Tough Things First

Note: We’re testing an Ai generated transcript. We had to make adjustments to fix problems. If you notice something is a miss, let us know.

Rob Artigo: Today’s line is blunt. If you don’t like to worry, don’t start a company. Ray, you ran Mike Row for 37 years, payroll downturns, personal guarantee bigger than your net worth originally, even going legally blind in the middle of an IPO roadshow. What kind of worry comes with the job that people just don’t see before they quit their paycheck?

Ray Zinn: Worry is the key. Did I have things that concern me? Yes. Concern is different than worry. Concern is something that you can do something about. Worry is something you can’t do anything about. And so if you can’t solve the problem and you worry, then that’s a downfall. That’s the kiss of death. So if you don’t like worrying, in other words, if you don’t like fixing problems, if you don’t like resolving issues, then don’t start your company. And I know that sounds like a bit of a tongue twister to say be concerned about everything, but don’t worry about things you can’t change. So if you can’t change something, that means you’re going to worry about it. And you can’t worry about things you can’t change. When I lost my eyesight, I couldn’t change it. I mean, there was nothing I could do to change the outcome of that. And so there was no need to worry about it. I just had to go and work around it. I had to come up with a fix and I did, or work around a pivot as you would. And so that’s why our topic today is if you don’t like to worry, then don’t start your business. So if you don’t like to fix things, then don’t start your company. So that’s what we mean by be concerned about everything, but don’t worry about things you can’t fix. So if you can’t fix it, then don’t do it. Don’t start your company.

Rob Artigo: You’ve said being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, that passion has to outrun the fear of failing. Where is the line between useful worry and the kind that just eats up the founder?

Ray Zinn: There’s no useful worry. There’s no such a thing as useful worry. What worry does is that it causes you to get distracted. I remember in debate, the way we win a debate is we get our competitor nervous or upset or defocused from what the topic was. That’s how we won the debate. Get your competitor upset and that’s that worry thing. If you get people to start worrying, you’re going to win. And so if I can get my competition in my business a semiconductor, if I got them to worry about me, that was fantastic. I love to get my competitors worried about me because they got distracted. They did foolish things. They did stupid stuff in order to try to counteract the worry as you would. So there’s no such thing as useful worry.

Rob Artigo: Some people think the goal is to stop worrying. Now you’ve talked about you can kind of train for this sort of mental activity. Can a founder learn to carry worry or is this a personality test that either they pass or they just shouldn’t start a company?

Ray Zinn: I start out by saying be concerned, certainly. Be concerned about the economy, be concerned about your product, be concerned about your competitors, but don’t worry about them because worry gets you distracted. I just talked about in a debate, you got your competitor to worry. You got them distracted. So all worry does is distracts you. So if you’re going to worry about things, if you can’t tolerate problems and things going awry, then don’t start your company.

Rob Artigo: Somebody listening to the podcast right now is possibly romanticizing the startup life. Think about it, the move fast and break things and all the kind of cliche things that you think of. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs lighting themselves on fire with energy to get something started without much of a plan. So maybe they’re really good at their craft, but they hate lying awake at night worrying about stuff or they’re worried about this, they’re worried about that and they are overwhelmed with the worry. What should they ask themselves tonight before they actually incorporate anything, before they take the plunge?

Ray Zinn: Do I have the mental resilience? No matter what happens, do I have the mental resilience to stick with it, to stay with the plan or the objective of the company? And so it’s key. I did a lot of testing when we see a product that we were talking about introducing. We talk about having the equal number of cons that you do with pros, so the pros and cons. We made sure that we looked at all the cons, all the things that can go wrong because if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Trust me, it will happen. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Recently Meta, this is that Facebook, Instagram company, they lost a big lawsuit and the distraction that their product was having with young people and now they got to pay out $17 billion over the next 10 years. That’s a hit.

Ray Zinn: That’s something that will happen. You’re going to suffer setbacks like that and you have to be willing to absorb that and move forward without harming your investors or your employees.

Rob Artigo: So, the company will give you problems whether you ask for them or not. And really for the listeners, if that prospect makes you miserable, maybe you should be thinking about taking a different path.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Listeners can continue this conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are welcome for Ray. You’ll also find the podcast archives and the books, The Tough Things First, The Essential Leader, and the Zen of Zen series, including the latest Zen of Zen Daily. Follow Ray on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Until next time, do the tough things first, right Ray?

Ray Zinn: Let’s do it.

Rob Artigo: Today we’re talking about ambitious but smart goal setting. The standard is not a little bit better than last year. It’s set goals that force you to grow far beyond your current self. Ray, you’ve said goals exist to make us look up, lengthen our stride and reach past what we already know how to do. Why isn’t it a comfortable goal worth writing down?

Ray Zinn: Well, if it’s comfortable, it means you’re not pushing yourself. And that’s a showstopper. You want to actually force yourself to do better. I can remember when I started my crawl, I wanted to push myself and take on things which would cause a company to stretch itself, but not where it would kill it or break it as you would. So you don’t want to break the company, but you do want it to push it. You know that if you have a personal trainer in an exercise gym, they push you. They get you to do one more, do five more, do this, do that. They’re constantly pushing you to do better. And if you’re not pushing yourself to do better, your company’s not going to grow. So you got to be your own personal trainer or maybe your mentor will help you push yourself to be like a trainer would to get these goals, not goals which are ridiculous.

A good personal trainer doesn’t make you go where you injure yourself. He knows what your limitations are. That’s what makes a good personal trainer, but he pushes you to exceed what you think you can do so that you are able to do it ultimately.

Rob Artigo: There’s a trap on one side of this that you’ve drawn the line between an ambitious founder and an overly optimistic one. Ambition with a periscope versus a pipe dream with no plan. How does someone tell whether a stretch goal is going to grow them or just lie to them?

Ray Zinn: Well, that’s why you need a mentor. If you’re pushing yourself beyond what you can do, then you’re going to injure yourself. You’re going to injure the company, you’re going to injure your employees. So you need a good mentor that will help not exceed your ability, spending more money than you have or taking on a product line that you aren’t able to finish or taking on a customer that you can’t support. You need to know your limitations and you need to make sure that whatever it is you’re attempting to do is within your capability to perform it.

Rob Artigo: Several companies that come to mind that fit this category of a long range plan, Boeing, Walmart, Merck, and General Electric are all strong examples of what we would think of as enduring American companies. One researcher analyzed this angle and said these companies used ambitious yet smart goal setting and they called it big, hairy, audacious goals. These are clear, compelling long-term targets that can be up like 25 or more years in the plan. It feels nearly impossible to plan that far and it carries risk of failure and can force an organization to stretch far beyond its current capabilities and culture and even scale while remaining aligned with core principles. So do you agree with that assessment?

Ray Zinn: Yeah. I call it the Kmart phenomena. Remember Kmart?

