LeaderImpact Podcast
LeaderImpact Podcast
Ep. 79 - David Town - Don't Mistake Presence for Performance
After climbing the corporate ladder at companies like Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart, David found himself trapped in the pursuit of bigger titles and salaries – working long hours while his wife raised their four young children. Everything changed when a mission trip to Mexico sparked a spiritual awakening that completely transformed his understanding of success.
Perhaps most compelling is David's evolved understanding of leadership effectiveness. Drawing from spiritual principles, he demonstrates that caring deeply for people and maintaining high performance expectations aren't mutually exclusive. This balanced approach allows leaders to motivate teams toward excellence while building genuinely supportive relationships.
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Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make this show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpactca or on social at Leader Impact. If you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpactcom.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, lisa Peters, and our guest today is David Towne. David is a facilitator and executive coach with a focus on leadership development, performance-related communication management styles and team dynamics. David has a particular interest in leadership approaches that optimize results, particularly in remote and hybrid work environments. He authored a book entitled Don't Mistake Presence for Performance to provide leaders with strategies for building stronger relationships leading to better results. David has been an independent leadership consultant for 20 years and is the co-founder of Virtual Leadership Matters Incorporated. Prior to starting his own consulting practice, david held senior HR leadership positions in several prominent Canadian retail organizations, including Loblox Companies, shoppers, drug Mart and Big V Pharmacies. He also taught a first-year business course at the Ivy School of Business and more recently he taught organizational behavior at Seneca College. David is married with four children who are all adults now. He and his wife live in Georgina, on the shores of Lake Simcoe in Ontario. Welcome to the show, david.
Speaker 2:Thank you, lisa, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm a huge fan of Shoppers, drug Mart. I've just turned 55 plus and you know there's that deal for seniors, so I loved reading your bio. Now I think you actually. It says here prior to starting his own consulting business do you have another leadership firm Prior to starting?
Speaker 2:his own consulting business. Do you have another leadership firm? So my first foray into the leadership consulting was to well, I started with David Town and Associates a very clever name and then I incorporated into a company called your Leadership Matters Okay, which I still have and a friend of mine in Saskatoon, David Smith, and I put together virtual leadership matters in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, because we thought that virtual leadership was an important topic to talk about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree, and your book Don't Mistake Presence for Performance. This is a new book, I believe. Did this just come out in the last? Yes, I published it.
Speaker 2:It was published in July of last year and I really haven't spent a lot of time marketing it. Yeah, I'm in the twilight of my career and I'm not necessarily in a high business development mode, so I wasn't really active in promoting the book too much, except that I would love people to to read it, just because it's it was a passion of mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk about this. Now. I know you're part of Leader Impact. Is any of the groups studying the book?
Speaker 2:No, we've talked about it in our own group. I lead a group here in the Newmarket Aurora Georgina area and it's something for me to talk about some more with John Havercroft and others in Leader Impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because when I think of. Georgiaake presence for performance. Too many times we think we're presence and so we're like we're not. But I look forward to hearing more about it. So we'll start the podcast and we want to hear more about your professional story and, more importantly, we love to hear those pivots, those pivotal turning points along your journey that sort of moved you to, you know, to another space. So jump in.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I graduated from the Ivy School of Business in London and I've been studying portfolio management.
Speaker 2:I was a numbers guy, thought that was. I was going to go trade bonds, make my millions. And I played baseball with a with one of the professors who I got to know because I had a summer job with him, and he said why don't you come out and teach a first year business course for two years? It just strikes me you'd really enjoy that. So I thought, you know what an opportunity. I'll do that and then I'll go do my portfolio management life, as it were. Well, I fell in love with doing two years of teaching business a first year business course. I fell in love with doing two years of teaching business a first year business course. I fell in love with watching the light bulb go on for people. So that was, you know, there's sort of one moment where a complete shift in terms of what I thought I was going to be doing, and then and then I taught, so that sort of moved into a role with a company called Big V Pharmacies where I went in to help them learn how to manage stores better. So I was in a training role, eventually became the head of human resources at Big V, because they didn't really have a human resource function, a robust one. So I helped develop that and I loved working for that company. It had a great culture, a really customer-focused, very positive values culture. So I was there at Big V until the time when we merged with Shoppers Drug Mart.
Speaker 2:Big V was a privately held organization. Even though it was privately held, it had shareholders, so they would trade based on PE multiples. And along came when we went to go public to put shares out into the marketplace. Along came a Masco who was the owner of Shoppers Drug Mart and they made an offer which the employees accepted because the employees were the owners. It's a very interesting dynamic. Employees are voting for a merger, maybe not knowing exactly what a merger entails in terms of the you, of the reductions of staffing because of synergies and so on. It was a very interesting time and I loved Big V. But there was an interesting path along the way. So we talked about some of the inflection points in a person's career.
Speaker 2:So it was 1987, about four or five years into my time at Big V, I got recruited into a large multinational organization out of Mississauga I was living in London at the time. That's where Big V was located and I got to the final stages. I was the last man standing, as it were. So the job offer was coming to me and there was a person coming up from Dallas, texas, where the head office was, and he met with the guy who had been interviewing me and I'd had, oh my gosh, seven or eight interviews. I'd gone for dinner Like it was a very robust recruitment process and I got a phone call after the guy from Dallas arrived, a day later, from this fellow and he said so, all bets are off. I'm really sorry. He said.
