Find out how leadership development played a starring role in successfully growing a small company of fewer than 10 into a team of 70 and, ultimately, seeing Zarbee’s Naturals acquired by Johnson & Johnson.
In Episode 6 of the Being Human is Good For Business Podcast, we welcome our first ever guest, Bret Furio, who took Zarbee’s Naturals from a small start-up to being acquired by one of the world’s largest corporations.
We discuss how leadership development played a starring role in successfully growing a small company of fewer than 10 into a team of 70 and, ultimately, seeing Zarbee’s Naturals acquired by Johnson & Johnson.
Bret credits the use of the Enneagram framework as a key driver of the company’s success. The Enneagram comprises nine distinct personality Types and it helps leaders become more self-aware and access the full potential of their teams.
He explains, “The Enneagram helped us to come together as a team. We became a real tight working unit! I am very passionate about the tool with respect to self-awareness, generous listening, granting trust, all these things that you get with the Enneagram. It’s critical to building collaborative, trusting relationships that are required to build a successful business.”
Trilogy Effect Managing Partner Heather Marasse says, “What was interesting about the work we did with Bret at Zarbee's was coming in when the company was so new. It was at an early stage. The team was running fast, but it was nimble and could pivot when needed. Bret knew that when you help your people grow as individuals, they will grow your business.”
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Voice Over: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Being human is Good for Business podcast. In each episode, the leadership development experts at Trilogy Effect explore how the process of self-discovery unleashes potential in us all. Now here's your host Sherrilynne Starkie.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:00:17] Hello on your host. Sherrilynne Starkie. Welcome to the Being Human is Good for Business Podcast.
And today I am joined by Heather Marasse, the managing partner of Trilogy Effect, the leadership development experts. Good morning, Heather.
Heather Marasse: [00:00:31] Good morning.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:00:33] And today is an exciting day. We're welcoming our first ever guest to the show. Bret Furio who is the CEO of Canidae, a leading pet food company.
Welcome to the show, Bret.
Bret Furio: [00:00:42] Thank you happy to be here.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:00:44] So we've invited Bret today to talk about the role that leadership development training played in his former job when he was CEO of Zarbee's naturals. This is a company that he grew from being a small company of less than 10 people to a broad team of more than 70.
And ultimately Zarbee's was acquired by one of the world's largest corporations, right?
Bret Furio: [00:01:04] That's correct., J and J, Johnson and Johnson acquired us in late 2018.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:01:10] Okay, so, well with no further ado, let's get into the crux of the interview. Bret, can you tell me about your first introduction to leadership coaching?
Bret Furio: [00:01:22] Yeah, well I will date myself, but probably goes back to 2006 or 2000, but 2004, was that July.And I was, at the time, vice president of sales and, I was having a pretty good career run, at the time I was feeling pretty good about my mojo and feeling confident. And I, at the time was at Phillips. Being a very sales base company. you got titles as you grew up your business. So, the Oral B business or B Braun, which was, I was part of that division. We had just hit a big milestone over a billion dollars in sales and as a result, most of us, directors where we become vice president. That was going to be a big you've arrived type moment. Very exciting, because as you can imagine at a company like Phillips, when you hit VP, there's more cash and prizes and all the other good things that come with that. And right before that moment, I was brought into an office and told that, actually I was being moved laterally to be a director of marketing for the broad business and specifically responsible for the Tassimo business, which was a partnership with Kraft. I didn't take that very well. I was devastated to be perfectly honest with you. I think, in hindsight, there are a lot of tears. I felt like I'd failed. I didn't see it. for what it was, which was a great gift to be developed. It's cross functionally, and I got to go learn the marketing function.
I was devastated and I was very fortunate. one of the heads, the head of the global business unit, Bruce Cleverly. took some pity on me and said, you are good. But you're not all that. And we're going to get you a coach and, that was my first introduction to the Enneagram. I did a 360, I took a bunch of tests and I think if I had to describe that entire process, he words that would come would be humbling. Extremely, extremely humbling. From how I thought I was projecting myself and how I saw myself and how I was perceived that's was my first introduction.
