David Novak 0:04 

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 you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, it's our responsibility as leaders to make sure that people from every walk of life are included and heard and valued when they come to work. But of course, the big question is, how do we do that? Because obviously, this is a challenge that everyone's working on. And if we're being honest, a lot of diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives at the corporate level, just aren't moving the needle enough. My guest today thinks about diversity, equity and inclusion differently. Paul, sir body is the Chairman and CEO of Insperity, an HR solutions company for small and mid sized businesses. Today, you're going to hear how Paul and his team embrace diversity as a starting point. And then they build on it to find a true sense of commonality and cohesion. Instead of just checking a box for dei initiatives, they're actually developing genuine connections that really move their business forward. All while making sure everyone has a voice at the table. You're really going to love hearing how Paul values people and how it shows up in the way the company operates, and the way he leads. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Paul SAR body.

You know, before we get into your incredible career, which is incredible, and how you lead, I know you and your brothers are owner of the Renaissance Golf Club, which is in North Berwick, and it's the site of the Scottish open, how'd that come about?

Paul Sarvadi 2:01 

Well, that was an opportunity that came to us when we were actually at a family golf outing. And an individual there asked us if we wanted to build a golf course in Scotland. And of course, we said, Of course not, because there's already plenty of golf courses there. And then I think we just had a little bit too much wine to drink that night. And then we got interested in it. But Tom doke designed the course for us. And what really intrigued us is it's adjacent to Muirfield. So it's right next to one of the greatest golf courses in the world. And we were able to build what I call a family legacy, right there, right next door. And it's really a great to give back to the game of golf that's meant a lot to our family.

David Novak 2:45 

Well, that's great, you know, I was lucky enough to play at the Renaissance and Muirfield. And, you know, this is, I think, five or six years ago, is there been anything really interesting that's happened since then? What are you most proud of

Paul Sarvadi 3:01 

the involvement in the Scottish open and becoming really the home of the Scottish open is really been significant. This is our fourth year coming up. And we've got another three years under contract after that. We'll see where it goes from there. But we've actually had the golf course tweaked a little bit by Padraig Harrington and Tom Doak working together. And the reality is everything about it, when you hold an event in the same place year after year, you can get it make it better and better and better. And it's just off the chart right now in so many different ways. So, you know, our goal of becoming a really elite club. We've really accomplished that now. And we're on a nice path forward.

David Novak 3:44 

And, Paul, you've, you've been at Insperity. Now for I believe, 36 years ago, since you started it, you were the founder, I think it'd be funded start by kind of going back to the beginning, tell us the path you took to become an entrepreneur?

Paul Sarvadi 4:02 

Well, I gotta tell you, you know, when I was going to university, going to college at Rice University first and then ran out of money, went to University of Houston and I, I got to a point there where I said, you know, my desires and wishes were more on the entrepreneurial, bent and I left school and started businesses. And, you know, I had actually six different businesses of my own in my 20s. And then finally, when I was 29, came up with this idea, because I'd seen how difficult it was to start and build a small business. And I really consider those who are successful at that to be real heroes in our society in our communities. Because you start from scratch building a business you end up with employment in your community and supporting the community. So I wanted to change the success equation for small and midsize businesses in Korea. To the likelihood and degree of success. And that's how we came up with this concept that Insperity, to become a company that stands right next shoulder to shoulder and even co employs all of the staff at the location, do all the administration provide the benefits so they can attract and, and retain key people and help the business owner, get a people strategy that takes them to their success that they're after. And, you know, that was the idea. And it has been enormously successful. And we really do change the success equation for those businesses.

David Novak 5:39 

You started Insperity in 1986. And as I understand it, you had a 600 square foot office, what's one of your favorite stories of those early days that you just love to tell?

Paul Sarvadi 5:50 

The interesting part about starting Insperity was that we weren't just starting a company, the idea of outsourcing, the HR function did not exist, we had to start an industry and a company. And so literally, in the first seven or eight years in business, I was spending my time like any entrepreneur, doing what it takes to try to build and grow the business. But at the same time, for those seven or eight years, I was fighting in all kinds of legal and regulatory environments and state regulators trying to, you know, have the right to exist. So it was kind of unique to start a new industry at the same time.

