IAM1594 – CEO and Author Helps Transform Company Cultures Through Innovation and Investments in Workforce Growth

With more than 40 years of management, executive, consulting, and speaking experience worldwide, Miller Ingenuity president & CEO Steven L. Blue is a leading mid-market CEO and a globally-regarded business growth authority who has transformed companies into industry giants and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. He is the author of five highly-acclaimed books, including Metamorphosis: From Rust-belt to High-tech in a 21st Century World.

• CEO Story: Steve has worked his way up in industrial management. Despite being late in getting his bachelor's Degree and MBA. It did not stop him from climbing the ladder and transforming himself to become an author, writing his ideas, and then deciding to become a keynote speaker about leadership and what he’s done.
• Business Service: Transform company cultures. Bring awareness. Innovate.
• Secret Sauce: Reaching to the tentacles of the organization to make sure it interconnects.
• CEO Hack: Mention: Tony Robbins – business coach, Jay Abraham – coach and business leader. Harvey Mackay – best-selling author and professional speaker.
• CEO Nugget: (1) Whatever you are doing, if doesn’t scare you, it’s not worth doing. (2) Just because you have one great success, don’t start thinking you are that smart.
• CEO Defined: You have to have a lot of courage because you have to make courageous decisions and you have to back them up.

Website: stevenlblue.com , www.stevenlblue.com/author

Facebook: StevenLBlue

LinkedIn: stevenblue

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Transcription

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00:28 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:56- Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today Steve Blue of Miller Engine. Steve, it's great to have you on the show.

01:06 – Steven Blue

It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation.

01:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. The pleasure is all ours. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So before we jumped into having a great conversation, I wanted to read a little bit more about Steve so you can hear about some of those awesome things. With more than 40 years of management, executive consulting, and speaking experience worldwide, Miller Ingenuity is President and CEO.

Steve is a leading mid-market CEO and a globally recognized business growth authority who has transformed companies into industry giant science and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. He is the author of five highly acclaimed books including Metamorphosis From Rust Belt to High Tech in a 21st Century World. Steve, again, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:52 – Steven Blue

I sure am.

01:54 – Gresham Harkless

Let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.

02:01 – Steven Blue

Well, I started off as a blue-collar kid. My mother was a waitress and my father was a mechanic. I had to get my education the long and the hard way because they couldn't afford to put me through college. I ended up not getting my bachelor's degree until I was 40 years old. And my MBA, I didn't get that until I was 52. Of course, during all that time, I was working in industrial management for mostly big, big, big corporations. I kind of worked my way up the ladder over from a factory supervisor up to middle management, up to senior management, and eventually up to CEO.

During all that time, I was thinking about writing books about my ideas. I started writing books about kind of what I've done. I remember, Russ, my wife saw me writing my first book and she said, what are you doing? I said I'm writing a book. She goes, you don't know anything about writing a book. What are you going to write about? Then the first book was not that great. It was self-published. Then I got picked up by a big publisher along the way. Then I decided to start actually doing keynote speeches about leadership and about what I'd done.

I started off the usual way, Kiwanis clubs, where anybody that they can get to talk, they'll get them to talk, you know what I'm talking about, right? Then I started working my way up. As a matter of fact, I just got an XP Award out in LA a couple of weeks ago for a speech I made at Carnegie Hall in July. It was actually my second XP award. I got the first one for a speech, a keynote address I made at the United Nations a couple of years ago. And so what I've done is I've sort of taken my examples.

I'm a CEO that's sort of been there and done that. When I tell you how to quadruple profit in your company, I've done it. So I'm not a university professor and I'm not an academic. I've actually done these things. I found over the years that my fellow CEOs, I never met a CEO, that if you said, can I show you how to quadruple your profit? Would say, no, I'm not interested.

04:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I know most CEOs, and people who are listening to this understand that success leaves clues. So getting that opportunity to kind of be around and definitely, of course, hear from the success that you've been able to have is something that they would love to take a bite out of.

04:24- Steven Blue

Yep. I found a very receptive audience. One of the things I talk about a lot in all of my books, and it's a thread that's come every success I've had is the importance of culture. It used to be, and I'm sure you know this too, used to be, you talk to a CEO about culture, they'd give you a deer-in-the-headlights look. What is that? Now these days they're beginning to understand the importance of culture and it kind of weaves its way through everything.

