Garry Ridge: Author of Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It & Former CEO of WD-40

Episode 656

In this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, I sit down with Garry Ridge, former CEO and Chairman Emeritus of WD-40 Company and author of the newly released book, Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It. Garry spent 25 years leading WD-40, turning it into a globally recognized company with a legendary workplace culture. Now, through his work at The Learning Moment, he’s helping leaders build thriving organizations rooted in trust, learning, and purpose.
During our conversation, Garry shares insights from his book and leadership philosophy, challenging the traditional notion that leadership is reserved for a select few. We dive into the importance of psychological safety, how to create a tribal workplace culture, and why great leadership is about learning, not knowing. Garry also opens up about some of his biggest leadership lessons, including mistakes that turned into "Learning Moments" and how vulnerability can be a superpower in leadership.
If you’re a leader—or aspire to be one—this episode is packed with actionable insights on how to create a culture of trust, empower your team, and rethink leadership in a modern world. Don’t miss it! Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Super, super excited and honored to have our next guest here today. I’m sitting down with an incredible leader, culture building expert, and someone who knows a thing or two about what it really takes to run a successful company. Garry Ridge is the former CEO and current chairman amaratas of WD 40. And if you have not heard of WD 40, then you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, but you’re going to learn all about his journey building that company, 25 years leading public company, transforming it from a small, beloved product into a global powerhouse. And now through the learning moment, he’s building leaders to help them create thriving workplaces that bring out the best in people. But most importantly for today, he has a brand new book coming out. We have it right here. And if the title of his book, any dumb ass can do it caught your attention that’s good. As I mentioned to him that I had an advanced copy here and I couldn’t find it around my house, and I found that my 23 year old son had grabbed it, loved the title, and also, of course, knew all about WD 40 and who Gary was. So it was, it was exciting to hear that it covers the generations. I should say the book is, is really terrific, not just for people who are in business, but also people who are wanting to get into business. So I cannot wait for this conversation. Welcome, Garry. How are you good

Garry Ridge 2:21
day? Kara, I’m really good. I’m I’m now actually the dean of dumb assery, you know, after writing that book. So I’m delighted to be with you, and thank you for that very gracious introduction. Absolutely.

Kara Goldin 2:33
So any dumb ass can do it. Is the title of your brand new book that is just launching in early March. It’s bold, unexpected. Probably raises a few eyebrows with the title, but it is so good and so awesome. So can you share just a quick snippet of what the story is, and why did you decide now to get the story out there?

Garry Ridge 2:59
Yeah, thank you. You know I believe that business not only has an opportunity, but it has a responsibility to make a positive difference in the world, and I certainly believe that having a very strong financial outcome of a business is important because it’s the economic engine that drives the ability to grow a business. But a lot of leaders focus on just that, where it’s the people in the organization that really maximize the performance of the business. So, you know, I think you need two things. You need a really good strategy, but you need a high will of the people. And I’m very, very grateful that over the 25 years at WD, 40 company, I had the opportunity to work with some brilliant people, and that’s why it’s called any dumb ass can do it, because I’m a dumb ass, but my dumb assery is really about how do I help those that I have the privilege to lead step into the best version of their personal self? So what I did is with my co writer, Martha fitney, who is just an absolute genius in weaving this into a wonderful story, we’ve been able to look at my journey of 25 years and just highlight the core behaviors and actions that really build great cultures in organizations. So I’m hoping that leaders will pick it up and do what they need to do to make the world a better place by building great cultures where people go home happy.

Kara Goldin 4:26
It’s It’s so, so good. So when I hear this often from people that they don’t think they’re a leader, and I always, first of all tell people that there wouldn’t be leaders if there weren’t supporters. I don’t know if I I’m challenged by the word followers, especially with social media and sort of the the association of that word, I guess, at times. But let’s for now call them supporters. You know, you argue or that leader. Ship is really not that hard, right? It’s really takes a ton of focus. It takes a lot more than than just showing up and saying, I’m the boss. But can you talk a little bit about that?