So, it was like a cold ton of water being dropped on me all at once from multiple levels, both from a professional and from, I think a person personal level.And as an Enneagram Type 3, we are all about achievement. So, everything was working against me now. And I think, when I remember clearly, I went home after getting that news in the middle of the day. And I talked to my wife and she said, well, you can do one of two things. You can accept and embrace the feedback, or you could say everyone else is wrong and you can quit and go do something else. It was the crossroads that I faced.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:04:37] Okay. So that was your aha moment?
Bret Furio: [00:04:39] It was an aha moment. That was probably the most significant moment in my career.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:04:47] So that's when you started working with coach then? Y
Bret Furio: [00:04:50] Yeah, that's where I started working and started learning about, what type I was. And it was part of also this, like I mentioned, the 360-degree assessment, which went to my peers and went to people that worked for me. Well, it's people that I worked for was very broad. I want to say over 22 people filled out this long, long, long survey. Getting the results back was really humbling.
I mean, certainly there were some nice nuggets in there of nice words and compliments, but as an Enneagram 3, you really focus on the not so nice stuff. A quite healthy dose of that in terms of micro manager, doesn't listen. Well, not very patient, only cares about results. Doesn't care about people. And I mean, there's just a whole host of good data in there.
I think my wife said it well. This is a gift. The fact that all these people took their time to really give you really good feedback, even though it didn’t feel great. It's awesome with the intention of…. you could address this stuff.
How could you reach your full potential? And, at the time I knew I trusted him, Bruce, who had gifted me this work. I trusted my boss, which was Fred Howard and, moving to me to marketing, which at the time.Even though I wasn't getting the promotion, I thought I, so well-deserved was a blessing because I learned the marketing discipline very well at a much more intimate way, gave me a chance to work on a very, very different type of projects.
So in hindsight, it's real easy to say, like that was the best thing that ever happened in the moment I was felt like I was stumbling in the dark and it was a little bit unsure, is this really what I should be doing? And it was very, very, very uncomfortable. And I think that's what you learn. Is that growth comes from when you're being uncomfortable. And I think, being able to get my head around that, in that moment to just soak it in, embrace it, take the feedback, listen, and really process. I think that was, that was a good year of work and again, not that I'm I've arrived.
I absolutely have it, but that was certainly the beginning of my training camp.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:07:09] Okay, Heather, would you say that's a typical situation for people that are new to this leadership development work?
Heather Marasse: [00:07:19] It is one. There's a lot of different ways people come into development, but I think what Bret describes is a very typical tipping point that most people reaching their career.
Which we call it and it usually hits, I don't know how old you were at the time and you don't have to say, but it usually hits sometime around 35 to 40.
It hit me too. And you come up against everything I was doing that got me to here is no longer what I need to focus on to get me to where I think I'm going. And it's interesting the way your wife, Dawn, the hard coaching she gave you in the moment because it's very accurate and you can either take it for the gift that it is as painful as it is.
And start to remember, let go of your identity. Shed some of that stuff that you think is making you so successful and start expanding who you are. By listening and taking the feedback and by being willing to be uncomfortable and growing. So that that's, in some ways that's, that's the harder job.
That's the harder road to take. The easier one in the short term is to say, forget that. Forget them. They're all idiots. And I quit. I'm going to go somewhere else. That feels easier in the moment. What happens is then you come up against you again and again, and again, eventually, if you don't take yourself on and develop, you become that person that I remember.
I said in my, earlier in my career, I'd never want to be that hardened defeated. Cynical. Burned out. I want to be a warrior, but I'd rather get there with a little more grace,
Bret Furio: [00:09:12] And that really resonated with me is that the real tough truth to really come to terms was everything that I had done up to that point was not going to get me to the next level, and to really accept that. You've gotten results. But now it's going to be, how do you bring people along with you? And that was a real pivot for me, in terms of how to lead, because it was, you start managing managers and managers who are managing other managers.