Rob Artigo: Yeah, sure.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. We used to call it Kmart fall apart. So their quality wasn’t good. And so that’s what caused Kmart to fail is not keeping their product line reliable and good. It’s just cheap, it’s junk. What caused Kmart not to succeed was their philosophy of the cheap is best. And if cheap is not reliable and not dependable, then it’s going to come back to hurt you. So that’s an example of a company that didn’t succeed because they just, Kmart fall apart as you would. Look what’s happened to Boeing. I mean, Boeing, look how long they’ve been in business and look at the problems they’ve had. I mean, you talk about stretching yourself, the 737 max issue would’ve killed most companies, but not Boeing. They fixed it. Did they have a problem? Yeah. Did they make a mistake? Yes. Did they fix it? Yes. The key here is you’re going to make mistakes, but you fix them.

And companies like General Electric, Walmart and Boeing and companies like that that have lived well beyond their normal maturity have done so by just fixing their mistakes, not living with them, fixing them.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. I think of making a long-term plan and let’s say you make an audacious, aggressive goal, you set the goal and you think maybe the goal maybe even outlasts you if you plan it in a certain way. Let’s say the company, the organization reaches that goal and then stalls out because it stopped making goals. It said, “We’re in the midst of a goal right now. Let’s just complete this goal.” And then they hit a mark. And I think that Boeing is a good example of that. They hit a problem with the Max. They had a major problem and it seems like, and we could break it down and probably spend a couple of hours talking about Boeing, but they lost a little bit in the culture. They lost a little bit in their quality. They did some things that if they had continued to plan ahead with long range goals, instead of letting it flounder once they reached a specific plateau, that they might have been able to get through that without the problems that they had.

Is that something that can happen if you reach an area where you’re getting to a plateau and then you don’t set a new goal?

Ray Zinn: We’re going to make mistakes. Does Boeing make mistakes? Yes. Does Walmart make mistakes? Yes. Does GE make mistakes? Yes. But they fix them. Kmart did not fix their mistakes. They had no plan to fix their mistakes. Boeing has the resources and the resolution to fix mistakes. Key here is, are you going to make mistake? Yes. Are you going to fix a mistake? That’s the key. So the key is that fix the mistake. Boeing didn’t just say, “Well, we’re not going to produce the 737 Max. We’re going to fix it.” And so that’s what they did. You could say, “Well, it was a bad management.” You’re going to have that. You’re going to be faced with challenges and problems. And I think the perfect example of that is Boeing. They’re probably the greatest aircraft company in the world and they have mistakes. I don’t know of a single company that doesn’t have mistakes.

Did Mike Correll have mistakes? Absolutely. Did we fix them? Absolutely. And that’s why we succeeded. And so you can’t be afraid of mistakes. The fear of making a mistake is that we were talked about that in the previous video about worrying. If you worry about something you can’t fix, then you’re going to fail. So you want to be able to have the resilience to fix the mistake. And we talked about that in a previous video. The key is that have the resolve, honestly repent and fix the mistakes that we make.

Rob Artigo: So aim higher than the person you already are, then put a plan under it so it isn’t just a daydream. That’s a good way of looking at it. Listeners are welcome to join us at toughthingsfirst.com to continue the conversation. Questions for Ray are Welcome? The podcast archive is there. Also the books, Tough Things First: The Essential Leader in the Zen of Zinn series. Follow Ray on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Ray, thanks as always.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

Rob Artigo: Ray, today’s subject is mentors, one of your favorite topics. You’ve been a mentor to many over the years. Your line is simple. They are crucial. That is, mentors are crucial for running a startup, find one early. You’ve also said every startup CEO needs one. Why early before the company is even really coming to fruition instead of waiting until you’re already in trouble?

Ray Zinn: Well, if you don’t have somebody to support you, somebody that you recognize as a good role model, then you’re likely to develop the wrong kind of habits. So you want good habits. And so follow companies, follow people that you admire, and they will help you overcome the downfalls, pitfalls that you’re going to run into and you’re running a company. Having them before you start is important because then you’ll develop the right habits, the right culture for your organization, your company.

Rob Artigo: You describe a mentor as a guide on the trail with you, a guy that goes along with you and helps you along the path, not someone yelling from the summit. That’s different from a board member like a VC or friend who just sort of cheers from the sidelines. What should a founder actually be looking for and what gets mistaken for mentoring?

Ray Zinn: A mentor is a helper. Okay, that’s the difference. Not just somebody who sits on a sideline cheering you on. You need somebody that will help you. They’re a helper. They’re like a shepherd. They’re a leader. They’re a guider. They’re not just yelling from the summit. So you want people who are not yelling at you, you want people who are helping you. And unfortunately, many boards, all they do is yell. They don’t help. In fact, I found that to be true when I ran Micrel that many of my board members were just yellers. They weren’t helpers. The mentor you have, it should be a helper, somebody who leads you, guides you, walks besides you, not somebody who just yells at the summit.

Rob Artigo: Everyone has heard of HP as in Hewlett-Packard, but a lot of people don’t know that these guys, since it’s been a few years since these guys have been around and been the product of headlines, their products around, the product is still, Prolific is still out there. Bill Hewlett and David Packard were Stanford engineering classmates and they had a professor who was a central figure in their success as a mentor and he was there before. He was there for their very first product, which I can’t recall what it is at the moment, but it was something way back in the mid-20th century somewhere where they came up with this thing and it became an actual workable product. What do you think the difference was in the longevity of HP, the mentor really made a difference?

Ray Zinn: Well, as you point out, their professor was really a good mentor. He really helped them develop that product line that they’re so famous for, the instrumentation that they developed for the early products. And of course, Bill Hewlett and David Packard got along very well. They were complimentary to each other, which we’ve covered in other podcasts. They were good partners. So they had good mentors though, very good mentors. Getting off on the wrong foot is what a mentor will help you move back on the right foot. So getting off on the wrong foot is not having a good mentor or a good partner as you would. So your mentor could be your partner, but they’re helpers. They’re not just yelling from the summit.

Rob Artigo: Do you think that having a mentor early was a major player in why there became known to be this thing called The HP Way?

Ray Zinn: The concept of HP when David Packard and Bill Hewlett started the company was the way they wanted to treat people. So The HP Way was they were a team. They weren’t just hagglers as you would. They’re people like Harry Singleton and others that started companies that all they did was hassle and haggle their people. And that’s not The HP Way. The HP Way was, Hewlett-Packard Way was to get people to work as a team, to really enjoy being together, working together. And that’s what I incorporated at Micrel when I started. It was going to be built around a team concept.

Rob Artigo: One of the ideas here is that you said, “Decide who you most admire and become that person on purpose.” So how does admiration turn into a plan instead of just being like a poster on a wall?

Ray Zinn: A poster on a wall is something you just look at. I mean, that doesn’t speak, it doesn’t develop. All it does is you may get inspired by a picture and it may even help you to some degree. But when you have somebody who’s taking you by the hand and leading you and guiding you and walking beside you is the kind of mentor that you want. So that’s the concept of having the proper mentors of somebody you look up to. And it might be a picture on a wall, but certainly it’s pretty stoic just staring at a picture because it may help you in thinking about what you need to do, but having that guiding hand of fellowship and strengthening you as you move forward with your company is crucial. And that’s why having a mentor early is crucial.

