David Novak 0:03 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Seth Wha, CEO of the PGA of America. Now, Seth was a finance guy who came up through the ranks to become the CEO of Deutsche Bank. Now, that's obviously impressive. But knowing Seth as I do, and knowing his track record, what really stands out to me is his unique ability to relate to people at every level of an organization. You know, that's exactly what he did when he took over at the PGA of America. He went out, he talked to his professionals, he listened, he learned and he gave his team members a chance to let him know what they thought needed to be done before he made any of the decisions that he needed to make to move the business forward. And I'll be honest with you, he uncovered some tough issues when he spent that time with the front lines. But he was also able to see for himself just exactly what needed to be done, and get the input from his people on how to get it done. And in so doing, inspire them to help it get done. Now, Seth is building a team around a culture of happiness, and they're really digging into their big mission, which is to grow the game of golf and make it more inclusive and accessible. And man, oh, man, is that mission important. And that's what I want you to learn today, great leaders are not only not afraid to spend time with all levels of their organization, they can't wait to spend time with all levels of their organization, because they learn so much that will help them take the organization to the next level. And isn't that what you want to do with your team? So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Seth wall.

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. And let's tee it off. Couldn't resist that. What's that?

Seth Waugh 2:10 

Well, I'd do anything to be with you, David even been on a podcast. Prior to be asked, and it's great to be with you, my friend as always.

David Novak 2:20 

Great. Great, you know, Seth, tell our listeners a little bit about the PGA of America and how it's different from the PGA Tour. It can get confusing.

Seth Waugh 2:29 

Yeah, that's fair enough the like, if we were starting here, we're gonna start out in like, create the world of golf right now. It would not look anything like what it does, right? It's it we've got a kind of alphabet soup of different organizations. You got the USGA, the European tour, the PGA of America that the PGA Tour, but it all works. And so our role in this thing is we have the we're the largest sports organization on the planet, we have 29,000 members. So in that sense, we're sort of a trade association for all the PGA professionals out there that are teaching everybody to play the game and run the clubs. And our mission is to serve the member and grow the game. So we're a non for profit, and, and that's why we get up in the morning every day. In addition to that, where we play, you know, we own two of the major events, two of the five real waterfront properties on the men's tour, we have the PGA Championship, which is a major. And then we have the Ryder Cup, which is you know, one of the great events in golf, and in sports. In fact, we also have the women's PGA Championship, a senior championship and of course, our national club Pro. So we, we play at the very highest levels. Among every level, we have Junior events, we run the PGA Junior League, we have a foundation that supports veterans and diversity inclusion in junior golf and placed into play which is municipal golf. So we kind of you know, most of the other organizations in golf, kind of have one lane and the swimming pool, we kind of have the whole pool day and we started from the first swing, you take until for the last.

David Novak 4:15 

They've you've definitely definitely got the right guy for the job here with you. And Seth, you go from being one of the top financial executives in the world to take on the CEO role of the PGA of America. You know, why did you do it?

Seth Waugh 4:28 

Well, that's when my wife Jane asked me every day, but, you know, the, like, how many chances does anybody get to kind of reinvent themselves at any point in their life, and particularly, you know, at this point in my life, so, for me, it's an incredible honor. And and, and I'm just flattered to be asked frankly, I remember a conversation I had with a good friend of both of ours, Peter Ueberroth, who's had an amazing life and he was kind of one of my mentors, even though he probably didn't know what I try to go out and have lunch with them once a year. So I'm just talking The moment I asked him how he'd done his various things, which was, you know, it was commissioned in a baseball league to be did the Olympics, the first profitable one, he bought Pebble Beach back from the Japanese, you know, a number of things in and he said, You know, I like to think about where I can have the most impact. And that struck me is really interesting, and something that I've thought about ever since then, and so look, I, I think Golf is a very worthy thing. I think it's this incredible engine for good in terms of building relationships, lessons learned, beautiful places, if you go to see, you know, you like me, I know David have, golf is interwoven in everything in our lives. And it's where I've gotten the most relationships, certainly out of my adult life. And so to have a chance to have an impact on something that I think is worthy. And, and will give the biggest chance that I'll ever have to, to impact the most amount of lives if I can kind of make, we can make 29,000 lives better, I think we can make millions of lives better, by extension. And so it was a hard decision. A lot of ways I was a partner at Silverlake was a wonderful, private equity firm, it was great friends. And so leaving it was a hard thing to do. But but the chance to have that impact is really what what drove my decision. Seth, when you think

David Novak 6:21 

about it, what will be the top three leadership learnings that you you had coming up in finance that you're bringing as the CEO of the PGA of America?