You need a different skill set. And as I started to think of my own development, and Heather's pretty familiar with this old cartoon from Calvin and Hobbes, but I do my work, not for me, but for you. And when I started to think about my development to also develop others and other leaders, that they can also get results through others. It started to paradigm shift for the entire way I was thinking about my career, which changed a lot. There's no way I'm sitting where I am today if I didn't have that moment. And, and of course, for anybody that goes through it, you must embrace it and then you must do the work because you don't change your behavior overnight.
And it takes a long time and I'm still working on it. I step into it every day. That big battle is just to be self-aware of how you land, and to be able to catch yourself, that's, that's a gift that keeps giving over and over and over.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:10:50] Okay, so let's move on to life at Zarbee's Naturals. Can you tell us a little bit about the situation the company was facing before you brought in this concept of leadership coaching with your team?
Bret Furio: [00:11:02] Sure. Yeah. So very small company at the time around 10 million. I was leaving a big company at Phillips, I was running a P & L of about $5.8 billion 4,500 employees, global role, and there's little company Zarbee’s came across. It caught my eye for several reasons. One, just personally, I was ready to go something else. At Phillips, which was on what it's still, I mean, it's a wonderful company, but I felt that was maintaining a business. This is a chance to really build a business. And it also, I think, presented an opportunity to create a culture that was about us, and not individuals. We do a lot of references at Zarbee's from the very, very beginning with them, a novel from Dan Brown Boys in the Boat. But I just liked that analogy of crew racing. There's no sale, there's no motor. You don't just have to work hard by rowing. It's extremely difficult for it, but you must be in sync with the person in front of you in back of you. So, when I got out to Zarbee’s, the company had basically stalled out. I mean, brilliant idea and concept founded by Zach Zarbuck. They had a couple of nice products and they had a hard-working team.
But they were at this pivot point of saying, how do you get to that next rung in the ladder? So, to speak, because you’re dealing with retailers like CVS and Walgreen's and Walmart and target, which, fortunately I've had a lot of experience with. And the whole idea was how do you bring in different capabilities into the business?
That was one thing you needed. We're CPG type of capabilities. But I think that's on what on the, how as what do we want to, what's our culture, what are our values and how we want to work? And I think the opportunity was you had a lot of people, even as we started to hire in those early years, I got there officially in February of 14. We had hired a bunch of smart, hungry, talented people working hard. And I think what I quickly came to recognize is that we're working hard but imagine a crew boat where we're not in sync. Some of yours are going at different moments and I reached out to Heather and I just said, I think we need to build a team. We needed a common language and a connectivity so that people could come together. I think, despite all the hard work, we just weren't working very efficiently. And I think also when you're working that hard as such a stressful environment, it felt very fragile at the time in the business. Anything that would go wrong, it felt like we got to tip over. So really have this connectivity and say, Hey look, we're in it together. I do my work for you. You do your work for me. How do we going to build this connectivity in the team? How do we take care of one another? And it gives us a common toolbox that we're all leveraging at the same time, which, because of my expense, it was previously with the Enneagram I was a big fan of.
And, we started very small, I think we just started with the management.
Heather Marasse: [00:14:08] Yes, that's right.
Bret Furio: [00:14:09] We wanted to make sure that the management team was on the same page and using the same toolbox. And I can tell you, even for the, some of us had had experience with the Enneagram before and some not, but that was a journey in itself because again, think about what I just described as myself being, I guess, at 36 or 35 years old, the aha moment. We had a few individuals. I was on the team at the time that had never used the Enneagram. And it was "Why do I have to do this? I've never had to do this. And it was all those same doubts that I now could really relate with. And I think what we said was, look, we can't force you to embrace the tool, but that's what we're going to use here. So, if you don't want to embrace it, that's okay. But then you probably aren't going to be here long term. I was very passionate about the tool and respect to self-awareness generous listening, granting trust, all these basic tools that you get with the Enneagram that I think were so critical to building collaborative, trusting relationships so that we can build a business.
