Better Together: Bob Chapman, Barry-Wehmiller

This episode of Better Together welcomes Bob Chapman, chairman and CEO of St. Louis, MO-based Barry-Wehmiller, a $3B global capital equipment and engineering solutions company with more than 12,000 team members. Over the past two decades, Chapman's approach has evolved from traditional management practices to Truly Human Leadership—a people-centric approach where his team members feel valued, cared for, and integral to the company’s purpose. Bob Chapman will also be the opening keynoter at CorrExpo in Cleveland, OH, August 28-30. 

In this inspiring conversation, Bob talks with Better Together host Jan Bottiglieri about the transformative effect this unique approach can have on the pulp, paper, and packaging industry—and how caring about people is not just successful, but absolutely necessary.

More about Barry-Wehmiller: www.barrywehmiller.com

More about Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute: www.ccoleadership.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Better Together, the Paper 360 Podcast. I'm Jan Bodellari, host of the podcast and editorial director of Paper360, and I'm very excited about today's guest. His name is Bob Chapman. Not only is he an extraordinary motivational speaker with an extraordinary message about great leadership, he's also the chairman and CEO of Barry Waymiller, a leading provider of packaging equipment, corrugating and sheeting solutions, tissue converting equipment, and much more. That makes Bob the perfect choice as keynote speaker for the Core Expo event coming up August 29th through 30th in Cleveland, Ohio. You won't want to miss it. Want to listen to this episode and you'll understand why. Let's go. Thanks for joining Better Together, and I'm really excited that we were able to overcome some technical problems and talk today on the podcast. Thank you for being here, Mr. Chapman. I'm really interested in your thoughts on leadership. I came up through the industry writing for the pulp and paper industry through the 90s when management was really first starting to take center stage as something that people could explore to really give them a competitive vantage. So, how did you first become interested in studying more effective leadership?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I'm 77 years old. I started in 1969 at Pricewaterhouse. And I would say to you, I I would I was intrigued by business, not so much manage, but our leadership. And through my entrance into the field through accounting, if you think of accounting not as numbers, but as the realization of value. And so I entered the business through the financial world trying to see how people created value. So my initial intrigue was, you know, because I inherited a hundred-year-old, pretty weak company when I stepped into this company in 1975 with my dad's death. And so I would never say to you I was interested in leadership. I was more interested in people. I've just always had a fascination with people. So I again, I my journey's very traditional accounting background, MBA from Michigan, Price Waterhouse for a couple of years. Then my dad invited me to join a $20 million, struggling 100-year-old company he had bought into. And so but I just had this intellectual curiosity about how do you create value in businesses? And so to public accounting, I saw railroad cars, railroad companies, food companies. So I I just had this natural inquisitiveness about how do you create value in various industries. So that's kind of where it began.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I love that connection, though, between value and the human element. Because I often hear from folks, oh, our biggest asset is star people. Well, how do you it's easy to say audit our um our mechanical assets, audit our energy efficiency, but how do you really maximize the value of people?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Well, I'd start off by saying you don't. You care for people, you don't maximize the value.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So the lens through which you see, so I mean, I think and the biggest thing I'd like your audience to hear is in my traditional education in accounting, MBA, price water house, going into business. Nobody ever told me this, but the way I saw people was a function for my success. Okay. Uh the land I saw them as engineers, accountants, hourly workers, union workers, sales executives, customers, clients. I saw people as, you know, as not as humans, I saw them as resources, human resources, okay? And I was a nice guy and I treated them fine. You know, I was a nice guy. Uh, but I didn't see people through the lens I now see it. So the biggest transformation for me, because again, in my education and my experience, I was never taught, never told, never heard, that the way I would run Barry Waymiller would impact people's marriage and their relationship with their children. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And in this journey, what we've realized is that the way we lead our businesses in the corrugated industry, the machine and supplies industry impacts the way people live, their health, their marriage, their relationship with the children. Because in this transformation you and I are talking about, well, we started saying we needed to convert managers into leaders, because I think the word management to me means the manipulation of others for my success. Okay. Leadership means and stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading. Okay. Not seeing people as human resources, but seeing people as somebody's precious child is playing place in your care for a good 40 hours a week, and the way you treat those people in your care will profoundly affect their health. Remember, the male clinic told us the person you report to at work is more important to your health than your family doctor. Wow. I was never taught that, never heard that. It was about making money, organic growth, eat it down margins. Sure. It was all about numbers and the creation of economic value. And so that that was the big transformation to me when I realized that people are our purpose. Okay. Okay. Our product is the way we create value, human value, and economic value. If we don't have a good business, we can't be good to our people.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Right. But if you're not good to your people, you can't have a good business.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

