We had so much fun talking to Susan Robb, Director of Partner Solutions at Blanchard. She is the connection between Simon Says Lead and our Authorized Partnership with Blanchard and we are raving fans of Susan! Susan has over 30 years of experience in leadership and business development. She is passionate about helping small to medium-sized businesses and independent practitioners not just survive but thrive. Her expertise lies in partnering with independent facilitators and business owners to resell Blanchard’s world-class leadership programs while helping them grow their businesses. Her approach? Decades of experience combined with a fresh, collaborative, and fun style. She works closely with her partners, developing custom strategies that tackle immediate needs while setting them up for long-term success. Whether it’s streamlining operations, boosting profitability, or aligning teams, she is there to help. At the heart of it all, focusing on building strong, meaningful relationships—listening, collaborating, and delivering real solutions that drive impact. When not strategizing with clients, she is spending as much time as she can with her daughter, Kennedy, who is the light of her life. She loves hanging out with friends, and considering returning to her passion for competitive Latin and ballroom dancing.
Resources:
LinkedIn
Blanchard Foundation – Student Leadership Program
Blanchard Website
Transcript
John Simon 0:00
Welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR and I'm Dina Simon. Our guest today is Susan Rob. Susan is director of partner solutions for Blanchard, she's been a business strategist with 30 years experience in leadership and development. Susan, welcome to our podcast.
Susan Robb 0:29
Thank you so much. John and Dina, I've looked forward to this 30 years. I'm really aging myself.
Dina Simon 0:37
No, no.
John Simon 0:40
Susan, why don't you take a minute or so and kind of introduce yourself a little bit to our audience, tell them a little bit about where you're from and what you do and when you're when you're not working. Sure?
Susan Robb 0:51
So I'm Susan Rob. I was born in Scotland, and when I was seven, we moved to Jamaica. So I was raised in Jamaica, and I came to Canada as an early teen, and I hated it because it was cold and I'd never seen snow before, and I was very different. I sounded different. People thought I was very weird. They probably weren't that much off, but I've been in Canada most of my life, but I also lived in the States for five years, in four or five different states, and I lived in Mexico City for about a year, so I kind of got around. And some of that was career related, and some was, you know, personal related. And I'm now in just outside of Toronto, Canada, and I'm in Milton. And Milton, just a fun fact, is the fastest growing city in North America. Now, you know, I think I moved here there was maybe 20,000 people. Now we're up to probably 150,000 people. So growing very fast. I have a daughter who's 21 and she's three years into an architectural engineering program at University, and she's the best human I've ever met in my life. And so I'm happy to say that she is in school part time when she studies, and she's doing an internship every four months, so she's at home with me. So I'm an empty nester sometimes, and not sometimes, but we've got two more years to go, so we'll we'll see how that goes
Dina Simon 2:19
in a minute when we talk more about your daughter, but I'd love to hear like how that program is structured, but you keep going,
Susan Robb 2:25
yeah, so Well, the program is interesting because it's a five year program. It's a Co Op program, and that's why it's five years. So they build in these five or six different internships, and you have to compete for these jobs. There's not very many of them, but she's been really good at this. And one of the things she shared with me, which I thought, and this was recent, I thought, was just phenomenal, she said, Mom, I'm so shy. I didn't ever think that I could get through an interview. I didn't ever think I could do any of this, but you taught me that communicating your thoughts is the most important thing you can do in writing and orally. So she says, like the leadership game has really changed things for me. So that made me such a proud mom, you know. So she's doing phenomenal, yeah? And it always makes you feel good with a little bit of you rub off on her, yeah, yeah, a little bit, you know,
Dina Simon 3:19
yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure, more than just a little bit, but what a great experience for her at that age, right? Like, I wish all university programs were like that, because you go get some practical skills, you take it back. Like, that's just such a great program. I'm so excited for,
Susan Robb 3:35
yeah, and, you know, I think a lot in the states too, but in North America, the STEM program, like the science and tech and math and engineering is huge, and it's huge for girls. So that's exciting too, because you see the increase in females in that STEM program. It's phenomenal. And, you know, candidates done a pretty good job at supporting that. So we're happy, nice.
Dina Simon 3:58
And I think one of the other reasons that we love your daughter and your relationship with your daughter, similar to me and my daughter, we have something else in common there.
Susan Robb 4:07
That's right, my daughter is Chinese, and I adopted her when she was 13 months old, and that was a very interesting but amazing and fun experience. And yeah, you know, Dina, you were one of the very first partners I ever spoke to when I took on this role. And I didn't think talking about that sort of thing was like, Cool. I need, you know, you still want to divulge that sort of thing, but to have that commonality and to be able to share that and ask you, I got to ask you some questions, has really helped me. Really helped me, because I wondered, you know, a colleague or someone I knew that was adopted, what did that feel like and look like, and what ifs and does she want to know things? And the answer is no, and it's different for everybody. So I appreciated that conversation we had.
Dina Simon 4:58
Oh, I'm so glad. And, you know from life, and what we're talking about here today too. So life, leadership and building legacies like our how we came into this world, and then our story along the way, right? That whole foundation, that all it is intertwined. And I know even being a mom like thank God I came to Blanchard and got certified in so many of my leadership trainings because I probably tell more stories about how I've used like the methodologies in my mother being a mother, versus even just being a leader of others and teams. So it's super fun. And I, yeah, I talk about my personal story often, but I get, I get what you're saying. So super glad that we had that conversation early on.
Susan Robb 5:43
Well, you know, the legacy thing is, is interesting because I haven't really shared too much about that. And, you know, I was 40 when I adopted Kennedy, so not young, but I knew that I didn't want to have kids of my own. I knew I wanted to adopt. And so the reason I did that is because I have a very small family and legacy for me was super important, like, you know, how can I really say that I want to leave this earth, leaving it better than what I found it and what I, you know, left it then passing on some really great experiences for someone else. So that was the real reason I did that. Was, was, I mean, of course, I love my daughter, but, but the legacy was super important for me.
Dina Simon 6:28
I love that. Love that. Yeah. So, born in Scotland, moved to Jamaica,
Susan Robb 6:35
yeah. And then Canada, and then Canada, and then a few countries and states in between that, and my daughter is born in China, but but Canadian and an American citizen as well. So it's been a ride. Yeah, I really like when you talked about the school that she's going to, the internships, how difficult they are to get sometimes, because you have a lot of competition in there, and whenever you do go to interview for him. You have to be on top of your game. Yeah, you sure do. And you know, you've heard this in in our business, you know, some 38% of managers these days are never heard of Franklin Covey or Blanchard or any of this. They're young managers, and they've never had to lead. They've never had to make the same decisions we've had to make in the sort of command and control environment that you know, maybe we grew up in. And it's interesting to hear about the generational gaps and perceptions and how a legacy of a certain generation can leave a culture in a very weird place where these new young managers are coming and saying, like, I don't even really understand how you ran the company this way, right? You know, super interesting for the youngsters, right to your it is, yeah,
Dina Simon 7:53
it is interesting. So I was, last week, I was with somebody for lunch that grew up huge in like, Gallup Strength Finders and a lot of different things. So also very into leadership. And as we were talking, we talked about from a demographic age perspective. So I was lucky enough to work for John when I was in my 20s, so similar to Kennedy's age and Mandy's age right in college and back in the day, we went to like, I know, I did it through Associates, and then I did it when I moved on, also, and was in Arizona and stuff. But we would go to like seminars where there'd be a whole day of, like, motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar, and, you know, just all these people, or the old cassette tapes that we would have that we listed, right? Yeah, and and so we were chatting about that, how, how even my exposure early on to those types of things where I was listening and learning in an auditorium for a whole day of all these different speakers, is that example? There aren't that many opportunities these days for that type of a forum. There certainly is YouTube and all the other ways that people are master classes and the way people are taking in information. But I just wonder, as you, as you're saying too, like just that, that leadership, and the leadership gurus who are out there, and the exposure to different ones, there's just a different way of gaining that information these days.
Susan Robb 9:19
Yeah, it certainly is.