Heather Marasse: [00:15:12] What wasinteresting about the work we did with Bret at Zarbee's, cause we'd worked with him and other organizations, but what was interesting, unique, fun and challenging was coming in when the company is so new. That early stage entrepreneurial, a little bit of a cowboy mentality, like we're just here running fast and we're going to do what works and we're nimble.
And we're going to pivot when we need to. It also engenders, a bit of, I'm only going to do what I'm good at, and I'm only going to do what I already know is good. And so, Bret's challenge was what he said. Which is: guys, believe me, this is helpful. You don't need to get on board with it, but it may end up, hindering you and us in the long-term if you don't. And it required him to take a stand for the benefit and the value in addressing your own development, your own growth. As you grow your people, it helps you grow your business. And that's what he kept coming back to repeatedly, as he led that, that business.
And it's one of the reasons why we wanted him to be our first guest speaker, because he really lived and led the journey that proved that point but proved it out with that company.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:16:42] Bret, you started with the senior management team, you said. So, what were the initial impacts that you observed as they were going through their coaching processes?
Bret Furio: [00:16:54] First I put my management team and Heather, I think will smile about this. I put them into three groups. There's the group that said, I love this and want to learn. That's a couple of people. Then we had the group that said, this is like a weird science and I'm not doing this at all. Then we had the group that said, this feels weird, but I'm going to try. There's a wonderful full Tennent, this idea of granting trust. What I told the teams, I said, well, I can tell you about my own personal journey, which I did. And I said, you just got to trust me this works, but you got to give it a chance. Like you must go in very open minded and we’re fortunate in that two-thirds of the group was open-minded and did the journey.And then we have a part of the group that, that didn't. It was okay. And again, it's not right or wrong for what we wanted to build.
And I knew the manager team needed to really come together. So that we could lead because it's difficult to when you get to a performance reviews and all the types of stuff. And we talk about what and the, how, what do you deliver, but how do you get it done your behavior? If you don't buy into, it's not just about the results, because there's maybe other, just like to get the results who cares, but we were equally balancing how you got the results as a critical component.
And we did have one individual leave. Which was OK. He just decided this wasn't for him. He took it as far as he could go, and he didn't want to go. And it is scary. I mean, you must be very vulnerable when you do this work. You must really open your kimono and say, this is stuff I'm not good at which is difficult. We had another individual who had so much success in his career and now is being told you're alienating everybody along the way. But kudos to him. He totally bought in and did really, really hard work. And I don't think people would even recognize him today versus four or five years ago. And then we had a couple of people on the team also that had exposure to the Enneagram in the past. I think they thought they had arrived. Because you never arrive. And I think they felt like, Oh, I know the Enneagram, I know how this works. They know how this goes. They know the language, but in development there's no end. You just hopefully just continue to hone that skill. Over the course of a year, we really came together as a group. And you could see that our conversations were better because you can imagine in a small team, of a startup, there’s just, there's a lot of stress.
There are big moments. It gets tense. You could see the head of strategy with the head of sales, an Enneagram 8 and an Enneagram 5. I mean talk about a combination. At one point I thought they were going to come to blows across the table. It was that contentious. And yet have learned now over the course of the work we did together, like, Hey, how do I really listen?
Cause you're: stop. You're annoying me. You're a five. You're really annoying me with what you're, but how do I really listen and stay in the moment to say, I know he has good intent. He's just asking for questions and let me calm down my eight and stay in the moment and then respond and generous listen. We really came together, and I think if you talk to the rest of the team, they really saw the management team together as a working unit. Very cohesive. And then once we had gotten that to a good spot, we decided that we needed now to push the Enneagram down into the lower levels of the organization. We then went to the directors and then I think, Heather correct me if I'm wrong, but anybody that joins Zarbee's would get typed and get introduced the Enneagram. So as a company, everybody had this common language of what is generous listening. What does it mean to grant trust? What does it mean to have a courageous conversation?
What does my type do and how do I be self-aware when I'm falling through the levels and, Oh, by the way, what are my colleagues’ types? So, I know when they're falling down the levels, not so that I can judge them, but so I can help them rise back up. It became a very, collaborative. Team in terms of, we're all doing our work.
