Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
This week on Culture Leaders Daily, we bring you my conversation with Jim McCann, the founder and CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS. This is actually my second conversation with him because the first was on his podcast when he interviewed me, so I was so pleased to turn the tables. Jim is a fascinating person. He’s an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and a leader on a lifelong quest for knowledge. We talked about the lessons he learned turning a flower shop into a multi-billion dollar company, and the lessons he’s learning today as he leads that company’s workforce into the age of ai. He is curious. He’s passionate about experiences and connection. And Jim’s story really is one about connections and relationships. We’re going to talk about efforts to help his employees develop personally and professionally, the community he helped create during the height of the pandemic. And at a few points, he even turns the questions on to me as we puzzle out the future of workplace culture. It’s a fascinating conversation. So please welcome to the podcast, Jim McCann. Jim McCann. The tables have turned. I was on your podcast and now you’re on mine. So

Jim McCann:
All we do is talk to one another. No one else is listening, it’s just you and

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I. That’s right. So let me start by asking what your why

Jim McCann:
My changes keeps on changing. And now my why is changing again. And what I mean is whatever I do I want to build, whether it’s our not-for-profit or it’s our businesses or it’s relationships we have, or it’s other work that I’m doing, I want to do more. I want to do it better. And now the why for me is all of the above, but now I’m thinking multi-generational. How do I a, I want to make sure I live long enough that my grandkids remember me and my wife and I feel that way about together. We feel the same. We want to make a difference in their lives. And it’s not just our grandkids, it’s our nieces and nephews. I come from oldest of five kids, so we have lots of nieces and nephews, and I want to continue to grow even though I’m broken down and old. I think there’s so much more to learn. I’m more curious every day. So my why is to grow, to learn, to become a better person, better me, my best me, and that the bar gets higher all the time. And to do it with a sense of making sure I’m passing it on.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
It’s not every day that I get to interview someone that has built a multi-billion dollar business that’s also a philanthropist, that also is a thought leader that, I mean, you have such a story of your career, but really your life. And so I would love to hear what your why was when you got started. How has it evolved?

Jim McCann:
Well, when we got started, as you know, my career is, I’ve had lots of jobs, but my only two career jobs were first, I was in the social services I worked in and ran a home for teenage boys here in New York City. And then it was the why was, well, if you’re going to have to work and you do, why not make it interesting? I was on my way, I thought to become a policeman in New York City, but I got hooked on my work at St. John’s home for boys. And I kept putting off going to the police academy because I got another promotion that is a little bit more interesting. I knew it wasn’t going to be my long-term career, but in that world, like in politics and a few other spaces, young people can get a disproportionate opportunity if they’re aggressive and if they work hard because a lot of people aren’t attracted to the work because it doesn’t pay very well.
So in politics, you see young people get great opportunities, it pays nothing, and the work is so hard that more seasoned professionals aren’t going to do it. So you’ll get as much as you can handle it, maybe a little more. So the why then was to do something that was interesting and to make a living. And then when I sacheted into the retail floral world, it was to make a living. I married young, we had kids young and I didn’t have the academics or the good educational experience in Toto to get into a big time job in a big brand name company. So my path was by default and by aspiration to be more entrepreneurial, by the way, not a word we used back then. It was a small business. And so I thought that would be my path. My dad was a small businessman, so I worked for him growing up.
He was a contractor, a painting contractor. So I knew the world of small business. So it’s what you’re exposed to. And I was exposed to civil service. I was exposed to small business and civil service like the police department, but not too big business. So my why was to make a living to do well enough that I could build a business and provide for my family. Then it evolved to trying to build the best company I could to be the best florist I could be. So it constantly evolving. And then after you have some degree of success and you’re not worried about the basics, putting food on the table, paying for education, then you can dream a little bit bigger about how can make an impact. How can I do things that are more fun and more interesting? How can I get to meet more interesting and smart people that I can learn from? So the Y continues to evolve. It’s nice to have optionality though.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
It’s interesting because when I was talking to Paul on your team about you, and I said, what really moves Jim? He said connections, making connections and experiences too. You were talking about 1-800-FLOWERS and being the best florist you could be, but I’ve always thought that you weren’t really a florist. You were a connection maker and experience creator that it’s so much more than just the flower. It’s the moment that matters.

Jim McCann:
I’ve always realized that my education didn’t come in. Yes, I went to school, I graduated from college. I did a little couple of classes in graduate school, but my education always came from meeting smart people like you and being able to get to know you and learn and look at the world a little bit through your eyes. So I’m a one-on-one learner, and it’s always been about relationships and connection. So even when I was working like an animal in our shops, running our shops, when I didn’t have as much opportunity for connection outside of our world, I still crave those opportunities, whether it was a customer. I remember that in our first flower shop on the Upper East side of New York, Dr. Jessica, that there was one of my best customers, his name was Roberto Akan. And Roberto Akan was the ambassador to the UN from Cuba. And his wife was a lovely lady. He was Fidel Castro’s right hand man, and he lived right around the corner from our flower shop, and he’d entertain a lot, and it is a high rise apartment, and we decorate his apartment. And so we had this little shop and he was an important customer of us, but I remember yearning for those opportunities just to talk to him.

