Exploring Values Based Leadership
Betsey Fortlouis, CFBA
Director of Partnerships & Development, InnerWill Leadership Institute
Contact Info:
LinkedIn
betsey.fortlouis@innerwill.org
Betsey has dedicated over 20 years of her career to helping organizations achieve their missions through strategic communications, capacity building, and revenue generation. She is passionate about relationship building and fostering connections with family businesses and families to drive impact through Values Based Leadership. Betsey has received the FFI Certificate in Family Business Advising.
Betsey leads with her core values of generosity, relationships, responsibility, loyalty, and creativity. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her husband and daughter where they enjoy exploring the outdoors together and have an egregious open-door policy for any furry, feathered, and even the occasional scaly creature.
ABOUT INNERWILL
Born out of Luck Companies, InnerWillLeadership Institute was founded to teach other leaders how to build values-based organizations which ignite the potential in people. After an 85-year history as a successful business, President and CEO Charlie Luck IV realized that the business had so much more potential if alignment and collaboration of senior management could be improved. This led to a Values Based Leadership (VBL) journey—for his family and for the workplace. Ultimately, the Values Based Leadership principles and practices were shared with every employee at Luck Companies and every Luck family member. As a result, Luck Companies is the largest family-held and family-run aggregate business in the country, ranks in the top most engaged places to work in the US, and is a thriving organization built for the future.
The impact to Luck Companies, and to the individuals touched and transformed by the VBL journey, inspired the launch of InnerWill. Leadership is a choice, not a title –a conscious choice to work first on yourself to in turn positively impact the lives of those around you. Developing self-awareness takes tenacity and grit, while standing up for your core values take courage. We reflected on our definition of leadership and the strength needed to achieve it and chose the name InnerWill. Today, InnerWill teaches the necessary skills to strengthen leadership capabilities and drive results through the practice of VBL. As a 501 c3 nonprofit, we invest in the organizations and people that we serve through customized solutions built to ensure positive and measurable impacts.
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning Podcast. My name is Dr. Kirby Rosplock, and today we're talking values-based leadership with Betsey Fort-Lewis, and she is from the Innerwill Leadership Institute. So I'm thrilled to have Betsey here today to talk about this incredibly important topic that honestly can move the needle for many individuals and families as they're facing some of life's toughest challenges. So welcome, Betsey.
Betsey Fortlouis
Thank you so much, Kirby. It's a delight to be here.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, I need to know more. I am so curious to know how did the Innerwill Leadership Institute get founded and started? What's the history with the Luck companies? And, and where did you fit into this whole mix?
Betsey Fortlouis
Absolutely. So I will start with, uh, the Luck journey, and then I'll tell you about my journey, if that makes sense. So Innerwill Leadership Institute is a 501 nonprofit. We exist really to teach other leaders how to build values-based organizations which ignite the potential in people, um, values-based families and individuals. Luck Companies, on the other hand, is this country's oldest and largest aggregate company. So many people ask How in the heck did you go from taking big rocks and crushing them into little rocks and now you're doing like leadership stuff? Like, how do those two things connect? And the story, as it has been told to me, is after about an 85-year history as a very successful business, the current president and CEO, Charlie Luck, was coming in as the new CEO from his father, Charles III. And he came into the business at a time where things were growing very rapidly. You know, on paper, they were doing all the right things. It was a super exciting time for them. But he realized pretty quickly, you know, you start hearing things by the water cooler or walking from a meeting that, hey, this isn't the same company that it was when your dad was running it.