Seth Waugh 6:30 

That's a great question I like I think, I think about great companies are great institutions, I think they share a few things. One is culture. And I know that was a huge part of your experience of what you were so famous for it yum. So creating a culture one as a team, and you know, people are your only asset. So creating that culture is, is, you know, hugely important, I don't think you can do anything else. Without that it's the only lasting thing that keeps companies together, you're gonna have good quarters, bad quarters, good years, good decades. But the culture is what kind of keeps everybody there, I think the second thing you have to have is kind of a product that people want to buy, right? And whether that's, you know, chicken or, or tacos, or, or, you know, great Lessons From Our Pros, or Ryder cups that you know, everyone wants to watch, you know, you have to have that as part of it. And then I think you need to take your people and kind of create a common dream, you know, you, everybody buys into that dream, and you have a mission. It's not just, you know about your own, whatever part of that process you're doing, it's where you're going as an institution and creating that feeling that you're part of something special. That's going somewhere, I think is is again, it's interwoven to the culture. And I think you do all that. And that's how you create a brand. And once you have that brand, that's the most valuable asset you have. And you have to hold on to that, you know, in every way that you can protect it, but also grow it and evolve it.

David Novak 8:03 

Yes. So you take on this new role? And how did you go about really learning what your priorities needed to be?

Seth Waugh 8:11 

You know, I think one of the things that you do when you come in anything new is, is you want to certainly understand the numbers. But I think the best way to do any of these jobs, I sort of have this view that running any business is like running a restaurant, you need to kind of be out in front, you need to know what your customers are ordering, you need to know what's coming out of the kitchen, you need to know who's on the cash register. And so, you know, when I was at Deutsche Bank, I would always try to be with clients, I try to spend 50% of my time with clients, because first of all, that was kind of what we did. And that was hopefully adding value and making money. But secondly, I got a chance to understand what was going on in the markets, what was going on in my customers. You know, my clients heads, my partner's heads, I get to watch my people do what they do day to day. And that was the way that I kind of understood, you know, my business. And so when I think you come into anything new, that's the best way to do you come in with no preconceptions, less than a lot more than you talk, because that's how you, you know, you're gonna learn, you got to assume kind of best intentions from everybody give everybody a chance to show what they can do. I'm not a big believer that you got to clean out house and start all over. I think, you know, there's a reason people are there. There's a reason there's that brand, and you want to give them that chance. And then I think the other thing that I used to think about this every time we hired a new senior person at Deutsche Bank, I'd say, you know, look, you've got a six month window where you're kind of the new kid in town, right? And what, ask all the hard questions, think about it in a different way. Don't do things because that's the way we've always done them. And six months into that, or maybe it's a year, almost a year part of that process. You kind of own it and so be that new kid, ask all those questions, the hard ones, and the ones that are You know, kind of confusing to you, you have that window to learn. Right?

David Novak 10:04 

Right. And speaking of learning, what was the most surprising thing you uncovered, as you looked at the business, and that's really driving what you're focused on today. The thing that

Seth Waugh 10:14 

was most surprising and disappointing to me was that there is a sense of, I think, a lack of communication and a lack of trust between the headquarters of PGA America and our 29,000 members, here, we are trying to serve them and make their lives better and grow the game. And there was a general feeling that headquarters hadn't done enough for them and hadn't communicated enough. And so we're leading with that we're trying to work really hard to recreate a lot of that. And I think because of that lack of trust, there was a bit of an atrophy in the organization, one that was kind of protecting the past as opposed to look into the future. And there was this sense of kind of zero risk, because there wasn't a reward, and you can't go anywhere, if you don't take any risk. Like that's, that's sort of how it all works. And so, I've tried to create a sense of innovation, a sense of, you know, it's okay to make mistakes, we're going to learn from them and, and go forward. And but most importantly, really trying to live our mission, I would not have taken this job to preside over Ryder cups. That's what we do once every two years, what we do every day is grow the game and serve the member and so wanted to make sure that we live that every day. And certainly the members understood that that's why I took the job. And that's how I was going to lead.