Jim McCann:
Tell

Jim McCann:
Me about Cuba. Tell me about communism. Tell me about Fidel Castro. Tell me about his brother and I mean, I was just thirsty to learn from him. I remember there was a priest, a Catholic priest who was from Indiana. He was one of our early customers, and he was this tall, handsome, thoughtful man. And we got close to him. And in fact, when my first daughter was born, my first child, my daughter was born errand, he christened her. He came out to our home in Queens and Chris, he became close with our family until one day a newspaper outed him as being the head of the CIA in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Jim McCann:
What

Jim McCann:
I mean, who would’ve thunk it?

Jim McCann:
You can’t make this stuff up.

Jim McCann:
You cannot. And he was the most interesting man. And then there was another guy, also a tall, handsome man, and he was very classy. And finally someone says, you know what John does for a living? I said, no. I said, he’s a walker. I said, what do you mean Walker walk dogs? What is he? He lives in this beautiful apartment building a condominium, very expensive apartments. I mean, what does he, A walker was a fellow who was very good at being the arm that someone hung on. So you’d have a very wealthy woman who wanted to go to the ball or the great big fundraiser at the Met or something like that. And he would be the date. Who knew there was such a thing. We didn’t have that in the South Ozone Park Queens. We didn’t have Walkers Walker.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
It’s a PG Gigolo basically.

Jim McCann:
Exactly. Maybe not pg, probably not actually. I dunno. But I thought I grew up in a worldly environment and in a fairly, fairly hard scrabble community in queens of blue collar people, wise guys and policemen and merchants and small businessmen like my dad, plumbers, electricians, stuff like that. But when I got to Manhattan, I realized I lived a million miles away. So I’ve always enjoyed learning from people and meeting new people and hearing their stories.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I had the reverse experience. So I grew up, we didn’t have a lot of money, but my family, my extended family had a lot of money and they took care of us. So my uncle is like a literal billionaire, and he owned a huge building in soho, and he let us live there. I’m pretty sure for free. I don’t know the financials, what my dad and my uncle worked out. So we lived above the Prada and Tommy Hilfiger lived in our building, and so I was surrounded by

Jim McCann:
Of course he did.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah. Yeah, he did. I remember one time I walked my dog, I had a black lab and I hadn’t gotten out of bed all day. I was watching tv. I’m a teenager, I’m wearing my bathrobe. I go walk my dog and here’s Tommy. Hit with some super hold. You’re out of

Jim McCann:
Your teens now?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I’m out of my teens now, actually. I’m in my early twenties, Jen.

Jim McCann:
I didn’t realize you’d gotten that old.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
And so here’s Tommy trying to impress his supermodel girlfriend. I’m sure. And I’m in the elevator with him like, sorry, don’t look

Jim McCann:
Over here. Trying to keep the black lab off him. Yeah,

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Exactly. That’s Versace. Don’t jump on them. Anyway, so I grew up with, and then I went to college in Wisconsin and it’s a totally different, it’s just the down to earth world, Midwest Americans, and they have backyards and they’re nice. And I was like, whoa.

Jim McCann:
You go to school of Madison?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, Madison, go Badgers. Totally different experience. And then now I’m in recovery and all of my friends are former pimps and prostitutes, and so I’m learning more now than ever before about the way the world works.

Jim McCann:
But you had a very, very interesting dad.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Oh yeah, I did have a very interesting dad. That’s for sure.

Jim McCann:
And I think you’re going to be able to tell the world that story that’s going to be,

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Oh man, I’m working so hard on trying to make this documentary. I think the story needs to be told. And so I’ve actually started filming interviews with people. I’m going to France in January and I’m going to film more. So we’re making progress. We’ll leave it surely. Good

Jim McCann:
For you. I can’t wait to see the product knowing this story. I just think the first time I heard it, you just blew my socks off.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I’m going to invite you to the premiere for sure.

Jim McCann:
Good. We’d love to be there.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
So okay. If I’m someone who has worked for Jim for many years, how do I describe you as a leader? How would your team describe you, you think?