Rob Artigo: You said a good mentor will call you out when you’re drinking your own Kool-Aid. How does a founder tell the difference between a mentor who is hard on them because they care and someone who is just trying to run the company from the cheap seats?

Ray Zinn: Because it’s the way in which they do it, the kind of guidance that they’re giving you. If they’re just yelling at you from the summit, that’s not guidance. If they’re telling you to make sure when you put in that next peton, if you’re climbing a mountain as you would, that you anchor in a certain way. And then if they see you not doing it in a certain way, they call you out. I can remember when I was learning to fly, my teacher, my instructor, he would even slap me on the hand if he saw me doing something that I shouldn’t do and it would kind of shake me up like that. But it called to my attention I was doing something wrong. It was a good experience in the sense even though he slapped my hand when I tried to operate the controls in a certain way, that really helped me become a better pilot.

I can remember as I was manipulating the controls, sometimes I would just throw the throttle all the way forward and the plane would lurch. And he said, “Well, wait a minute. You just caused Ms. Penelope to spell her tea.” And I said, “Oh, but she’s not with us.” He says, “But if you develop the wrong habits, you’re going to cause her to spell her tea. And you got to make sure that even though there’s nobody right now in the back flying with you, that you got to develop the right kind of habits.” And so that’s what he would do is he would slap my hand if I ran the throttle too far forward quickly. So he said, “You want to ease the throttle on, not slam it to the wall. You may like the feeling of the thrust and the power of the plane, but you’re also causing your passengers to be upset.”

I can remember when I bought my Tesla that certain people would like to throttle everything really hard to the floor, slam your head against the back of the seat. And they thought that was really funny and cute, but it’s uncomfortable for your passengers. So you want to develop the right kind of habits and your mentor, if he has to slap your hand, knock you in the head with a 2X4, it’s to get your attention.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. The bottom line is, don’t wait until the mountain is on fire to look for a guide. I think that’s the principle we’re leaving here.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Listening can-

Ray Zinn: Or look for a fire hose.

Rob Artigo: Look for a fire hose. You’re going to have to make a decision one way or another.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Find a mentor and listen to that person. Take that person’s advice. Listeners can continue this at toughthingsfirst.com. So questions and comments are welcome for ring. We have the podcast archives there, ZinnStarter and the book Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series, including the Zen of Zinn Daily and The Essential Leader. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Ray, thanks as always. Until next time, do the tough things first, right?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. That’s the key. Do the tough things first.

Rob Artigo: Ray, today’s topic is, usually you think of this as a religious subject, repentance, but Ray, you don’t see it that way. You say repentance is not just a religious principle, it’s a practical process for dealing with a mistake, especially a costly one, and actually making things right. So, let’s walk through the four steps you laid out about how to deal with this and what repentance actually looks like. So first, you have to acknowledge you made the mistake, and you call that the hardest step. You said that’s the reason why it comes first. It’s the hardest step. Tell me about it.

Ray Zinn: People don’t like to admit they did something wrong. I’m no different. Obviously, if I make a mistake, I just like to either sweep it under the rug or just forget that I made a mistake. Human beings hate to admit they make mistakes, but we all know we’ve made mistakes. Everyone make mistakes. We see it all the time, even in our daily lives. The errors that we make, we do stupid things, and sometimes they’re done because of selfish reasons and things we should avoid morally, as you would, but we do it because it’s something we want at the time, but then regret we did it.

Admitting we make mistakes goes against our nature. So that’s why it’s the hardest. But we know that if we really, truly, sincerely, honestly, deeply, sorrowfully admit we made a mistake, we got to fix it. And that’s something, “,Oh man, I hate to have to go back and fix it.” You know what they say? Measure twice, cut once as opposed to cut twice and measure once. We hate to go back and repair something that’s broken or regret that we have to fix it. So that’s why it’s number one, is the admitting we make a mistake is a tough thing. Not just admitting it casually. I mean, deeply, deeply admitting it.

Rob Artigo: Second step is confessing it. So you’re now in the action phase, not just knowing it privately, but saying it out loud. That can, like you said, can be embarrassing. It can be expensive too. In a company, it can look like weakness. Why is the actual confessing it necessary?

Ray Zinn: Well, you’re openly admitting it. It’s one thing just to keep it to yourself. It’s another thing to have to go tell somebody, your boss, your wife, your partner, your children, your neighbor. It’s going and telling them, “I screwed up. I really feel bad about that.” It’s tough to do.

I tell a story about when I was driving home one night, it was late at work, and I inadvertently ran a stop sign because I was thinking about something else, and I just ran a stop sign. Of course, my immediate reaction was, “Anybody see me? Was there a cop around me?” Nobody saw me because it was late, and I was not in a real congested area, and it was just a regular street. In fact, there was no traffic on it. And I got to thinking, “Well, good thing there was nobody there. When I ran, I didn’t hit somebody.” And I started kind of rationalizing what I had done.

And then as I got further down the road, I thought something, just because nobody saw me doesn’t mean that I didn’t have an error, that I didn’t make a mistake. So I thought that’s really strange that here I am more concerned about, did somebody see me make a mistake? If they didn’t, no harm, no foul. I’ll just keep moseying down the road. And I felt really bad that I was rationalizing my mistake. When I got home, remember, we’re talking about confessing, I decided to call the police department and tell them that I had run a stop sign and that I was willing to pay the amount, the fine. So that was the confessing part. That was openly confessing. So when I called the police and I told them what happened, they thought I was a nut, and they hung up on me.

Really, all I was trying to do was trying to rectify a wrong that I had committed. Just because somebody didn’t see me commit the crime or the error, didn’t mean it didn’t happen. So I wanted to confess it. I wanted to openly admit I made a mistake, and I was willing then to pay the fine, because that’s the next step that we’re going to talk about in the repentance process. You got to make amends. You got to correct the error. So that was when I said to the police officer who answered the phone, I gave him my driver’s license number and my information so they could send me a ticket, so that I could go in and pay. I was really sincerely going to pay that ticket.

Now, most people think I’m a nut that way, but that’s just the way I want to develop good habits. I don’t want to shirk my responsibility or my duty to correct the mistake. And that’s making amends. If you don’t correct your mistake or make amends for it, then you’ve not made the third step of repenting, which is to reduce or eliminate the error, which is by confessing and then making amends. If you did something to your wife or your friend, your partners that hurt their feelings and something, to make amends, you take them out to dinner. You try to make it right. The correcting part is reducing that effect of that error so that it’s, as they say, no harm, no foul. I tell that story a lot about me running that stop sign and then trying to get a ticket paid and they wouldn’t let me do it. Anyway, that’s the stupid part of politics, I guess.