David Novak 11:36 

I want to get to the membership in just a second. But you brought up the Ryder Cup, and there's a lot of discussion about whether the Ryder Cup should be played with or without fans. How will you go about making that decision?

Seth Waugh 11:50 

That day when I when I got out of the banking business that I was getting out of the crisis business, but all sudden, I was right back in the middle of it was COVID. Right? And, and sports are among the things that are most affected. And so I think when you're making any hard decision, you got to kind of think about what is the whole, like, how does the whole going to do the best year you have all these stakeholders, you have partners, you have the game you have, you know, obviously the health risks associated with everything. And so as we went through the thinking around this, we look at our PGA Championship. We believe that the best interest of the game is for us to play that without fans and in a way that creates content and creates opportunity and jobs, not only for the players, but for everyone around the game. For the media for everything else. You're creating commerce. And so obviously we'd much prefer to deal with fans. But did that made sense? Every event and certainly every major is going to be better with fans. But you can kind of imagine it without the Ryder Cup is a very different animal. It is one that is really all about the fans. That's what makes the event you haven't been to one yet should I know you have David, it is one of the you know, the first shot on the first day is one of those moments in sports. If you're a fan that you have to experience, you can't believe that the tension and how amazing it is. It's this tribal kind of deal, right? And thinking about a Ryder Cup without fans is really hard to get your head around. And that's how we kind of framed our decision. And then could you do it with less fans? Could you do it in some other form you start thinking about this is meant to be obviously it's a home game for us. But we hope to have you know, 25% of the fans be European and being for the other team because that's again, that back and forth is what makes it so special. And so if you think about coming to watch three days ago, for for a European fan, you'd have to quarantine for 14 days on the front end, 14 days on the back end. So it's gonna cost just 31 days to watch three days off. That works. And what are the odds that you can do you know, a 10,000 person event as opposed to 40,000? And the last thing I'd say is, you know, I've talked to everybody in Wisconsin about it. And everybody I could think of, you know, one of them was the Green Bay Packers who obviously are right there. And I said, Well, what are you doing for the fall? And I said, Well, we're hoping to play we're gonna start with 25% and maybe get to 50%. And we'll see how it all goes. Well, that's great. And you said, Well, why can't you just do that? And I said, Well, the difference between me and you is I gotta build Lambo between June and September. And that's an expensive proposition. Right? And so you build it and then cancel it. And that's, you know, not not a great a great outcome.

David Novak 14:34 

Yeah. Well, certainly a big challenge that they threw and you're doing a great job doing it. You brought up the impact of COVID 19. The crisis is created. What kind of impact has COVID-19 had on the typical PGA professional?

Seth Waugh 14:49 

Well, you know, it's there's the TGA professional context, a lot of forums, right. We have ones that are teachers and coaches. We have ones that are general managers or There's that, you know, we're in operations. And so each one's a little bit different, you know, and our perspective on when this started was how do we, you know, how do we get the everybody to the other side of this thing, right? First of all, you, you survive. And it's sort of like that, when you're on a plane, and they say, if the oxygen comes down, put it on yourself first, and then and then save your kids. I know, you couldn't do that, I couldn't do that. But it's good advice. And so, you know, we wanted to make sure that we understood kind of where we were, and then try to figure out how to get everybody else there. And so at first it was our professionals are either small business owners, or are part of a small business, generally speaking, or entrepreneurs, you know, coaches that are relying just on lessons for their livelihood. And so trying to keep the game open, and in a safe and responsible way was kind of our first thing. And we're not health experts, we weren't trying to give advice on that front. But if a state or locality wanted to play golf, or have golf as a healthy distraction, and you know, release for a lot of people that we would give them the best advice. And so we created a back to golf program, which we actually took to the CDC, in a proactive way, they were very appreciative that we were thinking about it that way, and then rolled it out, you know, through the industry. So trying to keep places open or open them responsibly once they were closed. And so that depending on where you were, you were either out of business for a period of time, or or maybe you stayed open the whole time, but in a lesser way. And then as things have reopened, we've added a different thing. So if you were a coach, the first form of Golf was a walk in the park, you and I could carry our own bag and walk in one summer twosome and an empty golf course, like that's pretty safe. And then added cards and other things and eventually teaching. But at first, you know, teaching wasn't viewed as essential. Obviously, it's essential to the person who's making a living doing it. So figuring out social distancing wearing masks, other ways to kind of get that done. So when you say a typical PGA professional, they're all affected as everybody, you know, in the in the world has been ours were affected a lot early, we're lucky enough to be able to bring it back sooner than lots of other businesses in a lesser form. And then the good news is that golf has had an incredible boom, because of this, you know, we're seeing numbers up across the board everywhere, is this back to sort of the Tiger days of participation tea sheets are blown up. And it's, you know, that part of it is we're trying to figure out how to make that a generational change as opposed to something that's just in the moment. And by the way, we're seeing a totally different kind of player come back. It's families, it's, it's become a really welcoming place to there's a lot of diversity and who's coming back not just traditional players, but labs, players and first timers. And, again, families and people from every, every walk of life,