Jim McCann:
Well, I don’t know for sure, but I’ll tell you what I hope. I hope they’d say I’m not the easiest person in the world to work for because I expect a lot. I demand a lot. I work hard myself, and I expect the people around me to work hard. I expect them to care, but I want to be our environment. I know they would say is collegial, fun. We like to enjoy ourselves, we like to have a good time, we work hard. But the other part of it that I’m trying to make sure I emphasize as a company now, because I think we’re on the verge. Well, I know we’re on the verge of some major, major disruption, and you and I have chatted about that and you’ve helped shape my view of how that’s going to impact us all. And so I’m of the opinion that it’s going to really impact our people, how we work, what we do, how many people we have.
And I think some people are going to be exited, some people are going to be new people brought on different skills. I want to be sure that I think I’ve done it in the past, but I want to be even more certain in the future that the people who work with us know that we know that there’s going to be disruption. And toward that we are going to be investing in you personally and professionally to help you to be your best self. So what I hope is that when you interview someone who worked for us three years ago or has been with us for 30 years, they’ll say expect a lot. They demand a lot. It’s a hard charging environment, but it’s collegial, it’s cordial, it’s friendly, it’s fun. And they always, always wanted to invest in us. They wanted us to learn new skills.
So we have a program here called Fresh University, and I just an hour ago arranged for a new curriculum on all around AI to make sure everybody, no matter what your role in the company is exposed to, AI has a good sense of how it should change their world personally and professionally, how it should change the job they do, what they do, where they spend their time. And if something happens where we don’t need that role here anymore, that they’re qualified to go someplace else in the company, or if they’re not going to stay with the company, they’re going to go someplace else. They have a better toolkit personally and professionally to bring those skills elsewhere because I think this is going to be the disruption of my lifetime, and it’s going to change so many things so quickly that only those who are prepared are going to benefit.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I want to hear more about that, but I think what you’re doing is demonstrating my TEDx talk was how to get people to give a shit. And the answer ultimately is you have to give a shit about them first. You lead by example. If you feel cared for, you will care more about meeting those high expectations because maybe you expect a lot from them, but you also give a lot. And that’s where the give and take balance gets found, and it’s a win-win for everyone because also what CEO wouldn’t want a team full of people that really care about their jobs. Of course, that’s the alternative is you have a bunch of unengaged people that are totally checked out and they’ve quiet quit, and they’re not really contributing anything. I know

Jim McCann:
You say you see that all the time in your work. You go into a company and I imagine your radar picks up very quickly what the culture feels like. Is it effective? And there’s always more than one culture in the company, right?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah.

Jim McCann:
It might be one culture and finance is another here. Well, the California office is very different from the Florida office is very different from the Georgia office

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
And the executive team culture versus the frontline team culture. I mean, that’s another big differentiator. And I think the hardest work is done by the middle managers because absolutely they have to manage in 10 directions. It’s not just up and down, it’s sideways. It’s that way, that way, that way, that way. And

Jim McCann:
Without the agency to be effective all the time.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Right, exactly. Without the autonomy and the empowerment, so to speak. Okay, so you spent three days with Microsoft learning about AI and the impact on the business. Is that right?

Jim McCann:
Yeah, that was back in June.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah. So what did you learn? You’re talking about this disruption. I would love to hear what you see the AI impact on your business will be tangibly.

Jim McCann:
Well, that was an eyeopener for me. Three days in Redmond, Washington. I’ve been a student of ai and it changes, it’s likely to have longer than that. So let’s say for the last 12, 18 months, but in June, spending three days thinking of nothing else and being able to interact with the leadership of Microsoft over those days to see what I came away with, huh? This is interesting. Everyone was talking about open AI and they had 10, 11, 12 billion invested in open AI at that point. But what I realized was that they weren’t expect it open AI was going to be the be all and end all. It was an LLM that mattered. They were very happy to be partnered with them, to invest it in them, but they thought there would be several LLMs. And that’s proven to be the case. And some would be better at some things, some would be better at other things, but there’d be differences in nuances and they all matter. But what they were focused on is building the picks and shovels that we would use. And what I came away thinking was Microsoft is enormous. 3 billion company was in the process of digitizing Aiy themselves, productizing that and selling it to us.
And so I said, well, so what I realized is if you have a Google and Meta and Salesforce, and of course Microsoft, all these big multibillion trillion dollar companies all sucking up the best AI talent out there that we couldn’t do it on our own. So the real challenge for us was how do we pick the right partners that we had a relationship with that we thought got their part of it, that we could ride their coattails and then do what we could do to implement on their technology platforms and stacks what we could do. So that was transformational for me and to see, wait a minute. So that impacts how we do what we do is how do we mimic Microsoft in our little world? In other words, if we’re using new tools, how do we customize the capabilities we buy from them to impact our world?
And how do we productize that? Someone else could use that. So will there be a downstream revenue stream opportunity for that work product? Don’t just think about doing it ourselves, which of course we are, but how does the work we do ourselves mimic with Microsoft to create another revenue stream opportunity? So the other thing was a very thoughtful guy there asked me this question. He said, Jim, your kids were not born digitally native. I said, no, they’d be young, but they became digital. But your grandkids are born digitally native. Absolutely. And he said, be prepared for the eight eye native company. What do you mean? He said, there’ll be companies that are born in the next three to five years between now, three years from now, and certainly five years from now, that start thinking AI first. So unlike us, they’re not going to have 130, 150 people in the finance department. They’ll have three. They’re not going to have 25 people in the legal department. They’ll have one.
They’re not going to have customer service agents. It’ll all be AI and voice interactivity. And so unlike us with FTE of 5,000 people, they’ll have 250 people. And so gave me another reason to skip sleeping at night because I haven’t been able to since. So the irony is this is one place where you can digitize, you can automate, so to speak. It’s sort of an outmoded term, but how do we use digital products to do what we do better and faster than we do it today serving our customers better? And how do we do that with less human activity, doing it better? And how do we do that in every area of our company? So I just heard the other day, I ran into a guy who, wonderful guy at our conference last week, we did an AI conference through Wirth Media Group last week in Manhattan, and it was called Dichotomy 24. So teon is the name of the conference. It’s all about innovation, and it was all about innovation, and the dominant topic was ai. So I met a fellow during a break who’s a terrific guy, went to the same high school in Brooklyn that I went to, but a hundred years after me. And he’s in charge of working at a creative agency and he’s in charge of ai f Ying, that company. So he knows all the little agencies to work with that he can bring in to change different parts of it.
And when he sat me down and went through what he’s doing to that company, I’m saying, oh my God, we’re not going fast enough and there’s so many tools here that we should be taking advantage of. So I went there thinking, I had a fairly decent grasp how our roadmap, and after a day at TECO 24 put on by Wirth Media Group on East 14th Street next to NYU on Tuesday, I didn’t sleep that night either. And I realized we have to go faster. We have to go faster.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
But isn’t there so much more than just going faster because we have to go faster? Is that frantic energy that can give us sleepless nights, right? I mean, it’s not just you going faster, you got to bring 5,000 people along for the ride. So that’s culture change, that’s adaptability. And that’s really about mindset. So what is your secret sauce to doing that?