David Novak 6:32 

So what was the big problem? Why didn't people want you around?

Paul Sarvadi 6:36 

I thought everyone would love it, you know? Because, I mean, look, what we do what we do for employees, better benefits and better services, and look what we do for the small business. Why? Who would not like that? But it turns out, we found that our concept that I wrote down the term co employment was a word that disrupted the entire legal and regulatory history of employment, and how could you actually co employ people so that we could aggregate all the small, medium sized business employees onto a common platform and bring value to the table in a much stronger way, volume discounting and all kinds of other things. So I thought everybody would love it. But it turns out, we were kind of messing up the way things had been organized the way laws had been written. And we were disrupting the definition of an employer.

David Novak 7:32 

Well, the as they say, the rest is history, because now you've got a $5 billion business, describe the business as it is today, and how it's really evolved over the years.

Paul Sarvadi 7:43 

It's absolutely incredible to see what the people in our company do every day to help these companies succeed. What makes us unique is in our DNA is the care and concern for small and midsize business ownership and leadership, and what it takes to be successful. And standing right alongside those business owners and helping them get the people strategy, right, to accomplish their goals. And when you think about it, every company's got to have a financial plan, they have to have a sales plan, they have to have an Operations and Technology. But they really need to have a people plant because it's the people that implement all those other plants. And it's amazing how many times business leadership, that's not their strength. And so we're able to really provide something that is icing on the cake, and it helps drive the results. And to when I look around our company today and see what our people do, every day, day in and day out the breadth of our services, the depth of our services, and the level of care, it really makes a huge difference for the clients. And it's really been a dream come true.

David Novak 8:51 

You know, you're obviously very mission directed, very focused on your clients and helping them win in whatever marketplace that that they're in. When you think back about a Paul, do you remember that aha moment when you actually had the idea? You've done a great job of describing what the idea was, but was there that big moment where you just go, this is it?

Paul Sarvadi 9:12 

You know, there was early on, there was an individual who had talked to me about a potential business that was basically just putting payroll and benefits together. So you know, kind of combining those two components, which in and of itself can be a big, put solution to some serious problems for small business. But I believe that when I heard that description, what I thought of was different than what he was describing. And I really thought since I'd come through several businesses, some that did well, some that crashed and burned and of course, she's learned more from the crashing in the burning than you do from the ones that are successful. But right away I thought about literally bringing that x expertise, bringing out people strategy to bear in a small and mid sized company, and how big of a difference that could make. And, you know, that wasn't the idea they were talking about. But that's idea that popped in my head.

David Novak 10:13 

That's a great example of pattern thinking there, you know. And speaking of crashing and burning it, you know, it does take a lot of courage to start a business, especially when you've had some ideas fail, what advice would you give to a young leader who's struggling to find their footing and really wants to be an entrepreneur?

Paul Sarvadi 10:30 

Yeah, I think you know, what you need to have that will drive you forward. Because, you know, obviously, you're going to have all kinds of obstacles. And, and I think, really understanding who it is you're trying to help, how you're trying to help them, and why you're doing what you're doing. You know, if you really hone in on the why, then you'll figure out the how. And that's where I think a lot of times, companies get started. And they you know, they're basically thinking just about a product or service, and, but they're not really getting in the mindset of the client base, putting them first, putting your employees first, because they're the ones who are going to, you know, accomplish what you're trying to do with the clients. But you knowing the why, and then being able to explain the why. To your own staff, that is really key to kind of facing the obstacles and getting through to the other side.

David Novak 11:24 

You know, Paul, I really admire this philosophy that you have, which is the, you know, value people above all else. Can you give us an example of when this idea was really put to the test?

Paul Sarvadi 11:36 

Well, yes, there have been quite a few examples of this. But, you know, I've always said that we have no right to help anyone else take care of their people, if we're not taking care of our people. So, you know, I ended up writing a book, take care of your people that you you're aware of David, and it helped to really put into detail, you know, what we'd gone through over time to get this part of our business, right. But I remember a time when we had a significant financial obstacle in the business back in 2002. It was a contractual failure with an outside firm that was significant, and severely damaging, in fact, it was going to wipe out our entire earnings for the year to go through this Wow. And, you know, I just said, look, here's the thing, even though they had a contractual failure with us, we're not going to go back to our clients, because we're going to honor our contracts with them. And when you actually walk out your values, that you talk about integrity, doing what you say, you're going to do, accountability, things, other values, it's when you walk that out, that's when you really see the reward of it. And that helped us secure so much in the minds of our corporate staff and our client base, even though it was super painful for a year, it helped, you know, to elevate us over the long run.