David Novak 17:56 

I tell you, I've seen that here, you know, and I'm in Louisville, right down, I have to tell you, uh, you know, the tea sheets are jam packed, and there's more people in the parking lot than ever before. So it's definitely having an impact on the game. One of the things that, you know, I know about you, Seth, is that you are an absolute high touch leader. And here we are, we're doing this podcast through our zoom call here. And, you know, we're living in a virtual world today. So how is that changing? You personally, as a leader,

Seth Waugh 18:25 

I think it's, it's a little bit of good news, bad news. You know, David, I think you're, you're able to touch more people. And obviously, you know, you're doing all this great work out of kindness of your heart to make people's lives better and talk about leadership. And that's a vehicle that didn't exist, right, nor to social media and a lot of other things. So I think the ability to communicate across a mass way is is amazingly powerful and great. It as long as it's used, you know, for good rather than evil, if you will, and I'm not going to define those. But I think we know what you mean. And I think the other thing is a public figure, you know, you have to be more careful, right? You have to be really thoughtful about everything, you say nothing is casual anymore, because, you know, we everything's gonna get parsed. Everything you say, has an afterlife, and will show back up and it'll show up, perhaps out of context, or in a different context, or the world's going to change and suddenly that something that looks smart, five years ago may look ridiculous or or insensitive, or a lot of other things, right. And so it's making us all be really thoughtful about almost our legacy, if you will, because you're you're almost making it every day, right?

David Novak 19:38 

earlier on. You talked about the importance of creating a shared dream. What's the what's the dream you have for the PGA of America and the members?

Seth Waugh 19:49 

The dream is in a simple way is to make their lives better, right. And so, you know, we wake up in the morning trying to do that and the ways to make it better are varied, but many So, I want to elevate the profession back to what it probably was, in the old days when I think PGA professional was kind of one of those people in town that had an exalted position and that they had some secret sauce that knew how to hit a seven iron that you didn't, whether that would be the doctor, the lawyer or the principal, the school, the high school football coach. And I think that's gotten lost a little bit. And so getting that back as a sense of community, I think is important. And on the actual, what we can do directly, we're working very hard on a deferred compensation plan, which will create, you know, a real wealth creation vehicle for PGA professionals, it's long overdue, I'm really hopeful on that front, we have some ideas around health care, which is not universally supplied to PGA professionals, and that's a huge thing that I think we can do for them. And then I think, you know, it's about communicating creating a pride and organization COVID allowed Tracey's are obviously really hard. On the other hand, you get a chance to show your constituents that you you know, this is a time when they need you, and most of them when you should be there for their most and, and I hope that that's kind of what we've, you know, conveyed and, and and done, not just talked about, but actually done, we've created a Emergency Relief Fund, which was donated about $10 million to those need, again, to get people to the other side, and a variety of other things. So making their lives better was really what it's about. And that reason we care so much about our waterfront properties, if you will, is that that's the engine, economic engine that allows us to do all this stuff day to day. And you know, and then it's the game, right? Like, how do we make the game, you know, more relevant going forward rather than less?

David Novak 21:45 

I wanted to ask you about that. Because, you know, when most people think of the PGA and golf, they think of tradition and preserving the past, what role does innovation play in in in the go forward for the PGA of America?

