Remembering Bob Chapman: The Mentor Who Changed My Life
A Bit of Optimism - Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek honors Bob Chapman, his mentor and the CEO of Barry Waymiller, celebrating a life dedicated to building a company where people are valued as family. Their friendship began with a letter and grew into a deep bond rooted in shared ideals about humane leadership.
Key takeaways
- Leadership rooted in care, not control, creates lasting, thriving organizations.
- Empathetic listening is a foundational human skill with transformative power.
- A company’s culture profoundly impacts employees’ lives beyond the workplace.
Transcript preview
I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist if what I imagine exists in reality. That's how I felt after I met Bob Chapman and learned about Barry Waymiller, the company he led. Sixteen years ago Bob saw my original TED Talk about the why and sent me a letter. He claimed to have built a company like the one that I described in my work. The only problem is I tend to write about what's possible. My vision is more of a striving Clearly my curiosity was peaked. And so a couple of months later I met Bob for lunch. To say he was amazing is an understatement. He had an energy like few other CEOs I've ever met before and that one hour lunch turned into spending three hours together that afternoon. Bob told me story after story about his culture and his people and how they were responsible for the reason the company outperformed the S&P year after year after year. Now you have to understand, CEOs often try to convince me that they have the best cultures and very often after I take a look for myself, I learned that, well, they don't. As much as I loved meeting Bob, I wanted to see it to believe it and see it I did. We spent four days together, traveling from factory to factory across the Midwest, and what I saw blew my mind. This unknown CEO leading a company with a hard to remember name, built a culture that could be the model for all companies. Barry Waymiller figured out how to build a business model and a corporate culture that kept people safe, really safe, as well as psychologically safe. They didn't send jobs overseas to save money. They didn't lay anyone off during the 2008 recession and they won't be replacing people with AI. This company wasn't built for the short-term ambitions of investors, but for the long-term benefit of the people who worked with the people who worked with the and for the company. It's built to last generations. Bob built something that he and I both believe deeply. That business can and must be a force for good in the world. Not just by giving money away, but by the very business model itself. The very existence of Barry Waymiller meant, as I said before, that I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist if what I imagine exists in reality. I went on to write about Bob and Waymiller in my book, Leaders Eat Last. And Bob and I went on to become very dear friends, and he became a very close mentor. In September 2025, I decided to go back to one of Bob's factories in Phillips, Wisconsin. Except this time, I brought a camera crew with me. I wanted to show the world what Bob had built. We made a mini documentary, so that the world could meet some of the amazing people who worked in Phillips, and to hear from Bob himself. That episode went on to be one popular episodes we've ever released. And I'm so glad we made it. Because six months after our visit, Bob passed away. I miss Bob desperately. There's barely a day that goes by that I don't have an impulse to call or text him to ask his advice, make fun of him or talk about our shared passion for what business and capitalism can and must become again. Years ago I sent Bob an email in which I made him a promise. What I didn't know, was that Bob had that email printed to hang on the wall of his office. There is no force strong enough to pry me from your side, I wrote. I am with you always. I will carry your torch for decades to come. And when the time is right, I will in turn pass it on to another. Our impact will last generations beyond us. This is what we must plan for. And it is with that promise in mind. that I wanted to release the full conversation I had with Bob from the time we spent together in Phillips. I want as many people as possible to hear him and his message. It will, I promise, inspire you. Thank you, Bob. I miss you and I love you. There's a big bee, big was. Let's move the wasp. He wants to be in the show, he wants to be in the show. Wasp, Wasp, Wasp, God. Bob, when I walked back in here, back in Phillips, Wisconsin, the flood of memories, the flood of emotions. I've been here a few times over the years, but I haven't been back for probably six or seven years. I remember when you and I first met and whatever it was 15 years ago, you told me about what you'd built, this amazing business, each other and it's such a treat to come back and talk to you in the very place where you took me on my first tour to see it. I'm so curious like when you meet people and they say to you sort of Bob what have you built what's your business how do you talk about this? Well as you know my first half of my career was very traditional about management financial results and growth and through the series of revelations I went through were the lens through which I saw people because I saw him as machinists, labor, union members, union office people, people work on the floor, all the traditional ways we talk about. And the lens was reversed and I saw them as somebody's precious child that's been placed in my care, everything changed from me. So the lens through which you see people affects the way you treat people. Because I was raised that you need people to achieve results. Someone you don't need them anymore, you let them go. So the revelations I went through that change the way I see people. So the lens was clearly seen, if you see, if you see, if you see, if you see them people as somebody special child it profoundly affects your leadership style. My major responsibility to people are in company is to give them a grounded sense of hope for the future. They can trust in my care. I take that incredibly profoundly seriously. I know you and I've talked about this about sort of how being a parent and being a leader are very similar. You talk about how being a parent this child is brought into your life and you're responsible for its growth and its upbringing and in business a person is brought into your office and your office and you're responsible for your office and your responsibility. for their upbringing. I appreciate that the lens for you change where you stop seeing people as line items and mechanisms for your success, but rather that you are now responsible for their growth, their success, their happiness, their well-being. But how did you learn leadership? It's one thing to say it. It's one thing to read it in a book and be this leader who just sort of views people as items on a spreadsheet. How did you make the conversion to being the leader you are now? sort