No, I I would say to you, that's the unfortunate situation. Um, I would say to you that remember, this I don't want you to be startled, but the statistics, 88% of all people who work in this country feel they work for an organization that does not care about it. Wow. 88%. Three out of four people in this country are disengaged in what they're doing, according to Gallup. 65% of all people would give up a salary increase if they could fire their boss. Wow. There's a 20% increase in heart attacks on Monday mornings when people have to go back to work.

unknown 7:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

That's amazing. You're blowing my mind, Bob. No, no, I've been giving this speech for 15 years, and nobody at McKenzie, Harvard, nobody debates it. And and and Tom Friedman nailed it when he said, we don't have a poverty of money in this country. We have a poverty of dignity. When people feel used for your purpose instead of cared for for human dignity, they feel a sense of humiliation. So remember, we have a country with tremendous economic prosperity today. Right?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Low unemployment, businesses are thriving, the stock market is strong. Yeah, we have the highest level of depression, anxiety, and suicide we have ever had. Why? They have economic prosperity, people are making good money, they're taking vacations, they're buying nice clothes. Because people feel used, they get laid off, they get criticized at work, they get manipulated. Remember, when I talk to CEOs of companies, and many on this podcast will be CEOs, I say, you're all worried about the cost of health care. You are the problem. Wow. 74%, 74% of all illnesses are chronic. The biggest cause of chronic illness is stress, and the biggest cause of stress is work. Okay, so when we teach in Barry Wembley University for managers to become leaders who have the skills and courage to care for the people they lead, 95% of the feedback we get is how it affects their marriage and their relationship with their children.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Sure. So I I think that's really important. That was on my list of questions. How you view the difference between management and leadership. And I think you've sort of touched on that. One crisis that we have in our industry is the engagement of younger workers. And I think what we've been finding out is that they are a little more aware of those links between the job they want, where they feel as if they have a personal stake in the businesses, that they feel part of a uh a family, that their that their talents are valued. Um and I think what you said that you were never taught that, that you never learned that. I think that's a real deficit.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

