpose now, that purpose can be a vehicle for growth. That purpose allows you to grow. And so when I looked at how do you operationalize that? Well, the operating system for that is think to say it’s the exact same operating system that marketers can use. And that was the first book thing to say, was establishing that operating system. But Through a marketing lens. And the think part was really about how do we, we need to care for something more so that we can win attention. And that was the heart of the think at that point. And that evolved over time. It’s like, oh, no, the think is not about winning time. The think is really about focusing growth. That how do we believe in something that’s strategically linked to where we make our money and that can focus, specific activities that reinforce that and the result will be growth.

There’s a conversation about authenticity in large enterprise organizations

>> Craig Gould: I feel like between the lines there, there’s a conversation about authenticity, that you need to be who you really are and not try to be someone else.

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, 100% there, there are. And, we’re starting to see a blowback on some of this, you know, where people, they took authenticity as being, we’re like you, we’re humans, and we care for the planet. And they started to have those types of conversations. That was their definition of authenticity. The reality is authenticity is just being comfortable with your imperfections. It’s not trying to, you know, it’s understanding that you are a brand and that a brand has imperfections as a leader. It’s being comfortable with your imperfections as a leader and not trying to live up to the stock photo version of what you think. A leader in your specific position, a big business is supposed to look and act and sound like they’re, you know, they’re just. When you get up into large enterprise organizations, CEOs, they’ve lost all authenticity because they’ve surrounded themselves with the comms team who scripts everything that they say. And so we don’t have leaders who are authentically communicating with their people anymore. We have leaders who are reading press releases off teleprompters and the, the employee, just like the consumer, they’re not buying it. Right. They can just smell that a mile away.

>> Craig Gould: Do you find that some corporations need Iran and the guys at church and state to come in and help them figure out who they really are or do. Do most companies know? Because, I mean, every corporation started as a startup. It had to have been a couple of guys in a garage at some point. Every corporation has a DNA, but every CEO wants his fingerprints on whatever’s going on now. And there’s a lot of water that goes under the bridge in between. I mean, do, do you find that big corporations have a problem knowing what their key differentiators are, what that inherent DNA that can set them apart is? Or is it just on the tip of their tongue and they can’t figure it out?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, in some ways, especially when those organizations who are transitioning from more startup into a fully baked organization with processes and systems and whatnot, and you kind of start to see the remnants of the personality of the founder and they want to protect the personality of the founder. And this was, at church and state we used to be called the tight group. It was literally my last name. And, and I realized like when we briefed in the team on a new name, I simply said, we’re not going.

>> Craig Gould: To do the loose group. Just not an option. It’s not on the table.

>> Ron Tite: That’s right. I said yes. First part of the brief, no lose group. I just said less tight, more group. You know, less tight, more group. Like this is, this has got to take on its own thing. And I will adhere to that. But so there is that weird transition for organizations. I think the trouble they have is kind of twofold. One is that how do we protect the thing that we love about this organization as we get bigger and more systems and more processes? And how do we communicate the heart of growth? And why the purpose part is important is that we can fundamentally believe in something and we can align our actions to drive growth that fundamentally support that overarching belief. But we’re not going to grow until other people adopt our ideas. They’re just not. So how they adopt our ideas and how they adopt our passions is through how we communicate what we fundamentally believe and what we do. So organized some organizations either lose that and that idea of, oh, we got to convince people to come on board both internally and externally and they just go down this road of like, well, this is what we think it should be. And it’s that stock photo version thing. Right. Of like it’s got to sound perfect. And, and I mean they lost all sense of personality. The other challenge is the exact opposite is where they’ve come out of some place that has these great wonderful things about the organization and they just want to go with that. And what our strategy finds out is like, there’s no business model for that.