04:54- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I think that everything that's happened since the pandemic has brought it even further to light and being able to try to attract clients, keep talent, all those things, play such a big part in the culture that you have.

05:08 – Steven Blue

That raises a point. I'll just make quickly the so-called quiet quitting phenomenon that you hear about. People have been quietly quitting for over 20 years, and there are plenty of Harvard and other university studies that bear this out. But it never got a lot immediate till somebody put a name on it.

05:28 – Gresham Harkless

Right.

05:29 – Steven Blue

The quiet quitting. The way to avoid quiet-quitting is by respecting your employees and not only respecting the people who work for you but also making sure that people respect each other in an organization. That's really the key. In all these studies and surveys, people were more interested in respect than they were in pay promotions and benefits and you know what respect doesn't cost a darn thing.

05:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So is that a lot of what you're doing with Miller Ingenuity is being able to kind of help, bring that awareness to the CEOs and leaders of these organizations?

06:08 – Steven Blue

Yeah. I use my own company, and I've had several companies. I use my own company as an example. I'll give you one example. We wanted to become more innovative a number of years ago, quite a few years ago. I mean, we had an R and D department. Of course, they're innovative. That's what they get paid to do. But I wanted the entire workforce to have an engine of innovation, so white collar and blue collar. So I hired the former Chief Creativity Officer of the QVC network to come in and teach the principles of innovation, starting with the building blocks of brainstorming to every single employee.

He rode shotgun with us coming in and out every other week to make sure we got it, make sure we understood it, and every single employee got it. Then I said, okay, I'm going to give every single employee the time and the freedom to go out and innovate. It used to be in the beginning we'd say, okay, here's a problem we want you to work on, or here's an opportunity we want you to work on fast forward five or six years after that, they do it all by themselves. Now, our employees decide what they want to work on when they want to work on it, and who they want to work on it with. It's amazing the output that you get if you give people the freedom to do that.

07:28 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love to hear that. Especially too how, I think so many times when we can think about whatever proclamations that might be said about creativity, ingenuity, or we're going to trust more, whatever it might be, it seems like as soon as you say it, it's just a checkmark. But I love that you talked about and expounded upon how exactly you took the actions to help support that initiative. I think that goes a lot towards building that culture, but also building that trust, I imagine, amongst the people on the team as well.

So consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce, which can be for yourself individually, the organization, or a combination of both. But is it that ability to be able to understand and see the forest for the trees, really understand, like what organizations, should be doing or maybe should have as like a goal, but furthermore, to be able to kind of understand how that manifests itself in each part of the organization? Do you feel like that's part of the secret sauce?

08:28 – Steven Blue

Yeah, it really is. Because, you know, of course, everybody knows. No secret is the CEO's job is to set direction, the CEO's job to set strategy, and all that kind of stuff, and then mobilize resources to achieve that. Okay, that's fine. You can get that in any textbook. But what many CEOs don't realize is what you just talked about is you have to reach into the tentacles of the organization and make sure that all of that interconnects somehow. Otherwise, it's just, it's just fluff and CEO talk.

You have to, like I said, you have to line everything up in the organization to achieve that, including firing. If people aren't on board with the initiatives, you give them coaching, give them counseling, you give them an opportunity to change all that kind of stuff, that when I make a proclamation, I intend to back it up. That's what I mean by you've got to reach in the tentacles of the organization. You can't just sort of let your supervisors do it and your other leaders do it because they may not quite be on board with your initiative and you need to know whether they are or not.

09:26 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have.

09:35 – Gresham Harkless

But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:38- Steven Blue

I could give you the names of three people. Will that work?

09:41 – Gresham Harkless

That'll do it.

09:42 – Steven Blue

Tony Robbins. Everybody knows Tony Robbins. Jay Abraham. Some of your younger listeners matter. Then Harvey McKay would be the third. Some of your younger viewers might not know him, but Harvey is a seven-time New York Times bestselling author, and professional speaker, and everybody knows what Tony Robbins does. Jay Abraham. I think they used to call him the $10 million man. I was a co-producer in the film about. A film about his life and times.

As a matter of fact, I just saw Jay last week in Phoenix at Harvey McKay's 90th birthday party. He had about 400 of his best friends join him to celebrate his 90th. The three of them have completely different views. I've done the firewalk, I don't know, four or five times. They have completely different views. I've sort of melded them together and coalesced them.  I've sort of a mutt. I'm a hybrid of all three of those guys.