Garry Ridge 5:11
Yeah, so as a leader, you know what we our mission is really to create a place where people go to work every day. They know that feel like and treated like they belong. They know that they feel like and they’re treated like they matter, and they have the ability to make choices. So it brings out their personal brilliance. Unfortunately, a lot of leaders think it’s all about me, me, me, and it’s not. It’s all about what we are there to do, to help them lead. That’s why, when I was at WD 40 company, and I think continually now, we took the word manager out of our vocabulary, and we called everyone a coach. And I think that really, absolutely focused our people who are there on what their job was. Their job was to help those they have the privilege to lead play their best game. Now, if you think about a great coach, a great coach never runs on the field and steals the ball. A great coach never goes to the podium to pick up the prize. A great coach knows what it takes to win and is there for only one reason, and that’s to help those they have the privilege to coach play their best game. But really importantly, Kara, a great coach, spends a lot of time in the stinky locker room, because it’s the stinky locker room where you actually build psychological safety and trust, where leaders with high ego are micro managers. They want to go in and do everything themselves. When there’s a win, they want to be on the podium and taking the prize. And sometimes they think they’re corporate royalty. So there, you’re not going to find them in the stinky locker room or asking, as the first chapter of my book is about asking people, are you okay? Because that’s really important. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 7:06
absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you more. So you talk about learning moments instead of failures. Can you share time in the course of your experience leading WD 40 when you personally had a major learning moment as a leader, absolutely

Garry Ridge 7:25
early in my leadership journey, a team member came to me with a with a problem and eager to fix it. I jumped in with a solution before they could actually finish explaining what that really was. And while my suggestion was probably technically right, it probably did one of the things Marshall Goldsmith talks about, where I wanted to add too much value, and if I had actually listened to them, I would have been better. So the experience taught me to slow down, quiet my inner voice, and focus fully on the person speaking. And then by doing this, I created a space for better ideas, stronger connections and better communication. It’s a simple but profound shift from the transformed how I lead and how I communicate. So don’t add too much value. You know, wait, listen and and you and let that person bring out their brilliance. I

Kara Goldin 8:26
loved the the stories in the book, especially about how you were leading in, how any dumb ass can do it. I certainly don’t think you’re a dumb ass at all, but I, I love how you paid attention, not just to your employees and turned your managers into coaches. All of these things are just tiny little adjustments, but make such a massive difference. Obviously, you have to have a great product or service to have an incredible company, too. But then you also have to treat your consumers as good as your employees and vice versa, right? Like it’s not just about one or the other. It’s really about throwing all those balls in the air and making sure that we’re we’re doing it all. Do you have any thoughts on that, especially as people are leading companies, and maybe they’re thinking, Well, you know, everybody loves my product, my product is doing great, but you’ve got a whole lot of unhappy employees that are sitting underneath you. And you know, how do you fix that?

Garry Ridge 9:33
Well, you know, I think it’s really sad when you think about it right now, because the latest Gallup results just came out, and employee engagement in the US has dropped to 31% which means that 69% of people who go to work every day are disengaged or actively disengaged. Now here’s a simple algorithm for those listening to us. Write a great strategic plan. Take it to some smart professor. They mark it up to say, Kara, great strategic plan. You’ve hit on all the elements of a great. Strategic Plan. You know your end user, you’ve tested your product. There’s a need for your product. Your communication plan is great. You’ve got to you know your value proposition is really good. 70 out of 100 great strategic plan. But what happens if only 20% of your people who go to work every day, going to work every day, making a contribution to something bigger than themselves, learning something new, protected and set free for by a compelling set of values and going home happy if only 20% are doing that, 20 times 70 is 1400 but if 80% of your people are going to work every day, excited against about the plan and executing against it 80 times 70 is 5600 So Kara order, it’s really about the will of the people times the strategy. And I’m not sure I truly understand why leaders do not understand that they’re thinking about the short term result. What am I going to get in 90 days? You know, culture in an organization. My friend Charlie Maloof owns a chain of Ashley furniture stores out in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he has a wonderful statement. He says, culture is not a microwavable event. It takes a crock pot approach. And it is so true. You know, it’s simple, it’s not easy, and time is not your friend. You cannot sprinkle fairy dust on an organization and change the culture. You have to know what the ingredients are to build a great culture, and then you have to work at it consistently, consistently, consistently. And I think that’s why, you know, I put in the book, any dumbass can do it. If you know the ingredients, and you’re going to do it on a consistent basis, you will build an amazing culture that has enormous, enormous momentum, that satisfies the end user, satisfies the customer. And remember, profit is the applause of people doing great work.