John Simon 9:21
I can remember when I was in Madison, Wisconsin, and we were up there for six and a half years, and one of the fellows that I got to know through Rotary, he was a Dale Carnegie trainer. And so I took my whole staff, and we spent, you know, we did the Dale Carnegie course now, and you don't hear about that stuff anymore.
Susan Robb 9:40
No, you don't. And if you were into Dale Carnegie, I'm probably saying it wrong, you were like, Wow, you got to go there. Like, but it was something like, so there's something to be said for getting up in front of others and your peers and practicing it that way. I mean, I came from Franklin COVID, where we did presentation Advanvatage and it seems so archaic today, but really impactful, if we did it today, that same way, agreed? Yeah,
John Simon 10:07
sure. And part of the Dale Carnegie was you had to come up with a plan for where you work that was enough to pay for the course that you went to. And it either in money savings or production savings or, yeah, some, some type of ROI, you had to put it on paper, and that's right, and that's how you graduated. You had to explain it to everyone. John, you probably remember the good old sales training days. Oh, they were hard days, but they were worth it. Yeah. In fact, we had a Canadian company that did ours, and they would come down, you know, maybe, like, once, every year, every year and a half, and we would get to people all together and everything. And it was, it was interesting. But what it did, it created new ideas for people that, you know, here, here's a better way of doing things. And I think it all. It always paid off. Yeah, I miss those days. Yeah, I do too. And you know, I was thinking the as we talked about this year, that when I go out, I'm retired, so I go out Tuesdays and I play pinochle with guys, and I'd go do my grocery shopping, everything. And my first comment is, don't these people work anymore? Because in the grocery store, you know, they're in their 30s, and they're doing their shopping at two o'clock in the afternoon, or I'm at lunch and, you know, with a bunch of guys, and you see all these people there, and I know they're not working, but it's changed now that people work from home a little bit more, and we didn't have that when they were, you know, back in the 1970s and 80s,
Dina Simon 11:44
yeah? And it's not an A typical eight to five anymore, right? Like, that's the big change, yeah, the flexible schedules and all of that. It's, it's very different, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Susan, we've heard a little bit about your life, as far as, like, where you've been. You started a little bit to talk about Blanchard, but tell us what you do for Blanchard.
Susan Robb 12:05
So Blanchard, I work with a small team who and we lead the authorized partner. We used to call a channel partner, but the authorized partner team, and basically it's a reseller program. But these are the folks like you, whether they're small, medium business or a you know practitioner, a coach, an executive coach, that that gets certified in and or resell our offerings to their clients, and they bring the Blanchard product to their clients as a part of maybe the learning journey that they have created for the client, or as part of a suite of offerings that they offer their clients. So we've got a, well, I don't know we've got, probably in North America, maybe about 1200 partners, and not all of them are active. But since COVID, a lot of people who were entrepreneur went out of business, they retired, and so that that market, you know, shrunk a little bit, so now we've got a new market. And just today, I had a meeting with a young gal. She was phenomenal. I'm gonna say she was maybe not even 30, and she worked for the CBC. She left there, and now she's running her own OD and change management company. And she said, You know, I said, Well, tell me, what happened. Why did you leave there? And this is an example of the new partners that are coming to join us now, bringing the Blanchard offerings. And she said, Well, you know, a lot of these companies, they work in silos and because of generational gaps, and because a lot of jobs are even willed to people still, if you can believe it, that the mindset is so different. And I said, is it a matter of or or different communication? And she said, No, it's a matter of mindset. It's a matter that I'm going to tell you what to do and how to do it, and you're just not going to ask why. And she said, but as a as a Gen, I don't know what would she be, Gen, I lost track of these. Yeah, I've lost track. Yeah. She said it's that I could do it three different ways in my much shorter amount of time. But she said the difficulty is a lot of generations before me that are even 40, 50 don't want to hear it. So she's, she's creating, she's created a business where it focuses on that gap, where there's, you know, generational gap there. So it's nice like so she'll bring Blanchard offerings into that. And we're most well known for our flagship program, the SLII program, you you bring to your clients. You know, it's a matter of managing your people through a task and not a personality. And I think that's great. It is great.
Dina Simon 14:48
It so is great because it is about the specific situation. Hence, situational leadership. SL,II, so the situation, what is the situation at hand, and where is the person on it, and how do I coach them? And support them or direct them and in the way that they need. Yeah, it's, it's super impactful. Well, that's great. And I loved the the channel partner terminology, but I'm okay being an authorized partner, because I'm that in other things with Wiley and stuff with disc and the five behaviors, but I was so the new the new terminology, and I didn't realize there were so many, so 1200 that's a lot.
Yeah, it's the 80/20 rule, though, right? So most of them maybe are a little bit dormant, or they're, they're buying maybe a couple of pieces a year, but we're really working with the ones that are making that, like what you did with one of yours. Like, you know, you're making this into a space learning or learning journey that matters and and just even speaks to now, as we talked earlier, John about, you know, the 80s and the 90s. I loved it. It was fun, and I miss it, but we got to get people where they're at today. And so bite sized learning and quizzes and little pieces like that, we're more and more and more involved in. In fact, there's two things. There's there's, we've got this student self leadership. You know about this Dina, and it's free for students, for all high school students, their parents or their guardians. But we have also have this new leadify. It's a free app, and it's for the younger generations who want that bite sized learning. They just want to watch a two minute video and ponder, oh, how could I have communicated that differently? Or, How could my productivity, you know, be higher if I had more trust? And so they're little bite sized pieces of videos to watch and little gamification. So that's where it's at now in terms of of reaching the leaders that are entering our marketplace,
I love that. Will you for a second tell John and our audience about what Ken and Margie are doing with the high school students. Because I know there's a mission to, I think, to reach like 100,000 children.
Susan Robb 16:55
That's right, I might get this wrong, but for sure, once or twice a year, we have cohorts of a couple of 100 students from all around the world that register, and their parents or guardians that register for the student self leadership. It's a six week program. It's one hour self study a week, and one hour of an Inspire session, where a facilitator comes in and debriefs the session. And I heard a story a couple weeks ago that the last one they just did there was a group of kids from Africa. Can't remember where in Africa. They had never seen a computer before, ever their high school. Well, very of high school age. They don't know about leadership, they don't know blank, they don't know any of this, and they had to walk, I don't know, 20 miles to get to this location, and they were on screen, and they were freaking out like, Well, they'd never seen a computer, but they got so much beautiful learning from this that when you hear those stories and how we can reach people in all corners of The world that don't know even what a computer is that to me, Ken and Margie are really doing something special with that, right? Oh, that's it. So inspiring. I love that. Yeah.
John Simon 18:11
And you know, the one thing that will never change, whether you're talking the 1970s or you're talking 2024 right now, is you're in a relationship business, and building those relationships with these kids or the customers that you have, and that's what it's all about. That has never changed, and that will never change.
Susan Robb 18:36
That's exactly right. I mean, people say, you know, they've asked me, Well, how did you get into this business? Or how'd you get into sales? And, you know, No one wakes up and says, how I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be a professional salesperson like you get into this from trauma or fluke. I'm convinced of it. Mine may be a mix of both, but for 10 years after high school, I have no formal education, I might be the only person in my that I work with, or even clients that does not have a university degree, guys spent 10 years cycling and competing because they didn't know what to do. You know, we talk about mentors. One of the things I read and you talk about mentors and who's a great leader to you. And I remember being in high school, and I hated high school. I hated it. It just was not an environment for me for some reason. And I wanted to go to university. I wanted to go to law school, and my guidance counselor, Mr. Ray Meyer, I'll never forget, called me to the office and said, This is not going to happen for you. This is never going to happen for you. So community college, maybe, maybe, and even that's a stretch. But listen, young lady, where you are today has nothing to do with where you can be tomorrow. I will never forget that in terms of leadership for me, like I didn't know it was leadership then, but Right, but I knew then I didn't. Have to be defined by a system or by somebody, right? So I got into sales because I didn't know what else to do
Dina Simon 20:08
well you've had an impressive career.