>> Ron Tite: Like there’s. Some people are like, we’re rebellious, we’re amazing. We’re like, congratulations, that’s a market of three people. And so what we need to do is protect some level of authenticity with some level of reality on where the opportunity is. So if you make a, you know, if you make a, a, you’re a mortgage broker and you fundamentally believe that Everybody should pay 1% on their mortgage, that’s an Amazing brand belief. There is no market for that business. And so we need to be more intentional with, with pursuing growth and as that relates to our brand belief. And so sometimes we got to come in and we got to have some tough love. We have to say, it’s not working for you. You think it makes you amazing. It thinks it makes you special. You love the culture of your organization. You’re not growing, so something has to change.

Ron Stub: Can you give us examples of who’s gotten it wrong

>> Craig Gould: I don’t necessarily want to dogpile on anybody, but can you kind of give us examples of who’s gotten it wrong versus maybe who’s gotten it right? I know in Think Doucet, you have this great story about rei, right? And how they just really, seem to authentically know who they are and would make decisions based on that. Not that we want to shine a light on poor souls that aren’t getting it right, but, you know, Ron, it’s. It’s all about stories, right? Sometimes, you know, we need stories to wrap our heads around exactly how people get it right, how people get it wrong.

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, totally. There’s. There are, When you look at the, As an organization gets larger and larger and larger, I think you can look at the entire financial, services sector we’ve actually lined up because we have some clients in that space. All the purposes of those organizations, they all sound the same. There is no inherent difference in any of their purpose statements. And they are all about, we’re here to build community. No, you’re not. You’re not here to build community. You know, that’s not tied to where you make your money. You’re tied about now. Sure, it can be about, you know, people funding their dreams. It can be people being comfortable with stability. It can be the pursuit of, financial, security. It can be the pursuit of a great retirement. But most of them are really around, like, community, about building community, and, you know, kind of investing in their community. And, like. No, that’s not it at all. I mean, come on, give me a break. One of the, You know, if you look at, like, Philip Morris, like, you know, like, how does a cigarette company ladder up their purpose statement, which is, like, what, you sell cigarettes? Like, come on, this is a. Give me a break.

>> Craig Gould: Yeah, I mean, I never understood how R.J. reynolds wound up buying Nabisco. Like, how do. How does that even enter into the conversation if you’re being true to a purpose? you know, unless that purpose is, I guess, cardiac disease at some point. Right?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, but it could be freedom, right? Like, it could Be. Hey, people deserve the. Does this. Is this. Is this great for you? No, it’s not great for you. We’re gonna be completely honest with that.

>> Craig Gould: Yeah. I mean, it’s like comfort. Comfort. Comfort foods and comfort. I mean, I don’t know. It’s, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, Ron.

>> Ron Tite: No, no. But on the plus side, you know, I think there’s an amazing example of an organization that has kind of pursued. Achieved tremendous growth using kind of this model. And I don’t mean to say, like, oh, they had an early access to the book and they applied the thinking, but I think it’s just. It’s a great case study. and it’s, the Savannah Bananas. Do you know the Savannah Bananas?

>> Craig Gould: Yes. Yes.

>> Ron Tite: So, you know, here was, you know, Jesse Cole, who had this idea of, like, well, what’s going wrong with this? You know, it was a business that was failing. No. Was coming out to the games and started with this brand belief of, like, we think, you know, that we can make everything better. Like, we can improve on everything. Everything can be made better. And he just systematically looked at what are the problems that people have with this brand and with this experience and how do we just make it better? So people said, your tickets are too expensive. And he said, okay, we’re going to make it better. We’re going to cap the price. and by the way, your food is included in the ticket, so it’s all you can eat, and it’s one price. We’re like, oh, that’s amazing. And you know what? I’m going to say no to StubHub money because that just. That just raises ticket prices. I’m going to say no to $2 million of StubHub money because we’re going to make the pricing better. What else do you got? And they just systematically went through. And we hate all the ads in the ballpark. Great. No more ads. We’re going to make that better. What else? The wait lines in the, food. Okay, we’re going to add food stations. We’re going to add stuff. What else? It got to the point. And I think this is the biggest lesson. It got to the point where people just kind of said, it’s just that baseball’s boring. Right? And it was that there you can create all these amazing things. There is no business model in that town for, a, game of baseball that goes on for two and a half hours. You just can’t make it work because the sport sucks. So he went to the League owners and said, why don’t we cap this in 90 minutes? I mean this isn’t the MLB here. And they were like, you know, the establishment said, what are you talking about?

