The Essence of Learning Leadership

Episode 125: Garry Ridge – How To Build A Tribal Culture (CEO WD-40)

Garry Ridge is president and chief executive officer of the WD-40 Company (NASDAQ WDFC) headquartered in San Diego, California. WD-40 Company is the maker of the ever-popular WD-40. A native of Australia, Garry has served as national vice president of the Australian Marketing Institute and the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association.

Garry is an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego. He teaches leadership development, talent management & succession planning in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership program.  In March 2003, Garry was awarded Director of the Year for Enhancement of Economic Value by the Corporate Directors forum.  In 2006, Garry was awarded the Ernst & Young - Master Entrepreneur Award.

In 2009, Garry co-authored a book with Ken Blanchard titled “Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A.”

Episode 125: Garry Ridge – How To Build A Tribal Culture (CEO WD-40)

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The Learning Leader Show

“The Number That Predicts Long Term Sales Success Is Employee Satisfaction”

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• Having a high level of empathy (EQ), being a great listener, and a passion to see others succeed leads to sustained excellence
• How he grew WD-40 from $250 million to $1.6 Billion
• How to build a tribal culture
• Turning up the volume on training, learning, and development
• What it means when Garry says, “Don’t waste a good crisis”
• Setting SMART goals
• Why the employee needs to set the goal and be supported by the leader
• “Wisdom is putting knowledge to work”
• “You learn a lot by shutting up”
• A great line from “The Bridge of Spies” When the prisoner is asked if he’s worried about something potentially bad happening to him, he quietly responds, “Would that help?” – It’s a waste of energy to worry about things outside of your control
• Don’t Mark My Paper – Help Me Get An A
• Having a rigorous hiring process to ensure bringing great people into the business
• Learning Leader – Aggressive self-education

 “I Never Lose… I Either Win Or I Learn” – Garry Ridge

Continue Learning:

• Follow Garry on Twitter: @LearningMoment
• Read: Helping People Win At Work
• Go To: The Learning Moment
• To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

You may also like these episodes:

Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector W/ Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks

Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon

Episode 082: Dan Pink – The Science of Motivation, Legendary Writer & Ted Talk

Episode 086: Seth Godin – How To Become Indispensable & Build Your Tribe

Did you enjoy the podcast?

If you enjoyed hearing Garry Ridge on the show, please don’t hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me.

Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell

Bio From TheLearningMoment.com

Garry's passion about learning is driven from his personal experience of working in an environment where learning was not encouraged or sought out. As Garry recalls, "I knew we as a team could be better, but when looking into the eyes of my employees, I didn't see the hunger. I took a hard line approach and starting asking tough questions, such as, 'what kind of environment would help feed your hunger?' My employees were direct and honest, 'give me an environment where I can learn, be challenged, and rewarded for taking a risk.' So, I did just that, I set out to create a learning environment.

Today, Garry has the desire to continue with his learnings by sharing them with others. Garry says, "Change is difficult, and as I was going through this transitional period, it would have been helpful to have a big brother/sister who could have provided additional insights. Today, knowing others will want to create a learning environment, I would like help and support this by sharing my learnings.