David Novak 12:59 

Well, I love to hear you talk about your business, because you're so passionate about and one of the things that you say is that you hire people for their input, rather than their output. What do you mean by that?

Paul Sarvadi 13:11 

Absolutely. You know, I think, seeing people as a unit of production, or, you know, seeing someone, how much profit can I make on somebody, I never think like that, you know how I think about it, I think that every time I see a new person join our company, I get so excited, because I believe that every person changes the potential of your company, think of an idea, one idea or one action that someone can take. When you add another person to your company, it adds to the potential of your business. And so you know, I'm not bringing them on to tell them what to do, or how to do what to do, or, you know, I'm bringing them on, because their input is what's going to help elevate our organization. So we definitely hire people for their input, not just how much work they can do.

David Novak 14:05 

You know, in your new book, which is called making differences work. You describe the Insperity culture being one that makes every person feel appreciated. What's your process of recognition? And how do you drive that behavior as the CEO?

Paul Sarvadi 14:21 

Yeah, this is so critical, you know, knowing that we appreciate every person and it starts with a value statement about the worth of every individual, and that that is foundational to us. Every person regardless of the reality of our differences. We're all different. You know, there's 7 billion of us in the world and what maybe closer to eight now, and even twins are not the same. You know, every one of us are unique and different people. And so we believe that appreciating the worth of every person is the starting point. And then acting on that and how we interact making sure that woven into the fabric of our everyday interaction is a great deal of respect, care and concern for the people we're working with. And you know, to develop care and concern you have to know people, you have to get to know people beyond the differences, finding the commonalities we have with one another. And that's when your connections get stronger and stronger. So you know, you hear a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion. Well, I tried to focus on commonality, equality and cohesion as a higher goal, higher step to take, that is kind of the flip side of the coin. So starting with diversity, a wide variety of people, but focusing on commonality, so that we get to know each other better have care and concern. And then a true sense of belonging is what it's all about.

Koula Callahan 16:01 

Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do, too. My name is Kula Callahan. And together with David, I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes. And in them, I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading yum brands. And all of His answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight David shared and one of our most recent, three more questions episodes,

David Novak 16:43 

you will never ever get to the next level, until two things happen. Number one, you show people that you are functionally Excellent. So if you're in marketing, finance it or whatever, you got to show people that you know how to do your job really well. And you'll never get to be the leader of those teams. If you haven't demonstrated ability to get along with people take people with you inspire them and coach them. Because the people that move up ultimately, are the people who've demonstrated that they know how to get the most out of people and the most out of their teams.

Koula Callahan 17:21 

Get the three more questions, podcasts and your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to how leaders lead wherever you get your podcasts.

David Novak 17:39 

You know, speaking of your new book, and just touching on one of the major tenants of the book is there, what was your motivation to write it?