Jesse Cole changed every aspect of baseball through innovation

Baseball is supposed to be boring. It’s supposed to be nine innings. You’re messing with tradition. And this is what happens in every business category. When someone new comes in and says, I think we should change this. The establishment goes, hey, don’t you know how this works? Like, that’s not how we do it around here. So Jesse Cole said, fine, I’m just going to go start my own league. And that league is going to have baseball that ends at 90 minutes. And he changed a bunch. You know, there’s made, just changed every aspect of the game. Now that he was free from the handcuffs of the establishment, he’s like, I can change anything. So my favorite rule in banana ball is if you hit a foul ball into the stands and a fan catches it, you’re out. So that we know that, one way to deliver an amazing experience is to involve your customers in the process. He completely involved them in the game. So he had this fundamental brand belief that was connected to where he made his money. He aligned his actions to create an amazing experience that actually solved the problems at hand. And he communicated in his in a way that was completely authentic. All he did, all they do is basically capture content of the games. This is what happens here. And when that is so unique and so special, that’s all you have to do is just show people this is what we believe and this is what we do to reinforce it. Tremendous growth.

>> Craig Gould: Sure. So think, do say. Right?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

>> Craig Gould: So, I try to talk to the world’s best leaders about leadership, culture, strategy, innovation. And so my listeners, I want them to be equipped by what they can hear and apply to their business. But also I believe that it’s hard out there being a mid level executive, that you’re part of the huddled masses. It’s hard to rise above the huddled masses. And how do you do that? You need to figure out how to differentiate yourself. And I’m trying to create tools that can equip and you know, share lessons that can equip these people to actively manage their careers in.

If we want organizational growth, like leadership does not happen without personal growth

My question for you is for those listeners that are trying to transform themselves into a better version, who are actively managing their own brand, how can they apply these principles of purpose and the think do say to their own careers and their own trajectory?

>> Ron Tite: It’s a great question because, you know, I feel for a mid level manager within a large enterprise organization. And my peers in advertising can sometimes, they get really frustrated with like, well, why don’t you just change this thing in the product? And you’re like, do you understand like this person? You’re, there’s 8,000 people between this person and the person who gets to make that decision. We got to move on. so yes, it would be amazing if the product had that feature. We’re not going to solve that in two weeks, so let’s move on. so I think the person is really critical in this journey because if we want organizational growth, like organizational growth does not happen until individuals put their hand up and commit to personal growth. Like until somebody makes m. You know, we, you know we talked earlier about, or we talked kind of coming out of the pandemic with like this idea of the great resignation. And the resignation has two meanings. And the one meaning is this reaction to an unfavorable situation, like, this sucks, I quit, I’m out of here. The other definition is way worse. And that is when someone is merely resigned as an individual, they are resigned to doing the same things they’ve always done. They are resigned to having the same conversations with the same people about the same issues. They are resigned to letting the world unfurl before them, and reacting to it instead of proactively creating their own reality. So I think the great resignation is, you know, the more dangerous one. It’s not a reaction to an unfavorable situation and worse, it’s, it’s an acceptance of it. And so how can individuals do. Well, individuals need to do this or the organizational growth won’t happen. So it’s instead of just trying to pursue the organizational growth, it’s by prioritizing and starting with personal growth. And if I, and if I can have an effect on the organizational growth, then amazing. That’s awesome. And if I don’t, because of politics and because of fear and because of a million other things, at least I have committed and succeeded at my own personal growth. And I’ve put myself in a better position to either advance within the organization to a place where I can have significant, significant impact, or quite frankly, I can put myself in a position that if, this isn’t happening in here, I can go and pursue a better opportunity elsewhere. So it’s, as an individual, how do I invest in personal growth in a really responsible way, in following the exact same things? So if I’m a manager, what do I fundamentally believe about being a manager? What is My purpose as a manager? Well, you know, maybe I think my purpose is to manage up. That’s what I’m going to do for my team. I’m going to manage up so they don’t have to. Or maybe my purpose as a manager, I think it’s really about mentorship. That that’s the heart of management, is mentorship. Okay, so if that’s the case, how are you going to grow with that as your purpose? How are you going to grow as a mentor? What things are you going to do to ensure you pursue personal growth as a mentor? What actions are you taking? What courses are you taking? what blogs are you reading? You know, all those things. And then if mentorship is really important, how are you communicating that with inside the organization to ensure that other mentors kind of sign up? How are you communicating it with your, subordinates, the people you’re mentoring, so that they understand and want to take on and adopt your ideas and your passions. And at the end of that, boom, you’ll know how to be a tremendous mentor that is invested in personal growth. And hopefully that changes the organization. And if not, you’re still looking good.