Betsey Fortlouis
You know, something's wrong. Culture's changing. People care more about, you know, signing the new deal than they do about, you know, having that contact and kind of developing the relationships. And as the saying goes, you know, you'd be in one meeting with, with a group of individuals, agree on something, and by the time you got back to the desk, you know, you're like pulling knives out of your back.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
Betsey Fortlouis
And so he recognized this pretty quickly and said, what am I gonna do? How are we gonna fix this? And He was, um, I don't remember who had given him the name of this person, but somebody said, hey, you know, they're doing this thing down in San Antonio. There is a company called Holtz. They are a family that owns the largest Caterpillar dealer in the country. They also own the San Antonio Spurs, and they're doing this thing called values-based leadership. So maybe give them a call and, and see, see what they're doing down there, check it out. And so we brought up a consultant, as we do, right? And the consultant comes up from Texas. Luck Companies is based in Richmond, Virginia. He's wearing a big old cowboy hat. So all hat, no cattle. He comes in, he says, I want you to get all of your top executives in a boardroom, shut the door. Charlie's like, got it. He pulls out notepads, he gives everybody a pen. There's a group of highly competitive executives around a room and he says, I'm going to put on my stopwatch for 5 minutes and I want you to write as many things as you can that are wrong about this company.
Betsey Fortlouis
Go. So people are like, I'm going to win, I'm going to win, I'm going to write, just filling up the whole sheets. And after 5 minutes he says, stop. And he pulls out a $20 bill and he says, I've got $20 for whoever wrote me on their list. And so it was that first aha moment for Charlie where he was like, oh, if I want this company to change and I want the people in this company to change, I need to change. But Charlie really, really, really took it to heart. And so for him, that was really kind of the beginning of what I would call the values-based journey, not just for him, but for the workplace and then for his family. And ultimately, these values-based leadership principles and practices were shared with every single employee at Luck Companies and every single Luck family member. And people started taking note. So clients would ask, you know, our customers would ask, like, what's in the water cooler over there? Like, why are people so happy? Like, what's, what's going on? Why is your salespeople so wonderful to work with? Like, What's happening? And so around, must have been around 2008, as we all recall, it was a very blessed time where there was a thing called a huge recession.
Betsey Fortlouis
And for the first time in the company's history, they had to do a reduction in forces. It was really, really difficult.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
Betsey Fortlouis
And around that same time, Charlie actually got quite ill. And was spending, you know, 23 out of 24 hours a day in bed and grappling with those questions. Like, why do I exist? Do I exist to crush rock? Do I exist to be a good dad? You know, why am I here? What is my purpose? And he came out of it, thank goodness, um, and recognized, like, we gotta exist to do more than just crush rock. We have to. So, you know, they changed their mission— this is an aggregate company— to We're going to ignite the potential in people. Igniting human potential. And what's something else that we could do well besides Crush Rock? And so we kind of put it out to the employees and associates and they said, well, maybe we should do this values-based leadership thing, like people are asking us to do it. So he said, great, go do it. Well, as a business, as you can imagine, It was not a very successful business strategy. And so around 2013, 2014, they recognized that they were going to have Innerwill exist kind of as part of the family's philanthropy. So they have a foundation, and then we've got our 501 nonprofit that exists to develop better people, braver leaders, and a wiser world.
Betsey Fortlouis
And we do that through values-based leadership. My backing into this wonderful organization, my history really has been after I graduated, I'm from North Carolina, and a recruiter called me and said, would you be interested in a job around values-based leadership? And I said, huh, that sounds really, really interesting. Let me think about it. And called all my friends in Richmond and said, hey, do you all know anything about Innerwill? No, we've never heard of it. It sounds like a cult. I said, all right, call the recruiter back up. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Like, I really need to be in a— you know, for me, it's really important that the organizations I support and work with aren't a flash in the frying pan, that there's a commitment to really do this work. It takes a lot of grit and time and effort to to kind of move nonprofits to a place of impact. And so I want to know that this is, this is a real thing. And he said, okay. And so he then he called me back and he said, so I was wrong. Like, there's this family called Luck, Luck Companies, and the Luks are behind this.
Betsey Fortlouis
And I actually knew the Luks because they are a very philanthropic family. And I said, okay, I'm interested. I'm listening now. And really from there, you know, I had the opportunity to come and meet Charlie and to meet Wanda Ortwein, who, you know, the chief family officer, and Tom Epperson, who is the president now of Innerwill, and other team members. And it was just like an immediate, like, this is where I need to be, like, this is where I want to be. I believe deeply in kind of the strength of people who are truly authentic and dedicated to a mission and, and kind of casting a wide net. So I have always thought about nonprofits as like, they should be for everybody and they shouldn't be kind of polarizing. And so this was something where I was like, well, everybody needs this. Like, this could never be a flash in the frying pan. Who doesn't need this work? Everybody can— has the potential to lead better and has the opportunity to lead better. So, I came into the business, funny enough, as a fundraiser and quickly recognized that we were not gonna fundraise. So my work there really is around developing impactful partnerships with the communities, organizations, associations, and families that we work with.