Seth Waugh 22:00 

Yeah, well, look, I think, I think it has a huge role. I think it's absolutely, you know, the biggest change that we need to affect, I think you have to respect the the past for sure, celebrate the history, all the wonderful things that golf about, but if, you know, as you know, if disruptions happening everywhere, and you either have to be part of the disruption or get run over and so we need to evolve or be come less relevant as as a game, right. There's, there's headwinds, you know, that have been talked about, which is too time consuming, too complicated, not welcoming enough, too expensive, you know, all those sorts of things, which we need to, to break down. And I have this view that two aspects of it is, we've been an association that's protected kind of our grandparents game, as opposed to creating the one for our grandchildren. Right. And I also think that, in particularly true in the last couple of months, been hugely reminded of this, that if we can make the game look more like the world, maybe the world can look a little bit more like the game and all those beautiful things about what we are so making it welcome making it look different. And so green shoots that I've talked about, and relative to our own businesses, Junior League, golf, which is you may not know it because your kids are grown up. But it's, it's kind of the Little League of golf. It's a two person scramble. It's eight year old, 14 years old. Good boys playing with girls, eight year olds playing was 14 year old, you have a uniform, you play in a team and a league. The two biggest cohorts of growth are girls and kids of color. And so really hopeful on that. It's it's the coolest thing going on, I think in golf. And then another one is, you know, top golf right, which the naysayers would say it's not golf and it's a threat. I look at it exactly the opposite way. What can we learn from Top Golf? Why is it so successful? Why are they growing 30% a year? And, and how can we make it a gateway to Greengrass golf, which is where it is and so we look at them as a great partner. They now have PGA professionals in virtually every one of their stores. It's less time consuming, it's it's digestible. It's you know, simple and those are the things we got to make it fun we got to make golf cool right and and that's that's what I think we need to do to truly grow the game and I think we have that opportunity. Post COVID With this Grossberg

David Novak 24:26 

great vision for the game love it. And I want to talk a little bit about your your style as a leader and set your I mean, anybody that knows you knows your absolute great guy one of the nicest guys in the world whence the tough guy come out

Seth Waugh 24:44 

Yeah, it was one of my friends once said, you're like a really nice guy. So you're not you know, for me, it's bad behavior. And it sounds you know, cliche, but if I go into every deal, trying to make sure that both parties feel good about it. And I think those are the best deals, I think, you know, we don't have clients, we have partners, and I want to treat them that way. And if somebody gets off the reservation and isn't fair treat somebody badly, doesn't, you know, have the values that I espouse. That's when I get tough. And for me, we can agree to disagree, we can talk about it. I'm very, I think consensual kind of leader in terms of building a consensus. But my golden rule, and leadership has been, you know, no jerks too loud. And as soon as somebody is a jerk, that's when the other stuff comes out.

David Novak 25:39 

It makes a lot of sense. You talked earlier about culture being the most important driver of any business, how do you gauge whether a culture or work environment is really right?

Seth Waugh 25:51 

I think you've got to, you've got to, again, back to what I talked about earlier, which is, is how do you? Are you going somewhere? Are people you know, following? Are we a team? Are people happy? You know, are people having fun? Are they being creative? Do they want to recruit their friends to come play on your team? Are we good partners to our clients? And so when you say like, how do you gauge I think it's back to my style, which is to kind of get my uniform, dirty, and be in the middle of things like not because I don't just trust people, I want to empower people. But I also want to understand kind of what's going on from from all of our stakeholders, I want to know, you know, what our members are thinking about us. And if I can kind of wait for the good news. But the bad news, I kind of want to know right away, because I want to be able to do something about that. And I want to know if our clients are, you know, are really our partners are viewing us as being a great partner. I want to know, if our employees are happy, are they fulfilled?

David Novak 26:56 

And happy factor seems to be a pretty big, important thing to you?

Seth Waugh 27:00 

Well, I think it's, you know, what else is the point of life, right? I don't think if you if you're happy, you're so much better, whatever you're doing. And it's true in golf, and it's true in life, and it's true and work.

David Novak 27:13 

Well, you know, unfortunately, these really aren't that happy at times, in addition to COVID-19 There's, there's so much racial tension today. How are you driving change in diversity in your own organization?