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Do good corporations care enough about their employees to help develop them

Now back to our conversation.

>> Craig Gould: I know you. You live on the creative side. So this question may be more for the C suite in terms of Chro or whatever, but is it the corporate responsibility to help nurture the employee’s purpose? Do good corporations care enough about their employees to help develop them? It’s probably a loaded question, but what do you think?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, I. I think in both ways. And I come at it from both, an employee and a management perspective. So from an. From, you know, should m organizations develop their employees 100%? Of course they should. If you’re if you wanted to make moves as an organization, let’s say you want to adopt an AI into your business, processes, whatever you want it. You want to adopt AI to, gathering insights about your consumer. Well, that is a strategic priority for your organization. You need to develop your people so that you can realize those priorities. So if you want to pursue AI, then then consciously and intentionally develop your people with that goal in mind. So, yeah, you got to promote it. You have to get people into courses, you got to send them on a seminar, all of those sorts of things the same time. That is through the lens of the organizational priorities. Sometimes the personal development and the organizational development are not aligned. This is when we get side hustles. And then the question becomes, well, does the organization, should the organization help that person develop the side hustle that may not actually be integrated into the strategic priorities of the organization? Then we’re left with a moral dilemma of how do we treat people and do we help people develop something that has nothing to do with what we do or isn’t a priority in what we do? And in some cases, I’d say, yeah, you’re probably going to look at your data around employee loyalty, retention, and and you can figure out whether that act actually helps your organization or it hurts your organization. And if you’re starting to lose people because they’re just chasing their side hustles, then maybe you don’t do that. Now, on the flip side of the employee, if I’m an employee and I’m not investing and taking, you know, Google has amazing AI courses that you can take. If you’re not taking those and you’re not, developing yourself because your organization isn’t paying for it, you know what? You might be hurting the organization, but more than that, you’re hurting yourself. You’re hurting your own career. Manage your own career in a way that you set yourself up for the long haul, not just wait for the organization to develop you. You have to have some responsibility for your own career, and that means paying for it yourself and doing it on weekends. Then, I’m sorry, that’s what you got to do. You’re here for the long haul, not for this one off job that you’ve got.

>> Craig Gould: That’s quality. Ron, I think I would pay to listen to you give me that piece of advice from the stage. You know, I talk with managers, leaders about these black swan events. I had Stacey Cunningham, who was president of the New York Stock Exchange, when the pandemic unfolded. Right. You know, how does A, financial market prepare for not having traders on the floor because of a global pandemic. It’s hard to anticipate what, the, the unseen events around the corner. It’s, it’s hard to have foreseen our current political environment or the, the role of AI but if I were to ask Ron Tite what’s on the horizon and what’s on the horizon in terms of how everything we’ve been talking about becomes more integral or how it plays out over the next five years, if we were looking forward and we’re trying to be strategic, what should we be taking into consideration from your perspective? Because I think the interesting thing about you, Ron, is that you talk to so many people in so many different industries, and so maybe you have your finger on the pulse in a little bit different way. What do you see? And you can’t answer AI.