Rob Artigo: That would be you having a clear conscience. Silent regret wasn’t enough. You had to have a clear conscience. And as you explained, step three is the part where you make amends or attempt to make amends at the very least. It’s the sports analogy of no harm, no foul, is not going to fly. You got to do something about it. The last step is-

Ray Zinn: I want to continue on that making amends. So when I ran my company for 37 years, the problem about making amends is that if they make a mistake, they tend to want to charge the company by solving the problem on the company’s time rather than on their own time. Very seldom, when a mistake was made at the company, did people come in on the weekend or late at night or early in the morning to solve it. They always repaired the problem on company time. So that’s not making amends. If you’re correcting your mistake at the expense of the company, that’s not making amends. It’s like if you rear end somebody and then you say, “Well, okay, I’ll fix your car, but I’ll do it on company time,” or, “I’ll get the insurance company to pay for it or whatever.” That’s not correcting the mistake or making amends.

If you cause an error in your job, don’t just charge the company by repairing it on the company time. Do it on your own time. Come in early or go home late or on the weekend or something like that and solve the problem. That’s making amends. Don’t make somebody else pay for your mistake. And that’s the key here in making amends. You correct it on your time or at your expense. Don’t correct it at somebody else’s expense.

Rob Artigo: The last step is don’t repeat it. So you have to learn from it. That’s the part that turns the one time cleanup into change of character. How do you know someone has actually done this particular step in business or in life and not just given a grandiose speech and said, “Oh yeah, I’m admitting it”? They have to take concrete steps and learn from it too.

Ray Zinn: That’s a key one, because if you keep repeating the same mistake, that means you haven’t really acknowledged that you made a mistake. The whole concept of making mistakes is learning from them. You can’t learn from it if you keep repeating it. So as I say at one of my statements, I think I’ve made it in one of my books, I said, “He who repeats the past fails in the future.” So if you keep making the same mistake over and over, you’ve not corrected it. All you’ve done is just repeated it.

This is a key part about making amends. If you correct it at your expense, you’re less likely to repeat it because you say, “Well, I don’t want to pay that expense again.” So again, the whole concept of admitting you made a mistake and then acknowledge it by confessing it and then fixing it at your expense will help you not to repeat that mistake again.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, that’s the hard work, the tough things that you have to do: acknowledge it, say it, fix it, stop repeating it.

Listeners can find more information and more about Ray’s thinking, and you can offer questions to Ray, at toughthingsfirst.com. We have a full podcast archive. And the books are there, the Tough Things First, The Essential Leader, and the Zen of Zinn series. Also follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Ray, thanks as always.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

In this Tough Things First podcasts, Ray Zinn discusses treating your own time, health, and focus as strategic assets rather than unlimited resources.

Rob Artigo: Today we’re talking about something many leaders treat as an afterthought, but is actually one of the most important disciplines they can ever do, personal energy management. Why should leaders treat their own health and focus as strategic assets rather than unlimited resources, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Well, my partner at Micrel, one that I founded the company with, Warren Muller, his car he treated as strictly something to get to and from work. And he never changed the oil, he never changed the tires, never changed his brakes. It was never maintained properly. And what I noticed about Warren is that was true of his own life. The way he lived his life was that, “Hey, my body’s here to let me get from point A to point B.” And he died young. Actually, he was just in his 60s.

Rob Artigo: Wow.

Ray Zinn: And he just didn’t take care of himself. He’s a brilliant guy, very smart and a good guy to work with. I really loved working with him. But I remember his car, my window faced the parking lot and I watched him one day as he pulled into the parking space that his car hopped up over the curb and onto the grass in front. And I thought that was strange. And when he got out, he was kind of smiling. When he walked into the office, called at him, he said, “Hey, Warren, what was happening there? I watched you pull in and you just hopped right over the bumper of the parking lot onto the grass.” He said, “I don’t have any brakes.”

Rob Artigo: Oh my goodness.

Ray Zinn: And so he had no brakes on his car and he was driving it around. I said, “That thing’s not going to last.” Well, he bought a car about every other year because the car just failed. The same thing with his physical health, the same way. Well, I mean, he smoked. He didn’t eat right. He didn’t sleep good. He didn’t take care of himself at all. Well, the fact he lasted into his 60s was still good, but he could have lived a lot longer if he’d have taken care of himself. So you can’t start after you found out you got a problem. You got to start before you have a problem.

It’s that servicing that vehicle. You got to change the oil. You got to monitor the brakes. You got to treat the car as though it’s going to last forever. And that’s the way you succeed in your life is treat your body as though you’re going to live past a hundred. And the only way to do that is you have to live right. You got to have an exercise program. You got to get good sleep. Sleep is so important. Thinking you can get by in four or five hours of sleep is just ridiculous.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. It’s like thinking you can get rich by working 80 hours a week.

Ray Zinn: Having a good lifestyle habit of eight hours of sleep, eating well three times a day, not eating too much so, but eating well, meaning eating correctly and not just relying on junk food or some other beverage to keep you alive is important to have sustainability. And so exercise is important. I know that we talk about getting up in the morning and walking to the bathroom is not exercise. I was talking to a friend of mine on Sunday and he was noting how firm my handshake was. And at my age, he says, “That’s unusual.” He actually is a doctor. And he says, “I tell my patients they got to move around. They can’t just walk to the bathroom and back. They got to get out and exercise that body.” And he says, “How do you do it?”

And I says, “I do it every day. I don’t just go to the bathroom. I get out, I exercise weights for 45 minutes to an hour. And then I’m on the…” Actually about a half hour, I should say. “And then I’m on the treadmill for another half hour, 45 minutes.” And I do that every day. And I’m doing well physically. And I get a good eight hours of sleep. I eat regularly three times a day. And I can still do one arm pushups and I just keep myself as physically strong as I can. I’m a little more wrinkled than I was when I was in my 30s. I still have some strength and some stamina left even in my advanced age, and it has really born me well. I’m not trying to die early. I’m just trying to die late.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And die well.

Ray Zinn: And die well. Yeah.

Rob Artigo: If you die doing the… It’s like they say, dying with your boots on. You die well. And I can vouch for your stamina and health and it’s pretty remarkable. I mean, you ride horses, you do stuff on your ranch, you’re out and about, you fix things and you’re as mobile as just about anybody and at that age. And it’s remarkable. The thing is that you can’t… Your good friend at Micrel was an example of it, being shortsighted about your health, sometimes you do the damage early on and you change your life and you do better and you improve, but some of the damage lingers because you weren’t very wise early with what you did. And so I guess the operative word here is asset, strategic asset.

Your body and your mind operating at 100% or as close to it as you can get throughout your life is the… You got to do that. Start young. So lots of people listen to this because the ZinnStarter program, we have lots of listeners who are on college campuses and they’re all looking and they’re looking to be successful in business, in their own businesses, running their own businesses. But they got to remember that their first business, the first order of business should be a strength, a spiritual connection with a higher power, and then their physical health. Because those are the two things that are going to get them to the finish line well beyond their expiration dates.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. They wait until they’re unhealthy before they try to get healthy. They say, “Oh, I’m going to have to start exercising or I’ve got to start eating right or I got to get more sleep.” That’s too late. That’s got to be part of your culture before you get unhealthy. Once you’re unhealthy, you’re done.