Jim McCann:
Working with someone smart like you who understands culture and understands how to get a team to understand that we can’t go sequentially. We’ve identified, let’s call it 20 different projects that we have to digitize. And we had a meeting about a month ago and we said, where are we on this? And he said, well, we got the one big project going, and we’ll finish that up early next year, and then we’ll look at what’s next on the list. And I realized, oh my goodness, we have to go parallel.

Jim McCann:
So the

Jim McCann:
Cultural question I have for you is how do we change how we do things so that all technology is not led by technology,

Jim McCann:
That

Jim McCann:
We empower the managers, empower and charge the leaders of each of those functions that say it’s not up to technology to come fix your department or your function or your area. How do we make available to you a centralized set of tools and knowledge that you can tap into re-engineer yourself? Because we can’t wait for technology to get to you. We have to make it available to you so that you re-engineer your function. And we have to have communications and a culture that embraces risk, embraces change, and breaking eggs because we don’t have the luxury of being sequential.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
That’s exactly what people struggle with is if culture is how people think and act to get results, which is what we define it as,
Leaders are really good at, so good leaders are really good at figuring out what the results are that we need to achieve. You have to digitize, you have to go into the AI world, you have to transform the way the business is being run. And then managers are really good at figuring out how to get people to act according to the result that’s necessary. So we have to do a project, and this project has a result in mind, but the thinking how people think is the part that gets lost is we can’t just transform what people are doing. We got to get a whole new mindset so that this can be parallel. Everyone is thinking about the problem differently and doing it in parallel.

Jim McCann:
So as a coach to some of the great leaders of this country, how would you coach us to say, how do we change what we measure, what goals we set, what rewards we hold out, what we celebrate, what we don’t tolerate? All those rules change now help us.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, so number one, you have to simplify because it can be overwhelming for an employee. I mean, you may have 20 priorities, but that will never become 20 priorities for your employees because also they’re not owners. They don’t have as much incentive to care as you do. So we have to just simplify it so it feels we don’t want them to have sleepless nights. The sleepless nights are for the owners, the sleep.

Jim McCann:
That’s our job.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, that’s your job. And you get the pros and the cons of being the owner, which is you have sleepless nights, but you also benefit from being the owner of the organization. So for the people, we have to simplify. So you have to be selective and prioritize what are the three, you get to pick three things that are the results you’re going to focus on. And it could be digitizing. Usually those three are something around revenue, something around cost, and then something around a project, a transformation project, which in this case would be digitizing. So you get really clear on the goal, and then you have to be explicit. You have to say out loud the part that is usually assumed or implied at work, which is, here’s how we want you to think. We want you to think in the following way. So it’s AI first, or you label and name the way that you want people to think, the mindset that you’re encouraging. And then you and your leaders, mostly your leaders need to reinforce that way of thinking every day, all day long with consistent action of recognizing people who do it, of giving feedback, constructive feedback when people don’t, and evaluating all of the systems within your organization that either encourage or dissuade people from being AI first or whatever. So maybe you have approval processes that are too onerous for people to even innovate, or maybe you have leaders that are not encouraging risk taking because they play it safe. And so you have to evaluate. Yeah, go.