Kara Goldin 12:00
Yeah, definitely. So if a company has a call it a toxic work culture or or a culture that just isn’t really humming, right, that engagement is just not really there. Do you believe it can be turned around, or do you need to, you know, hit restart and totally reboot. Maybe start with new teams, you know, do something really dramatic. What is your thinking on that it

Garry Ridge 12:30
absolutely can be turned around. But the thing that is most important is the leadership dedicated to it. Now, you know the number one ingredients is a people first mindset. So if the leadership say, I really do believe that my success, the foundation of it, is the people in the organization, fine. Once they have that, then they have to have brave accountability and behavior, a clearly defined authentic purpose, a hierarchical set of values, a transparent and simple vision they have to have learning moments that reduce fear. Now, a learning moment is what we replace the word failure with, and a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. So now we don’t make mistakes. We have learning moments, which, number one drives innovation, and number two substantially increases psychological safety. And then all of that has to sit on four pillars of care, candor, accountability and responsibility. So what is what does that really mean? Well, it care means I that I love and care about my people enough, not only to reward them and applaud them for doing great work, but to redirect them when I need to redirect behavior that’s not enhancing our culture and unfortunately, most people protect their own comfort zone at the expense of other people’s development. Candor equals no lying, no faking, no hiding. I believe most people in organizations don’t lie. I believe they fake and they hide. Why do they fake and hide? Because of fear. Enter the learning moment. Accountability is, what do you expect from me, and what do I expect from you? And have we been clear about that? And then finally, responsibility is about dealing with one of the major diseases in most organizations. I call it the na na na na disease, the finger pointing disease, Na na na na it’s not about me. I’m going to foot point my finger at someone else. And if people read the book, or get the book, they’ll be able to read about the maniac pledge, that is that we produce that’s talked about in the book, which is the antidote, or the antivirus, to the NA Nani Nana disease. I

Kara Goldin 14:56
love it. So I loved chapter nine. I. You talk about the will of your people will manifest your vision. And, you know, we talked a little bit about that really paying attention to the, you know, your people, because you can’t build a great company without having people truly engaged. But can you talk a little bit about what you’ve seen over the years, maybe not with WD 40 because, of course, everything has always been perfect there, but you’re, you’re off. I know I’m I’m kidding. I’m sure there’s a story or two there too. But I really do believe that, you know, if you see that you don’t have people that are really on board and and excited about what you’re doing and and also excited about the leadership. It’s very, very difficult to really get your vision to move in the right direction.

Garry Ridge 15:52
Sure, and again, it comes down to those things that I think are really important. Do I belong? Do I matter? And can I make choices? And that’s why, you know, values are so important in an organization, and why they should be hierarchical, so that people can be set free by by making choices based on a set of values we’ve all agreed upon. So I think the vision is so important that, and it’s and as I say, it’s got to be transparent. It’s got to be clear. Yeah, a lot of leaders common camouflage issues with confusion to make out how smart they are. And that’s not our role. That’s why it’s, you know, those three words are so important. I don’t know. And you know, when I had the privilege of leading a WD 40 company, I’d often say, you know, I’m probably wrong and roughly right, but I need all the help I can get. Yeah, and that’s so important. Did

Kara Goldin 16:45
you wake up and think that you would always be leading a company? Were you always like thinking I’m gonna not only run a company, but run a company that that is really known for one product, right? I’m sure there were many people over the years who were saying, Why aren’t you guys innovating and doing other things? So what? What’s your what’s your background on that, and what’s your feeling on innovation overall?