And I think there's this overall recognition that it's okay if you're not perfect because no one is all have it. We all go up and down the line levels. And just that sense of empathy that we're all going through stuff, and we might have a bad day. I think that was just okay. Calming force even as we were riding through all kinds of business challenges and allowed us to stay the course and ultimately build an incredible business and incredible brand that, we were very fortunate at J &J coveted and, ended up acquiring.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:21:52] You've answered my next question for me, which was what, what were the business benefits that Zarbee's realized?
Bret Furio: [00:21:59] Overall, we never, would've gotten to the highs that we achieved with Zarbee's without the Enneagram work and the work that Heather and Mary Beth and Wendy brought to the team. Because there's so many decisions that are made on that journey, and you must live with those decisions. And my sense is we made much better decisions. In the moment because of the work and the tools we had in our toolbox. I'm not saying we wouldn't have been a success at all. I'm just saying our success came with a lot less pain. I think we made better decisions.
They are much more collaborative. And if you could think about it put a bunch of different functions around a table. Everybody, these are super smart people, that all have lots of opinions. Being able to lean in and really respect others. It is, and listen, and end up with the best answer for the business.
And for the team happened way more often because of the tools we had. So, I think there's a direct business benefit. And I think that's one of the things Heather and I always talked about because we had several sessions. We had two or three, maybe more sessions. We closed the accompany for a day to bring everyone together to do these workshops. And what I always loved, what we did with Trilogy Effect is that it was, we don't do the Enneagram and all this we're, we're not psychiatrists, we're not therapist. That's not our work. Our work is to help you on your personal development because that will have a business benefit.
So, it was always through the lens of what's the impact on the business. We had two sessions or so in Salt Lake with a whole company and a couple of sessions in Greenwich. Everyone loved those sessions. We could have probably gone many, many more days, but, in those sessions, what we ended up doing is how now you've got these tools in our toolbox.
Now let's go tackle real business issues. And so, let's put innovation in the same room as marketing and the big ugly topic on the table that we can't get alignment on and let's use our Enneagram to solve that. And those are the types of sessions that we, I think really benefited us because we were able to solve critical business questions that allowed us to move forward. So, there's no doubt that, the Enneagram helped us achieve great business results. And what's interesting, most of that team now has moved on. But the number of letters I got thanking me for being introduced to Heather and the team and for all the work they've done, is amazing.
And I think they all. In their own way, continue to practice with it. Some probably still reach out to Heather and the team, I assume. But even beyond that, I think there's just being more self-aware as part of your own personal journey. And I think everyone's better off for having been exposed to it. And I’m proud. They're all doing other bigger and better jobs, which also is really gratifying for me, cause that's part of it. And we always said at Zarbee’s that there's three things we always hoped would happen: One have some fun to make some money and if you're having great business results, everyone should join in on that. And then third, and probably most importantly that you were more developed professionally and personally because of your experience at Zarbee's. So that whenever you wanted to leave Zarbee's, or not, that you were better for it. You could go do a bigger job if you wanted, or do whatever you wanted, because you learn so much during your tenure.
And I think to a person, everyone would check three boxes on that.
Heather Marasse: [00:25:41] If I can just add an underscore....to do that work takes the humility that you talked about, Bret, earlier on in your career, when you encountered the feedback that you got. So, do to take yourself on as an ongoing journey of development and project of development takes some courage. It also requires a fair amount of compassion.
And so, to create a culture that had that, and yet was still hard charging, hard driving. We've got some serious business results that we want. It was almost a paradoxical situation. And yet it worked.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:26:21] You said earlier that you're still doing your work and I'm wondering we talked a little bit before we began recording today about, leading a team and the time of COVID from virtual offices and distributed workforces. Do you find that the Enneagram work that you've done is helping you as a leader through these trying times?