of either listening to this podcast or read my work. They're on that journey. You went through that journey. What was it that you were able to make that conversion to be this heartfelt leader rather than just all head and all numbers? It was a journey, as you said, and when I realized that day at the wedding that 12,000 of our team members around the world are not functions for my success. There's somebody's precious child who I have in my care for 40 hours a week, it changed everything. And a young man asked me about that time. What is your greatest fear about? Now, you know me, I'm an internal optimist, and I had to stop and think, and I said, my greatest fear is that we were blessed with the message of the way the world was intended to be, where people would genuinely care for each other, and it would be dependent upon me. And I would leave this company, this earth, and what I built would fall apart, because I've seen that happen in churches and companies all over the world. So my greatest fear is that this blessing we've been given not live beyond my time. So we began, I had an incredible team around me called the empowerment team. You know some of those members and I said, how do great religions survive all the time? You know, this is how we devour from great religions. And we said, they articulate their beliefs, which we have in the guiding principles of leadership, and then they have disciples who carry this message forward beyond the founder. Because it's not Bob, we all believe this is the way we should treat each other. So we said, how are, how we said, how are we said, how are we're going to do we're going to do we're going to do we're going to do we're going to do. So we're going to do. send people back to universities to learn to be truly human leaders. So this eclectic team for the white board said, well we're going to create our university and they came up with three powerful classes that in hindsight we were blessed with because empathetic listening, which is the most powerful of all human skills, recognition and celebration, how do you let people know they matter in thoughtful or appropriate ways, and then culture of service, serving from us all about me to actually care about you. So it's season in the afternoon, so it's just kind of this journey and this eclectic team and we started teaching it. So give me some of the principles that you teach and I know all of the classes that you teach are voluntary. People choose to go through it and if they don't want to go through it then that's fine. But people can see the impact that it has on their coworkers, their colleagues, their colleagues and friends when they do go through these classes, which is why I know that there's a good long waiting list for people to get into your classes. What are the core ideas? What are? What are the core ideas that's, First of all, one of the things I've learned in teaching is, because again, it was our team member, David Bonnamol, and came up with the idea, because when somebody said, if we're going to start a university, we need to teach people listen, I thought, why would we need to teach adults to listen? We all know how to listen, okay? That is the biggest revolution we realize that we don't know how to listen. Okay, we're taught to debate, we have in this country, is because we have a lot of people, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right, and you're right, and you're right, and you're right, and you're right, Okay, that's the world we see it in politics between our countries. And so this team came up with this idea that we would teach empathetic listening, okay? Which is the most foundational human skill that you can possibly have because you validate the worth of others when you listen to them without judge, not listening to debate, not listening to respond or judge, simply listening to validate the other person. And when you do that, it's still amazing me, Simon, that this eclectic journey we've been on. We're simply trying to change. We're simply trying to change. managers into leaders, into disciples, people who would carry this forward well beyond my time. 95% of the feedback, 95% was how it affected their marriage and their relationship with their children. This class was built to help people function better at work, right, right, that they would communicate better at work. I thought when you hire somebody, the pay and the benefits was the exchange for the present. As long as you needed them, you would pay them, but when you didn't need them, you'd let them go. And this changed everything, we realize is what people want to know is that they matter. We have a very prosperous economy but we do not have a healthy economy because we have depression, anxiety, because people don't feel value, they feel used. So this listening class still amazes me 20 some years later that we've taught all over the world. This is not an American issue, this is a global issue. When you teach people listen, they tell you the stories of how it improve their marriage and their relationship with kids. So when we say what's wrong with kids today? And so where did they come from? It came from families where parents probably came home from a job where they don't feel value. Because of that stress and anxiety, whatever, and concern about the future, probably don't treat their spouse as well as possible. And what do our kids see? They see the behavior of our parents who don't know how to care for each other. They may be in love, but they don't know how to listen to each other. And so it was unbelievable the feedback. And so it was unbelievable could have heard that thousands of people, to China, it's a universal truth. A healing power of listening is profound. This is such a, you know, we bifurcated the world, right? It's like you have your home life and you have your work life. And we forget that it's not two different worlds. It's one very integrated world because the people who are going to work go back home and vice versa. And so if they go to a place of work where they don't feel like their work matters, or they don't feel like they matter, they don't feel like they matter. them as means of production. That stress that they carry of course has to go somewhere and it comes in the form of lack of sleep, high blood pressure, it comes in the you're grumpy, you're short-tempered and that affects one's own health but it also affects the health of the family unit as you said you know you come home stress from work just because you have a shitty boss you know not a toxic person not somebody who's like screaming and yelling just doesn't make you feel like you care about your productivity. That stress comes out at home and that affects kids' self-confidence. And it's an amazing concept. The logic is so simple and the logic is there which is... It has to be simple because it's occurred to me. It has to be simple. Which is if you're teaching these people how to listen, empathetic listening so that they can better communicate at work, those skills are the skills, they're going home. Not only do they feel better at work,