William. Yeah, we are committed to transforming. I gave a speech at the United Nations on transforming business education to teach human skills along with academic skills. These are not bad people. You know, I, you know, a gentleman who runs one of the largest airlines in the world heard me speak one time, and he came up to me after my speech and said, I thought my job was to build a great global airline company. It never occurred to me to care for the 130,000 people. Wow. Okay, and this is and his statement is this has given me a whole new purpose in life. Yeah. And they started engaging with us on how to care because they they thought care was good benefits, good pay, good, you know. Uh, but again, it's not bad people. We don't teach people to care, we teach people to use people for organizational goals. So we do not have that issue you talked about with young people in our industry. Okay. We have, I just came for the uh a team meeting with young people, and they can't believe they're part of they feel welcome, they feel cared for. But again, if if I told you it's right, if and again, nobody's ever debated this, if 88% of all people feel they work for an organization that doesn't care about them, why would young people want to work for a company like that? Okay. Right, right. Why? I mean, again, they go to work, they uh are not treated with respect and dignity, they're used, they're put under stress. So again, but it's not bad people. The people in the gorg industry and machinery industry, they're not bad people. They were never taught to care. Uh, I don't you remember when Bernie Sanders was a possible presidential candidate, he started talking a lot about socialism. And it was interesting, young people were surveyed and they preferred, according to surveys, socialism over capitalism. So the CEO roundtable, America's top CEOs, 200 largest corporate CEOs, came together, certainly represented the free enterprise system, and said, came out with a PR statement, beautiful PR statement. We need to think about more than just the shareholders. We need to think about all stakeholders. Now, I know some of these gentlemen, they are really fine people, good faith, good background, good families. But they have no idea how to care. Okay? They were never taught to care. Their boards don't judge them on whether they treat people with respect and dignity. It's about the share price, organic growth, financial stability. So we have a broken system that was because the industrial revolution in theory brought good paying jobs with good benefit to farmers. So in China and America, all over the world, improved the standard of living, improved education, improved quality of life. We just forgot one B. When we came together at Ford Motor Company and other industrial revolution leaders, we didn't say to our universities we need leaders now as we come together who will have the ability to inspire, care for these thousands of people we're going to bring into our factories. When were unions formed? Right after the Industrial Revolution to protect the workers from the greed of this tremendous wealth being created by the Industrial Revolution. We thought, look, it we'll just negotiate the pay. And so we never started with human skills. We started with academics. So our universities became skills factories. They gave the market what they were. I need more accountants, more engineers, more scientists, more marketing people, more salespeople. And so they they got the best raw material they could. They processed them through the university system. And then if the market liked them, they must be doing it right because look at the demand for our students. We started wrong. We we should have started saying if we're going to come together now in organizations, how can we be good to the people whose lives we are going to be touched, who's going to create this value? So I would say to you, that is the awareness we I give this speech, I gave 54 speeches around the world last year. And you know, our case study has now become a Harvard bestseller with 80 universities from Japan to India, studying the very women leadership model. Our book has sold 90,000 copies around the world and something like that. So the message I'm sharing with you has never been debated anywhere. But if you walk outside, Jan and the moon's out, and you look up and say, see the moon, I said, yes, but I don't know how to get there. People don't debate with me what I say. They just, you know, how do you care?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

How do we get it?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, yeah. How do I go from using people to caring for people? Well, the good news is I'm not giving you an academic theory. I'm sharing with you what we're actually doing.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

How can you teach people to care if the only ways they know to show that they care are these old-fashioned notions of how business demonstrates caring? How do you teach people that?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Well, in um about 17 years ago, a young man said to me, What's your greatest fear, Bob? Now, I'm an eternal optimist, so I never I don't know what the word fear means. And I thought of it and I said, My greatest fear, this is about 17 years ago, is that I was blessed with a vision of the way the world was intended to be, where people genuinely care for each other. Okay, and that it would die with me. And so I got up the next morning after that dinner, and I said, Okay, you identified a fear. How are we going to address that fear? And I said, Well, how do great religions survive over time? They articulate their beliefs, and then they have disciples who tell stories that that keep the beliefs relevant to our daily life. So I said, we need to create disciples, so it's not me. We all believe this is the way we are called to lead. And so we started a university to transform managers into leaders. And we teach three basic areas. This eclectic team of incredibly gifted people with no experience other than early education, right? Came up with the first thing we need to teach to transform managers into leaders is empathetic listening. It is the greatest of all human skills. And I thought adults knew how to listen. It turns out we don't. We know how to talk, we know how to debate, but we don't know how to listen. So we and then second from Cynthia and I raising six kids, we said the other thing we need to do is we need to we need to shine a light in the organization looking for the goodness and recognize those people in a thoughtful, timely way. So we taught a class on recognition and celebration, how to let people know they matter in the normal course in thoughtful ways. Right. Which was powerful. And finally, a culture of service, seizing the opportunity to serve others. Those three classes, collectively created to try and create disciples, has now created a culture that Simon Senna came in and said he's never seen anything like it in his life. Wow. Raj Czodia wrote the book on Whole Foods with conscious capitalism game and said, I've never seen anything like this in my life. Bill Urey, wrote a peace negotiator from Harvard, came in and said, I've never seen anything like this in my life. How is it possible that a simple accountant from North St. Louis, through the inspiration I shared with you, could constantly come up with a message that these world leaders could come in and say, I have never seen anything like this. You've got to share this, which will result in a book, which result in the case study. So I would say to you, it was this transformation and the lens, again, prior to 17 years ago, the lens through which I saw the people in our company was they were engineers, accountants, production workers, hourly words, union workers. And that day at a wedding, that around 2000, when the lens I had was reversed, and I thought, everybody that works at Barry Weimiller is just like that young man and young lady getting married. There's somebody's precious child that's in our care, and the way we treat them will have a profound impact on their health, their family life. Again, it is astounding to me because we had no idea that 90% of the feedback that we get when we teach people to be leaders is how it affects their health, their marriage, and their relationship with their children. So when we say what's wrong with kids today, look in the mirror. Where did they come from? They came from broken families where people worked 88% chance they worked in an environment, and they came home exhausted, stressed, and could not be the loving parent, caring parent because of the stress.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Loving parents. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