Paul Sarvadi 17:47 

I'll tell you what happened. This was immediately after the George Floyd. tragedy that took place and all of us will remember how impactful that was for all of us to watch for 29 seconds, someone with a knee on their neck and drive their last breath. And, and because of the nature of it with a police officer, it doesn't matter who that would be one person and another person, but because it was a white police officer and a black victim, it caused such an enormous surge in the pain in our society. And, and you know, wishing that we'd come further along, it just was a raw incident. So that caused a lot of companies, a lot of people to say I want to do something, I want to do something now. Now I have found when you have something that's significant, that emotional, that the people who went over the long run are those who are focused and deliberate and thoughtful about what to do not reacting, but thinking things through. And so what I did at that point, first thing I did was reach out to a good friend of mine, who had been on our board of directors happens to be black. His name was Dr. Ely Jones. And he co authored this book with me making differences work. But that was that came much later. But I called Dr. Jones because as some of what was going on, I wanted to understand better. And what I really saw was that we you know, we have a great culture. But we didn't have a dei program. And I'll tell you why in a second. But because we didn't have a D program, some of the reaction was, you know, we need to do something, we need to do something. I said, Look, here's what we're going to do. We ended up bringing in an outside firm, and going ahead and doing a full evaluation of where we stood on every dei measure. And the reason we don't have it didn't have a DI program was that back in the 90s. I was on a committee in Houston with other CEOs as di was developing, and I was on it for nearly two years. airs, every quarter we had this meeting of at the end of the two years, you know, I finally started asking questions. And I said, No, what actually have you seen? Positive out of this, this effort? We're working? You know, what measurable results have you had? How have attitudes changed? How have you know, how much change Have you seen in your organization? And everybody looked at me, like I was asking questions no one wanted to answer. And so what I saw was a check the box mentality. And if you look at traditional DEI efforts, within businesses, they ended up for most of history, it ends up more of a checking of the box, oh, yeah, we need to do this, we're gonna check the box, we had those meetings, you know, that didn't cause much change. The second thing was, you know, sometimes, you have these, these meetings, and instead of just checking the box, you have a drain of energy in the organization. Just because it's off to the side, it's not about what the business is doing. It's just about this topic that everybody needs to pay attention to. Now, more recently, di programs have even caused a level of polarization inside a business. And you know, I've got to MIT business mind, I'm after what is the best approach to take to not only reach the DEI goals, the unifying goals, not everybody I know. But the unifying goals. And what also improves business performance. If people care about each other and work better together, it improves performance. But anyway, back to the story. When we went through the process of evaluating whether Insperity because I'm sorry, I forgot to mention, as I came out of that effort, the two years working in the DI, CEO group, I decided we weren't going to have a program, we were going to build it into our DNA about how we treat each other. And so what happened that after this incident during the pandemic, with George Floyd, tragedy, that's when we went through the process to evaluate where we were. And I gotta tell you, we bought in a consulting firm that uncovered every rock looked at every possibility. And as we were going through it, I was kind of wondering, Well, gosh, how are we going to measure up here? And when we got to the end, what we found that on every benchmark that they measured, we were above, even though we didn't have this di program that is more traditional. So I asked the question, I said, let me ask you a question. We're exceeding every benchmark. And we're not doing almost any of the things that you guys are recommending as a DNI program. Why do you think that's happening? And they said, well, we don't know. And I said, Well, you know what? I think I know. But I've never written it down. And that's what made me decide to write this book.

David Novak 23:07 

And if you had to boil it down, Paul, what are the top two or three things leaders should keep in mind and thinking about D and I, and building it into your DNA versus this program off to the side or, as you describe it, the check the box kind of

Paul Sarvadi 23:22 

mentality? Exactly? Well, what I believe is the right approach is to have a values based, culture driven, people centric approach, and I call that commonality, equality and cohesion. And I really talk about diversity, equity and inclusion as as being a good starting point. It's obviously important to want to have a diverse group of people, it's obviously important to be inclusive. But that can't be the goal. Because just having the right people around the table doesn't accomplish anything yet. Don't you want people to do something? Don't you want to work together better? They have to have commonality to see what they have in common and connect better. You know, do you want just inclusion? No, I'll give you an example. You know, I come from a family of nine children. That was seven out of nine. I was the fifth boy in the family and I was in the younger side. We used to have little baseball games in the backyard. And I say back yard. It's not a baseball field. You know, there were trees in centerfield. I'm talking about like a farmland, okay. And we'd have little baseball game out there. Of course, what you do first thing you do is pick teams, right? Well, since I was kind of the runt child, guess who was always last to get picked? Well, that was me. And sometimes if it wasn't even, they'd say, Well, you don't get to play because you know, it's not, you know, it was odd number of people there. Well, I'd go cry and back into mom, right? And she'd come back and she'd say, All right, guys. You guys have to include Paul. And then she'd go on. And they'd say, okay, Paul, get out to right field and you don't get the bat. So I wasn't included, but I was far from feeling appreciated. So inclusion is not a high enough goal to reach the objectives you want in your company. That's why if you think about cohesion, cohesion comes from the word cohere, which is mean stick together, that's perfect. You want your people to stick together, you want cohesion in your organization. So this is about setting these goals differently. And then reinforcing those in a manner that produces a greater sense of belonging, that achieves for business outcomes. This is really important, because what I'm saying to you today is that if you do this right, not only do you really accomplish the unifying goals of diversity, equity and inclusion, but you also improve the likelihood of success in your business, because you'll get greater individual discretionary effort, better team collaboration, better innovation in your business, and a better ability to have alignment in your organization. Now, if you're a business leader, and you don't want those four things, you don't know what you need to be focusing on to take your business to the next level. Those are four important things. And this strategy accomplishes both.