Susan Robb 20:10
So it worked out for you, yeah? And I've had some great jobs, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Will you tell us a little bit about covey, their work with because you were there for many years. Yeah? I went, you know, I was, I started in the toy business for five years. Then I got into selling corporate leadership for five years, and then I had a head hunter call me one day. And was about Franklin Quest. This was before they merged. So it was like with Hiram Smith, who was the founder of Franklin Quest. And so that was great. That was very cool. That was a great job. I loved it. And then two years later, we merged with Covey, and we thought this was a marriage made in heaven, for sure. And to a large degree, it really was, from a learning perspective, from a cultural perspective, maybe not so much. Covey definitely was the leader there. And I was there, I don't know, seven years, and then I joined a global sales team. There was about seven of us. And then the day that I started, 911 hit. And so everything, like a lot of things, where I just sort of disintegrated, and I went back to my old post, and then I left there, because Hiram and a group of consultants from Franklin Covey, we wanted to start our own business. And so we we all left Franklin Covey And we started this, the Galileo Initiative, where I was a junior partner, and we had this venture capital guy who owned the Utah Jazz so we had money to do this in five years. It was the best the startup was the best job. It was so much fun. Bringing change management and learning in the automotive sector is where I mostly focused. So that was great. And then I moved to the states for five years, and then the 2008 crash happened. And then it happened for me too, right? I moved back to Canada. And when I moved back to Canada, I went back to Franklin Covey For two years, and it just was a very different place, to be sure. And I had heard Blanchard. Blanchard, you know, Blanchard, a lot. I didn't know anything about Blanchard. I didn't know anything about SLII. But I went to CLS, which some might say is their competitor, but not really. So I went there for a couple years, and I kept hearing while I was there, and this is some of the spicy stuff, right? A lot about Blanchard. And, you know, not, not great things. And so I thought, well, they spent a lot of time talking about this, so they Blanchard must be good at something, right? Yes, if the competitor is talking, yeah, there might be someone there. Why are these things so so much their energy on this? They're really living rent free. So I picked up the phone, and I phoned a guy in Vancouver, who you know as as Neil, one of my favorite leaders. Yeah, and I said, Hey, we don't know each other, but I've heard a lot about you guys, and so I really want to know more. And three weeks later, that's when I started at Blanchard. This has been the best culture, the best leadership display I've ever seen. Just talk about walk the walk, they do it,
Dina Simon 23:02
it's, it's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yes, yes. So I love that technique on if you're in a company and they're spending so much time talking about the competition like that, that there might be like, Oh, what is that competition? What are they doing? So that was, that's brilliant. I love that.
Susan Robb 23:21
Well, you've had that happen. I had this happen, even with my dentist, for goodness sakes. And a gal said, Don't go whatever you do come to us, but if you don't come to us, don't go there. And I thought, hmm, I'm gonna try it. I've been there ever since,so I don't know. Don't talk about your competition.
Dina Simon 23:38
Yeah, love that. So I love this journey. One of the questions that we've asked in the past. So what would you tell your 20 year old self?
Susan Robb 23:47
Oh, wow. What would I tell my Well, I would say, first of all, never, never let anyone define you, ever because the C suite and everybody that may be above you put their pants on the exact same way. I would say three other things. Practice what you teach always, integrity is everything. If you don't have that, it's gonna be hard to have anything else be crystal clear on your vision and your mission and your values, and always keep them in check every year. And I'd say, wrap that with if you don't have empathy as a value, other value, it's going to be hard for other values to exist.
Dina Simon 24:37
Wow, yeah, I love that. And going into like, a new year and just excitement about the future. What are you excited about?
Susan Robb 24:45
You know, I'm, I'm excited about a couple bucket list items I have that I keep not doing, and I don't know. One of them is, I'd love to have a podcast interviewing survivors of all kinds, nice and. And I used to be a speaker agent, and I represented some really cool people. And you know what? No matter where you are, in an airport, in a grocery store, at the bus stop, everybody has a story. Yes, everybody has a story to tell, yeah. And just to listen to people's story that we had this, you know, we put up a veneer and a mask, and we don't give people the opportunity often that they deserve. And so I want to hear everybody's story. I'd say, yeah, that the podcast is a bucket list item, and some travel probably,
Dina Simon 25:34
while we sure can help you with how to do a podcast, it's actually, if we can do it, anybody can do it. So we'd be happy to help you. Susan, it's not, I'd be delighted, delighted,
John Simon 25:45
and we'll carry your bags whenever you travel. Yes, exactly. Let's go.
Susan Robb 25:51
Let's go to new people of all kinds in different countries. Oh, I love that. And amazing, yes.
Dina Simon 25:57
And that's what's fun, too. Like, even with it, with the podcast, is you can talk to people from all over So, similar to your story about these kids in Africa that will had to walk 20 miles to here to be part of the Blanchard like it is just crazy how open the world is in order to do stuff like that these days. Yes, so on life, leadership. So anything else that you'd like to say, just even around leadership,
Susan Robb 26:21
Love is the answer. What's the question? Ooh, Love is the answer. What is the what is the question?
Its a Ken blanchardism, and I love it. I love that. Yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 26:34
Because Ken really is about, again, it's about the, you know, if you lead with love and all of that. And if you're a professor, and you make sure that your students know the answers, like, it's your job to, you know, from a leadership perspective, as a teacher, you know, to meet people where they're at and help them get to that next level. It just, it really is all that foundation.
Susan Robb 26:55
Yeah, we had Marcus Buckingham, as you know, kick it off, and he did a phenomenal keynote on love and the red thread of passion. You know, what's your red thread of passion, and is it threaded through everything you do? And at first, you know, you get to think about love and leadership, and you know it makes you it might make you feel a little bit scratchy, but when you think about it, are you designing your experiences? Whatever those experiences are, with love. Are you designing your podcast with love? I could say yes, here I am, and I feel a lot of love, right? Are you designing your experiences at work, with your clients, and your learning journeys and how they experience your people and everything? Is it designed with love? And what's love, right? It's a verb, it's a behavior, it's an action. It's not often the ethereal thing we think it is. It's just simply that you're providing an experience for someone with some compassion attached to it, right? So I loved that, and that stopped me thinking, even if you think about people like, you know, we order from Amazon. Is it designed with love? Well, it's designed really easy, and it's hard to muck it up. And you can exchange real easy, and you can get your money back fast. And so I'd say, Yeah, oftentimes, yes, I love that.
Dina Simon 28:16
Yes, I was super sad to not be there. I'm a huge Marcus Buckingham fan, and he spent time at Nebraska, where Mandy is at college. So we, I have messaged with him a little bit. Go, go, Cornhuskers, but yeah, so he phenomenal in his new book about love. Like Love is work or something, yes, yes, yeah.
Susan Robb 28:38
Really, good, really, really, and it matters. It's going to matter. It matters to this generation now that are entering the workforce. It'll matter to Mandy and Kennedy that they just don't want to be a number, correct? They do not want to be a number, yeah. And if you think about legacy, I mean, if you really want to leave your company, and we could talk about some of the legacies we've seen, not you know, you get to a certain point in your life where you've created such a, you know, a phenomenal organization or movement, and now you're, you know, in your later years, and you do something dumb, this is not a good legacy. So if you're going to leave a legacy, yeah, your company or your movement to this generation, you've got to leave it in a place that they want to be, right. You can't just leave it like the way. You can't leave it the same way. It's a different world today. Yeah, it is with that, yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 29:34
So like the succession planning and all of that, absolutely, because what somebody else is going to want to do might be different, and taking all of that into consideration, yeah, you know,
John Simon 29:46
the one thing that I noticed now more, whenever you talk to the younger people, they want to be more entrepreneurial than we ever wanted to be, and they'll do anything to make that happen. And you got to give them credit, because it takes a special Person that can do that and be and be successful at it, yeah,
Susan Robb 30:04
yeah. I agree with that. You know, it's a it's interesting thing. You say, never thought about that, John, because I think that we were so used to we, I'll say, I don't know. I grew up in the workforce in the 80s and 90s. You, you so used to hearing S1 Direction, Dina, that you come to expect just the direction the command and control that is not like you know, that is not where these this generation is not they don't want to be told, not because they want to be they want to buck the system, but they want to be involved. If there's no commitment. If there's no involvement, there's no commitment. And I think that that's a piece that's been missing. Involve them in ideas, right? Yes, more than just one idea, absolutely, and they're probably going to come to the table with better ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, good. So is there anything else, Susan, that you would like our podcast listeners to know about? You just get out there and do it. You know what? Don't we are so worried. I mean, I just turned 61 last week. I don't mind saying that. And you know, sometimes you get caught up in I'm 61 and what am I going to do? And I shouldn't do this. I don't care if you're 91 if you're six, whatever, get out there and do it. Right? They say life is short. Okay? Well, we know that to be especially if you're gonna, you know, not be around much longer, but just get out and do it and believe in yourself. If I believed in my 20 year old self a little bit more. I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe I would have been doing a podcast 10 years ago. No, but just get out there and do it. Don't let anyone define you and and go for it,
John Simon 31:54
and hopefully some of that will rub off on Kennedy.
