Episode 5
Meet Kevin Browett , CEO Renaissance Media Solutions
Meet Kevin Browett, Kevin comes from a one red light town in Pennsylvania he rose through the corporate ranks to head up an $18 Billion P&L and then……..the pivot, a magazine? tune in to hear his story it covers toys, drugs, start-ups, martial arts and more.
In this episode you can expect to hear about a man who was born to serve, it’s in his DNA, it started with the community he grew up in and continues to be a driving force in his life today as he unites the community. Kevin supports the philosophy of “no man left behind” and practices servant leadership in his professional and personal life. He holds several board positions, supports charity organizations and is proud to put family first, all of this with a strong sense of personal accountability and a strict workout routine starting at 3AM !
Kevin speaks openly about failure, lessons learned from the experience and standing up in the boardroom to take the unpopular stand.
There are valuable insights to share as we pursue our quest to find GRAVITAS.
03:41 Kevin’s story
07:11 We want somebody like you
08:45 Financial bonus or something else - incentives
11:47 It’s about trust
12:27 Staying true to yourself when others are not
19:09 Failure and lessons learned
21:44 The pivot
32:06 Personal accountability – 3AM ?
37:09 Boards, charities and making it all work
41:59 The GRAVITAS factor
43:54 What’s your legacy ?
Transcript
[Transcript]
[:[00:00:27] Join your podcast, host Jan Griffis, that passionate rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales entrepreneur leadership, coach keynote speaker, one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry. As she interviews some of the finest leadership minds in the quest for gravitas.
[:[00:01:22] Yes, that's right. A 3:00 AM workout routine. Kevin supports the philosophy of no man left behind and practices, servant leadership in his professional and personal life. Kevin speaks openly about failure. The lessons learned from the experience and standing up in the boardroom did take the unpopular stand.
[:[00:02:00] [00:02:00] today. I'd like you to meet a man. Who has held several senior level corporate positions. He has been described as a visionary retailer. He's previously held responsibility for a P and L in excessive $18 billion, EVP of merchandising for Kmart, worldwide and corporate VP of pharmacy for CVS impressive titles.
[:[00:03:02] This is a man who is committed to serve others, which is after all the hallmark of an authentic leader. So please welcome to the show today. Kevin Broward, Kevin is managing partner and COO of Renaissance media. The publishing arm foreseen magazine, which is a local Birmingham and Bloomfield, Michigan publication.
[:[00:03:39] Kevin: [00:03:39] welcome to the show. The you Jan, appreciate you having me today.
[:[00:03:47] Kevin: [00:03:47] Well, I think, yeah, as I listened to you introduce me, I think back on how I grew up and I grew up in Western Pennsylvania in a very small one red light town.
[:[00:04:27] So even to this day, my mom still lives in the same house my father was born in. So we all really looked out for one another. And that was just how I was. I was raised as a person to really care for other individuals. And. You know, if you had to be asked for help, it was almost an insult, uh, you know, you really look to help your neighbor and help each other.
[:[00:05:04] Jan: [00:05:04] How did you go from a small town to, uh, these, you know, pretty significant roles in corporate America?
[:[00:05:13] Kevin: [00:05:13] You hear the stories about things happening for a purpose. And, uh, I was, you know, uh, very involved in high school and a great athlete. And, uh, I wrestled played football. I was president of my high school. So whenever I was ready to graduate, I was given all these opportunities with different scholarships for athletics.
[:[00:06:08] And from that, uh, I became a pharmacist and as I became a pharmacist, how I ended up as a. Corporate executive was, they assigned me at a company called people's drug stores and they put me in the, what they called the company store. And I would manage the store, manage the pharmacy, but they come these store men, everybody that they wanted to showcase the company would come through that store.
[:[00:06:56] I certainly don't know anything about human resources, why me [00:07:00] and the answer was because you are the kind of person that we want. In our company, you represent a culture that we believe is good for our organization, and we want somebody like you to be able to go out and find other people like you to bring to our company.
[:[00:07:42] Your
[:[00:07:57] Kevin: [00:07:57] And it's a great question. And I honestly [00:08:00] didn't and when I, when I got into the office, um, I.
[:[00:08:33] You talk about the little things that make us different. You talk about the people interaction that when you come into the store, people care about you. The pharmacist cares about you, the things that are important to people, and that's what we want. We want people that really focus on people. And he, he taught me something that I used my entire career.
[:[00:09:20] And trust me, that will mean more to the person than a bonus check. And he was right. I was surprised all through my career that, you know, people always like to get rewarded with bonuses and financials because they can take that back to their family and that's meaningful. But the things that always made the team become more of a team was whenever I would leave.