Betsey Fortlouis
And then the privilege of getting to do some of that work myself and facilitating and advising.
Kirby Rosplock
That's fantastic, Betsey. Maybe tell us a little bit more. I mean, what is values-based leadership work and what does that mean to the, I mean, who finds you and tell us more about sort of what you do and unpacking sort of leadership potential.
Betsey Fortlouis
Often when people come to us, it's what you've heard a million times. We're so dysfunctional and a mess and you'll never be able to fix us and da da da da da. And we always like to just kind of say, Like, even the healthiest organizations and people are dysfunctional. So we have seen it all. And we always like to say, from another client we had, he had a quote where he said, 'You don't have to be bad to be better,' right? So there's always an opportunity to be better as long as people are committed and aligned on that goal. That's all we need. And so when we are working with Organizations, we kind of have 3 frameworks. So we have the values-based leadership for self, we have it for families, and we have it for kind of the enterprise or the business. And so we know that our values are central to our effectiveness as leaders, right? And so when we talk about values-based leadership, we define it as choosing to live, work, and lead in alignment with our own core values to ignite the potential in others by helping them do the same. And one of our advising founding board members that many people know named Jim Kuzisk, who kind of wrote the book on values, um, has really proven that when we act on our values, we feel less anxiety, we have more security, we perform better, we're more confident in our decisions, um, we experience less conflict because others know what to expect from us in our behavior because it's more consistent, right?
Betsey Fortlouis
And so more often than not, we kind of show up as the best version of ourselves. And to kind of bring it back to Charlie, he has a quote, he kind of puts it this way, um, which I'm gonna read because I'm gonna otherwise misquote him, um, that his purpose in life is to help people reach their wildest dreams Everyone has dreams and aspirations, but we all need other people to get there. If I can manage the 8-pound monster on my shoulders, choose to be more understanding and compassionate and a little less relentlessly driven, then I can focus on helping others figure out what they need to reach their dreams. But that means I have to work on myself first. So again, starts with us. We believe that leadership is a choice. It is not a title. Does not matter if you are the CEO of a company or the patriarch or the matriarch, these old terms, or you're just born, right? Your leadership journey has started. And so our work is really born from that foundational level that with families, with common values that that culminates in a shared vision and that unifies and excites the family across branches, across generations.
Betsey Fortlouis
And they exist behind kind of financial desires, right? Um, and what's really important about that is families are messy, like organizations. They are made up of people. We all have individual values. We have our individual personality styles. And we have our individual needs and desires, and sometimes that can run counter to kind of the collective goals, right? And so in the long run, being able to come together and align around something like values allows kind of a sense of commitment and responsibility. And for us, it kind of serves as a compass.
Kirby Rosplock
So tell me, Betsey, when do individuals, family members, organizations have this aha, like, oh, I need to start doing this work? I would imagine there's probably triggers, right? Certain major events or things happening where this kind of work becomes obvious that we need to figure this out. Can you give me some examples or tell me some stories of when you're brought in?
Betsey Fortlouis
Sure. So no surprise here, transitioning a business, right? So we all know it's one of the greatest challenges facing family business, right? It's succession planning. And you are now dealing with alignment between the business, the owners, and the family. And we are all very familiar with that three-circle model. Everybody might have the same goal, they want to transition the business. However, there are once again different needs, goals, and visions are not aligned, you name it, right? So conflict is inevitable. And really, this conflict is what prevents this goal of succession from being achieved. And so for the most part, many organ— many Families who come to us or businesses come to us, this is not their first rodeo. They have been doing this for years, either as a family and just arguing about it, like, when are we going to bring in somebody from the outside? Or they've been working with somebody from the outside, but they have not actually done the work, which seems really simple. And we make it really simple, right? Like, when you look at some of the things that we're talking about, we want it to be practical. Inaccessible. So, you know, be clear on your blind spots and your strengths and weaknesses.