Jim McCann:
The underlying conflict there is you’re asking people, A guy I really respect, you may know Seth Godin publishes a blog post every day. Seth said, if you are not thinking as an employee, if you are not thinking about how to digitize, how to use AI to do your job, be assured your bosses is. And if you are, then that’s freeing you up to do only what a human can do because the whole world is running down this path. So if you are not doing it, your boss is thinking about it. And if you are not doing it, then you’re not freeing yourself up to do only what a human can do, and then you are not controlling your own destiny. So I think that makes sense, but how do you convince all these folks to automate their own jobs and have trust that in their own skill sets and in the enterprise that they’re not going to be working themselves out of work?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Well, they might be,

Jim McCann:
Right? They might be.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
And I don’t think you have to pretend that they’re not. I think you can have a transparent conversation with them where you say, this company’s going to change. We’re probably going to have less people three years from now than we do now, but we want to prepare you for the next thing. And so embrace this AI first because help you either here or at the next place, which is what you said at the beginning of this conversation.

Jim McCann:
Exactly. And that’s why we put such a big emphasis on the past couple of years on in our education programs, our training programs, our exposure programs to help people understand the new technologies, thinking about leadership, having your book in our library for people understand how things are changing and what their role in it is, because the big fear is not being prepared and being caught off guard or surprised. And so that’s why we’ve been trying to invest in individuals

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
And people are resentful of leaders right now. I’m actually going to be on the news tomorrow talking about increasing resentment in the workforce and why

Jim McCann:
They, well, I thought it was about those charges that they brought the last time against you, but they’ve been dropped now, right?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, they’ve been dropped. Yeah, luckily. But the resentment is so strong because

Jim McCann:
The last time we chatted, you were on NBC news the next night.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I know you saw that. That was so fun. When people see me on the news and I didn’t send it to them and they’re just watching TV at home and then I’m on the screen and they let me know, that’s my favorite. You are one of those people. It’s funny, but I think leaders think that their job is to protect or to make sure people aren’t afraid. And so then they will oftentimes do the rose colored glasses lens of everything,
And then it’s kind of BS and it’s almost like they’re lying to their workforce and then they have layoffs at one point. And then it’s such a shock. And it feels like when I was A-C-H-R-O of a tech company and my CEO told me, we’re going to have layoffs and we as an executive team need to come together and figure out how many people we can lay off and who we’re going to lay off, the first thing I did was I broke the executive seal of silence, which is kind of an assumed seal of silence. And I told my entire team, I was like, guys, we’re going to have layoffs. I don’t know when. I don’t know how many, and I don’t know if you’re going to be affected, but I’m just letting you know that this is happening. And what that created was everyone started brushing up their resume, getting somewhere applying for jobs, some people weren’t. And ultimately a bunch of people on my team left for other jobs, and I didn’t end up having to do any layoffs because it’s because the people who were so fearful left the people who stayed, though they were so grateful to me for not hiding the truth
For fear that they would get distracted from productivity. And they are loyal to me to this day because they knew that I had their back. And I think that transparency is not as common anymore in leadership, that people are afraid to tell the truth.

Jim McCann:
What was the motivation to leave that world and to write that first book,

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Frankly, I worked for a guy who was making toxic, unethical decisions. And so I loved that role, but the person was playing with company money in a way that just, you’re not allowed to play with company money in that way. And I felt like inauthentic working there because I was talking about culture and we were selling a culture thing. And so that was the motivation there. I feel like authenticity for me, I don’t even know how to be inauthentic because as soon as I am, I can be inauthentic,

Jim McCann:
But because once you become a chief human resource officer in a tech company that just seems like you’re going to work for three or four or five different tech companies increasing in size and stature, that would be the career path. And you blew that up.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, I blew that up because of the leader and because Joe Terry, the head of culture partners, felt like the kind of leader that they write books about. The kind of leader that you hear about is there really the CEO that will make the hard decision that is totally counterintuitive, but is right for the people and ultimately does even drive results. I mean, that’s pretty remarkable. When I was negotiating with Joe Terry, I sold him my keynote business, and when I sold him the business, we were negotiating the price. And he said, okay, going to offer you let’s do fake money numbers, right? He’s like, I’ll offer you $3 for your business. And I was expecting him to offer me like $6. So when he said three, I was deeply disappointed, but I really wanted to work with him at that point. So I came back and I said, I was expecting more and I would be happy if you offered me somewhere between five and $6, for example. And he immediately, without thinking about it, responded and said, okay, great. Let’s do six then. And the thing I noticed in that moment is I told him I would’ve been happy with five. He could have said, okay, great. Let’s do five. And I would’ve said, great, let’s do it. But he jumped to the higher end of my bracket,

Jim McCann:
Which is so unusual.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
So unusual in a negotiation. I thought he got confused, almost like did he mishear me? And so late I accepted six, and then I started, and then we came back later and I said, so when I said I’d be happy with five to six and you said six, what was that about? And he said, I wanted you to know that I was all in on you so that you would be all in on us. And I mean, the amount of discretionary effort that he got out of me for probably two years just based on that $1 that he offered me more. I mean, there was an ROI there, and it’s a counterintuitive leadership decision there. So I wanted to work for a guy like that. That’s why I want to work with you. I want to work for a guy like you

Jim McCann:
Don’t want to jump into ad ship?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Can we talk about Loadstar?