>> Ron Tite: Well, I think you know how you. I mean, who knows for the first part, right? There’s, as you said, there’s. We are in a place where, we did not under. Think that we’d be heading into this kind of political environment. And, and those are, you know, I also don’t want to make that a venting eventing about that. You know, like, hey, there are. We always have to reevaluate global trade, and we always have to reevaluate what’s good for our communities and for our people. And so, and some people are going to be bold enough to kind of change things up. So, what we need to be is to have a mindset that is, that can adapt, to whatever changes come our way. And that’s why this, the idea of purpose is so important. So here’s a quick little metaphor for you, and your viewers or listeners can’t see this, but Craig, I’m, I’m 6 foot 10. Donjo doesn’t look like it, but I’m so.

>> Craig Gould: Well, well, seven. Two at the Afro.

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, so I’m, I’m five, eight. I’m very short. and I’m not great at basketball. But here’s what I know about basketball. When you’re dribbling down the court and you stop dribbling, you’re forced to stop for whatever reason. you have a pivot foot. Now you have a pivot foot that, is. Your pivot foot is the foot that’s anchored to the floor, and that keeps you grounded. Now you can still look. Am I going to go in this direction? Am I going to pass this direction? Am I going to go this way? Am I going to go this way? You have options before you, and you can assess the landscape before you. But your pivot foot keeps you grounded, your pivot foot keeps you focused. So you don’t just one run willy nilly all over the court and get called for traveling. That, to me, is what we, what we need to do is that we need something to focus us, and to me, that’s purpose, that focuses our next move depending on what is unfolding before us. And, there are way too many people who, and leaders who go, well, you know, we do, we take a bunch of stuff, we throw it against the wall and we see what sticks. I’m like, what? Like, how much money do you have? That’s nuts. Like, we just got to be better than that. We need to be more, more focused than that. So to me, that’s what it is, whatever it is that unfolds before us that we need to have something that focuses our activities so that we can establish clear priorities for our next move.

Race car races are won in two places; business is won in the corners

Now, the other metaphor I’ll play with here is it’s another sport one. I typically don’t love sport metaphors, but I did do a phys ed degree at one point. in car racing, when a car comes out of the straightaway like you, you need to get speed in the straightaway. There’s no corners. Like, you lock your elbows, you put the pedal to the metal, and whoever built the best car six months before the race, they win. So you put the pedal to metal and they can win in this, in the straightaway. But the reality is, in this, you know, race we call life, or this race we call business, nobody wins in the straightaways. That is not how you win a car. Race car races are won in two places. They’re one in the pits, and they’re one in the corners. Now, the pits is all about who you recruit, how you train them, how you empower them to do the job you need them to do, when it’s called, when it’s their turn to do it. But in the corners, this is when the pros arrive. The pros arrive because as you come out of the straightaway, you know, out of a bull market or out of a, you know, a great quarter or whatever it is, and you hit a corner, the first thing you need to do is you need to slow the car down. You need to go like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not get out of control. Let’s just, you know, let’s get our bearings. Where are we at? You Slow the car down. But as soon as you get control of the car and you know what your next move is going to be, you have to ensure that going from this state of chaos to this state of composure doesn’t become a state of complacency, where you go, I’m just going to wait out the corner. Because as any race fan knows, the cars that win and the cars that emerge from the corners in first place are the ones who accelerate in the middle of the corner. That’s how you win a race. You accelerate in the middle of a corner, and you accelerate in the middle of the corner so that by the time you leave the corner, you’re lapping everybody that waited. So when you take those two metaphors together, it’s kind of being adaptable enough to, respond to the world around you. But once you get clarity on what your next move should be. Go, go, go, go, go. Accelerate in the middle of the corner, and you’ll just be better and further ahead than everybody else.