Betsey Fortlouis
Ask for feedback. Um, give feedback. It's a lot harder in practice than it is when you're just like, oh, that's an easy concept. And so really, when people come to us, it is because they are at a place where either they've tried a lot of things and nothing's working, or they are just— they're aware that they need a facilitator to help manage kind of all the differing kind of what we call lack of alignment, right? Lack of a shared vision, lack of a shared purpose. And what we are not, we are not financial advisors and we are not lawyers. Um, we will gladly bring in our friends who are, but I think we really focus just on the people part of it. Right. And so we really feel like if you can have high trust, transparent communication, and align around kind of a shared vision. And then be really, really clear around how your own personal core values then align with kind of the family values or the business values that is going to help navigate those decisions. We use them as a lens, right? So if we are working with a family and they are having to decide, they have a piece of real estate and they're trying to figure out, should we sell it?
Betsey Fortlouis
Should we develop it? Like, what should we do with it? Often we will say, use your values as a lens, right? Like what? When you're having these family conversations and for some families they get it really quickly and for some families it takes a while. But, you know, we had a family that came to us and said, we're a mess. We're never going to get this done. It was actually the spouses that came to us who, you know, wanted to start a family council. We'll never be able to get through all the conflict. People, there's a rift, blah, blah, blah. And I mean, like, they are killing it now. We are basically, I think all we're really doing is helping their family retreats, right? And then like being here as advisors. So it really is, again, not a magic bullet, but it is a tool that when used consistently, effectively, you gotta use it, right? You gotta talk about the values. You need to put them in act.
Kirby Rosplock
And do you find that maybe there's like one family member or one leader in an organization that finds you and wants to try this out on themselves first before they're introducing it more broadly? Or how— I mean, when's a good time, or when do you see people start to lean in and find you and say, I get the value of values, like, let's, let's get this going.
Betsey Fortlouis
Yep. Often, um, they hear about it. Maybe they've, they've, they've heard about— they've heard a speaker, they've heard about a book, or they've seen, you know, they've just seen it, right? And it will— it might be one person who says, this makes a lot of sense to me. Like, I, I'm done with the kind of hamster wheel of either we're gonna brush things underneath the rug or we're gonna scream about it and we're never gonna get anywhere. And, you know, this isn't— it's usually, you know, somewhere in the now generation, I would say. Sometimes it's a next gen, but often, like, it's somebody in now gen who has some influence. Um, and the way that we partner with folks is we will say, well, let's start with discovery, right? We're going to do a lot of discovery, and what that's going to mean is that we're going to want to interview you, and then we're going to want to interview any of the people that are— it's going to be important that they're a part of this work, right? So, hey, if they say you're not going to be able to interview these people, then we might say might not be the right time.
Betsey Fortlouis
Happy to work with you one-on-one But if your family isn't, we cannot want it more than they can. That's our thing, right? We can never want it more than they can. Yeah. So our first step really is taking some time. And this is really part of our process. It is not something that we charge for because we believe in the impact and actually adding value where we spend time with the individuals who are really kind of going to be the key stakeholders in this work. And we try and we ask them questions, right? And then afterwards we kind of put a report together and say, here's what we heard. This is where you're super aligned and maybe here are the opportunities for you kind of to collectively work on. And we present it to them. And if we hear in that interview process that, wow, like there's a couple key stakeholders that I don't know if we can get them there, we might say, Maybe you need to go back and work on this. We don't recommend investing the time, energy, and resources in this work right now because you're gonna end back up at where you are right now if people are unwilling to commit to coming and doing this work.
Betsey Fortlouis
You know, we might be facilitating a half-day session, then you all need to go and actually do the work over the next several weeks, right? Like, we're not doing that for you. And so I think, you know, it typically ends up that we, we move forward, but we are not right for everybody. I recently was with a family and the CEO, the current CEO who was trying to transition out of the business, said point blank that she didn't care if the family fought and had conflict. That wasn't important to her. She just wanted to get out of the business. And so we said, well, we completely respect that. You are not going to appreciate our process then. This is not going to be good for you.