So I I think that's really very timely message. You know, I've worked at home for decades, but a lot of folks now are sort of bringing their work home. And I, you know, they're working at home more. We we made it through this terrible pandemic. Um, I think sometimes those lines between home life and work life are getting even more blurred than in the past. You can't help but bring that work stress home with you. And it can be toxic.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Well, it it is toxic, okay? 88% of people don't feel bad yet. And again, Tom Friedman called it a poverty of dignity. People feel used for the organizational goals, which is what I was taught. We need people to achieve our goals. And if we could find a machine tool that would replace them, great. Let's get rid of 10 people and buy a machine tool. If we could outsource India and get rid of 10 more people, we spend our life trying to get rid of people, okay? Right. Improve our profitability, okay. Productivity is up. Why? So we have less people. Okay, so again, the key thing I'd want you listeners to realize is the day I was at that wedding and looking at those two precious people being married, and I realized that oh, 14,000 people around the world in part of our organization are just like that young man and young lady who simply want to know they matter. And in our leadership role, we could profoundly show them that they do matter. And so, again, it was this eclectic university we started to transform managers who manipulate people to leaders for people who care for people. And again, you've got to have a good business or you cannot care for people. So we're not talking about giving up profitability because the profitability is vibrant for us to be able to care for people. When companies struggle with profitability, they usually take it out of the people. We need to lay off 500 people to get because our margins are not where they need to be. I mean, the market's gonna look at it. So we've got a numeric-based economy that is destroying human dignity.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah. That really resonates with me. Um and and here's the thing, you don't have to apparently disconnect caring for people, truly caring for people, with a successful business. Because as you said, you came to Barry Waymiller um through your dad when it was, you said maybe a two million dollar company.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So now it's a $18 million company.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah, and now it's a $3.3 billion company that has so many different products and services. Tell us a little, if you can, about Barry Waymiller as a business and how you feel caring for people affects. That business.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Well, let me go back. When Harvard wrote the case study on our culture about seven years ago, they invited me up when it was being taught for the first time to a group of global business leaders, the very type of people that will be on your podcast, listening to your podcast. And I was invited to be in this auditorium in Harvard and sit in while it was being taught. The night before, in in study groups, they had studied our case and our culture and business and came in and discussed it. So I was sitting there listening to 160 executives debate my life. Okay. Fascinating. With no feeling that I was going to say anything. I was just invited to sit in and hear it. At the end, uh, towards the end of the class, the professor said to the group, Is Bering Wheymler success because of their culture or their strategy? Now I had never given that an ounce of thought. And so they voted after having studied it the night before and talked about it for an hour. And 75% of people voted that Barring Wimler's success was our culture. Right. And Jan Rifkin, the chair of the MBA program, said to me, Bob, would you like to comment? Now I hadn't given I haven't given it one ounce of thought. Got up in front of these hundred executives and I said, I understand why you think our success is our culture. But let me give you my view on this question. The foundation of our success is our business model. Okay. And let me give you an analogy. If Ferrari designs the ultimate high performance engine, internal combustion engine, and you put 85 octane fuel in that engine, it'll start, it'll drive down the street, it'll run. Okay, one other. But if you if you put 91 octane premium fuel in that Ferrari engine, we it will perform to its potential. So I said to this group of executives, I want you to think of the engine as our business model that we designed. Right. Okay. And the culture is the premium fuel that allows that business model to perform to its potential. So I said, you can't go take premium octane fuel and put in a Toyota engine and think you're going to race a furrow.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Okay. So it the culture can't do anything more than optimize your business model. Okay. On the other hand, if you got a great business model and you put normal, I'll call it using people for organizational goals, it'll start, it'll run down the street, and most other people are doing the same thing, so you're going to feel fine. So I tell our people around the world when I talk to them, my the most important thing I do is to design a business model that gives you a sense of safety and a sense of future. That you have a grounded sense of hope, that you can share your gifts with us and go home each night knowing that you matter and look forward to coming back and being with people. And you should see the reaction of people around the world to this. This is not just an American issue. It is a global issue.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Oh, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