Jim McCann:
Sure.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
What motivated you to write another book?

Jim McCann:
The why
I didn’t start out with the thought of writing a book. What happened was at the very beginning of Covid, we didn’t know what was going to happen to our business when we were all going into lockdown, and particularly here in the New York area, kind of severe lockdown. I’m involved with the local health system here, which is probably the top health system in the country now, NYU Langone Health System. And so we were having every few days a board meeting and remote zoom and teams board meetings, and I’m hearing what’s going on, how we’re overwhelmed in the hospitals, and you had all these frontline workers being selfless. It was tense as can be. About a month later, I’m reading, someone sent me an article out of Psychology Today that this crazy psychologist had written about how he thought and understand. We realize that we’re not in the flower business, we’re not in the food gifts business. We’re in a relationship business. We’re in a

Jim McCann:
Business

Jim McCann:
Helping out customers. Our community members have more and better relationships in the life, and sometimes that involves them sending a gift to somebody, whether it’s a floral gift or it’s a Harry and David Tower of Treats, or it’s a wolfman’s set of English muffins or it’s a popcorn factory tin of popcorn. It’s all gifts to help you to express yourself and for required gifting occasions or just to express yourself. And he wrote this article on how he anticipated that Covid was going to impact our relationships, our deep personal relationships. Mom and dad stayed away that you’re not going to be able to see for a while. You don’t know how long and you’re not going to be able to get to them if they need you. So very serious and intense relationships or a casual relationship like you have with your regular barista. You may not interact in a great deal, but he gives you a nice smile, hello when you come in.
And even if he didn’t wait on that day, he gives you a wave on those little micro context too. And I thought it was a brilliant piece. And his name was Dr. George Eley, and he’s on the faculty of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. He’s on the School of Medicine faculty and on the School of Public Health of Bloomberg School of Public Health faculty. He’s a brilliant man. And so I wrote him a fan letter and the fan letter said that I thought his observations were brilliant and they’ve really shaped how I’m behaving and how I’m acting and how I’m thinking about our customers and our relationships at work and how they’re all going to be impacted. Thank you for writing this, and I hope we have occasion to talk someday. He wrote back to me, he said, well, I’d love to talk to you. I’m not quite sure what you want to talk to me about, but so I said, well, let’s get on a call.
And that began a friendship. It didn’t start out right away as friendship, and we created something called the Connectivity Council. So at the very beginning of Covid, we didn’t know what to do. Did we send an email to a customer saying, buy us stuff? Hey, if you’re locked down, why not do with without? No, we couldn’t do that. So a young lady, Meredith Weinberg, who was my chief of staff at the time, said to me, Jim, why don’t you just write a letter to our customers, how this is impacting us, how you think it might impact them, and let’s not ever try and sell anything. So we started writing the celebrations, pulse Sunday newsletter back in late March or April of 20, and we’ve just continued doing it, and it’s just grown and grown and grown, but now it’s interactive. People are writing to us saying, geez, what do we do with kids who’ve been out of school for a few months?
What about the social implication? Well, I didn’t know how to answer those. So we assembled a team of psychologists and really smart educators at all called the Connectivity Council. And Dr. George Everly was the first person I asked to join that council. And we have Dr. Angela Jackson from Harvard, and we have Dr. Dan Willingham from the University of Virginia. We have Dr. Chloe Carmichael, renowned therapist here from New York and now Orlando, Florida as well. And wonderful group of, and I was learning from these people and we were sharing things. We were putting on group presentations, going deep on specific issues. And our community was growing because we were providing really helpful information. And I remember it was a little over two and a half years ago, my wife and I were in Florida for the weekend. Dr. George calls me and I have him on speakerphone, and it’s just my wife and I in the car, and he says, Jim, I’m loving the work we’re doing together.
We’re really doing exciting and meaningful work together. And he says, you’re passionate about it. It’s clear to all of us. He said, I have a suggestion. I said, what’s that? He goes, why don’t you and I write a book about this? And I looked at him, I didn’t look at him. I looked at my wife and she’s giving me those evil eyes. I think you’re way over committed. Now I don’t see time for a book in your game plan. So I immediately said, George, I’m flattered. I’d love to do it. And she hit me and the bruise will clear up pretty soon. Back then it was pretty tough of hers. It’s almost healed now. But that’s how it happened. I was so genuinely flattered that this genuinely brilliant man who’s become a good friend, a man I love, admire and respect fact. And so it was an excuse to work with George, and we did.
It took us two and a half years. The work sessions were intense and so good. I started recording them because I couldn’t absorb it all two, three hour work sessions at a time. It was just terrific. But it changed me as a person. I learned so much working with George. So this outcome, Loadstar is a byproduct of our work project together. And it was a work of passion for me to get to learn from one of the most brilliant educators, researchers and psychologists that’s ever lived. But let me tell you a little bit about this man and a story I only heard within the last month or two from him sort of epitomizes George. George was born with severe dyslexia but not diagnosed. And he had a DHD very severely undiagnosed, lived in a bucolic small town in Maryland, and in his junior year, he wasn’t doing well in school.
He couldn’t read, and he didn’t know why he wasn’t doing well. But his guidance counselor called his dad in his junior year and said to him a word of advice here. George isn’t going to make it. I’m not sure he’ll be able to graduate from high school. He’s certainly not going to college. So my suggestion is you get a headstart on the rest of his graduating class and try and find him a job, maybe in a trade, maybe in a factory. But he’s a nice enough kid, but he doesn’t have it. And George’s father told him that story that on the day he received his first PhD,

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Wow, I got goosebumps.