Kirby Rosplock
So it sounds like in addition to the values-based leadership work, this kind of comes at through the back door of conflict management and also helping families appreciate, see differences, but realize that they've got to figure out how to work with it, manage it, or align the differences so that you can compartmentalize. Do you ever see families who go through this process and actually really come to terms with maybe they're, maybe a healthy, amicable split isn't a bad thing, that, hey, listen, we've grown apart, we're not really on the same page, and we can get through this and be okay.
Betsey Fortlouis
Absolutely. And we have seen families, like, what we call— something that we practice is, um, disagreeing well, which you really can't get to until you are highly aware, again, of your values, right? Because they are so tightly enmeshed with our emotions. Um, Kirby, I could ask you, like, think back to the last time you experienced a strong emotion. Right? What was it? Thanksgiving. Yeah. Was it happiness? Was it sadness? Was it joy? Was it anger? Like, what was it?
Kirby Rosplock
That emotion was gratitude. I was feeling really thankful. Just, I was hosting it and having my family and extended family. So, you know, the pandemic has put family at a very high place for me.
Betsey Fortlouis
Yeah. So chances are if you pull back the covers there, You'll find one of your values at the heart of it, right? You probably really value family, right? Or relationships. Yeah. So when we think about that, um, and when we think about the conflicts that we get in, um, we really have to think about the emotions we're experiencing, right? So it, because it typically does, and often with families or anyone, but especially with families, Um, we see it, we take things so personally, right? But that might not be the case. So for example, we have a family that we work with where, you know, one of the family members really values hard work and the other one really adventures, like fun and adventure. He loves to go out and ski and hike and do all these things. And they had him on the board of, of, of the, the business and kind of— he came to it and said, like, I don't think this is where I need to be. Like, I'm fine to step off this board. Like, I'm not adding value. I'm, I'm not feeling like this is something that I need to do.
Betsey Fortlouis
And they, they came to it on their own. Um, other organizations that, you know, or families that we work with where, um, there may have been a rift because of the business, and so that caused the family member to not want to come to Thanksgivings or holidays or events, which was really painful, right? But through this work, being able to understand kind of what we call disagreeing well, they are now able to come to these really precious family events and not talk about the business and not get wrapped up in that piece of it. And that's really what this is about, right? It's about the longevity of the family. It's, you know, who knows what the world's going to be like in 100 years.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like this also becomes like a portal or an opening to have much more generative and healthy discussions and dialog. And it can also help maybe break down hurdles and barriers that become sort of conditioned, right? We kind of like, ooh, can't go there. Don't talk about that. Oh, I'm avoiding like seeing this person or this topic because we always sort of come at odds or have strife around it. So it sounds like, you know, this can also do a lot to mend fences or potentially at least start to understand, you know, we don't have the same values to connect on XYZ issues. So that's okay. Like I can very much have a different opinion, respect yours. But not feel like we have to be aligned, right, on all things.
Betsey Fortlouis
It's like we are not trying to make cookie cutter copies of people where we all act and do the same thing. Like, there is so much strength in our individuality and kind of the sum of our parts, right? And so if we're all kind of just conditioned to be the same, that's not how innovation happens, that's not how growth happens, that's not how impact happens, but having that kind of framework of, as a family, we can come together around these things. And it's okay that, you know, I like football and you like opera, and we can still have a really good time together.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Yeah. So powerful. So inspiring. So exciting. Thank you so much for inspiring. I think so many folks know they want to start somewhere, but they may not know where. And, you know, this is just one tiny little step. I know you mentioned that if they visit innerwill.org, you have additional resources that you think you even mentioned a book that folks can read if they're so inclined to, you know, get going and self-study. And I'm so grateful, Betsey, for just the chance to talk to you today. You're a busy lady, um, inspiring so many individuals, families, and organizations. So it's a real privilege to have you here today on the Tamarind Learning podcast, just scratching the surface of values-based leadership, but knowing what a major difference it can make for individuals, their families, and the organizations they work in. So thank you so much for being here today.
Betsey Fortlouis
Thanks, Kirby. Take care.