[:[00:10:12] And it was like, you know, I can't believe he's doing all these things. And yet he remembered that one moment in time and that motivated everybody to just want to do more of that.
[:[00:10:35] We know from project Aristotle that Google ran in 2012. The number one factor for high-performing teams is psychological. Safety. And I think often we forget that it's those little things like writing that personal note really helps bond and make that connection with people. They feel safe and then they, they feel inspired and they feel that they will go out [00:11:00] there and go that extra mile.
[:[00:11:23] Right? No man left behind something like
[:[00:11:48] You're there to help them be more successful and it, you inspire each other, but. You said a key word. It's also trust. It's like, you know, any relationship, you know, it's built around. If you [00:12:00] trust your partner, if you trust the player next to you, if you trust your teammates, then you're going to go out and say like, I know if I do this, they're going to do that.
[:[00:12:27] Jan: [00:12:27] So all of these things are traits of an authentic leader.
[:[00:12:54] Kevin: [00:12:54] uh, again, a great question.
[:[00:13:25] And they would say, my job is divisional vice president of merchandising for toys or divisional vice-president for electronics, or, you know, they define themselves as a divisional VP and then whatever the category was. And I said, well, how about we start talking about your. Position is the president of the largest toy company in the country or in that time, it was the second largest toys.
[:[00:14:20] So one is helping those individuals change how they think about themselves and see themselves, you know, so that you get some of that adapting. The other thing though, and sad to say, I was in one meeting where I was presenting to. A board and I was laying out a five-year strategic plan and there was a senior executive that asked me, so why did I think I was successful?
[:[00:15:14] And obviously. Yeah, it was a little bit of an embarrassment because I didn't believe that. And too, I also didn't politically want to be wrong in the meeting and like, just be an, uh, you know, kind of, uh, less then professional let's say in my answer, but before I could even answer that chief financial officer and the head of it stood up and defended me and said, this guy is.
[:[00:16:08] So it's not me against the world. It's us coming together to be more successful. Yeah.
[:[00:16:27] Kevin: [00:16:27] right? And you see a lot of that in some of the, you know, probably why I enjoy some of the startups and some of the smaller companies is because there's an opportunity to be much closer with all your people.
[:[00:16:59] I mean, [00:17:00] I always say when I have meetings and I'm surrounded by my team, I want to be like, The dumbest person in the room, because I really want to have the smartest people around me. And if I do, I'm going to be wildly successful at the end of the day, because I know they're going to do the job better than anybody.
[:[00:17:37] You know?
[:[00:17:57] Might've been considered weak. In fact [00:18:00] that it was, it was considered a weakness. And I remember, you know, early on in my career, if I was making a decision, even though I knew it was wrong, I would never show that it was wrong because it would be considered weak, but fast forward. And in my last corporate position, I have made decisions that were.
[:[00:18:38] They will step out there in a way that perhaps they wouldn't have done if they didn't feel safe. And now we get closer to innovation because if people don't feel safe, they will not take the risks, the trial and error that we need to really nurture innovation. So I think there's, there's a lot there. Uh, to be said about how you lead [00:19:00] and making sure that you surround yourself with the smartest people and you really listen to them and give them the safe environment so that they can speak up.
[:[00:19:37] At the end of the day. And, uh, and when I look back on that, people will say like, how does that make you feel? And I said, well, certainly I'm I'm I feel bad that I failed, but also feel good that I failed because what I learned in the felling experience was something that makes me so much better as an executive.
[:[00:20:22] That was my partner or vice versa, but. I wouldn't do both, you know, so I learned that also learned you don't take every investor that says they want to invest in your company is not necessarily a good thing. You know, some investors don't have the same beliefs as you have. And sometimes saying no in any business is an okay decision as well, but I would never have learned that if I hadn't failed.
[:[00:21:15] So I was very aware that, you know, was there a risk there, but I was very confident that we would be successful. We tweak it. And at the end of the day, the success was going to come from getting the right people in the right seats and let them. Do their job and get out of their way. And that's exactly what we've done and that's why we've become successful, but it was all tied to success, failure, success, picking the right people.
[:[00:21:44] Jan: [00:21:44] well, seeing, as we all know, people that live in this area is wildly successful, but let's go back a little bit and talk about that major pivot to go from this. High-level executive corporate job where you had all the trappings [00:22:00] of a, an executive, um, to. To pivot and start this magazine.