Rob Artigo: What did your personal energy management look like for you on a daily and weekly basis at Micrel? So you did your exercise in the morning and you were also known for managing by walking around and talking to people. But how did this manifest itself because you prioritized sleep, exercise and downtime?

Ray Zinn: Well, because I’m healthy. I mean, I’d say early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. I went to bed early and I got up early and exercised and had a routine of eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then spending time with my family. And I had a routine that I just didn’t break. Again, I talk about discipline as doing what you don’t like doing and doing it well. And so loving the things you hate. And so I just learned to do all the tough things first.

Rob Artigo: You know this can have an effect on the team around you. I mean, if your culture in your core team, let’s say you’re a creative team within an organization, if your team’s culture, based on your example, is to live a life of debauchery, then your team is acting that way. And I’ve seen this organizational conventions or annual meetings or something, and you see people getting together and going to hospitality suites. And the next thing you know, the next day when you’re trying to be productive for the reason for going out and doing this seminars and hanging out and having discussion groups and that kind of thing, they’re not productive because they’re totally screwed up from the day before.

Ray Zinn: It didn’t begin in my later life to live healthy. I did that since I was a child. I’ve never drank. I’ve never smoked. I’ve always got a good night’s sleep. I never tried to extend myself beyond my physical limitations. And I just had a healthy life my whole life. And it’s paying off because-

Rob Artigo: Yeah. It is. And so the listeners tuned into the show, you’re not just blowing smoke out there. You’re a living example of what it means to get started early. And I would say also, Ray, obviously the advice to everybody is you could stop living an unhealthy life now and do better for yourself in the long run.

Ray Zinn: Sure.

Rob Artigo: But it’s preferred if you don’t ever get there because it’s really hard to reverse it.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Don’t wait till you’re unhealthy to be healthy. Start early. It’s just like we talk about in running a company. Cash is king, your health is king. Okay?

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: If you lose your health, you’ve lost your cash as you would. So save that cash, save that health.

Rob Artigo: Well, to our listeners, your energy is a strategic asset. So this week, pick one non-negotiable habit, better sleep. That’s a good one. Daily exercise. Ray shows it every day. No meeting blocks or real downtime and protect it like you would any critical business resource. Remember, your productivity is built on a good foundation when you get all those things done. So I’m Rob Artigo and he’s Ray Zinn. Thanks again for joining us at the Tough Things First Podcast. Subscribe, share this episode with leaders who are running just too hard or bumping their cars into parking spaces too hard, not getting brake jobs and stuff like that. We’ll be back soon with another Tough Things First topic. Until next time, do the tough things first, right Ray?

Ray Zinn: Exactly. Live healthy, die healthy.

Businesses that intend to scale need teams of the right people to do it, but is there a difference between a functional team and a team built on work ethic and culture? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says of course the answer is obvious. (Watch Now!)

Rob Artigo: Ray, this is a special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast. We’re on video. If you’d like to watch it instead of just listen to it, you can go to toughthingsfirst.com and find this podcast by looking for the podcasts.

Right next to the lead-in for this podcast is a little link that says watch now. It’ll take you to Ray’s YouTube channel. You can watch that video and a whole lot more right there. So please check it out.

Today’s question comes from business leaders, managers, and creative team leaders as something like, “As I build this and scale my team, what kind of work ethic and culture should I intentionally create?” So Ray, you’ve done this successfully over decades. Where should a leader start in building that creative team and that ethic?

Ray Zinn: Develop a harmony of civility and caring for others, whether it be your competitor, whether it be your customers, your employees, just having that culture of civility.

At my company, Micrel, it’s the number three culture, which is respect and dignity of every individual. And so that having a culture of respect and dignity, not allowing condescending language, we allowed no vulgarity, we talked rationally with each other, respecting each other’s differences, understanding each other. And you can’t do that by sitting at the computer. You have to get around, you got to walk around, you got to interact with your customers, your competitors, your employees. And just having that culture of civility is what’s so important.

An important conversation in our news media today is the need for better civility. Again, with all the technology we have, AI and everything that is now enhancing our relationship with other people, civility’s got to come in there as kind of like number one almost.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And don’t rely on AI to create civility for you. You’re going to have to do that using your own values and your own personal character. For creative team leaders, Ray, especially the writers and designers, developers out there, how do you balance freedom with discipline? That’s a question of values.

You’re balancing the creative freedom to do what you want as a person, be self-fulfilling or whatever, but how do you balance that with the discipline to stay within the framework of the values that you’ve built in as a team?

Ray Zinn: Don’t be offensive or defensive. I didn’t say offense like it’s offensive, mean don’t start out negative. Start out positive and be a character builder, not a character deteriorator or deterrer.

Whether you’re writing, whether you’re singing, whether you’re running a company with lots of employees, you want to have a culture or a atmosphere where people feel free to be expressive and to be open about their feelings and concerns. You don’t want them to be hiding or afraid to say anything for fear of retribution.

In fact, retribution should not even be part of the nature of your organization. It should be you want to get together, you want to bring people together because that’s the way a team works. A team works when they come together, not when they’re fighting each other. That’s not building a team. We need actually more of that team type spirit where we want to be together as opposed to not want to be together.

Rob Artigo: At Micrel, earlier you were talking about the values that you build into the team, the cultures that you intentionally baked into the framework of the organization that helped you succeed. This was a framework that you had come up with.

And other people could add or take away from that, because they can choose their own culture for their company, but it serves repeating to talk again about those cultures that you added in there that really builds in the values that help people first be free to create, but also operate within the framework of a team built on the same values.

Ray Zinn:

Well, I’ve heard this term used, healthy confrontation. It sounds good, but anytime there’s confrontation, it tends to deteriorate. I don’t know how you can have healthy poison, you know what I mean?

Rob Artigo: Right. Right, right. Oxymoron.

Ray Zinn: It’s kind of an oxy… Yeah. Right. So they try to couch it by saying as well it’s healthy confrontation. Well, I don’t know. Healthy bad stuff is, it’s kind of an oxymoron. So be careful because anytime you be confrontational, it tends to deteriorate. There could be healthy competition, but not healthy confrontation, if that makes sense.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. You want to have clarity on the work ethic, and the culture in the company too is really about making sure that it’s clear.

And then like you said, it’s not about the healthy competition. It’s okay to fight for your position or fight for your product or fight for what you want in the sense that you’re trying to make a good argument, show the value of it, but don’t go overboard and think that fighting means in some you have to be really aggressive and yell at other people. It’s like you can make your point without being disruptive and not a team player.

Ray Zinn: I call it raising your voice. I mean, there’s no need of it. If you have a good relationship or a healthy relationship with someone, you want to keep your tones more calm and more moderate as you would, as opposed to being angry and confrontational.

Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray.

Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, the Tough Things First, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. And as you know, the Zen of Zinn series is already out there, 1, 2, and 3. And it now includes Ray’s new book, the Zen of Zinn Daily. Please pick it up.

Ray, we’ll have our listeners back and for another podcast coming up. Until then, do the tough things first, right?

Ray Zinn: That’s right. Do the tough things first.

The cult of personality can only do so much. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores how to build systems, culture, and next-generation leaders who can carry the vision forward.

Rob Artigo: Today, let’s talk about moving beyond founder-centric leadership. How do you build systems, culture, and next generation leaders who can carry on the vision without you around? I mean, it’s something that you had to go through, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely.

Rob Artigo: So Ray, why do founders fail at this handover even when the company is thriving?

Ray Zinn: A lot of it’s ego. People feel that they are afraid to give out certain secret sauce, and so their company becomes stymied because they’re not willing to develop the upcoming leadership. And if you don’t, there’s no sustainability. And so the key here is don’t be afraid of giving out and up enough information that will help sustain the company.

And I’ve seen that time and time again where the leadership is afraid to pass on the secret sauce. And of course the company, as soon as something happens, so whether it’d be a physical ailment or some other financial issue or a marriage or whatever fails, they get sidetracked and the company can’t run because the secret sauce has not been disseminated.

Rob Artigo: Essentially building a cult of personality instead of self-sustaining organization. I think you touched on it there in that if you hit a bump in the road, there’s nobody there that can pick up the slack.

Ray Zinn: Well, that’s the point I just made.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: I mean, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You think by you holding onto the secret sauce, your ego gets in the way and you think, “Well, then they don’t need me. If everybody knows what I know, who am I anymore?” I’ve seen that happen with technology companies where the leader of the company who had the technology sauce, just wouldn’t convey all the ingredients as you would. And so, when they became incapacitated, then the company failed because they didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle.

Rob Artigo: The famous story that’s the opposite, of course, is Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Tim Cook was the protege to take over for Steve Jobs at Apple for the longest time, for a very, very long time. And Steve knew that. And you don’t find very many examples of a leader going to that sort of detail to make sure that there was a plan of succession in place.

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s interesting that Tim Cook was not a technical guy. He was more of a financial. And we were concerned that, here, Tim being a financial guy, was taking over running a very technical company. And because of the fact that they were willing to share the sauce as you would, allowed Tim then to bring in the right people to sustain the company.

Rob Artigo: He reflected the culture, I think, of that. I think that was the real sauce was in the culture and style of the company and had the vision that Steve had.

So Ray, you did it successfully, the helm of Micrel. And you had to build into that early on how you were going to, even though you were looking down the road, “I’m going to run this company as long as I can,” that’s what you set out to do right from the beginning. But in that process, you also developed a way that when it came time to hand it off, that you could hand it off. What intentional steps did you take to shift from a founder-centric leadership to a more enduring model?

Ray Zinn: Well, I hoped I didn’t let my ego get in the way. Being the founder and first CEO of the company, I did not let my ego get in the way. I was able to incorporate or include, I mean, all of my respective staff to allow them to do their operation without me micromanaging them and being the key figure at the company. I didn’t look at Micrel as being raised in. I looked at Micrel as being a company of individuals who are capable of performing and becoming the best company that you could be.

Rob Artigo: Something that you’re famous for, and something you preach often in your books, is the idea of servant leadership.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: So being a person who’s working for the benefit of the employees. How does servant leadership combined with disciplined mentoring create the kind of culture that outlasts any single leader?

Ray Zinn: It goes back to your ego. You don’t let your ego get in the way if you’re a servant leader. And so you want to be helpful. Being helpful means you want to let them know the secret sauce. You want to train them on how they can then carry on the torch, as you would, of the company. So that was the key to, I think, the success of Micrel was that a torch was passed on to all the employees and their respective duties.

Rob Artigo: For those CEOs out there, those eventual founders, or even current founders of small companies working to make a great company out of nothing, and then eventually build it into something that could be passed on to another generation. If you’re out there and you’re listening right now and you’re nervous about letting go or feeling that the companies revolves too much around you, the first step you can take, Ray, is what? What can they do? What’s the first thing they can do that get started down the right road to making sure that they’re mentoring the next generation?

Ray Zinn: Ask how can I help? In other words, being willing to pass on the secret sauce, pass on the culture of the company, be the proper example of what you would like the company to look like when you’re gone. And so for the company to reflect the values that you want it to have even when you’re gone, you have to pass on those values deliberately and succinctly to all your employees, not just to the few leaders.

Rob Artigo: Well, our listeners, I would like to let you know that true legacy leadership isn’t about being the center of everything. It’s about building something that thrives without you. So you can identify one area this week where your team or your company is still too dependent on you personally and take one concrete step toward developing someone else to own it. And really, that’s all about feeling secure in yourself to not feel that other people around you are threatening the leadership role.

Ray Zinn: An example is that LeBron James, they built the team around him. And then when he left, then the team suffered. And so when you build it around one individual, then you run the danger, when that person leaves, then the team is no longer able to be effective because you built the team around one individual. And so you don’t want to do that. At Micrel, I did not build the team around me. The company could have succeeded with or without me.

Rob Artigo: I guess naming your company your name is weird because later on down the road you might not be around and then your name won’t be it. A friend of mine sold a business once or wanted to sell his business once, but his name was associated with it. And then after he was gone, it didn’t make any sense anymore. So choosing a name like Oracle is a good name for a company.

Ray, thanks again. I want the listeners to know they should subscribe to this podcast, leave a review, share this episode with a leader who really needs to be thinking about the long game. And we’ll be back soon with another Tough Things First topic. Make sure you check out Ray’s books. There’s more coming up on that in just a moment. Thanks again, Ray. We’ll see them next time. And I guess you have a message for them. Do the tough things first, right?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. And read our good books.

Disciplined, customer-grounded innovation outperforms “move fast and break things.” In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses how to turn ideas into profitable reality without falling for the hype.

Rob Artigo: Today, Ray, we’re talking about innovation discipline, how to turn ideas into profitable reality without falling for the hype. So Ray, why does disciplined, customer-grounded innovation consistently outperform the move fast and break things approach?

Ray Zinn: A true product that has legs, as they say, or longevity, is what you want to have. Based on the pet rock kind of concept, it’s more of a one shot approach. Do you remember the pet rock, Rob?

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Yeah, I do. It was a rock that had eyeballs glued onto it.

Ray Zinn: It was stupid. It lasted what? About a year maybe? Anyway, it was a-

Rob Artigo: It was a sensation. It was a rage.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, it was … Gambling on a one shot, one deal product is very, very risky. You want to go in with products, innovate products that have longevity, have legs, that they’re not going to end up like the pet rock.

Rob Artigo: The dot com era was filled with pet rocks that had dot com after it.

Ray Zinn: Right.