David Novak 26:28 

I love how you believe in just having an interwoven in everything that you do. And as the output becomes those four things, I think that's makes so much sense. You know, it's it's important for any leader to keep an open mind and seek outside perspectives. How do you lean into this as part of your leadership, Paul,

Paul Sarvadi 26:48 

first of all, in our organization, we make sure that, you know, everybody's opinion is valuable. And this is a really interesting issue, because in a lot of the efforts of the DNI within businesses, more recently, those programs have limited discussion have caused people to clam up. And that's directly the opposite of what needs to be accomplished, I believe in effective leadership, and that is to be welcoming and open to new ideas, other ideas, other opinions, other concepts, and we all do better when our own ideas are challenged. So how do you create an environment where you can have challenge it, you know, ideas can be challenged without people feeling challenged, you know, feeling defensive. And that's so important. So that this is, that's why this is a culture driven solution. Because it's, that's an aspect of your culture. That's the, to me, the culture is the Oil of the engine, it's not any particular part is the oil that makes all the thing work together. And so that's so critical to have an environment where people can speak out and can throw out ideas and not feel like you're getting judged and getting slapped down or, or not open to ideas.

David Novak 28:14 

You know, Paul, you mentioned earlier that you were the seventh of nine children and your, your mom taught you a lot about inclusion by you know, how she handled that situation. What else did it teach you being the seventh of nine kids?

Paul Sarvadi 28:30 

Well, it does teach you that, you know, you have to make a conservative, intentional effort to get along. You know, that's, that's the reality of it. You know, when you're, you know, I'll give you another example. That's kind of a funny one. But, you know, when your family that size, and we didn't, you know, my parents ultimately did fairly well over the course of their lives. But when you have all those kids, and, you know, we're actually second generation, my grandpa for my grandparents came to the United States from Romania, actually. And so starting with nothing and working our way through, but my parents, you know, in our household, you know, when the groceries came in, there was a certain way you had to handle these things. And for example, if you know, a pickle jar, there was only enough for one pickle for every person. That was it. You weren't allowed to have more than one. And one of the things I remember that was interesting is the first work I did. I went to the golf course and I can't eat. And my one of my older brothers was the caddy master. He puts me out there on ladies day, and I got, you know, a couple of bucks at the at the end of the day, and I went straight across from the golf course that one little general store that was in town, and guess what I did, I bought a jar of pickles and sat down and ate those pickles. So that's another thing you learned, you know, in a big family like that you learned that if you go take the initiative, you get to have what you want. So you know,

David Novak 30:11 

I love it. Now, we talked a bit earlier about you being an entrepreneur, what was the first business you ever started?

Paul Sarvadi 30:18 

You know, one of the early businesses I did, was in the multilevel world, you know, I got into the Amway business early on. And, you know, I learned a lot there. So, you know, you bloody your nose in that business, you learn a lot about people a lot about how businesses work. But then I also went into some construction related businesses, because I thought, hey, if I can do that, I can do this. And, you know, we had a construction business that was in the masonry sub contracting business, that, you know, hit the wall, when an economic reversal took place, in the Houston area back in the early 80s. So, you know, it's it was in my blood to be entrepreneurial, I can see opportunities, I can see solutions to problems and out to help people is a big part of being an entrepreneur, and that all fit together.