Susan Robb 31:57
Well, yeah, I'm hoping so. I'm certainly I don't have any worries about that. I think she'll, you know, yeah, she'll be good. And as an architect, is that which? So that's what she'll get her degree in, yeah, architectural engineering. So she engineering could go either way. Yeah, okay, nice, nice. Yeah.
Dina Simon 32:17
And do you think you'll stay in Canada?
Susan Robb 32:20
If I'll stay in Canada? Yeah, I will never leave Canada. Never leave. Okay, all right. Well, you know what? Never say never. Yeah, never say never. If it was a tropical place, maybe, no, I want to plant my feet firmly here for now. And will Kennedy remain in Canada? I don't know. There's probably a lot of opportunity for her in the States than there is here. You know, way more opportunity and an opportunity. I mean, you've traveled so much, right? And so when you brought her home, did you bring her back to Canada? Yep, brought her to Canada. And then when she was about six, we moved to the States, okay, for about five years. Five years, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 32:59
Well, it's super fun. I love just staying in contact and watching her journey as well, because she's right there, same age as Mandy.
Susan Robb 33:06
And it's just well, and Mandy like, I mean, like, if there's anyone out there, do it, look at Mandy's doing like you and Mandy with your philanthropic stuff, I mean, you guys are just blazing a trail out there. It's phenomenal. How's that going?
Dina Simon 33:19
It's going very well, actually, yeah, it's going well. We were just in Arizona, not this past weekend, but the weekend before her, like, fall break, and we did have a little business meeting, because we've been telling Mandy in college, like the board has been saying, you know, we'll keep this going until you graduate from college, that we kind of need to know what you want us to do. So so not that she's graduated yet, but that is on the horizon in the near future. And so we did draw a line in the sand that absolutely we're keeping this going. So we have some fun stuff that we'll be sharing in the near future. And so, you know, we still, she still has, you know, the next five years to decide, you know, she, if she goes on for further education and getting her first job. So it's not anything that we expect her to step into on a day to day basis, nor does it need somebody to step into on the day to day basis. But yeah, just recruiting maybe some new energy that also wants to be a part of it. We've kind of been in a maintenance mode for the last couple years and been doing great, but we'll be doing some new, fun things moving forward in the future, and it's still very much a passion for her. And as she said, because of the foundation, the people that we have, the donors, the supporters, the nonprofit partners, she kind of said, why wouldn't we do this? Because it's, you know, not that it's easy, but we kind of have this all figured out, and we've got the people to support it. And so I was like, yeah, why wouldn't we do it? So we're gonna knock on what? What is she studying? Her major is anthropology, with a minor in global leadership. You're kidding? No. Oh, wow, that's amazing. Yeah.
Susan Robb 35:00
Yeah, what's her path? What does she see herself doing in terms of those two things?
Dina Simon 35:04
Yeah, great question. So she will most likely fall into some HR leadership, something. Imagine that. But yes. So she's looking at, you know, what? What does when graduation hits, what happens and if she goes on to study more, or if she follows a job, and if she follows a job. Same thing with Kennedy. Like, you know, where could that first job be? And it's their time to go spread their wings and experience things. I love it, but I don't you know. I know, yeah,
Susan Robb 35:32
yeah. And just before we go, I want to know. So John and Dina, what's on your bucket list for the next year? John, what's on your bucket list?
John Simon 35:42
Well, I, you know, I started you talked about travel, and the last couple years, I've had some really good opportunities with the grandkids to do some traveling. And I spent some time in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and I never traveled much before so and you know, much like you, I'm 75 and I want to do it while I'm young, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Susan Robb 36:08
Switzerland is definitely a place I could go and hang out. No problem. That's amazing. Are you going there?
John Simon 36:16
No. Well, I, the one I would like to go to was Austria, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And because that's where my grandfather, on my father's side, was from, I would like to go there and check that out. I've been to Ireland, in Scotland and all that when the other part of the family was from. So it's Yeah, I think if there's one thing, because I didn't have a chance to do it much whenever I was working and the kids were growing up and going to college and all that. But now we have the time, so I would like to do a little bit more of that. Good for you, and you golf. Oh, yeah. Now you can see behind me, I'm sure, the number 18 in Pebble Beach.
Susan Robb 36:57
Oh, I've been the I've been to Pebble Beach. I didn't golf, but I've been there. I bought a t shirt. Just, okay, just spectacular.
John Simon 37:05
If you go around 17 mile drives, there's nothing prettier than that. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Susan Robb 37:10
Really beautiful. Dina, what about you? What's on your bucket list?
Dina Simon 37:14
Yeah, so I funny, but I would say the same. So like travel and being really intentional. So there's certainly places you know, outside of this country that I'd like to go to, we actually have, like, rich and Manny and I have kind of a list of places we'd like to go to rich, and I have a list of things that we'd like to do. And so much of it revolves around also being with family and close friends and making sure that we're spending time with the people that we're closest to, because life is short, and so just making sure we're going back to Dallas in November for my mother in law's birthday, you know, just making sure that we are being really intentional on where we're spending our time. But the travel piece too same, like, you know, between my early 50s and, you know, like we can travel now and have a daughter off of college, so travel and do it while we're young as well. So there's, there's a big theme here. Yes, there is,
John Simon 38:10
you know, I think part of it is through COVID. We all lost four years of not having much that we that we could do. And you know, if you lose four years whenever you're 30. It's not as bad as when you lose four years when you're 70, yeah, yeah, because you don't have as many years left. So at 30, yeah, it's one thing. But when you're in your 70s and you lose four you're losing an awful lot of time.
Susan Robb 38:36
And during COVID, you kind of slip into a mode of Yeah. This is the way it is. Four years is a long time to be sitting in the same spot, you know. So, yeah, we all went through it. I mean, no matter where you were from, it was a worldwide issue that we went through. And yeah, I know for sure gonna go to either some place in Italy or Portugal for like a month and just work there. Work from there. Nice, okay, yeah,
John Simon 39:05
nice to do it in France or something like that too. You know, go to Yeah, sure, sure, yeah. If you have an internet connection, you're good to go. You got it
Dina Simon 39:14
as your favorite authorized partner. You let me know when you plan that trip, because maybe I just need to come over and join you.
Susan Robb 39:21
Absolutely. What a stitch that would be, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would Yes.
Dina Simon 39:28
Oh well, Susan, it's been such a delight. I know we've kind of talked over the last you know, as we've been doing the podcast for about a year and a half now, so we've kind of chatted about it, but just super fun to have you on and thank you for all that you do and have done in that leadership space. I mean, that's been so much of your career in working from a Covey perspective, I didn't know that you like that spin off also, that's super fun. And then so glad that the Blanchard organization that you found them, and what a beautiful home that you have found in working with the blanchards and.All, all those that are around them,
Susan Robb 40:02
yeah, and thank you. Thank you both. It's been so much fun and delightful. It's good to meet you. John. I've heard lots of great things about you. Well, thanks. It's good to meet you. Thanks a lot. Dina, I appreciate you too.