Garry Ridge 17:13
No, I never, you know. I’m, I’m a basic bloke from Australia. And you know, if you would have said to me 35 years ago, you know, one day you’re going to be given the privilege to lead a US public company. And here I am sitting in Sydney, Australia. And so here, you know, you’ve got, you’ve been, been, you know, smoking unfiltered cigarettes or something here. I mean, this is not what I what I ever did. I had, I had one real driver, get in the game, play your best game every game, and there’s a chance you’ll get picked on the A team. And I was always curious. I’ve always been a curious learner. And I just was whenever I was given an opportunity, or was whenever I was given the opportunity to disrupt myself. And we talk about that in the book, some of the work of Whitney Johnson, where it’s through disruption, that opportunity comes. So you know, when I got the phone call in Sydney in 1990 87 and then in 1994 I got a phone call 87 was, would you like to set up our subsidiary in Australia? And I said, Yes. And in 1994 I got a phone called said, Would you move to the US? And it’s like, whoa. Here I am. I’m going to pick up my toys, my family, and go 8000 miles across the world to a place where they drive on the other side of the road. How am I going to do that? But I disrupted myself, and it’s through disruption and learning that you really get the opportunity to to experience innovation. And with WD 40, we innovated a lot. We innovated with delivery systems. We innovated with global expansion. A lot of people think innovation is the the new product. Well, we were, we were winning new users every day. When I got the opportunity to lead the company, only about 15% of our revenue was outside the US, and when I left the company, 65% of our revenue was outside of the US. So our dream was to take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to the world, because we knew squeaks were everywhere, and we knew we could create positive, lasting memories in a lot of countries around the world.

Kara Goldin 19:19
So at what point did you say? When did you look at your own leadership decisions? As you know you were at WD 40, leading the company for 25 years. But what’s one leadership decision you made at WD 40 that kind of completely changed the company? That was there anything that you did that really kind of moved the needle. You could see it in the growth, you could see it in the profitability, all of those things.

Garry Ridge 19:54
When I, you know, when I was given the privilege to lead, the culture wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t one that was going to take us to the world. So. So the one decision we made was we were going to build a culture that would enable us, you know, the sun was never going to set on the brand. So how do we create a culture where people don’t have to crack up the hierarchy in San Diego to make a decision in Spain or in, you know, Portugal, or wherever around the world. And I, the big thing for me was, and this is something that people sometimes go, you did? I said, Yes, I did. I was two years into my role as CEO, and I learned about a master’s degree at the University of San Diego. It was a Master of Science in executive leadership. And I went to an information session, and my dear friend, Dr Ken Blanchard, now my dear friend was part of the faculty that put this together, and Ken made a statement. He said, most MBA programs get people in the head. We’ve got to get start getting people in the heart. And I went, Wow, I think this is what it’s all about. So I am now the CEO of a US public company. I went back to school. I did a two years my two year master’s degree in leadership, and I took all of that learning I had from these wonderful professors, including Ken Blanchard, and I put it to work in the company. And it was that decision I believe that really put us in a position to be able to grow the way we grew, and to have a company where 98% of the people at the company said, I love the word the love to tell people I work at the company. And we had a 93% employee engagement. 97% of the people said, I respect my coach, and their coach is their boss, and most people leave organizations because they hate their boss. So my big aha moment Kara was it’s all about the people. It’s all about the people.

Kara Goldin 21:52
Can Can your work environment be like your family? I’ve heard this, this discussed over and over again, where some people say it should feel like, you know, you really enjoy being in the house, and maybe to some extent, people like going to work more than they like even being around your family. And some cases, right? But I think it’s, it’s something that that I feel like we’ve gone back and forth on this as as leaders, that how should people feel is when they sign up to do a job. Are they? What are your thoughts around that? Well,

Garry Ridge 22:38
you know, we, we called ourselves a tribe, which is somewhat like a family. And that wasn’t because we were, you know, borrowing on any indigenous group, groups heritage. It was tribalism goes back to the beginning of mankind. And you know, one of the chapters in the book is, make your workplace a mental health refuge, where I think sometimes a workplace can be better than a family, because in a lot of family situations, it’s horrible. So you know, if you have a place at work where people come to work, they’re treated with respect and dignity, they’re given the opportunity to learn they know, they know they feel, and they treat it like they belong, they know and they feel, and they’re treated like they matter, and you there’s a degree of psychological safety there, then it becomes a place where people want to go. Now, we had a really strong connection, because our just cause this and this is that was our just cause, was a group of people that came together to protect and feed each other. So what that was really why we got together, and that’s why we had such high, you know, employee engagement numbers. Now, why I say can be better than a family? Well, you know, you’re attached to a family forever. You don’t have to be attached to where you work forever, and sometimes Uncle Bob or auntie Jean aren’t the nicest auntie and uncles you’ve ever had, but you still have to maybe respect them at the Thanksgiving table. But so I think it’s it’s more about being a tribe or being a place where people know they belong, and and learning and teaching is so important, the number one responsibility of a tribal leader is to be a learner and a teacher, because that’s what we what we’re there to do. So it’s, I think, use the word family, but I think it’s a place where you belong.