10:38 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. My big belief, and I always say in the quote is success leaves clues. I think that if you find people and. I think a lot of the big thing I think I even touched on a little bit when I read something last week was that we sometimes think innovation is doing something completely new, but sometimes it's. When you are that much, when you are able to coalesce each of these different things, you're able to blaze trails because you're able to see the best parts or how you can kind of leverage different aspects and thoughts from the.

11:08 – Steven Blue

There's a school of thought that says, and I'm sure you hear this. There's nothing new in the world. There's nothing new in the world. But how you apply it, how you use it, how you sort of make it fit with your own circumstances, that I think is the key.

11:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. There's such a school of thought of being diverse, having diverse experiences, and being well-read because you can sometimes take something from an entirely different industry and implement it in yours and then all of a sudden it becomes like an innovation.

11:36- Steven Blue

Yeah.

11:37 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? Then? This is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happen to do a time machine, you might tell your younger.

11:50 – Steven Blue

Business self if you're. If whatever you're doing, you got an initiative, you're launching a company, a new product, whatever, if it doesn't scare the living daylights out of you, it isn't good, it isn't worth doing, and it isn't. You're not thinking big enough. I'll give you a really quick example. I started a trade show many years ago in Mexico. I won't bore you with the details of why I thought that was a good opportunity in any way. So after a lot of work and a lot of effort, it was the night before the trade show and there was. All my customers were coming from the United States. This was down in Monterey, Mexico.

There was a huge snowstorm in the northeast, and I was afraid that most of them wouldn't be able to get there. I was on the hook personally, and I didn't have the money for 100,000 dol in hotel guarantees, right? Then in the exhibit hall guarantees. I'd have been screwed if that didn't work out. I was. I'm walking through the exhibit hall that night and I'm absolutely scared to death. I did everything right. This was an event that was beyond my control. As it turned out, the snowstorms cleared. It was a huge success, but I was scared to death.

The other thing I'll mention is just because you have one great big success, don't start thinking you're that smart. Because right after that, I started an Internet at the time, this is back in, I don't know, 35 years ago, Internet broadcast company. My inaugural broadcast was to be made from Havana, Cuba. I had to jump through a lot of hoops that get the license to go down there. I had to hire a film crew out of Mexico, all kinds of stuff.

It was an absolute failure. I lost a ton of money out of that. But my message is, because I've been so successful in that trade show, I'm thinking I can do no wrong. Well, the fact is you can do wrong, but you can't let that stop you from engaging in new and new ideas. You just have to take a chance every time.

13:43- Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So you kind of touched on this as well, too, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote, unquote CEOs on this show. So, Steve, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:53 – Steven Blue

You have to have lots of courage because you have to make courageous decisions and then you have to back them up. You shouldn't think that every decision you make will be welcomed with open arms, because they won't. Over the course of my career, I've been threatened. I had to hire a private security detail to protect my family. I've had to cajole my board at one time or another. It's co is a perilous occupation. It is. If you want to be one or you want to be successful, you have to strap on your flak jacket and expect to take a lot of incoming because that's just the way it is. But you just have to sort of barrel your way through it and keep going.

If you get disheartened or discouraged by the first time someone I've gotten hate mail. I've had people drop stuff in my yard. You name it, I've had it all. One time some woman called my wife and said I was having an affair with somebody in the company, which I wasn't. I mean, it's just all manner of whenever somebody wants to change something, and that CEO's job is to change things, then you're going to get a lot of resistance. So you just have to buck up for that.

15:05 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, Steve, truly appreciate you for taking some time out with us today. What I wanted to do now is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you, find out about all the awesome things you and team are working on.

15:21 – Steven Blue

Well, just keep at it. How do they say people who can't teach? Well, actually, writing my books has sharpened my thinking. I think the easiest way is my personal website, which links to the company. If you try to spell my company name, it's not that easy. My personal website is stephenlblue.com.

15:43 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. We'll definitely have those links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. I think when you were saying the quote about being able to write the book and how valuable it has been for you to kind of get that clarity, sometimes people say you can't afford to do it, but a lot of times the reality is you can't afford to.

I think that probably the spaciousness, the clarity, just getting able to kind of think through things and be able to kind of synthesize. That is a good exercise, imminent of itself just for any leader, any person that's going through life. So truly appreciate that last part and of course, all the awesome things that you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:17 – Steven Blue

Well, thank you. It's a joy to talk to you. Thank you so much.

16:21 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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