Dina Simon 40:13
You're very welcome. Thank you. And I'll make sure in the show notes, people know how to get in touch with you. Awesome. Okay, thanks so much. Thank you. I would like to thank Susan Rob for joining us on the podcast. She is with Blanchard, and she's the director of partner solutions. She works with authorized partners, helping them to take Blanchard out to their clients. So I know her because we do that through Simon Says lead, and so I've loved working with her, and she's fantastic. We will make sure that you have her contact information in the show notes. We'll also put a link of information in for the Blanchard Foundation, which is getting the Blanchard SL two model, the self leadership model, into the hands of youth that we spoke on. It's an amazing program. And can you imagine, as a high schooler, having education around how to lead yourself, and then also that tends to how you can lead you know others in your peer group around you. So thank you. Thank you. Susan. As always, I think my father in law, John Simon for joining me as a co host on the podcast. And the podcast is produced by Simon and Associates, and we are a proud member of the C suite radio, and until we talk again, you.
Welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR and I'm Dina Simon. Our guest today is Susan Rob. Susan is director of partner solutions for Blanchard, she's been a business strategist with 30 years experience in leadership and development. Susan, welcome to our podcast.
Susan Robb 0:29
Thank you so much. John and Dina, I've looked forward to this 30 years. I'm really aging myself.
Dina Simon 0:37
No, no.
John Simon 0:40
Susan, why don't you take a minute or so and kind of introduce yourself a little bit to our audience, tell them a little bit about where you're from and what you do and when you're when you're not working. Sure?
Susan Robb 0:51
So I'm Susan Rob. I was born in Scotland, and when I was seven, we moved to Jamaica. So I was raised in Jamaica, and I came to Canada as an early teen, and I hated it because it was cold and I'd never seen snow before, and I was very different. I sounded different. People thought I was very weird. They probably weren't that much off, but I've been in Canada most of my life, but I also lived in the States for five years, in four or five different states, and I lived in Mexico City for about a year, so I kind of got around. And some of that was career related, and some was, you know, personal related. And I'm now in just outside of Toronto, Canada, and I'm in Milton. And Milton, just a fun fact, is the fastest growing city in North America. Now, you know, I think I moved here there was maybe 20,000 people. Now we're up to probably 150,000 people. So growing very fast. I have a daughter who's 21 and she's three years into an architectural engineering program at University, and she's the best human I've ever met in my life. And so I'm happy to say that she is in school part time when she studies, and she's doing an internship every four months, so she's at home with me. So I'm an empty nester sometimes, and not sometimes, but we've got two more years to go, so we'll we'll see how that goes
Dina Simon 2:19
in a minute when we talk more about your daughter, but I'd love to hear like how that program is structured, but you keep going,
Susan Robb 2:25
yeah, so Well, the program is interesting because it's a five year program. It's a Co Op program, and that's why it's five years. So they build in these five or six different internships, and you have to compete for these jobs. There's not very many of them, but she's been really good at this. And one of the things she shared with me, which I thought, and this was recent, I thought, was just phenomenal, she said, Mom, I'm so shy. I didn't ever think that I could get through an interview. I didn't ever think I could do any of this, but you taught me that communicating your thoughts is the most important thing you can do in writing and orally. So she says, like the leadership game has really changed things for me. So that made me such a proud mom, you know. So she's doing phenomenal, yeah? And it always makes you feel good with a little bit of you rub off on her, yeah, yeah, a little bit, you know,
Dina Simon 3:19
yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure, more than just a little bit, but what a great experience for her at that age, right? Like, I wish all university programs were like that, because you go get some practical skills, you take it back. Like, that's just such a great program. I'm so excited for,
Susan Robb 3:35
yeah, and, you know, I think a lot in the states too, but in North America, the STEM program, like the science and tech and math and engineering is huge, and it's huge for girls. So that's exciting too, because you see the increase in females in that STEM program. It's phenomenal. And, you know, candidates done a pretty good job at supporting that. So we're happy, nice.
Dina Simon 3:58
And I think one of the other reasons that we love your daughter and your relationship with your daughter, similar to me and my daughter, we have something else in common there.
Susan Robb 4:07
That's right, my daughter is Chinese, and I adopted her when she was 13 months old, and that was a very interesting but amazing and fun experience. And yeah, you know, Dina, you were one of the very first partners I ever spoke to when I took on this role. And I didn't think talking about that sort of thing was like, Cool. I need, you know, you still want to divulge that sort of thing, but to have that commonality and to be able to share that and ask you, I got to ask you some questions, has really helped me. Really helped me, because I wondered, you know, a colleague or someone I knew that was adopted, what did that feel like and look like, and what ifs and does she want to know things? And the answer is no, and it's different for everybody. So I appreciated that conversation we had.
Dina Simon 4:58
Oh, I'm so glad. And, you know from life, and what we're talking about here today too. So life, leadership and building legacies like our how we came into this world, and then our story along the way, right? That whole foundation, that all it is intertwined. And I know even being a mom like thank God I came to Blanchard and got certified in so many of my leadership trainings because I probably tell more stories about how I've used like the methodologies in my mother being a mother, versus even just being a leader of others and teams. So it's super fun. And I, yeah, I talk about my personal story often, but I get, I get what you're saying. So super glad that we had that conversation early on.
Susan Robb 5:43
Well, you know, the legacy thing is, is interesting because I haven't really shared too much about that. And, you know, I was 40 when I adopted Kennedy, so not young, but I knew that I didn't want to have kids of my own. I knew I wanted to adopt. And so the reason I did that is because I have a very small family and legacy for me was super important, like, you know, how can I really say that I want to leave this earth, leaving it better than what I found it and what I, you know, left it then passing on some really great experiences for someone else. So that was the real reason I did that. Was, was, I mean, of course, I love my daughter, but, but the legacy was super important for me.
Dina Simon 6:28
I love that. Love that. Yeah. So, born in Scotland, moved to Jamaica,
Susan Robb 6:35
yeah. And then Canada, and then Canada, and then a few countries and states in between that, and my daughter is born in China, but but Canadian and an American citizen as well. So it's been a ride. Yeah, I really like when you talked about the school that she's going to, the internships, how difficult they are to get sometimes, because you have a lot of competition in there, and whenever you do go to interview for him. You have to be on top of your game. Yeah, you sure do. And you know, you've heard this in in our business, you know, some 38% of managers these days are never heard of Franklin Covey or Blanchard or any of this. They're young managers, and they've never had to lead. They've never had to make the same decisions we've had to make in the sort of command and control environment that you know, maybe we grew up in. And it's interesting to hear about the generational gaps and perceptions and how a legacy of a certain generation can leave a culture in a very weird place where these new young managers are coming and saying, like, I don't even really understand how you ran the company this way, right? You know, super interesting for the youngsters, right to your it is, yeah,
Dina Simon 7:53
it is interesting. So I was, last week, I was with somebody for lunch that grew up huge in like, Gallup Strength Finders and a lot of different things. So also very into leadership. And as we were talking, we talked about from a demographic age perspective. So I was lucky enough to work for John when I was in my 20s, so similar to Kennedy's age and Mandy's age right in college and back in the day, we went to like, I know, I did it through Associates, and then I did it when I moved on, also, and was in Arizona and stuff. But we would go to like seminars where there'd be a whole day of, like, motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar, and, you know, just all these people, or the old cassette tapes that we would have that we listed, right? Yeah, and and so we were chatting about that, how, how even my exposure early on to those types of things where I was listening and learning in an auditorium for a whole day of all these different speakers, is that example? There aren't that many opportunities these days for that type of a forum. There certainly is YouTube and all the other ways that people are master classes and the way people are taking in information. But I just wonder, as you, as you're saying too, like just that, that leadership, and the leadership gurus who are out there, and the exposure to different ones, there's just a different way of gaining that information these days.
Susan Robb 9:19
Yeah, it certainly is.
John Simon 9:21
I can remember when I was in Madison, Wisconsin, and we were up there for six and a half years, and one of the fellows that I got to know through Rotary, he was a Dale Carnegie trainer. And so I took my whole staff, and we spent, you know, we did the Dale Carnegie course now, and you don't hear about that stuff anymore.