David Novak 31:15 

You know, I know you believe in the idea of failing fast, tell us about your most memorable fail fast story,

Paul Sarvadi 31:21 

you know, that really comes out back from the early stages of this business, because I'll give you a good example. For example, in the first year, here, you had this new business, that was also a new industry. And I went out and personally met with 100 business owners in the first year. And I sold 12 accounts. And after that year was over, I went back to the other 88, and wasn't able to talk to all of them. But when I talked to a bunch of them, you know, to find out what I did, well, what I did wrong. And the reality was that what I heard from that was that what we were doing, you know, administrative relief, better benefits, all this support, and saving them money. It seemed too good to be true. And so a lot of folks, it's just seems too good to be true. And you know, my mother told me stay away from folks that, you know, if something's too good to be true. And so that helped me solve a problem right away, because I decided to be the premium provider and raise my price, so that it would be more, and then we could do more for the customer. So it was a pivotal thing. But it was the failing fast, literally seeing 100 prospects face to face in the first year that I always say, look, what we need to realize is failing fast. There's another word for it. It's called learning, learning fast. I think that's really important.

David Novak 33:05 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Paul sir body in just a moment. You could tell Paul really values and cares for people. That's a trait I see all the time in the great leaders I talked to, in my conversation with John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, you'll hear how he puts this idea into action with his team.

John Calipari 33:27 

Well, it all starts with trust. If they trust, they won't be timid. If they don't trust, there'll be selfish and timid both. So it starts with being honest and being real being upfront. Larry Brown told me if you care about people, you always have a job. And if they know you care, you can be aggressive, you can coach them, as long as they know you care.

David Novak 33:54 

If you want to elevate your team and help them be at their best, go listen to my conversation with Coach cow, Episode 22 here on how leaders lead.

You know, Paul, you're obviously a great leader. And if you had to pick one distinguishing characteristic that that has separated you and helped you have the success that you have, what would it be?

Paul Sarvadi 34:20 

I would have to say it's caring. I really care. I care about our employees, every one of them. You know, when we were going through this process of evaluating how the company had done and we were digging through, you know, where we were, there were some stories, incidents of stories where people felt, you know, couldn't be who they who they wanted to be. Those stories crushed me because I care. And I care about every person in the company. I care about every customer. And I think you know, that helps a lot and Very good leaders that I've seen throughout my history, that's a big thing, you know, they care. And that passion, you know, really adds a lot to the scenario. So for me, that's what's made the difference.

David Novak 35:14 

You know, Sam Walton had to say that, you know, nobody will care about you until you care about them. Pick up basic good sense, you know, and, obviously, for you, you had a lot of failures as an entrepreneur early on, and then you built this great company, I'm sure it hadn't been a straight line all the way to the top as a leader. I mean, it was there a time where you really learned about your own leadership that you really needed to change. And what was it, what do you do,

Paul Sarvadi 35:41 

I had to make a lot of changes. Because if you think about going from the entrepreneurial phase of starting a business, where you're making all the decisions yourself, and you're, you know, having to be all at the right spots, and then it gets a little bit bigger. And now you you're kind of spinning plates, and you're making sure you're in the right spot at the right time, with the prospect of with his client or with the employee, and you're still kind of making all the decisions, then you move to a different phase. Now you've got to work through others, you got to pick decent people that are going to be responsible, that's a different phase of leadership and how to think, and then it gets bigger. And that you know, so today, we have, you know, 4400 employees. I've been a CEO of a public company now since 1997. That's a whole lot different leadership role than the entrepreneurial role that I started. And so figuring out how to lead differently based on how things are changing what the priorities are, that's really important. And so I think that one of the key things about being a leader is never, never stopping, on improving, getting better, how to seeing things differently, not getting just bogged down in one way of thinking,

David Novak 37:05 

you know, I remember in your your last book called take care of your people, you had a chapter about the power of faith. Now, when I saw the title of the chapter, I thought it was going to be about a religious perspective on the business. But it wasn't really talking about what you mean by faith,

Paul Sarvadi 37:22 

what I was talking about, there's what I call entrepreneurial faith. Okay. Faith is believing before you're seeing, okay, it's acting on your belief of what you expect to happen. That's what faith really is. And entrepreneurial faith is such a powerful thing that business leaders have and can't take advantage of, if they really understand it. When you paint the picture for your people, whether it's your customers, or your employees, that painting the picture about where you're going, being descriptive, being able to hone in on what the real goals and objectives are, I've always felt like the key role of a business leader or CEO, especially, is alignment of the organization. In other words, having everybody on the same page, moving the same direction. When you're good at that, getting people on the same page and moving them in the same direction, then it becomes really important that you're setting the right goals. And that's what your leadership team should be all about at that point. But entrepreneurial faith is what helps you get everybody on the same page, and have people aligned to where they can move the same direction together. And that's just faster success.