[:[00:22:09] Kevin: [00:22:09] head? Uh, you, you again have hit a nail on the head here because I was very young. Uh, I, I just turned 40 and I had this massive job running $18 billion and I loved it at the same time. I hated it. And I hated it because, um, There were certain things that I really just wanted to do and be able to do.
[:[00:22:51] The bureaucracy is always the best way to get results. And that bothered me quite a bit. And then the [00:23:00] other part was there were corporate decisions being made all the time. You, you know, I would leave the office and come back. And all of a sudden, somebody that worked for me had been fired and a new person hired.
[:[00:23:35] Okay. It's Thanksgiving. And for us, the, the fiscal year was the end of January. So we're literally talking 60 days away from the end of the year. And I listened to all these executives, like here's, what's going to happen by the end of the year. Here's what's going to happen by the end of the year. Like everything's going to be great.
[:[00:24:20] So my answer to your question is if anybody here believes that a decision we made today, We're even going to know if it's beginning to work earlier than six months from now, doesn't know what they're talking about. And when I left, I really was called on the carpet. Because how dare I say that in front of all the executives, how there I come out and say that we were going to be in trouble as being honest.
[:[00:25:13] And so I came back and I resigned and decided, you know what, let me take a shot at being an entrepreneur. Let me go do my own thing because. I should be able to do, if I fell, I fell on my own merit. If I succeed, I succeed on my own mayor, but it's not because somebody is telling me what I have to say or not say.
[:[00:25:54] You know, now that I understand a little bit more about you, I, I, I get it, you know, it's who you are, it's in your [00:26:00] DNA, but, uh, talk to us a little bit about the purpose for scene.
[:[00:26:14] And you knew, you knew who the local Barbara was. You knew who the local pharmacist, the doctor, et cetera. And so everybody just knew everyone. And that was part of being a small community. Uh, and one night here, when I was having dinner with some of my dear friends, I was listening to the conversation and around the table, there were doctors and surgeons and attorneys, et cetera.
[:[00:27:01] So I kept thinking to myself, these are, these are no different than the conversations that you would have heard in that one red light town parents worried about. Am I doing the right thing? Am I raising my children? Right. I'm really working hard. I want to give back, I want to coach the football team or the baseball team.
[:[00:27:50] Well, and if I can help raise that up so that they can I'll get better, then the whole community will get better. And that was really the. The [00:28:00] essence of why we started saying, and
[:[00:28:12] Kevin: [00:28:12] And back to the philosophy is, as we've done seen for the last five years, we've seen a lot of success with what we call hyper-local, you know, Focused on like what people in a certain community really want and appreciate. And I had some very dear friends from the Indian community and the more I spend time with them, uh, they indicated same thing.
[:[00:28:56] So, uh, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful [00:29:00] partner lip lips, a chef, who's the publisher, and we teamed up, we talked about it, we got a group together and we launched it. And, um, the fall is a very similar model of highlighting individuals and businesses in the Indian community.
[:[00:29:23] You're you're right there. You're right. Yeah.
[:[00:29:42] Jan: [00:29:42] help.
[:[00:30:03] Apparently 3:00 AM is your time. So tell me a little bit about, uh, why do you get up so early and the personal accountability psychology behind that?
[:[00:30:27] For me, it's always been, I just love to be in great shape. I love the workout. I like the feeling of it. Uh, lifting weights, et cetera, you know, but when I had kids, I realized. That if I wanted to still get my workouts done and have time with the family. If I waited until I got home in the evening, I was one exhausted from work too.
[:[00:31:18] I mean, I'm in bed around 10 o'clock in the evening, 10 30 and I've never had an alarm wake me up. I mean, I just roll over. It's three o'clock late and I get up. And when I get up within two minutes, I'm. Go on. I do my work. I go to the basement, I do my workouts and you know, that's just it. And I feel good.
[:[00:31:47] Jan: [00:31:47] Yeah, I can relate to that. I love that surge of energy you get from an early morning workout. It sets you up for the day. You're clear. The energy level is right and it's infectious [00:32:00] other people. You know, they, they sense that they feel that and you can change a room, the energy level that you bring into any engagement.
[:[00:32:13] Kevin: [00:32:13] The martial arts, the black belt. Yes. Sure, sure. Uh, well, it was interesting. I was a very good wrestler and in Pennsylvania wrestling's a big sports, uh, you know, I always loved the physical contact of those types of sports and. Whenever my daughter, my youngest daughter was first going to school.
[:[00:32:53] And as I stand there watching the owner of the facility, came up to me and said, so you look like you're in pretty good [00:33:00] shape. Have you ever done martial arts? So I've wrestled I box, but no, I've never done. You know, any kind of like karate or TaeKwonDo and he's like come to a class. So I did, um, and I was older for somebody starting this.