Susan Robb 9:40
No, you don't. And if you were into Dale Carnegie, I'm probably saying it wrong, you were like, Wow, you got to go there. Like, but it was something like, so there's something to be said for getting up in front of others and your peers and practicing it that way. I mean, I came from Franklin COVID, where we did presentation Advanvatage and it seems so archaic today, but really impactful, if we did it today, that same way, agreed? Yeah,
John Simon 10:07
sure. And part of the Dale Carnegie was you had to come up with a plan for where you work that was enough to pay for the course that you went to. And it either in money savings or production savings or, yeah, some, some type of ROI, you had to put it on paper, and that's right, and that's how you graduated. You had to explain it to everyone. John, you probably remember the good old sales training days. Oh, they were hard days, but they were worth it. Yeah. In fact, we had a Canadian company that did ours, and they would come down, you know, maybe, like, once, every year, every year and a half, and we would get to people all together and everything. And it was, it was interesting. But what it did, it created new ideas for people that, you know, here, here's a better way of doing things. And I think it all. It always paid off. Yeah, I miss those days. Yeah, I do too. And you know, I was thinking the as we talked about this year, that when I go out, I'm retired, so I go out Tuesdays and I play pinochle with guys, and I'd go do my grocery shopping, everything. And my first comment is, don't these people work anymore? Because in the grocery store, you know, they're in their 30s, and they're doing their shopping at two o'clock in the afternoon, or I'm at lunch and, you know, with a bunch of guys, and you see all these people there, and I know they're not working, but it's changed now that people work from home a little bit more, and we didn't have that when they were, you know, back in the 1970s and 80s,
Dina Simon 11:44
yeah? And it's not an A typical eight to five anymore, right? Like, that's the big change, yeah, the flexible schedules and all of that. It's, it's very different, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Susan, we've heard a little bit about your life, as far as, like, where you've been. You started a little bit to talk about Blanchard, but tell us what you do for Blanchard.
Susan Robb 12:05
So Blanchard, I work with a small team who and we lead the authorized partner. We used to call a channel partner, but the authorized partner team, and basically it's a reseller program. But these are the folks like you, whether they're small, medium business or a you know practitioner, a coach, an executive coach, that that gets certified in and or resell our offerings to their clients, and they bring the Blanchard product to their clients as a part of maybe the learning journey that they have created for the client, or as part of a suite of offerings that they offer their clients. So we've got a, well, I don't know we've got, probably in North America, maybe about 1200 partners, and not all of them are active. But since COVID, a lot of people who were entrepreneur went out of business, they retired, and so that that market, you know, shrunk a little bit, so now we've got a new market. And just today, I had a meeting with a young gal. She was phenomenal. I'm gonna say she was maybe not even 30, and she worked for the CBC. She left there, and now she's running her own OD and change management company. And she said, You know, I said, Well, tell me, what happened. Why did you leave there? And this is an example of the new partners that are coming to join us now, bringing the Blanchard offerings. And she said, Well, you know, a lot of these companies, they work in silos and because of generational gaps, and because a lot of jobs are even willed to people still, if you can believe it, that the mindset is so different. And I said, is it a matter of or or different communication? And she said, No, it's a matter of mindset. It's a matter that I'm going to tell you what to do and how to do it, and you're just not going to ask why. And she said, but as a as a Gen, I don't know what would she be, Gen, I lost track of these. Yeah, I've lost track. Yeah. She said it's that I could do it three different ways in my much shorter amount of time. But she said the difficulty is a lot of generations before me that are even 40, 50 don't want to hear it. So she's, she's creating, she's created a business where it focuses on that gap, where there's, you know, generational gap there. So it's nice like so she'll bring Blanchard offerings into that. And we're most well known for our flagship program, the SLII program, you you bring to your clients. You know, it's a matter of managing your people through a task and not a personality. And I think that's great. It is great.
Dina Simon 14:48
It so is great because it is about the specific situation. Hence, situational leadership. SL,II, so the situation, what is the situation at hand, and where is the person on it, and how do I coach them? And support them or direct them and in the way that they need. Yeah, it's, it's super impactful. Well, that's great. And I loved the the channel partner terminology, but I'm okay being an authorized partner, because I'm that in other things with Wiley and stuff with disc and the five behaviors, but I was so the new the new terminology, and I didn't realize there were so many, so 1200 that's a lot.
Yeah, it's the 80/20 rule, though, right? So most of them maybe are a little bit dormant, or they're, they're buying maybe a couple of pieces a year, but we're really working with the ones that are making that, like what you did with one of yours. Like, you know, you're making this into a space learning or learning journey that matters and and just even speaks to now, as we talked earlier, John about, you know, the 80s and the 90s. I loved it. It was fun, and I miss it, but we got to get people where they're at today. And so bite sized learning and quizzes and little pieces like that, we're more and more and more involved in. In fact, there's two things. There's there's, we've got this student self leadership. You know about this Dina, and it's free for students, for all high school students, their parents or their guardians. But we have also have this new leadify. It's a free app, and it's for the younger generations who want that bite sized learning. They just want to watch a two minute video and ponder, oh, how could I have communicated that differently? Or, How could my productivity, you know, be higher if I had more trust? And so they're little bite sized pieces of videos to watch and little gamification. So that's where it's at now in terms of of reaching the leaders that are entering our marketplace,
I love that. Will you for a second tell John and our audience about what Ken and Margie are doing with the high school students. Because I know there's a mission to, I think, to reach like 100,000 children.
Susan Robb 16:55
That's right, I might get this wrong, but for sure, once or twice a year, we have cohorts of a couple of 100 students from all around the world that register, and their parents or guardians that register for the student self leadership. It's a six week program. It's one hour self study a week, and one hour of an Inspire session, where a facilitator comes in and debriefs the session. And I heard a story a couple weeks ago that the last one they just did there was a group of kids from Africa. Can't remember where in Africa. They had never seen a computer before, ever their high school. Well, very of high school age. They don't know about leadership, they don't know blank, they don't know any of this, and they had to walk, I don't know, 20 miles to get to this location, and they were on screen, and they were freaking out like, Well, they'd never seen a computer, but they got so much beautiful learning from this that when you hear those stories and how we can reach people in all corners of The world that don't know even what a computer is that to me, Ken and Margie are really doing something special with that, right? Oh, that's it. So inspiring. I love that. Yeah.
John Simon 18:11
And you know, the one thing that will never change, whether you're talking the 1970s or you're talking 2024 right now, is you're in a relationship business, and building those relationships with these kids or the customers that you have, and that's what it's all about. That has never changed, and that will never change.
Susan Robb 18:36
That's exactly right. I mean, people say, you know, they've asked me, Well, how did you get into this business? Or how'd you get into sales? And, you know, No one wakes up and says, how I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be a professional salesperson like you get into this from trauma or fluke. I'm convinced of it. Mine may be a mix of both, but for 10 years after high school, I have no formal education, I might be the only person in my that I work with, or even clients that does not have a university degree, guys spent 10 years cycling and competing because they didn't know what to do. You know, we talk about mentors. One of the things I read and you talk about mentors and who's a great leader to you. And I remember being in high school, and I hated high school. I hated it. It just was not an environment for me for some reason. And I wanted to go to university. I wanted to go to law school, and my guidance counselor, Mr. Ray Meyer, I'll never forget, called me to the office and said, This is not going to happen for you. This is never going to happen for you. So community college, maybe, maybe, and even that's a stretch. But listen, young lady, where you are today has nothing to do with where you can be tomorrow. I will never forget that in terms of leadership for me, like I didn't know it was leadership then, but Right, but I knew then I didn't. Have to be defined by a system or by somebody, right? So I got into sales because I didn't know what else to do
Dina Simon 20:08
well you've had an impressive career.