Jim McCann:
I did too when I heard it. And he said, dad, why did you wait these years to tell me that? And his dad was a good man, a learned man. He’s a CPA. He was a business analyst and consultant and accountant and a musician. And he said, because George, I didn’t want it to become self-fulfilling. George is I think three PhDs now. He’s taught at Harvard, he’s taught at Johns Hopkins. He’s, by the way, Loadstar working with him. So I’ve been a fan of, by the way, his 29th book, A kid that wouldn’t graduate from high school, a kid that couldn’t read until he reprogrammed his brain to be able to read. He told me the story just recently that when the manuscript was done, the publisher sent it to both of us and said, read this in a very detailed fashion that proofread it to make sure it’s absolutely correct. And he just wrote back, do you have any idea who you’re talking to? I can’t read.
But he’s made himself an expert on PTSD. He’s worked in 40 different countries teaching first responders how to deal with stress, how to deal with the stress of the people they encounter. So this was an excuse to hang around with a really smart guy who’s a good guy and become a good friend, and to learn from him, and not only to learn from him, but to learn through him what the great tenants were of being your better self. And working with him has changed me in so many ways, all for the better that I still know I can be a better me tomorrow. And I’m working hard to do that. And working this exercise of developing these 10 pillars of personal development, looking at the great works that are out there, because I didn’t want to say, oh, we had the great answers. No, but there are other people who do. And we want to show you what the commonalities are there so that you can then decide. There’s 85,000 books in print on self-help. They’re not all great.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Only 85,000,

Jim McCann:
85,000. It’s a 10 billion industry,
But not all of it’s great. Dr. Jessica, not all of it’s great, but some of it is. And we started way back with a Bible as a self-help book and the works of Aristotle and the current things, terrific work. Like James Clear, who five years ago came out with the atomic habits and there’s just so many, and we cite a hundred different books that we think are worth reading and knowing and studying, but we give you the foundation. So when you are looking at those great works, you have a foundational understanding of what they’re building on for you. So I think this is a great book for a graduate high school, college PhD program because you just got your formal learning under your belt, and now you’re going to go into your day-to-day learning. And this would be a great tool. And it’s not something I expect people are going to sit down and say, well, I’m going to spend this weekend, I’m going to read this whole book. Some people do. But I think digesting it a chapter at a time with the sightings that we have, with the summaries, with the real world experiences of other smart and good people that I’ve observed who put these principles into play in their daily personal and business lives, who give you something interesting to talk about with your coworkers, with your friends, with your family. And by the way, my family’s subject to this all the time. They’re starting to run when I pull this out now.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Okay, so give us a sneak peek. What is the number one lesson that you learned in writing the book?

Jim McCann:
I think the number one lesson I’ve learned is watching George realize that we can change who we are and that our brains are learning all the time, whether we like it or not, they’re learning and they’re adapting. And what if we do regularly? They get better at our brain gets better at. So if we’re very good at worrying, we get better at it.
If we are very good at feeling anxious, we’ll get better at it. If we’re very good at avoiding tasks, we’ll get better at it. So if we understand that about ourselves and understand this idea that he’s taught me, which is neuroplasticity, that we can rewire our brains like Dr. George had to, you’ve done in your life, then it’s incumbent upon us to be deliberate, the line, be deliberate about our plan for ourself. How are we going to change the way we think? Only 20% of the population is born optimistic. That’s 80% are predisposed to pessimistic thinking. It’s, it’s 10 times easier to go down the pessimism trail. It takes work to go down the optimism trail to be an optimist. But optimist, as you know, and as you prove it, are going to have more friends are going to do better in their careers. They’re going to do better in school. They’re going to have more and better relationships, and they’re going to have better and measurably better health because you’re optimistic. So why would I choose to be a pessimist when I have the tools got them where I can teach myself to be optimistic and to be better at everything I do to have a better richer life, better richer relationships, and have a better health outcome? Why not?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Because I can tell you from experience as a almost lifelong pessimist, you don’t know that there’s a different way when you’re in that mentality. You have to learn that. And now, I didn’t learn that until I was 37 and

Jim McCann:
At six months ago.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah, exactly. And when on my transformative journey where I realized everything was upside down,