Rob Artigo: So that was one of the things. If you had dot com, people thought that you were somehow a future commercial success, or at the very least, a good short-term gamble. And many times it was just like today, you’d find that nobody goes to a website called petrock.com. There probably is a website out there called that. So please don’t go there and think that I am telling you to. But you get the point, Ray. I’m saying that there are lots of shiny objects out there over the generations that you can point to and say, “Boy, that was a bad idea.”

Ray Zinn: Yeah, it’s a hype. And people are trying to jump in and take advantage of this dot com era, which lasted just what, two or three years, and then it was defunct. People lost a lot of money that jumped on that bandwagon. We were not one of them. And so we were injured badly because of it, but we weren’t slaughtered or we ended up dead. So yeah, if you’ve got a pet rock company, you’re doomed.

I think this AI hype right now is another one that we have to seriously consider because if you’re going to build it just to get the hype as you would or to hop on the hype bandwagon, the AI bandwagon, I think you’re going to be in serious trouble. So be careful about hype, things that are hyped up. And again, I really feel that AI is one of those hyped things that can cause this problem. We’re seeing that in the stock market with all the hype that happened more around the first of the year. The stocks ran way up. People got over exuberated with those AI type companies. And now they’ve come back down to earth. In fact, the market since about the 1st of May have come back dramatically.

Rob Artigo: That’s an interesting idea. I hadn’t really thought about that. And that’s the AI being a pet rock in a sense that somebody gets the hit of the pet rock and then somebody else makes a pet rock because I suppose you can’t patent a pet rock with a rock with eyeballs on it. So eventually with AI, you’re going to have a situation where everybody’s AI is really good. So there’s not going to be any difference between the AI. It is going to be a automatically saturated market.

Ray Zinn: Be careful about having AI attached to your company. If you have AI attached to your company, you run the risk of it becoming … Your company will become another pet rock. So don’t include AI in the name of your company.

Rob Artigo: Okay. Well, let’s move back into what you did at Micrel. Decades of successful innovation, a very competitive industry semiconductor. What does disciplined innovation actually look like in practice compared to the flashy hype-driven model we often see today?

Ray Zinn: Well, we looked at our products having more uses. In other words, we weren’t a single track company. We didn’t make just products that fit a one single solution. Our products had multiple solutions. We weren’t captive to one single market. And I know that to some degree, my investor was unhappy with the fact that we were not joining the hype group as you would, that our products were more like standard products. And it did impact our growth to some degree because of the fact that we went more general as you would in our product line as opposed to being a one shot type markets.

Rob Artigo: Where do you think most companies go wrong with innovation? What are the common traps?

Ray Zinn: When they jump on these hot markets, these pet rock markets, that’s the ones that failed because they bet the farm on one single thing. It’s a dangerous path to go on. I look at the automotive market and they all tried to duplicate what Tesla was doing because they saw how successful Tesla was with the electric car. And most of these companies, these big automotive companies that have jumped on the electric market have not done well. The electric car or the electric vehicle got really hyped because they were offering rebates and other things and these people jumped on it. And these big companies jumped on it and they lost money because they didn’t have their filter on.

Their eyes were somewhat glazed over by the fact that there was so much hype on electric cars. The infrastructure still isn’t there to support electric cars for everything as you would. They’re good commute vehicles, but they’re not necessarily long distance vehicles. I think that to some degree, these companies, these large companies, automotive companies have restricted or have phased out or back their electric opportunities as you would, electric vehicle opportunities, because they can see that it’s more hype than reality and there’s just not the infrastructure there to make it a universal changeover form. So we’re back to gas as you would, as opposed just to pure electric.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Hybrid I think is ultimately what it’s going to come down to because it’s like driving around in something that all the eggs are in one basket and you can’t rely on those energy routes or avenues to be operating at 100% all the time. Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray on X and Facebook and also LinkedIn. And of course, pick up the books, Tough Things First, The Essential Leader, and the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three. And now of course, Ray’s new book, Zen of Zinn Daily. Until next time, do the tough things first, right, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely, and you’ll succeed.

A focus filter is for making better decisions like getting rid of good but not great projects, and creating daily rituals that leaders can use to audit their own calendars and team building meetings. Ray Zinn Discusses that a decision tool for alignment with core vision, resource cost, long-term payoff)

Rob Artigo: Ray, today we’re discussing a practical tool for every leader. Every leader should have this, a simple tool. As a matter of fact, it’s called a focus filter for making better decisions like killing or getting rid of those good but not great projects, and also creating daily rituals that leaders can use to audit their own calendars and team building meetings.

So Ray, why do so many leaders struggle with focus? And how does a simple filter help cut through that noise?

Ray Zinn: Well, let’s define what a filter is. A filter is the thing that eliminates or reduces the amount of things that you want to keep out of whatever it is you’re doing. That’s called filtering. We do it in television, we do it in radio, we do it in water, the water we drink, we filter out the bad stuff. And so the purpose of having a focus filter is that you want to eliminate or at least minimize the amount of stuff that’s getting through that you don’t want to have to go through. So it’s a restrictor. It’s an inhibitor. And if you have a good filter, then you won’t get distracted. You won’t get overwhelmed with the stuff that you shouldn’t be involved with.

And so every strong, every good leader has to have a good filter and not let that, as they say, that junk come through, especially if it harms the company.

Rob Artigo: Let’s think about your personal focus filter. So what are some of the questions that come to mind that you think a leader should ask before saying yes to a new project, initiative, or opportunity? I know some of them are, give me the pros and cons.

Ray Zinn: Exactly. Well, you just led me right into it. So you have to decide before you have to decide. So deciding before you decide is the important thing. I know it sounds like an oxymoron. How do you decide before you decide? Is because you have those restrictors in there. You know what kind of filter to put in place before you have to put it in, because you’ve got to know your filter. And having that series of pros and cons, you want to understand that.

The cons, in many respects, are just as good as the pros because you understand what you want to get rid of. So for example, like during the COVID pandemic we had these masks that we wore. But we just put them on as a covering, more of a show, then they weren’t really helping at all because they weren’t filtering out anything. They’re more for show than for go, as they say. And so having that filter, you must know what you want to remove. And so having those defined in advance helps you, makes the better decision for the projects or the opportunities that you’re going to invest in.

Rob Artigo: Do you have an example of a time when you were at Micrel where you killed a good but not great project because you used this kind of filter? And what was the payoff from doing it?

Ray Zinn: Okay. So the one that comes to mind is we had a project that we could not build in-house, so we had to go outside. And the only one that was viable at the time, we had to produce it in China. I was reluctant. My filter was I didn’t want to build in China. And you can see that’s happening even today. A lot of the tech companies are trying now to build their manufacturing in the US and not relying on China. So the issue was not the relying on China. The issue was that if you relied on China, you had exposure and you had risk.