Susan Robb 20:10
So it worked out for you, yeah? And I've had some great jobs, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Will you tell us a little bit about covey, their work with because you were there for many years. Yeah? I went, you know, I was, I started in the toy business for five years. Then I got into selling corporate leadership for five years, and then I had a head hunter call me one day. And was about Franklin Quest. This was before they merged. So it was like with Hiram Smith, who was the founder of Franklin Quest. And so that was great. That was very cool. That was a great job. I loved it. And then two years later, we merged with Covey, and we thought this was a marriage made in heaven, for sure. And to a large degree, it really was, from a learning perspective, from a cultural perspective, maybe not so much. Covey definitely was the leader there. And I was there, I don't know, seven years, and then I joined a global sales team. There was about seven of us. And then the day that I started, 911 hit. And so everything, like a lot of things, where I just sort of disintegrated, and I went back to my old post, and then I left there, because Hiram and a group of consultants from Franklin Covey, we wanted to start our own business. And so we we all left Franklin Covey And we started this, the Galileo Initiative, where I was a junior partner, and we had this venture capital guy who owned the Utah Jazz so we had money to do this in five years. It was the best the startup was the best job. It was so much fun. Bringing change management and learning in the automotive sector is where I mostly focused. So that was great. And then I moved to the states for five years, and then the 2008 crash happened. And then it happened for me too, right? I moved back to Canada. And when I moved back to Canada, I went back to Franklin Covey For two years, and it just was a very different place, to be sure. And I had heard Blanchard. Blanchard, you know, Blanchard, a lot. I didn't know anything about Blanchard. I didn't know anything about SLII. But I went to CLS, which some might say is their competitor, but not really. So I went there for a couple years, and I kept hearing while I was there, and this is some of the spicy stuff, right? A lot about Blanchard. And, you know, not, not great things. And so I thought, well, they spent a lot of time talking about this, so they Blanchard must be good at something, right? Yes, if the competitor is talking, yeah, there might be someone there. Why are these things so so much their energy on this? They're really living rent free. So I picked up the phone, and I phoned a guy in Vancouver, who you know as as Neil, one of my favorite leaders. Yeah, and I said, Hey, we don't know each other, but I've heard a lot about you guys, and so I really want to know more. And three weeks later, that's when I started at Blanchard. This has been the best culture, the best leadership display I've ever seen. Just talk about walk the walk, they do it,
Dina Simon 23:02
it's, it's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yes, yes. So I love that technique on if you're in a company and they're spending so much time talking about the competition like that, that there might be like, Oh, what is that competition? What are they doing? So that was, that's brilliant. I love that.
Susan Robb 23:21
Well, you've had that happen. I had this happen, even with my dentist, for goodness sakes. And a gal said, Don't go whatever you do come to us, but if you don't come to us, don't go there. And I thought, hmm, I'm gonna try it. I've been there ever since,so I don't know. Don't talk about your competition.
Dina Simon 23:38
Yeah, love that. So I love this journey. One of the questions that we've asked in the past. So what would you tell your 20 year old self?
Susan Robb 23:47
Oh, wow. What would I tell my Well, I would say, first of all, never, never let anyone define you, ever because the C suite and everybody that may be above you put their pants on the exact same way. I would say three other things. Practice what you teach always, integrity is everything. If you don't have that, it's gonna be hard to have anything else be crystal clear on your vision and your mission and your values, and always keep them in check every year. And I'd say, wrap that with if you don't have empathy as a value, other value, it's going to be hard for other values to exist.
Dina Simon 24:37
Wow, yeah, I love that. And going into like, a new year and just excitement about the future. What are you excited about?
Susan Robb 24:45
You know, I'm, I'm excited about a couple bucket list items I have that I keep not doing, and I don't know. One of them is, I'd love to have a podcast interviewing survivors of all kinds, nice and. And I used to be a speaker agent, and I represented some really cool people. And you know what? No matter where you are, in an airport, in a grocery store, at the bus stop, everybody has a story. Yes, everybody has a story to tell, yeah. And just to listen to people's story that we had this, you know, we put up a veneer and a mask, and we don't give people the opportunity often that they deserve. And so I want to hear everybody's story. I'd say, yeah, that the podcast is a bucket list item, and some travel probably,
Dina Simon 25:34
while we sure can help you with how to do a podcast, it's actually, if we can do it, anybody can do it. So we'd be happy to help you. Susan, it's not, I'd be delighted, delighted,
John Simon 25:45
and we'll carry your bags whenever you travel. Yes, exactly. Let's go.
Susan Robb 25:51
Let's go to new people of all kinds in different countries. Oh, I love that. And amazing, yes.
Dina Simon 25:57
And that's what's fun, too. Like, even with it, with the podcast, is you can talk to people from all over So, similar to your story about these kids in Africa that will had to walk 20 miles to here to be part of the Blanchard like it is just crazy how open the world is in order to do stuff like that these days. Yes, so on life, leadership. So anything else that you'd like to say, just even around leadership,
Susan Robb 26:21
Love is the answer. What's the question? Ooh, Love is the answer. What is the what is the question?
Its a Ken blanchardism, and I love it. I love that. Yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 26:34
Because Ken really is about, again, it's about the, you know, if you lead with love and all of that. And if you're a professor, and you make sure that your students know the answers, like, it's your job to, you know, from a leadership perspective, as a teacher, you know, to meet people where they're at and help them get to that next level. It just, it really is all that foundation.
Susan Robb 26:55
Yeah, we had Marcus Buckingham, as you know, kick it off, and he did a phenomenal keynote on love and the red thread of passion. You know, what's your red thread of passion, and is it threaded through everything you do? And at first, you know, you get to think about love and leadership, and you know it makes you it might make you feel a little bit scratchy, but when you think about it, are you designing your experiences? Whatever those experiences are, with love. Are you designing your podcast with love? I could say yes, here I am, and I feel a lot of love, right? Are you designing your experiences at work, with your clients, and your learning journeys and how they experience your people and everything? Is it designed with love? And what's love, right? It's a verb, it's a behavior, it's an action. It's not often the ethereal thing we think it is. It's just simply that you're providing an experience for someone with some compassion attached to it, right? So I loved that, and that stopped me thinking, even if you think about people like, you know, we order from Amazon. Is it designed with love? Well, it's designed really easy, and it's hard to muck it up. And you can exchange real easy, and you can get your money back fast. And so I'd say, Yeah, oftentimes, yes, I love that.
Dina Simon 28:16
Yes, I was super sad to not be there. I'm a huge Marcus Buckingham fan, and he spent time at Nebraska, where Mandy is at college. So we, I have messaged with him a little bit. Go, go, Cornhuskers, but yeah, so he phenomenal in his new book about love. Like Love is work or something, yes, yes, yeah.
Susan Robb 28:38
Really, good, really, really, and it matters. It's going to matter. It matters to this generation now that are entering the workforce. It'll matter to Mandy and Kennedy that they just don't want to be a number, correct? They do not want to be a number, yeah. And if you think about legacy, I mean, if you really want to leave your company, and we could talk about some of the legacies we've seen, not you know, you get to a certain point in your life where you've created such a, you know, a phenomenal organization or movement, and now you're, you know, in your later years, and you do something dumb, this is not a good legacy. So if you're going to leave a legacy, yeah, your company or your movement to this generation, you've got to leave it in a place that they want to be, right. You can't just leave it like the way. You can't leave it the same way. It's a different world today. Yeah, it is with that, yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 29:34
So like the succession planning and all of that, absolutely, because what somebody else is going to want to do might be different, and taking all of that into consideration, yeah, you know,
John Simon 29:46
the one thing that I noticed now more, whenever you talk to the younger people, they want to be more entrepreneurial than we ever wanted to be, and they'll do anything to make that happen. And you got to give them credit, because it takes a special Person that can do that and be and be successful at it, yeah,
Susan Robb 30:04
yeah. I agree with that. You know, it's a it's interesting thing. You say, never thought about that, John, because I think that we were so used to we, I'll say, I don't know. I grew up in the workforce in the 80s and 90s. You, you so used to hearing S1 Direction, Dina, that you come to expect just the direction the command and control that is not like you know, that is not where these this generation is not they don't want to be told, not because they want to be they want to buck the system, but they want to be involved. If there's no commitment. If there's no involvement, there's no commitment. And I think that that's a piece that's been missing. Involve them in ideas, right? Yes, more than just one idea, absolutely, and they're probably going to come to the table with better ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, good. So is there anything else, Susan, that you would like our podcast listeners to know about? You just get out there and do it. You know what? Don't we are so worried. I mean, I just turned 61 last week. I don't mind saying that. And you know, sometimes you get caught up in I'm 61 and what am I going to do? And I shouldn't do this. I don't care if you're 91 if you're six, whatever, get out there and do it. Right? They say life is short. Okay? Well, we know that to be especially if you're gonna, you know, not be around much longer, but just get out and do it and believe in yourself. If I believed in my 20 year old self a little bit more. I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe I would have been doing a podcast 10 years ago. No, but just get out there and do it. Don't let anyone define you and and go for it,
John Simon 31:54
and hopefully some of that will rub off on Kennedy.