People don't feel they're valued. Okay? They feel they're used, and we are seeing the results in the anxiety, depression, the great resignation, the difficulty in hiring people. If you're a young people person and your parents came home every night miserable where they worked, which is 88% of the people, why would you want to go to work for a company with your dad or mom? Okay. Right. Okay. Because they knew their parents couldn't hardly wait to retire. Um, so I think, I mean, again, we live in a country where we have TGIF. Thank God it's Friday. Yeah. Okay. Get out of that place, go have a beer and kill the pain of what I suffered for 40 hours a week. It's Monday. Yeah. And I look, I look forward to TGIM. Thank goodness it's Monday. Get away from the kids, the spouse, and be with a group of people where I feel value. So I have my vision is remember, Gallup did again that survey in 165 countries for the source of happiness. And they found that the number one source of happiness in the world was not money, not health, but a good job doing meaningful work with people you enjoy. So what do we deny to 88% of all people a sense of happiness? A happiness.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Well, I'm really excited to hear these ideas discussed. And people should know that these are the ideas that you're going to be sharing with folks as our keynoter at Court Expo. Um, and I'm gonna be there, so I'm definitely gonna be in the audience. But I have one kind of final wrap-up question for you. Um we're gonna talk about the transformative power of great leadership. I'm gonna say let's look at the future, specifically of our industry here, um, say corrugated, um, packaging, you know. Um what is your sort of best case vision if people get this message about transformative leadership, about caring for people, what how could that affect the business of the future? What sort of a vision of a future industry where those ideas are being enacted?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