Again, if you have immunity, if you have a vaccine that prevents you from catching a disease, then you’re less likely to catch that particular disease. And so you can be around people who have a disease that you’re immune to, and that’s fine. But in our case, we didn’t have any immunity to that particular product if it was made in China. And so I canceled the project because we just didn’t have any immunity and I didn’t want to chance it. I mean, you’re gambling and I would have gambled if I had done it, and so I didn’t go through with that project.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. I guess you can’t prove a negative. So you don’t know with that example exactly what the benefit was because you can’t see both avenues, what the results were of both avenues. But it’s a fair, in retrospect, looking at what has happened in the tech world regarding China and intellectual property, and just patent infringement and all that sort of thing, suddenly it comes pretty clear that that was some forward thinking and it was tough decision making, I suppose.

Ray Zinn: Well, it was. I mean, it looked good on paper. It just didn’t feel good. In other words, I was concerned about the intellectual property was the main concern. And it was going to expose us to some competition from China that I really wasn’t comfortable with. And it wasn’t just going to affect our company, it would affect technology within the United States. So in other words, I’d be giving out technology that would be valuable to China, but it would harm other of my competitors even, or my customers.

Rob Artigo: Wow. In a world of shiny distractions that technology is out there, and there are good ideas that are plenty, why is a ruthless focus on one of the ultimate advantages for building an enduring company?

Ray Zinn: It’s necessary. It’s absolutely imperative. If you’re not filtering correctly, you’re going to catch a lot of diseases. We’re not referring necessarily to medical diseases, but you’re going to be susceptible to a lot of financial diseases. Also some other intellectual issues, a disease could happen. So being aware of the diseases you’re trying to filter out is important.

Rob Artigo: Rugs can be pulled out from underneath you. All kinds of metaphors for how things work in the business world. I mean, even talent, if you’re operating a company that is really competitive and it’s not that great a place to work, you’re going to have people who are going to be willing to go elsewhere. It’s another way that this sort of stuff gets lost because they take what they learned at your company someplace else.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely.

Rob Artigo: And sometimes that’s the main reason for that other company taking that person. “Oh, that person worked on these projects for that successful company. Let’s take that person and see if we can get some of that mojo over here.”

Ray Zinn: And they do, and that’s exactly what they do.

Rob Artigo: Thank you as always. Some really good information there to our listeners. I got an idea. How about pick one decision or a meeting that you’ve got coming up and just run it through in the simple focus filter. Does it align with your core vision? What’s your true resource cost? And what’s the long-term payoff? And sometimes you don’t know the real long-term payoff until sometime later, but you’ve got to trust that. And if you’ve got a good focus filter, you’re going to be able to trust that. That’s what the essential leader does.

So join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and also The Essential Leader with the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three. And now Ray’s new book, Zen of Zinn Daily. Until next time, do the tough things first, right, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Exactly right. Thanks, Rob.

How do you attract and grow talent that cares more about becoming better humans than just getting rich? Ray Zinn explores hiring and developing people who build legacy companies.

Rob Artigo: Today we’re talking about one of the most important responsibilities for any leader, hiring and developing people who help build legacy companies. Specifically, how do you attract and grow talent that cares more about becoming better humans than just getting rich? And in the process, create low turnover, high loyalty teams, and et cetera, et cetera, that you’ve been an example of there at Micrel, Ray. So let’s start at the beginning. What does the values-based hiring look like in practice, and why is it so critical for building something that really lasts?

Ray Zinn: Well, it begins with the top. It begins with the leader of the company. And as they say, birds of a feather flock together. So you as the leader are the one that’s the hiring person; you’re the one that’s going to be setting the example of the kind of people you want to hire. Look at yourself in the mirror, say, “Is this the kind of person I want to hire? Do I want someone that doesn’t look like me or doesn’t act like me or doesn’t feel like me? Or do I want somebody who has the foundation that I believe I have and that I can promote in my organization?” So again, the birds of a feather flock together. So if you hire the people that are reflective of who you want and what you want, then you’re more likely to succeed. If you want somebody that has a higher standard, then you have to have a higher standard because you’re the one that’s defining what that standard is. And so you’re going to hire people that are going to emulate your example.

Rob Artigo: How do you design onboarding that sets up the right tone and truly integrates people into the culture rather than just checking some boxes?

Ray Zinn: Because you’re going to look at yourself again. You’re back to “What do you want? What individuals do you want in your company?” And that’s not checking boxes; that’s actually defining the character of your company. What character do you want in your organization? And you’ll ultimately get it. I mean, it’s interesting that on this podcast we’re talking about how do you get those values. It has to start with you. Those values have to be endemic with yourself. If you don’t have the values you want your employees to have, you’re unlikely to hire those kind of employees.

Rob Artigo: And then it’s an ongoing process. You have to have ongoing development and mentoring, right? And that’s what’s really going to help with retention. And the retention you want is for those great people who buy into this great culture that you build at your company.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, you’ll see it. I mean, as you bring the people on board, they’re going to really reflect the kind of person you are. If you look in the mirror and you’re happy with who you are, honestly happy, looking in the mirror means you’re being honest about it. You’re not trying to hide it, trying to cover it up. If you can look at yourself in the mirror and you can say, “I’m a good example,” then you’re liable to hire… More likely to hire good examples like yourself. And if you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, if you’re not happy with yourself, I wouldn’t attempt to hire anybody.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And leaders often feel tension between demanding high performance, but also supporting personal growth. How do you balance the two so that people become both better performers and better people at the same time?

Ray Zinn: Well, again, it’s promoting the ideals that are going to help you become successful. We talked about cash is king, promoting those ideals. You got to act that part. If you want people who are a good interactor, good type of communicators, you’ll have to say, “What kind of communicator am I? How well do I communicate?” So again, you’re going to be the leader of the band, as they say. And so you lead, so you shall; they follow. And so again, the primary goal is to promote yourself. You’re going to get the people that reflect who you are.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, for the listeners who are tuning in right now, who want to shift towards this strategy, building the human as well as their effectiveness on the job, whether they’re building a new team or reshaping an existing one, what’s the first tough step they should take?

Ray Zinn: Well, they need you to set the values that they want for the company. Make a list. Define “What do you want? What kind of employees do you want working for you?” Make that list. It should include about 10 items of what you expect them to have, what kind of values you want them to have. And then you seek for those values. When you interview them, you’ll make sure that you’ve covered those areas that you want or you feel are the most valuable for you and your company.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. So the point is you not only make the list, but you got to consult it during your process.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Well, to our listeners, building a legacy company starts with the people you bring in and how you grow them. This week, you can take one concrete action out there. You can review your hiring questions for values alignment. You can start simple mentoring rituals, or you can have career growth conversations with a key team member. I mean, there are all kinds of things you can do out there to take Ray’s advice and put it into action this week. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with leaders who are serious about building lasting teams. Join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Of course, your questions and your comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn at X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, The Essential Leader, and make sure you also check out the new book, The Zen of Zinn Daily, so you can get more of this action every single day. So until next time, do the tough things first, right, Ray?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. Do the tough things first. Do it today, not tomorrow.