Susan Robb 31:57
Well, yeah, I'm hoping so. I'm certainly I don't have any worries about that. I think she'll, you know, yeah, she'll be good. And as an architect, is that which? So that's what she'll get her degree in, yeah, architectural engineering. So she engineering could go either way. Yeah, okay, nice, nice. Yeah.
Dina Simon 32:17
And do you think you'll stay in Canada?
Susan Robb 32:20
If I'll stay in Canada? Yeah, I will never leave Canada. Never leave. Okay, all right. Well, you know what? Never say never. Yeah, never say never. If it was a tropical place, maybe, no, I want to plant my feet firmly here for now. And will Kennedy remain in Canada? I don't know. There's probably a lot of opportunity for her in the States than there is here. You know, way more opportunity and an opportunity. I mean, you've traveled so much, right? And so when you brought her home, did you bring her back to Canada? Yep, brought her to Canada. And then when she was about six, we moved to the States, okay, for about five years. Five years, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dina Simon 32:59
Well, it's super fun. I love just staying in contact and watching her journey as well, because she's right there, same age as Mandy.
Susan Robb 33:06
And it's just well, and Mandy like, I mean, like, if there's anyone out there, do it, look at Mandy's doing like you and Mandy with your philanthropic stuff, I mean, you guys are just blazing a trail out there. It's phenomenal. How's that going?
Dina Simon 33:19
It's going very well, actually, yeah, it's going well. We were just in Arizona, not this past weekend, but the weekend before her, like, fall break, and we did have a little business meeting, because we've been telling Mandy in college, like the board has been saying, you know, we'll keep this going until you graduate from college, that we kind of need to know what you want us to do. So so not that she's graduated yet, but that is on the horizon in the near future. And so we did draw a line in the sand that absolutely we're keeping this going. So we have some fun stuff that we'll be sharing in the near future. And so, you know, we still, she still has, you know, the next five years to decide, you know, she, if she goes on for further education and getting her first job. So it's not anything that we expect her to step into on a day to day basis, nor does it need somebody to step into on the day to day basis. But yeah, just recruiting maybe some new energy that also wants to be a part of it. We've kind of been in a maintenance mode for the last couple years and been doing great, but we'll be doing some new, fun things moving forward in the future, and it's still very much a passion for her. And as she said, because of the foundation, the people that we have, the donors, the supporters, the nonprofit partners, she kind of said, why wouldn't we do this? Because it's, you know, not that it's easy, but we kind of have this all figured out, and we've got the people to support it. And so I was like, yeah, why wouldn't we do it? So we're gonna knock on what? What is she studying? Her major is anthropology, with a minor in global leadership. You're kidding? No. Oh, wow, that's amazing. Yeah.
Susan Robb 35:00
Yeah, what's her path? What does she see herself doing in terms of those two things?
Dina Simon 35:04
Yeah, great question. So she will most likely fall into some HR leadership, something. Imagine that. But yes. So she's looking at, you know, what? What does when graduation hits, what happens and if she goes on to study more, or if she follows a job, and if she follows a job. Same thing with Kennedy. Like, you know, where could that first job be? And it's their time to go spread their wings and experience things. I love it, but I don't you know. I know, yeah,
Susan Robb 35:32
yeah. And just before we go, I want to know. So John and Dina, what's on your bucket list for the next year? John, what's on your bucket list?
John Simon 35:42
Well, I, you know, I started you talked about travel, and the last couple years, I've had some really good opportunities with the grandkids to do some traveling. And I spent some time in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and I never traveled much before so and you know, much like you, I'm 75 and I want to do it while I'm young, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Susan Robb 36:08
Switzerland is definitely a place I could go and hang out. No problem. That's amazing. Are you going there?
John Simon 36:16
No. Well, I, the one I would like to go to was Austria, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And because that's where my grandfather, on my father's side, was from, I would like to go there and check that out. I've been to Ireland, in Scotland and all that when the other part of the family was from. So it's Yeah, I think if there's one thing, because I didn't have a chance to do it much whenever I was working and the kids were growing up and going to college and all that. But now we have the time, so I would like to do a little bit more of that. Good for you, and you golf. Oh, yeah. Now you can see behind me, I'm sure, the number 18 in Pebble Beach.
Susan Robb 36:57
Oh, I've been the I've been to Pebble Beach. I didn't golf, but I've been there. I bought a t shirt. Just, okay, just spectacular.
John Simon 37:05
If you go around 17 mile drives, there's nothing prettier than that. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Susan Robb 37:10
Really beautiful. Dina, what about you? What's on your bucket list?
Dina Simon 37:14
Yeah, so I funny, but I would say the same. So like travel and being really intentional. So there's certainly places you know, outside of this country that I'd like to go to, we actually have, like, rich and Manny and I have kind of a list of places we'd like to go to rich, and I have a list of things that we'd like to do. And so much of it revolves around also being with family and close friends and making sure that we're spending time with the people that we're closest to, because life is short, and so just making sure we're going back to Dallas in November for my mother in law's birthday, you know, just making sure that we are being really intentional on where we're spending our time. But the travel piece too same, like, you know, between my early 50s and, you know, like we can travel now and have a daughter off of college, so travel and do it while we're young as well. So there's, there's a big theme here. Yes, there is,
John Simon 38:10
you know, I think part of it is through COVID. We all lost four years of not having much that we that we could do. And you know, if you lose four years whenever you're 30. It's not as bad as when you lose four years when you're 70, yeah, yeah, because you don't have as many years left. So at 30, yeah, it's one thing. But when you're in your 70s and you lose four you're losing an awful lot of time.
Susan Robb 38:36
And during COVID, you kind of slip into a mode of Yeah. This is the way it is. Four years is a long time to be sitting in the same spot, you know. So, yeah, we all went through it. I mean, no matter where you were from, it was a worldwide issue that we went through. And yeah, I know for sure gonna go to either some place in Italy or Portugal for like a month and just work there. Work from there. Nice, okay, yeah,
John Simon 39:05
nice to do it in France or something like that too. You know, go to Yeah, sure, sure, yeah. If you have an internet connection, you're good to go. You got it
Dina Simon 39:14
as your favorite authorized partner. You let me know when you plan that trip, because maybe I just need to come over and join you.
Susan Robb 39:21
Absolutely. What a stitch that would be, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would Yes.
Dina Simon 39:28
Oh well, Susan, it's been such a delight. I know we've kind of talked over the last you know, as we've been doing the podcast for about a year and a half now, so we've kind of chatted about it, but just super fun to have you on and thank you for all that you do and have done in that leadership space. I mean, that's been so much of your career in working from a Covey perspective, I didn't know that you like that spin off also, that's super fun. And then so glad that the Blanchard organization that you found them, and what a beautiful home that you have found in working with the blanchards and.All, all those that are around them,
Susan Robb 40:02
yeah, and thank you. Thank you both. It's been so much fun and delightful. It's good to meet you. John. I've heard lots of great things about you. Well, thanks. It's good to meet you. Thanks a lot. Dina, I appreciate you too.
Dina Simon 40:13
You're very welcome. Thank you. And I'll make sure in the show notes, people know how to get in touch with you. Awesome. Okay, thanks so much. Thank you. I would like to thank Susan Rob for joining us on the podcast. She is with Blanchard, and she's the director of partner solutions. She works with authorized partners, helping them to take Blanchard out to their clients. So I know her because we do that through Simon Says lead, and so I've loved working with her, and she's fantastic. We will make sure that you have her contact information in the show notes. We'll also put a link of information in for the Blanchard Foundation, which is getting the Blanchard SL two model, the self leadership model, into the hands of youth that we spoke on. It's an amazing program. And can you imagine, as a high schooler, having education around how to lead yourself, and then also that tends to how you can lead you know others in your peer group around you. So thank you. Thank you. Susan. As always, I think my father in law, John Simon for joining me as a co host on the podcast. And the podcast is produced by Simon and Associates, and we are a proud member of the C suite radio, and until we talk again, you.