[:[00:33:51] I just loved it again. I think it's just part of like being a, a coach and a team player, you know, helping them get better, you know, and encouraging [00:34:00] them to get better.
[:[00:34:13] I did not expect that
[:[00:34:28] I really loved it.
[:[00:34:47] Kevin: [00:34:47] talk about that? It does it very interestingly, I was on the board at the community house in Birmingham and, uh, I was doing introductions one night at one of their events.
[:[00:35:24] And I went to one of the classes and observed what they did and fell in love with it. Uh, you know, in fact, I told my wife, I said, now I understand why later in life I became a black belt because I think it really was meant for me to become. Uh, martial arts therapist. So what, what kids kicking cancer did, what rabbi G did was take the philosophy of giving people a purpose and, you know, the, the, the power, peace purpose that we saying, kids kicking cancer really has to do with [00:36:00] all the children that we instruct that we help our, um, Had been diagnosed with some type of cancer or hemophilia or some disease.
[:[00:36:28] Mentality and their self-esteem like, I mean, I used to tell people when I teach the class. They would actually work harder than the kids in my regular martial arts class. Like they would kick harder, they would kick keyer. And again, the only thing was they weren't smart. They weren't fighting, they weren't having any physical contact, but the meditation's of controlling your body, controlling your breathing, controlling all aspects.
[:[00:37:16] Jan: [00:37:16] Well, that's an a, it's an incredible cause let's talk about some of the other boards that you're on.
[:[00:37:53] So now it's preserved forever. And every day we create another basic version of that as new [00:38:00] histories made. And then I had the good fortune a few years ago. I'm being asked to be part of Cranbrook's board of governors. And, uh, that's been an amazing experience because one, again, I love education. I love being able to give back to the community and I've been elected to the executive committee, chairman of the finance committee there, um, with brilliant people on the marketing committee.
[:[00:38:54] And so I teach entrepreneurship innovation. Uh, change, manage [00:39:00] management and leadership in the business school there.
[:[00:39:07] Kevin: [00:39:07] to take care of my wife and my kids. So I hope, I hope they would say that,
[:[00:39:23] It's clear, right? It's this need to serve drives you. But balancing all of that. And we know there's no such thing as work-life balance, there are decisions that you make. There are choices that you make in life and you find a way to make it happen and it goes to mindset, but that's an awful lot of, you know, board positions in companies and things that you do.
[:[00:39:58] Kevin: [00:39:58] Sure. Um, and I [00:40:00] think part of this is you, you learn yourself and I have a little bit of the advantage of being able to look back and say, okay, um, what did you do?
[:[00:40:30] And you have to like sit back and say, okay, if I'm going to say yes, I know I'm going to commit myself and I'm going to do really a great job. So before I do that, is this. Something that really is meaningful and going to make a difference because you're going to sacrifice something else. And if you are so worth the sacrifice, so saying no is okay.
[:[00:41:12] It's like, I'm very like laser that this is our time and I don't want to be with anybody else nor do I want to share with anyone else. And it's the same with our daughter, Bella, you know, when I'm with her, I went, uh, it's a little things like every night when she finished his practice, I want to go and pick her up.
[:[00:41:50] You don't need to have a conversation and take somebody calls you up and, Oh, I've got to take this. And it's like, no, you don't not. If the, if the time was meant to be with your family,
[:[00:42:12] So that irresistible factor that pulls you in that as a leader, it just, you know, people are just drawn to you. And they feel safe and you're able to fully unlock all of their potential. That's the gravitas factor. What is that gravitas factor for you?
[:[00:42:35] It's like, I think it's being genuine. It's like really being vulnerable to people. I mean, I don't have a problem letting people know I'm I don't have all the answers. I really don't. Uh, I don't have a problem letting people know that I really care about them and them as an individual. Uh, I don't have a problem saying I made a mistake.
[:[00:43:18] And he shared that with a CNO and he's told us, like, he's worried, you know, about a family member. And at the same time, he's the first one to say, how are you doing? Is your, are you okay? And, uh, I think paying, paying that kind of attention, you know, and, and people gravitate, they, yeah. They feel they can trust you.
[:[00:43:54] Jan: [00:43:54] great. And what's your legacy?
[:[00:44:30] I'm a better executive. I'm just a better person because I had the opportunity to have him as a friend and as a mentor in my life.
[:[00:44:44] Kevin:Thank you, Jan.
[:[00:44:59] Visit us at gravitas, detroit.com to find out more. .