Seth Waugh 27:28 

Yeah, well, I, you know, my, my perspective on that is that I think this is an amazing opportunity. And as you know, I tend to be half full, right, I grew up in a house that was very progressive. My parents just were that way. And so I've always been frustrated by the lack of my ability, frankly, at Deutsche Bank or on Wall Street to to make more of a difference on this front. And if I think about great frustrations, in my, my job and my career, it would be that, despite a lot of efforts, the needle hasn't moved. And so as horrible, you know, a reason for this all to happen. Finally, I think the Great Awakening, and the one that I, you know, hoped was around you kick moment, obviously didn't happen. And, you know, we're a country that was built on, you know, equality, and we're 250 years into the experiment. And, and we're failing, right? And I used to think that, you know, that sort of enlightened view was to be colorblind, I think that's absolutely wrong. Now, I think you have to be totally color aware. I think we have to be intentional in that. And I think we have to first listen, acknowledge, help with the healing. And then we have to just create an action plan. And so that's what we're doing. We have, you know, I inherited it, I don't take any credit for it. And we've came on our Head of Diversity Inclusion, one woman named Sandy Cross's terrific. I made her our head of people. And because I didn't understand why diversity inclusion was out of HR. And so I kind of reversed the model. And she's made an enormous difference over her five years in the role and, and we can't be proud of our history as a country, we certainly can't be proud of a lot of things that have gone on in golf and, and, frankly, at the PGA of America, so we can apologize for those. But all we can do is kind of make it better. And so I think those are programmatic things, the table has to be seated with different points of view. That's the whole point of diversity. And we all have to be in a together, I'm really encouraged by the fact that it's a national conversation. And it's a lot of white leaders talking about this issue for the first time, you know, ever I think, and it's gonna come from, in this case, I think commerce and business rather than politics, if you will, and I think that's also a really healthy thing. And so we all have to move the needle in our own respective areas, and then collectively, the needle will be moved.

David Novak 29:58 

You know, that you've had so much success as a leader, almost every leader I talked to has a failure or an epic fail, you know, but they learn a lot from what would be yours.

Seth Waugh 30:10 

You know, I was running, I was at Merrill Lynch in the late 90s, running kind of the biggest p&l at the bank, co running it with another fellow. And the Russian debt crisis head, which at the time felt like a really bad one seems like a paper cut. Now, you know, we were building our business and had, you know, the most, the hurricane hit, and we had the most hotels on the beach, right. And so we got, we got hurt very badly. And from that I learned to empower people trust people, but also take the keys away, when it needed to be when people were in trouble. You know, you needed to sort of be supportive, but but take them away, I think I was a little bit too trusting the wrong word. But I allowed others to shape our destiny as opposed to seizing the tiller a little bit more quickly, and really driving what we're doing, again, in a collaborative way, but driving it. And I think, from that I've now lived through 911, and I've lived through the financial crisis and live through COVID now are hopefully live through COVID. So I've been a much more proactive leader than I was, then.

David Novak 31:21 

Seth, I want to take you back to the very beginning for a while here, tell us a story about your childhood days, that will tell us a lot about the kind of person that you become.

Seth Waugh 31:33 

Well, that's a good one. You know, like, like a lot of people, a lot of, you know, a lot of people, my father was a huge influence in my life and my hero. And he coached me in, I think, a different team. So I was a captain on his team, I took every class that he taught that I could, so I had him in class, six or seven times. And early on, I was a pretty good baseball player. And I was really more of a shortstop than a pitcher. But I was pitching. And I just learned a little nickel curve. And I was probably 12 and 14 years old. And I was having a good night on the mound and I struck out a bunch of people and my curve was making them look goofy. They weren't a great team. And my best friend was on third base, and we kind of were having fun with this whole thing. I also got a couple of hits, one of which was a home run. So after the game, I'm pretty proud of myself and my dad, you know, watch the game. He never says the word. He's not coaching. It's just in the stance. We get in the car, and I'm thinking like, this can be a good one, we're gonna go get ice cream, and I'm heroes, he looks at me, he goes, if you ever do that, again, you will never play baseball ever again. And I go, Whoa, Dad, what did I do, and he goes, You disrespected the other team. You were smiling when you struck him out, you were a total jerk. And that does not work. And you will never play this game again. And And honestly, that's stuck with me forever, just in terms of how you treat people. Whatever the situation, treat him as you want to be treated and have absolute respect. If you hit a home run, you know, no home run, trot, just kind of act like you've been there before. And that's stuck with me forever.

David Novak 33:08 

Now your dad was a teacher, and I understand you, you wanted to be a teacher for a while what made you go the route of business.