Bret Furio: [00:26:45] Yeah, I would say yes. I would say that, as we mentioned, I think what we're all dying for is connection. That was the beauty of the work we did at Zarbee's was that we had this like our own special language that connected us all. If everybody's practicing, generous listening, if everybody's practicing granting trust, if everyone is practicing empathy, if everybody is doing these things, things, that's not something you just said, you get when you're out in the wilderness. So, I think that in what's difficult today and the team I'm leading today is, we haven't been able to do a lot of this work. First, because we just started, and then we've been in lockdown. So, I think what people are really missing is the connectivity. One of the things that we've been working on is just consistent town halls at least once a month.I like to write, so I try to put out a monthly letter and. The letters are much more about being empathetic to everyone's situation being vulnerable. And let's just put it on the table, all this stuff that we're dealing with. I mean, if it's, COVID, that's a huge topic and it's Black Lives Matter that's a huge topic. These are things that people are really wrestling with that are creating stress and ambiguity and people don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
And a lot of worry. And I think one of the things that. Why can't fix everyone's problems as a leader, what we can do is we can have conversations about it, and we can acknowledge it. And I think we could try to place ourselves in other people's situations. I mean, if you're a working mom right now and your husband works too, you don't know if your kids are going back to school. You're worried if they are going back to school because they must wear masks and how do I get my work done? And these are real issues. So, I'm leveraging a lot of what I learned with the Enneagram. Today, but frankly, we need to figure out how do I embed that overall tool into my organization at the right, at the appropriate time, because today, too few of us are familiar with it.
If you don't have the tool, the lack of self-awareness as you start. You might be behaving badly and not even recognizing it. Or how are you showing up with others? And I think the gift, the Enneagram is Hey, I know I'm not behaving well. The good news is I'm working with a lot of the team that I've worked with before and they do other tools.
So at least we're able to call each other out on each other's sh!t. I will tell you that we're having to do that more often now because we're all super stressed, but that has been a nice thing to have. It's been a connecting tissue for us. Beyond it's a little bit more difficult. So, we've been trying to offset that with is just more communication, listening more and, trying to support our organization the best they possibly can. Because everyone's going through thing. We only see what's visible in our world, but a lot of people have personal challenges right now. We had people with COVID, people have sick parents. I mean, there's other things that are going on in people's lives that we tend to, not be aware of. And we need to start asking those questions and seeing how we can support one another because I have a sense that this is going to last quite a while.
Heather Marasse: [00:30:06] Yeah, I do too.
Bret Furio: [00:30:08] At the end of the day, I think people or well-intended in general. And I think we all want the same thing. If I think about my current team, everyone is here because they want to be here. It is freewill employment. And if you really want to be here and some of the messages that we're sharing with the team in terms of, Hey, this is where we want to go and we can't get there without you. I think that's a positive message. And I do think, , while there's a lot, a lot of restrictions right now in terms of being able to come together in a team, we should, I think there's a lot of opportunities here to learn.
As I mentioned before, we even got on a call I was always got to be in the office guy, got to be in the office, out of the office. And I will be honest. This has said to me, you know what? While this isn't ideal either because we went from, from one side, all in the office to now we're all at home, there's a, there's a real, I think solution in the middle. It says, especially for working parents is you can get a lot of work done and be effective working from home. More often. So, my sense is the positive is I think we're learning a lot through this. It's a gift that I think as we apply these lessons, when things do open up and hopefully there is a vaccine that we'll be able to apply these learnings and be a more generous employer in terms of work life balance, flexible type of work arrangements so that people can find what works best for them while still contributing greatly. At the end of the day, we are a performance-based organization. I'd never say otherwise. I mean, that's where in private equity, that's what we do.
That said, if the employees love who they work for, and they feel they're really, really supported, my experience has always been that they'll give you more than what you're asking for.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:31:58] Bret, thanks so much for coming on the show and Heather, thanks for joining us today. And we also want to thank all of you, our listeners out there.
Please see the show notes for links to some of the news and resources that we discussed today on the show. And please subscribe to the show and tell your friends about us and review us. Wherever you get your podcasts, whether that's on iTunes or iHeart radio. Recently, we've joined that the new Amazon podcast platform.
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