Kara Goldin 24:32
If you could go back knowing what you know today about leading people, leading a company, would you do anything different. I feel like you just sort of were born into this and, and, you know, snapped your finger and did it all right, but I, but, you know, maybe when you think back on, I certainly think back on my own career and think about, you know, I would do X, Y, Z, differently. I, you know. Interesting. I was just talking to my son about this that my dad, who passed away many years ago, had launched a company inside of a large company called Healthy Choice, and had so I grew up as a little kid with Julia Child in my kitchen helping him to make for armor food company, and then eventually for ConAgra. And you know, he never had a the courage, as he would say, to go and launch his own company. And years later, when he felt it was too late, I don’t know if it was too late or not, but he always said to me, go and start something. Go and start something that you’re really passionate about. And so when I was sharing this with my own kids, I said, you may not be able to come up with that idea right now, but maybe you will. And if you’re really interested in cars, maybe you can’t go and create the next BMW, but maybe you can go and work on cars so that you’re doing something that you’re really excited about every single day. And I think that that’s like something I would share with my younger self, like, don’t just go and take a job just for the sake of taking a job. There’s a lot of things that you may find out there that you’ll be interested in but

Garry Ridge 26:22
so I guess your question was, what would I have done differently? I think, you know hindsight and looking in the review mirror is really easy, because sometimes you’re in the in the thrust of what you’re doing, and you don’t really realize where you are, and I think I would have been a little more intentional about really knowing who I was, you know, I now, I even do it today, and I’ve done it for many years. Is my little notebook and and I have on here a little little reminder of and it said, Am I being the person I want to be right now? And then I have a list of who is that person. And I wish I would have made this list up when I was a little more driven than I probably. You know that go, go time. You know when you when you start off in your career, but it says, And the reason I think it’s important is we go from one relationship, one meeting, one thing, to one other, and it was the last interaction that’s really influencing our behavior in the next one, and the person or the people we’re reacting with in the next meeting or the next interaction deserve the best you, not the left over you. So you’ve got to remind yourself not to be the left over you. So this little, little reminder on my notepad says, Am I being the person I want to be right now, and who is that person? And the list says I want to be grateful, I want to be caring, I want to be empathetic and reasonable. I want to be a listener. I want to be fact based. I want to have a balanced opinion. I want to be curious. I want to be a learner, and I want to throw sunshine, not a shadow. And if I, if I could have done anything, it would have been to be wise enough to have had a list like this 20 years ago, because it would have centered me more, because, you know, when I, I, you know I, I had to change my leadership style over time, as I learned what a bad leader looks like, and what a good leader looks like. You know, I, I created a a an avatar called Alec, and I talk about him in the book Alec or Alice, the soul sucking CEO of fear Inc. And Alec has some attributes. He has a big ego and little empathy. He’s a he or she is a micro manager. They think they’re corporate royalty. They want a fear based culture. They’re a know it all. They don’t value learning. They have all the answers, even the wrong ones. They hate feedback, and they don’t keep their commitments and sort of these are some of the toxic leadership behaviors that if you’re not aware of them, they really negatively impact the people that you have the privilege to lead. So I think awareness of who you are, who are you, who do you want to be, and are you being your best self?

Kara Goldin 29:14
Love it. So Garry, such an incredible book. Everyone needs to pick up a copy. I’m not going to to blow the entire book for everyone, because there it is, just it’s so, so terrific, and I love all the stories. You are such an inspiration. I know you’re going to be doing a bunch of podcasts, lots of stories will start coming out. So you’ll definitely, if people are not aware of who Garry Ridge is. I’m sure you will, over the next couple of months, hear a lot from Garry, but definitely pick up a copy of the book. We’ll have all the info in the show notes to Garry. You are. It’s such an honor to have you on. So thank you again. The book again, is called any dumb ass can do it, former CEO. CEO of WD 40. Thank you again, Garry, thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now. You.

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