First of all, you'd have a line outside a mile long of people waiting for a job opportunity. Okay. Right. Number two, the leaders of that company's heart would overflow with joy to get the feedback and the impact they're making on people's marriages. If you heard the stories I've heard since we began this, the transformative power of caring, you would sob. You would sob at the stories I've heard, the healing power, sending people home knowing they matter. Uh and so I would say to whether it's the corrugating industry, the packaging industry, or any other industry, even places like Google and Amazon, every place else, we need to change the lens through which we see the people we have the privilege of leading. And rather than looking at them at the skills we need to make money, if you look at them in the side again, I gave 54 speeches around the world last year that kind in every part of society. This is not just a business issue, it's a nonprofit, health care, education, government, it's issues everywhere. Until we learn to be leaders who care for people with the skills to care, you cannot ask people to care for the people that they have the privilege of leading. You have to teach them how to care. If if we decided to speak Chinese on Monday, you can't say, okay, we're gonna speak Chinese, I would say, I agree, but I don't know how to. You can't go to people who are used to using people to achieve organizational goals and tr and say, Oh, we're now going to care. I want you to care for people. It is a huge transformation, but it's mainly taking the lens of your glasses and my glasses and seeing people in our span of care as somebody's precious child and treating them with respect and dignity and making sure we have a good business model. It used to be the idea was to get the right people on the bus, like it's just a matter of hiring the right people. I say, no, no, I stop getting the right people on the bus. It's about building a safe bus, which is your business model, and then having drivers who are your leaders know where they're going and how to drive that bus safely. And then anybody invited on that bus is going to be fine. So it takes a huge change in the way you see your role as a leader. And again, we have our share prices gone up 14% a year, compounded for 25 years. Wow. Warren Buffett in that same time is 9.6%. So I would say to you, people say, well, doesn't it cost a lot to care? Nope. It costs the human tragedy that we are seeing in our countries because in business we have never learned to care. Right. Okay. Now that doesn't mean there's not some nice people along the way who have you know kind of a nice business, and that's nice. But you know, I'll give you a recent example. I read that Microsoft announced they were going to lay off 10,000 people. I thought that's it just struck me kind of odd because I thought they're profitable at used. It turns out they have 200,000 people. And so I was talking to a McKinsey, former McKinsey partner. I said, is there any legal requirement on Microsoft for Microsoft to announce when they need to decide they needed to adjust their team members by 10,000 people? Nope. It was an investment advisor that said, look, there's a window of opportunity in the tech center now where people down laying off people, improving profitability, and the share price will go up. So the board, without any discussion on the impact on the 10,000 people or the impact, the collateral damage on the 180,000 instead.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

So Microsoft announces they're gonna hurt 10,000 people and their share price goes up. The market applauded them hurting 10,000 people. If you've ever done a psychological study of the impact the layoff has on person, it is devastating. Even if you find another job, it is humiliating, devastating, a bloat. And I guarantee you, major corporations, you know, Intel did it, uh, FedEx did it, Amazon did it. It's the thing to do. We use people, okay, to improve profitability. Okay, we sacrifice 10,000 people. And what about the impact on 180,000 people? So we need to change the sense of responsibility, not just to the shareholders. We need to care for all the people. And our our golden rule is we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. Our team members, our suppliers, our clients. We touch the lives, and how can we be good stewards and the trust each one of them places in us? So until we change that lens, Jan, we won't change behavior. And our major emphasis now is to try to change business education in the world. That's why we're working in the United Nations. We need to teach these human skills. I was never taught how to inspire people. I was never taught how to care for people. I was taught how to use people as long as I needed them. And then right-sizing, downsizing, you know, reorganizing to make the numbers work so the investors would like this. So it's a broken system, and we are seeing the devastating toll on young people and married couples around this country. And business could be the most powerful force for good in the world if we set our purposes our people, which means we need a good business model that creates value, or we cannot be good to our people. So that's going to be my message.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

I can't wait to hear it in person. Um, you may say that you've never been taught how to inspire people, but I'm inspired right now. So you got one for today, Bob. Wow, I felt so energized after my conversation with Mr. Chapman, and I can't wait to hear his keynote at Core Expo. Bob will be speaking on Tuesday, August 29th. There's still plenty of time to make it to Cleveland for this important program. You can register on site or online. Visit corexpo.org to learn more. That's C-O-R-R-E-XPO.org. Corexpo.org to learn more. We will have a special event for young professionals, an active exhibit floor, panel discussions, and more, plus a second keynote presentation by rock drummer Mark Scholan. I'll be doing podcast interviews on site throughout the event. So come find me. Maybe you can be a guest on Better Together. Can't wait to meet you. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Hello everyone. This is Larry Montague, president and CEO of Tappy, the pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, and converting industry's go-to resource for news, industry trends, and technical and management information. We hope you enjoyed today's Better Together podcast. And remember, there are two types of people in our industry Tappy members and those who should be. Have a great day.