>> Craig Gould: Absolutely. I can see into my head that the majority of the passing that happens in an F1 race happens in the curves. Right. So it’s like, who is dealing with that curve? You’ve been tossed this curve. Who’s managing it the best? That’s where you wind up differentiating yourself, Right?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah. And in business, that’s where we. All those. When. When things are good, when things are great, we have to have an eye. Because some businesses, there’s. There’s pure seasonality to it. Like, you know, if you’re a real estate agent, you know that the wintertime is not going to maybe be great for you, but in the spring and the summer, this is where houses sell. So there can be an expected seasonality where you know when the corner is coming or you just know every business, we just know. We hit recessions, we hit downturns. And so, you know, the businesses who are doing really, really well and who spend like drunken sailors, by the time they hit the corner, they go, oh, no, we have no money. We didn’t. We didn’t prep for this. But those who are financially responsible during the good times, during the straightaways, they got a good bank of cash in order to make strategic decisions, when maybe revenue isn’t that. That. That, that that profitable or revenue’s not that, you know, kind of coming in as often. And, So it really is that, that interplay between straightaway and corners and how are we preparing for each of them that makes us successful.

Every organization needs strategic priorities. From the perspective of doing this from a purpose driven modality

>> Craig Gould: Let me ask you this. If I’m a big corporation and I want to foster renovation. And the, the guest I spoke to last week, she actually was an entrepreneur in residence at Walmart and she did one of their first in house startups where it was incubated and then became one of their brands. From the perspective of doing this from, a purpose driven modality, does that need to be something that is tied to the company purpose? Does it need to, you know, do we need to have one foot anchored when we look at those opportunities, or can we be open to all types of innovation and know that if it takes off, we can spin it off because it isn’t core to what we do at heart?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah, I think there’s, there are a couple of ways at it. every organization needs priorities. Every organization needs strategic priorities. And there are people who are really good. My friend Bruce Ellery calls it the others, seed planters or seeds. Seed spreaders, you know, and I’m a bit of a seed spreader, I’ll be honest. where the seed spreaders are the ones who go, like, they spend a bunch of seeds and they go, okay, what? And they, so they do, they do 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. And then they look and they go, oh, this one organically is, got some traction, so we’re going to pursue this one. So that is an approach where they go like, yeah, we’re going to try a bunch of stuff and it’s not the. See what sticks, but they just do a little bit of work and they’ve got, let’s say, 10 projects that fulfill their brand purpose, that bring that purpose to life and solve problems for their, for their, their customers or clients or employees. but you can’t do all of them at once. There are other people who go, I’m a seed planter, I have one seed, I’m going to put it here, I’m going to water that seed, I’m going to care. And it’s just the one thing. So there are two approaches at it, but both require strategic priorities and focus because you can’t do everything. So then the question becomes, well, how do you decide? Well, what you decide is if you have your purpose, what you fundamentally believe in, how can you reinforce that purpose in a way that drives a better experience? And how can you drive efficiency within how you already do the thing that you do so that you can save time and money to allocate into other projects? So that’s typically where I start. Let’s look at the thing you’re doing right now. How can we do that way more efficiently and effectively? If you think of it as an assembly line, that if the assembly line is your, your process and bringing your product to market, well, there are ways of taking the assembly line and investing in technologies that the people can do more, they can spot, weld more places and you know, you only need one person instead of two people. So you can look at that assembly line and go, we can make this way more efficient than it already is. So that’s one way. The second way is we’re going to develop a concept car not on the assembly line. It’s way over there. It’s the, it’s being incubated kind of thing to use your, your previous guest language.

>> Craig Gould: And it’s over there in the comedy world, we call it workshop, right?