David Novak 38:43 

Can you give us a specific story where that faith really paid off for you?

Paul Sarvadi 38:47 

Well, I think the one that I mentioned to you about the contractual failure we had, you know, that was a situation where people could see that I was willing to see further down the road and say, we're, we're going to go through this, because, you know, it reinforces who we are. And at the other side of this, we're going to be better off we're going to do it. So, you know, that was a good example of people being able to see because your, your entrepreneurial faith, a lot of times is more understood by watching what you do, not necessarily just what you say. So you really have to, you know, have that drive to follow through and show that, you know, hey, this is where we're going and I'm doing whatever it takes to get there.

David Novak 39:37 

You know, Paul, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this?

Unknown Speaker 39:43 

You're Hi.

David Novak 39:44 

What's one word others would use the best describe you encouraging? What would you say is the one word that best describes you?

Paul Sarvadi 39:53 

I would say it's focused.

David Novak 39:56 

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself. Who would it be?

Paul Sarvadi 40:02 

Oh my gosh, if I could say historically it would have been, you know, Arnold Palmer, who was such an amazing person and lived such an amazing life. But for today, I would probably go with somebody. You know, like a Scottie Scheffler.

David Novak 40:17 

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Paul Sarvadi 40:20 

Procrastination?

David Novak 40:21 

What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you'd never miss?

Paul Sarvadi 40:25 

Before I leave in the morning, I always read one, one chapter in the Bible.

David Novak 40:32 

What's your favorite quote?

Paul Sarvadi 40:34 

People don't care what you know, until they know how much you care.

David Novak 40:38 

You're trapped on a deserted island? What's one item? Not a person? I'm talking about an item here. You'd want you'd want with you to pass the time? Well,

Paul Sarvadi 40:48 

is there Wi Fi available?

David Novak 40:51 

There's the answer. If I turned on the radio in your car, Paul, what would I hear?

Paul Sarvadi 40:57 

Oh, you'd probably hear some 70s Music Chicago or something like that?

David Novak 41:03 

How many hold on ones? I've had three. And what's something about you a few people would know,

Paul Sarvadi 41:08 

one of my favorite shows was family guy, you know, something to make it laugh and didn't sound like something that would be something I would do. But that was one of my favorite shows.

David Novak 41:20 

Just a few more questions. And I'll let you go here because I know you're busy. You talk about the difference between inspiration and motivation. Can you talk about that? Explain?

Paul Sarvadi 41:31 

Yeah, you know, motivation comes from more of what I call the carrot in the stick point of view, you know, something you want or something you don't want punishment and reward. But inspiration is more about, you know, creating the Y that I talked about earlier, and having that come from the inside, not an outside motivation. But an inspiration that says, hey, you know, I'm doing this because, you know, there's a deep why behind it. That's driving me to do what I'm doing. You

David Novak 42:05 

know, you're heading into your 37th year at Insperity. What do you see as your unfinished business?

Paul Sarvadi 42:12 

I've got a lot of things. I'm focused on institutionalizing at the company. And making sure for example, writing this book, making differences work, reinforcing what I think the cultural values based culture driven people centric approach. You know, we're in the stage right now, making sure that everybody in the company is consciously competent on this subject of our culture. And what I mean by that, of course, is, you know, I compared a lot of things to golf, and when I see young people playing golf, the college level, they are unconsciously competent, they take on crazy shots that a lot of folks wouldn't take on, and then they do it. They don't realize how good they are. And then as they become a professional, they start to gather a lot of information. And then all of a sudden, they become consciously incompetent, their game goes backwards. But once they get to the point where they've learned and then can free the thinking back up, and understand why and how they're going to, they can be successful, then they become consciously competent. That's kind of what we're doing here at Insperity is to understand how weaving these things in the fabric of the company, have led to our success have literally driven our success. And I want to make sure this goes on for the long term, even when I'm gone. So that's an example.

David Novak 43:37 

You spent a lot of time codified what you believe is a business leader. This book is a great example making differences work, you know, how are you leveraging that internally, you know, you've taken the time to codify it, how are you leveraging the book internally? Or are you?