Seth Waugh 33:15 

So when I graduated from college, I had three jobs, two of which were coaching and teaching and one of which was trading commodities in Minneapolis. And I couldn't decide what I was going to do. And I was avoiding it. And I had a friend in the in the room with me and the phone was ringing. You know, it's like back before cellphones and way before cell phones. And and I wouldn't pick it up. But he goes, What are you doing? Right? Well, it's one of three people. And I don't know what my answer is. And so what do you mean? And I go, Well, I got a job teaching in California, I got a job teaching on the East Coast, and I got a job trading commodities in Minneapolis. And he said, Well, that's easy. He said, You know, you're going to teach and coach at some point, you should go do business because you've never seen it. And it'll be much easier to go from business to teaching and teaching the business. And I said that makes all the sense in the world. And I woke up 40 years later running a bank, right?

David Novak 34:06 

Yeah, but you've been doing a lot of coaching and teaching and all those roles.

Seth Waugh 34:09 

You know what, and that's my dad. And me too, is you know, that's he's shows up every day in terms of how I treat people, but how I get to decisions and get people there. And it's, he was very Socratic teacher, he kind of led you to the answer, and therefore, you own that answer as opposed to just memorizing it. And, and that's what I think is learning. He, he, you know, I learned to learn from him.

David Novak 34:35 

You know, that this has been so much fun, and we've covered a lot of areas but I want to have a little bit more fun with you here. Let's have a lightning round of q&a. Okay. What three words best describe you?

Seth Waugh 34:47 

Well, I think I think I'm really grateful, which sort of leads to my happy I think, sort of the same thought i I hope people think I'm thoughtful and balanced. I think that's really important to me that that I'm that I'm balanced and coming to a conversation open. And then I think that maybe the little sneaky one on ESA, I think people are surprised with how gritty I am. I don't give up easily.

David Novak 35:13 

What would be your biggest pet peeve?

Seth Waugh 35:16 

biggest pet peeve? Rudeness

David Novak 35:19 

is if you could change places with one person for a day, who would it be and why?

Seth Waugh 35:24 

That's a great one. Well, maybe my 18 year old self, but are you but barring that? I think Churchill, I think, you know, and the reason for that is that I think he was the greatest display of leadership in the last 150 years. I mean, he was really his will to change the direction of the world. And I think it was really him.

David Novak 35:50 

And what's something about you that few people would know?

Seth Waugh 35:53 

That I think I've got a novel in me somewhere?

David Novak 35:57 

And do you have any hidden talents as maybe it's writing? Yeah, hopefully

Seth Waugh 36:02 

they're not, that's not totally hidden. I, you know, you have to have talent in order to have one hidden, don't share. Or, you know, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a good swimmer. I'm actually a very good swimmer.

David Novak 36:14 

Who would be your favorite golfer?

Seth Waugh 36:17 

Oh, that's easy. That's my son. Clancy. You know, he's not famous yet. But the journey and watching it from a little kid and how much he cares, and how much this game beats him up and how he comes back? For more and how hard he tried to make a living out of it. It's, it's really, it makes me proud.

David Novak 36:36 

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and you caddied for him, what did you learn from that experiences, you know, as he was at Wake Forest? And could you guys stay happy together?

Seth Waugh 36:46 

No, it, we had a great time. And it's the most fun I've ever had, I took a summer off and, and traveled with him as he was playing the really high end of the amateur ranks. And, and I think the first thing you do is you got to learn to swallow your whistle, right? Because it's his game. It's not my game. And I've always been pretty good at that. But, you know, I'll tell you a quick story might explain it better when he was going to go to his first Q school. And he said, Dad, will you caddy for him? And I said, Are you sure? Like I want you to this is real, like, I want you to have the best chance and he goes, No, I really do want you I think he'd give me my best chance and go, that's great. I'm flattered. He goes, but I'm in charge, like, I'm the boss. And I go like, I get that. And I said, So. Here's the rules, I'll I'll carry you back. I'll keep up, you know, sort of shut up. And I'll give you every yardage. And I won't give a club unless you ask. And on greens, I'll read every pot, but I won't say a word unless you ask. And so you're in charge. And until you're a jerk, and then I'm you're dead.

David Novak 37:43 

That's a good one. I like that. And add recently said, You've remarried and you have a wonderful wife, Jane, that you mentioned a little bit earlier. You know, how do you handle all the business challenges that you have now? And just the workload that you have? How do you make it work?