>> Ron Tite: Yeah. It’s your open mic night, right? It’s your open mic. Yeah, yeah. I was a comedian for 20 years and this is what, which is what is tricky about the speaking world. There’s no open mic night. Everyone’s paying you full fee to be there. That’s why I have to have, in every speech I have something called the new two. The new two is a new two minutes that I have never ever used in any speech before in my life. And I do that because, I need ways of workshopping new material. And it’s got to start with the new two. And if the new two tanks, not a problem, there’s 58 other minutes of gold that they paid for. And every audience is subsidizing a future audience by, by working through that, those two minutes because they are benefiting from the subsidy that another audience has paid for them to receive this five minute bit which started as a, as a new two. So yeah, that’s a great insight. It’s. We have to have this kind of approach of like, how am I testing new stuff. So we think of it as a concept car. A concept car is off the assembly line as a small group of people and it’s done just to be done. There’s no when they go like, what is our expected performance? What are you talking about? It’s never been done before. We’re going to do it just to do it and then we’re going to see what we learn. And maybe we look at that car, that concept car and go, the whole thing, this thing’s never going to market. But the gas cap.

>> Ron Tite: That thing, we can work that into the assembly line. So it becomes this really responsible approach to innovation opposed to, we’re just going to try, you know 100 different things and see what sticks.

Are there benefits to putting yourself out there at open mic nights

>> Craig Gould: Ron tight. Is Ron tight. But would you recommend to somebody to follow, this same path? I mean, can you tell me about the benefits of having put yourself out there at open mic nights? Actually, I think, I think I heard you tell a story about you went to your first open mic night and said, I’m above these people, you know, are you? And went back to a person who did comedy and say, you know, I would love to try it out, but is there another option? And they’re like, well, the only other option is, you know, find somebody who’s willing to produce and make you the act. You. I’m telling your story, Ron. Can you. You’re going to tell the story better than I can. My, my question is, what was it like that first time? Are there benefits to people putting themselves out there? Do people necessarily need to get into comedy? But if they wanted to become a better storyteller, if they wanted to reap their rewards and benefits of what that has given you, how else might they do that?

>> Ron Tite: yeah, so I’ll go back to that story because it is, it’s a fun thing. Where I wanted to do stand up. Went to a friend, he said, go to an open mic. You can get, you know, you’ll get five minutes. And I said, okay, I’m gonna go check it out. I checked it out. I thought, this is, this is brutal. This is horrible. That guy’s drunk. Like, that guy loves the bet. Like, these are all. This is all horrible comedy. And I, said, I just don’t want to be associated with this. So I went back and said, what else can I do? He’s like, find a producer that’s producing a live show and see if you can convince them to give you five minutes even though you’ve never done it before. So I said, well, why don’t I just become a producer? Like, why don’t I just produce my own show and do my own thing and then I’ll make myself the headliner. So the very first time I ever did comedy on stage of, my own material, I was a four. I did a 45 minute set as a headliner. And I did that because I wanted to do it and I wanted to try it out. And I knew that I had something to say. And the establishment said, well, if you want, this is what you need to do. You got to apply to this job. So it was a very entrepreneurial approach to comedy, to saying, I’m just going to do my own thing. And Amazing that once you do one night of a 45 minute set, you’re a comedian now. Like, you’re a comedian now. And now you can get gigs because you go, I just headlined at Tim Sims Playhouse. And they go, oh, great. Can you do 20? And I’m like, 20? Oh, okay. You know, like, so. So that was, it was interesting. It, was an interesting approach. It was a bold approach. I’m so glad I did it. the first night, that first night, well, it was kind of. You know how we have friends and family investor rounds, you know, within organizations where you go to your friends and family, you go, you know, I kind of want to do this thing. Would you put in some money? That’s all I did. I just went to people and said, I’m producing a show. I’m launching my career in comedy. I’d love for you to come and check it out. And by the way, I’m not taking your money. we’re going to donate your money to a not for profit cause and we’ll see how much money we can raise.

>> Craig Gould: So that newspaper in Oshawa, they’re the ones there?