Jim McCann:
But you still have to work at it every day. Oh

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
My goodness. This morning I’ve been in a bad mood for a week, Jim. I’ve been in such a bad mood. And this morning I woke up and I was like, enough, and I went outside with my dog and he was taken a long time to go potty, which was super irritating. And I just said, I’m grateful for this house. I’m grateful for that tree. I’m grateful for that car. I’m grateful for this dog. And I just said it out loud even though I wasn’t feeling it. Because the key is you have to act your way into right thinking,

Jim McCann:
Fake it till you make it,

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Fake it till you make it. You cannot think your way into right acting. You have to just act as if you’re optimistic and in gratitude, and then actually it comes smile. And then you’ll actually feel a little bit happier. You just have to. But there is something juicy and kind of addictive about being in a bad mood, being a victim. It’s easier.

Jim McCann:
But now you know that that week is coming on and it’s easy to embrace it and go down that hole, isn’t it?

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Yeah. Well, the difference is when

Jim McCann:
It used, it’s that warm comfortable feeling that you’re familiar with, and you wrap yourself in that dark cloak. You have to fight not to let that happen.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
And in the old days, I thought I was confused because I would think, I wonder why I am so upset. There was some secret reason that if only I could discover I would solve the problem. And now when I do it, I think I’ve got to get my head out of my ass. What’s happening right now?

Jim McCann:
It’s on you. You can

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Change it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Man.

Jim McCann:
We call that playing the glad game. You should shout it out loud, the glad Game. I’m glad I’m so fortunate. I have this house. I’m so fortunate I have this job. I’m so fortunate that I’m upright and I’m healthy today to make your list.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
I’m so glad. I know Jim McCann. Add that to the list.

Jim McCann:
You got to have a higher bar than that.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Oh man. Okay, we have to go. But let me ask you my last question, which is my favorite question, which is, what is something that you don’t get asked about very often on these kinds of interviews that you wish you were asked more often?

Jim McCann:
I

Jim McCann:
Think the

Jim McCann:
Future, our jobs as individuals, and if you’re in business especially so is to anticipate what the future looks like. And I’m not telling you I’m a visionary and I’m not, but I sure know a bunch of bright people. So you asked me about my trip to Microsoft back in June, and I’ve been deliberate in the five months since then to flesh out my board of advisors on all things ai. And it’s amazing how so I know the limitations of my intellectual capacity, and I know there’s a lot of people out there, a whole lot brighter and smarter and more knowledgeable about things that I am. But I need to tap into them because I have responsibility to take my best guesses to future and align us linos as an individual, as a person, as a family, as kids and grandkids, but especially as a business, to take our best guess of what the future looks like and get us positioned to take advantage of the future and not be overwhelmed by it.
So for me, the future is who are the people out there? So I mentioned a team from Microsoft. I mentioned a bunch of people, a couple of people in particular from Google who I turned to. There’s a guy who I’ve known, I’ve known for several years who I read every day. He blogs every day. His name is Shelly Palmer, and he has shelly palmer.com and he’s got a blog that he posts every day. And so I had him on my podcast like today. It just flew by. I didn’t get to a fraction of the questions. I wanted one of those Renaissance men, but he really understands a IO in particular where it’s going. So I don’t have to be the smartest guy in the world, Jessica, but I tap into people like you who help me to think about culture and how I influence it, and I can’t control it, but how do I influence it?
What dials do I turn? What are my responsibilities in this leadership role here in terms of the people I lead or try to lead? I turned to Shelly Palmer. I spent five hours with Shelly in the last four weeks helping me to understand. And I’m always saying, well, what can I do for Shelly? Because his most inand speaker I know right now you, you’re two most independent speakers I know, and you’re helping us think about culture. How do we get there? Where’s it likely going? How do we prepare ourselves? Where do we get new inputs? So the thing I like to think about more and more is the future. It’s scary and it’s exciting at the same time, but if we pull the covers up over our head and say, nah, I’m not going to worry about it today. It’s going to overwhelm us.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Incredible. And I lied. I have one last question, which is, I know after hearing this conversation, our listeners are going to want to hear more from you. So you are a thought leader. You have a podcast, you have a newsletter. Where can people go if they want to hear more from you?

Jim McCann:
Well, the newsletter is called Celebrations Pulse. Now, over 10 million subscribers, I’m so pleased to say, and frankly knocked out by. And then the podcast is called Celebrations Chatter, and you can come to celebrations chatter.com. You can come to celebration.com or this other site called one 800 flowers.com, and you can learn about if there too. Look at the cool people. I get to hang around with Dr. Jessica Kriegel. My goodness. And when I think of my board of advisors, now you’re the centerpiece of that.

Dr. Jessica Kriegel:
Well, that’s so kind and such an exaggeration, but I’m just grateful to know you. Not at all. Well, I have so appreciated getting to know you, getting to interact with your team and know them as well. I mean, you surround yourself by incredible people. So I’m so grateful for our friendship. Thank you so much for coming on the Podcast. It’s one of my gifts this year.