Seth Waugh 38:01 

I think the one of the great things that we all have to learn early in life is capacity. Right? And you know, you have an enormous amount of it. And I admire that if you think about a lot of the people that you admire, it's people that take things on. So I hope I have a bit of that. But I love and I'm so lucky, I'm much better if I have 1020 things going on. And if I have one, I kind of procrastinate, if I have 20 I get them all done. But I think it's important that you know the important thing, I think in terms of being a parent, which is our only job that really matters, right? is I try to really be in the moment wherever I am. So if I'm you know, if I'm at work, like that's what I'm doing, if I'm at dinner, I'm at dinner, the phones away, in I don't I don't bring my work home very much people, they asked me how I'm doing and I give very, you know, one word answers. I don't I try to you know, whomever I'm with, I try to make that person, you know, honestly, I'm not trying to pretend is the most important person on the planet at that moment. Right. And I also would say that, you know, as the leader, I've always kind of emphasized that it's family first. And so you know, if somebody, one of my co workers has a family issue, we're going to get by without you, whether that's an hour or a day, or a week or a month, or whatever it is, like, you know, come back when you're ready. But that's the most important thing. And so if my, one of my kids calls me at work, I might pick up the first time of filming a board meeting, but if they call twice, I'm excusing myself from the board meeting.

David Novak 39:27 

Well, I can attest that I've seen you do that and you're very good at it, you know, and I want to wrap this up set with two two quick final questions. Number one, what would be the single most important traits you look for in people you hire?

Seth Waugh 39:42 

That's its character, right? Absolutely character you can teach a lot of other things. I think in part of that character is being a team player. You know, and and you like me, you know, you obviously have to be smart enough, but I'd much rather have you have a soul Got a brand.

David Novak 40:00 

And what would be three bits of advice you would give to aspiring leaders?

Seth Waugh 40:08 

I'd say you know, life is a team sport. And, and your people are your brand, you got to create trust, but you got to trust, you got to empower. And so make sure that that is a team. You know, it might be a baseball team where you get different people playing different positions, but it's a team. I think, you know, listen more than you talk thing that I talked about in terms of building a consensus, I think, you know, having everyone own that decision. So that's an important characteristic. I think people as they go through the ranks want to sort of be the smartest person in the room. And I think the questions you ask are often much more important than the speeches that you make. And then I can't not say my golden rule, which is no jerks allow, jerks just kind of suck the energy out a room, we know what they mean, they take a lot of forms. I'm not saying there's one form of it. By the way, if you have the occasional public execution of one, you know, people stand up and notice, and they realize that, you know, this is real. And, you know, they mean what they say, and I think, living who you are, and, and it's showing that every day is, is what being a leader is. And it's you know, every every second of every day,

David Novak 41:24 

Seth, I want to thank you so much, your great friend, and appreciate all you're doing for others. And you're one heck of a leader, and thanks for sharing your wisdom.

Seth Waugh 41:35 

Well, I wish I I wish, I wish I was wise, but I've really enjoyed the conversation. And I'm flattered, you've had quite a lineup and to my list, I'm gonna put it on my resume.

David Novak 41:45 

Well, I had to get a wiseguy on the show. Great, thank you very much, buddy.

Unknown Speaker 41:50 

Thank you very much.

David Novak 41:59 

Well, if you know me, you know, I love my golf. And I really feel good that golf is in good hands with Safwa. But let's think about what we can learn from our conversation with Seth. When Seth took over as CEO of the PGA of America, the first job that he had to do was to improve communications and trust between the headquarters and the members, the PGA professionals. His intent was to create a community where each person's character builds a team culture and an atmosphere of what he calls happiness. And I love that, because you know, when people are happy, they just tend to do good things. He asked all kinds of questions and spend time with his team members, employees and clients and he got to know them and how they worked. And only after digging in deep did Seth make the tough decisions, the right decisions as leaders have to make. But you know, sometimes as leaders, we tend to get so caught up in the big picture stuff that we just plain forget to connect with what's really happening, where it really matters at all levels in the organization. So this week, as part of your weekly personal development plan, here's what I want you to do. I want you to spend time with every level of your organization. I want you to talk to customers listening in on sales calls follows this example by listening and asking questions. It just may give you a whole new perspective on the problems you need to solve. And believe me, your team is going to love you for it. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is the great leaders spend time with all levels of their organization. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be