>> Ron Tite: That’s right. We’re all going to pay the monthly fee. Now. That’s a callback. so, you know, so there was this, like, it was a collaborative kind of thing, like, hey, I’m gonna, I want to do this and I don’t want to take your money because I don’t know how good it’s going to be. and it. But it was a very supportive environment to do it in. And it was amazing. Like, it was just so fun. And, but it was great in that there were some things that they responded to that I didn’t think they would respond to in that way. And other things where you go, like, that’s fascinating. I thought that was really funny. But it didn’t get the response, oh, this is cool. So it was like a live focus group of stuff. Now, you know, when people, not everybody. I think there is a lot to, to learn from comedy and that you don’t need to want to be, you know, Nate Brigazzi to pursue comedy. I think you can do it as a method of personal growth. It’s confidence, it’s creativity, it’s storytelling, it’s presentation skills. It’s, it’s working a room. It’s all those you master that you can walk into any boardroom and sell anything, you know, because if you die in front of 200 people with a horrible set and then you go to a boardroom the next day and they just go, I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Like, that’s their big. That’s. That’s the heckle. I don’t get it. That’s way better than anything you’d experience in a comedy club. So it’s, it’s wonderful for, for personal development, but I think at the heart of it, whether it’s go do an open mic or go produce your own, it’s just do it. It’s like, just go and do the thing. And so there are so many people who say, like, oh, I wish I could be, a better content creator. Well, just do it. Like, just go out and do it. And you’ll be amazed at what happens in the,

>> Craig Gould: Some company should make that a tagline. They really should.

Blue Man Group started out as a funeral procession for the 80s

>> Ron Tite: You know, like the goddess Nike once said. But, yeah, you know, there’s a great, you know, Blue Man Group.

>> Craig Gould: Oh, absolutely.

>> Ron Tite: So, you know, Blue Man Group started out in, It was 19, 89. And the three original men were. They had this idea of, like, oh, the 80s are ending and we should hold a funeral procession for the 80s, because there’s so much about this decade that we’re so glad to see go away. And so we’re going to hold a funeral procession holding artifacts from the 80s, and we’re going to walk through Central Park. But we don’t want people to think it’s like a political movement or anything, so we’re just going to paint ourselves blue so that it’s not about us, that it’s about the artifact. And we’re not going to talk and we’re just going to walk and that’s going to be our thing. And it was this weird idea that had no bearing in unanimity, no meaning to anything. It was just the death of the 80s. 80s. And so they just did it. And what they found in that act was that people were more intrigued by the blue men and that they were more intrigued when the blue men didn’t respond. And so then they started to do little acts of street theater as these blue M men during this funeral procession. So, you know, we throw around the word pivot as startups. It was their massive pivot. It was like they. They launched a, you know, an mvp. Ah. And then in launching it, they’re like, whoa, this product is way stronger when we do it this way. And then they just started to go out and do more and do more and do more, and they found great fulfillment from it. And then at one point they’re like, we should rent a theater and just like do a show. And, and that completely became what Blue Man Group is now. But it all started because they just said, yeah, let’s just do the thing.

Incredibly inspiring.

>> Craig Gould: Well, Ron, I have taken up so much of your time. This has been a, real treat. I can’t wait to share all of this with my listeners. Ron, your book purpose of purpose is I, believe people. The release date is in May, but I think people, even if this episode comes out in April, people can still head over to someplace like Amazon and pre order and, you know, day one is going to show up on their doorstep, you know, hand delivered by somebody in a blue vest.

>> Ron Tite: Right, The Blue Man. The blue men are going to deliver you. It’s a very expensive method of distribution, but it’s very effective. Right, so you can pre order the book now. It’s available wherever you get your books. And yeah, we know the way the algorithm works. Please go out, pre order the book. I really appreciate it.

>> Craig Gould: Well, Ron, thanks. Thanks again for being my guest. This is, it’s been a real joy.

>> Ron Tite: Thanks Craig, thanks for having me and thanks everybody for listening.