A Winning Strategy

Be Authentic

CBS did an interview with Kamala. They edited it, big time. Instead of releasing it, they are trying to shape a news story because they are on Kamala’s team. They aren’t journalists but they are cheerleaders.

One of the things Trump has mastered is authenticity. If you watch tapes of him in the McDonald’s drive-through yesterday, he was authentic. His personality came through.

There are a billion gallons of ink spilled about leadership. Business schools teach courses in it. One of the things you should do when you are a leader is be yourself. Be authentic.

But, simply being authentic doesn’t guarantee success. Not every leader is cut out to lead the movement or organization they want to lead. Everyone isn’t malleable like a piece of clay to fit every sort of opportunity out there. But, when you find your fit, and have a great cadence within that fit, being authentic helps you instill the culture you want and your organization will get to where it needs to be faster.

Elon Musk is authentic. He is a great leader. VC Fred Wilson is authentic. He is a great leader. Politically, they are not aligned and very different. You don’t have to be “liberal” or “conservative” to be a great leader. However, when running companies, great leaders generally put politics on the back shelf unless they are forced by the government to put them on the front shelf.

When I was at CME, we tried never to be overtly political despite all the lobbying we did. We were 50/50 on donations, floor visits and anything else. But, when the government treated us unfairly, or bore down upon us unfairly, we’d find someone somewhere to plead our case to who could carry water for us to stop the unfairness. We were party agnostic in that case. I think the perfect example of this being exhibited was when Terry Duffy testified a few years ago. Terry is an authentic leader. So was Leo Melamed before him.

I think in startup pitches, one of the things that attracted me to founders was when they were themselves. They didn’t put on a show. It turns out that the companies that had authentic founders did better than the companies that thought the pitch was a television production.

There is so much noise, deception and fake it ‘till you make it in the world today. When we go to get service from a company we do business with, we get a chatbot that was programmed by engineers who ran it through the legal department. It’s not authentic.

One of my favorite answers to a startup question was when I was getting to know the founders of Seel. They were both from China, one from the mainland and one from Hong Kong. They went to North Carolina for college. I asked them why NC. Why not one of the West Coast schools where they would be closer to home? They told me they loved NBA basketball and since so many NBA stars came out of NC (and the ACC) they wanted to go there and see them when they were in college. That’s an authentic answer.

When we get someone with authenticity, it’s jarring. Authenticity sometimes can be blunt. Authentic leaders can say things that people don’t like but when they carry out their actions, they mimic exactly what they say. There isn’t a disconnect.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. Simple Mills is a consumer products food company. Simple Mills is pioneering the way the world eats to improve the health of people and our planet. They were the MAHA movement way before there was a MA or a HA. I met the founder Katlin via the New Venture Challenge at Chicago Booth. Katlin was having enormous trouble with her own personal diet and took matters into her own hands. She problem-solved, and came up with a way of cooking for herself that made her feel better and kept her healthy.

Her friends took note of the change in her health. She started making, then selling her mixes out of her apartment. She became the number one selling gluten-free muffin mix on Amazon.

Simple Mills is wildly successful today. They are in all kinds of retail outlets and they are expanding their product line rapidly.

Here is how she describes Simple Mills on her Linked In page:

Since 2012, I have been on a mission to transform what America eats by creating snacks from simple, nutrient-dense ingredients. I believe that what we put in our bodies, and how it is grown, matter immensely and we have the power to heal both people and our planet with those decisions. I founded Simple Mills with exactly that intent.

We’re on a journey to build the next generation food company – the one that feeds our next generation differently from the last – one that acknowledges the large positive impact a company can have. Today we make crackers, cookies, snack bars, baking mixes, and frostings from only whole-food ingredients and nothing artificial, ever. We have quickly become the #1 natural baking mix brand, #1 natural cracker brand, and the #1 natural cookie brand, with distribution in over 20,000 natural and mainstream stores nationwide.

Starting in 2020, we are combining our nutrient-dense snacks with agricultural practices that benefit the economic health of farming communities and the environmental health of the planet through outcomes such as improved soil health and biodiversity, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increased carbon sequestration. We launched our first initiatives in this area earlier this year by establishing direct contract relationships with several farmers. These partnerships provide financial incentives for adopting regenerative agriculture practices as well as purchase guarantees for the crops.

When you talk to Katlin today, at her core she is still the same despite the success of the company she started. She is authentic. The culture of the company she built bears a strong resemblance to her. The labeling ties into her authenticity and so does the way the brand talks about itself.

In 2019, she took a class in permaculture that transformed how she looked at agriculture. She has begun incorporating that learning into a vision for her company. Simple Mills has rolled out products using that vision.

How can you not love a company like Simple Mills?

What is inauthentic leadership? In many cases, we know it when we see it. Authentic leaders stand for something. Inauthentic say whatever the current thing is so it sounds good.

Our government is inauthentic. Everything seems to be worded out of a George Orwell or Ayn Rand novel. It’s never plain, transparent, mean what I say English. Generally when a government official says, “I mean what I say” they don’t mean what they say. There is always a lot of legal wiggle room.

I mean, if you have a man acting as a female leading a health department, the whole thing is a charade and not authentic.

However, authentic leaders also lead by example. Actions follow their words. In the military, good officers eat last and let the troopers eat first but it is a lot more than that. I was reminded of that when I saw a photo of the Hamas terrorist leader Sinwar walking through the tunnels with his family. Here is a photo of his wife clutching her very expensive Hermes Birkin bag.

That’s clearly inauthentic and with centralized leadership where the leadership’s mission isn’t wholesome, it happens a lot. Despots have Swiss bank accounts while the people they lead dig in the dirt for crumbs.

Another leader who seems very inauthentic to me is the owner of the Oakland A’s. He’s not in it to build a pro sports team that wins championships. He’s in it for himself. Contrast that with the owner of the LA Dodgers, or the much-parodied and now-deceased owner of the NY Yankees George Steinbrenner. Those owners seem pretty authentic.

If you saw ESPN’s College Game Day last Saturday, you were treated to a speech by former Alabama coach Nick Saban. It was a “What would you say to get your players ready to play this game?” speech. It was authentic and just so basic. You could see why Saban was such a great coach and why he won everywhere he went in college.

I think the post-Baby Boomer generations have been lied to and deep faked so much that they crave authenticity.

Be authentic. Be yourself. First step to being a great leader.