Paul Sarvadi 43:55 

Yes, we really are, you know, the first thing that we did was, you know, produce only enough for our company and handed them out to everybody. And everybody's, you know, it's not a mandatory thing. I don't like to make anything mandatory, you know, but but we're asking everyone to read the book. We're holding meetings, we're working with our leadership on facilitating meetings to discuss the topics to discuss, how did we end up you know, exceeding the benchmarks, understanding that it's important for the future. So there's a tremendous amount of activity going on. This year, our goal is conscious competence. And that's, that's what we're going to achieve. And then as soon as we hit that mark, then I think we're ready to take this out. Beyond to our customer base and others.

David Novak 44:43 

You write books, you know, you run this business, it's a huge business, public company, all kinds of demands. How do you balance the just the personal side of this with your family and what advice can you give because you know, you it seems like you're 24/7 you know, Have these books don't have by accident?

Paul Sarvadi 45:02 

No, they don't. But you know, I believe in compartmentalization. And I have to do that. I have to say, okay, when I'm at work I'm working. And in my particular case, you know, I've got a wonderful wife and six children and 20 grandchildren 10, grandson's 10 granddaughters. So when I'm in family time, it's a lot. And it's work. And it's focused, I can't, I can't be doing business when I'm doing that, and do a good job there. So I try to compartmentalize that helps a lot. You know, we'll be going on vacation soon taking everybody and, and, you know, I'd rather immerse myself in that environment, and then back here, immerse myself in that

David Novak 45:45 

makes a lot of sense. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who wants to be a better leader?

Paul Sarvadi 45:53 

You know, just stay open minded. I would say, you know, continue to pursue leadership. I mean, I love what you're doing in this podcast, David. And, you know, I've listened to so many of the other ones that you've had so many great leaders, you know, if you get one idea, you know, out of, from some always been open to a new idea that can help build your skill set. You know, leadership is a matter of skills, and experience, and, you know, growing in your attitude, and your manner of interaction with other people. And we all can get better every day. Well, Paul,

David Novak 46:33 

you know, it's so obvious that you've been successful because you have achieved your mission, you're helping businesses succeed, and communities prosper. And it's kind of reminds me of that, you've been a classic example of the more you give, the more you receive the you know, doing the right things and the right things happen. You know, you're kind of the the poster child for that. And I want to thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us today.

Paul Sarvadi 47:00 

Thank you so much, David. It's been enjoyable, and I appreciate it.

David Novak 47:13 

You know, Paul is somebody who really stands out, it's pretty rare to find a founder and CEO who can lead a company from a startup phase all the way to a major corporation with 4400 employees, I gotta tell you, you just can't pull that off, unless you're incredibly committed to your own growth, to your people, and to a culture where everybody feels included. Now look, I understand dei programs can be a sensitive subject. And for good reason. The workplace just isn't equitable for everybody. We're making meaningful progress. But we still have so much further to go. Now more than ever, leaders have to understand the importance of diversity, equality and inclusion. But we want those values to be real and meaningful, not just the punch list of initiatives that check the box on D AI. I'm excited to read this book, making differences work that Paul and Dr. Ely Jones have written together, I want to see what really moves the needle, to building cultures where everyone feels included and heard. I love this idea that we can make our differences work and create stronger, more connected teams as a result, this week, take some time and read the book yourself. And just as importantly, find some time to take an honest look at your team. Do you see signs of a check the box mentality? What opportunities do you have to build on the initiatives that are in your company, and also give people an opportunity to find commonalities and build cohesion? No doubt about it. Diversity makes an organization stronger. And to make it as strong as possible, you've got to build on that diversity and keep moving towards commonality, equality and cohesion. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders make differences work. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Mark Esper the former United States Secretary of Defense,

Dr. Mark Esper 49:17 

people want to take credit or they want to be the big dog in the room. And and I think what you do is you get people to focus on the mission, not about themselves, not about who gets the credit. But how do you accomplish the mission? Who do you use on the team? And how do you serve your subordinates? How do you support them to kind of unleash them to do great things? And so I think the big thing about the army is it's all about the team and not about me or I, it's about we and us, and we preach that constantly.

David Novak 49:41 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen and 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