Speaker 2:I feel devastated that they changed what they wanted to someone who was a negotiator in the IR function as opposed to when I was in human resources, which is more away from the negotiations that what happened was within six months, the company went through, as a part of their merger process, a shedding of a whole bunch of layers of management and employees, of which I would have been one of them if I had joined that organization, and the housing prices in Mississauga took a drop because shortly after the interview didn't work, housing went down the drain. So I would have moved, bought a house it would have been worth less than that. And I would have moved, bought a house it would have been worth less than that and I would have been out of a job. And it was the first time that I sort of thought gee, I wonder if I have an angel on my shoulder, as it were. My faith was not strong enough at the time to really recognize what was going on. But looking back, I'm absolutely sure that God was playing a role in my life. I thought that was really interesting. So fast forward. I'm with Shoppers Drug Mart for two years during the merger, enjoying my time back and forth.
Speaker 2:Having said that, I get recruited again and I move to Loblaw Companies in Toronto and I grew up in Mississauga, so it was kind of getting back home. My wife was from Mississauga as well. We both knew each other in high school and university. And so get back to Loblaw companies and have some great opportunities at Loblaws. My career is growing, but I find myself focusing more and more on the next big promotion, a bigger salary. I get busier and busier. I'm leaving the house at 6 o'clock in the morning, I'm getting home at 8 o'clock at night. We have four young children.
Speaker 2:Looking back, you know it was pretty hard on my wife, frankly, leaving her sort of holding the bag, and along the way we have this conversation. It was in early 2005,. My wife and I and she said you should go to Alpha. And I'm going, what is Alpha? And she says it's this program from Nikki Gumbel and my calendar don't match. So I'm saying I'm a family guy, I'm really devoted to this and this and this, and my calendar says, yeah, not as much as you think you are, dave. So so that was the beginning of a real reflection time for me.
Speaker 2:That was early in 2005. I signed up for a mission trip and my daughter was on the trip, so I was going to be one of the adult adults that goes, goes along with the kids. It was in Mexico and down there I met some incredible people, incredible leaders with great stories, and I came back with a determination to really invest more in my faith. And so I actually, for the first time, I think, in my life, literally sat down and prayed deliberately, you know, speaking in a prayer format and said I need to make better choices and I need your help in doing that. Well, don't you figure, within three months or three weeks, pardon me, I'm part of a reorganization and my job is taken away, so I get reorged, and it was on a Friday morning, which was a cardinal sin in my mind for a human resources person to ever terminate someone's employment on a Friday because people just spin over the weekend. I mean it's really a terrible thing to do.
Speaker 2:But I had a lot of reflection.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation with my kids.
Speaker 2:One of my children actually said I think I can tear up all the checks you sent while I'm in university so that you know it won't hurt you financially. And literally I cried when I heard that, like she's got her priorities in order better than I do. So that's when I made the observation that I think this was an answer to my prayer. It wasn't what I was thinking of when I asked for that, and so I said I need to reformat my leadership strategy, where I'm going in my life, and so I abandoned the idea of going back into a large corporation and I thought you know, I want to go into private practice and do leadership development and specifically more in the area of character, because I think leadership and character is really important and I think we can observe in the world that you know there are important, and I think we can observe in the world that there's a lot of absence of character in many leadership scenarios that we are seeing in today's world, so that was early 2006 that I really started down this path of leadership development.
Speaker 2:I wound up getting a coaching designation and ironically so, within about three weeks of losing my job that was in September of 2005, a friend called me up just out of the blue and he says I'm doing this networking and I'm in this group, this group of men who meet in the morning to talk about faith. It's a very safe environment and I was thinking about you and I'm going. Why was he thinking like, oh, my goodness, this is like the planets are aligning. And so I started attending a group. That was in 2005. In 2008, I stepped away from that group to start a group in my own community in Aurora, because the other group was in Markham, and we've had great leadership discussions. So you know, my leadership journey has been really augmented and fruitfully added to from the conversations I have at these in these morning meetings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that when you first you didn't get the job, you didn't buy the house, you didn't the Mississauga, and you at that point you're like, does God have something to do with this? Are you looking out for me? But I don't know if you were really strong in your faith because you talk about, you know, the mission trip. That's when you maybe found more faith. Would that be right there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And interestingly enough, our church was doing a program where in the summer, each summer, they'd ask one parishioner to share a faith story, and so the priest at our church knew that I had lost my job and knew my sort of reflections on that, asked me to speak the following summer, and that's where I really had a chance to more deeply reflect. I'd had the leader impact experience. Things were now starting to change for me. The way I would articulate it is that I went from knowing about God and thinking that my role was to sort of, you know, do a lot of good things, collect air miles to heaven, as I used to call it, and I went from knowing about God to knowing God. And it's just one word and it's a dramatic shift in your mindset. So for me it was profound and it's impacted how I look at leadership. It impacted the thoughts I had writing the book that I wrote.
Speaker 1:It impacts how I coach. Yeah, I love that. Collect air miles to heaven. It's a good one. I totally wrote that down. I'm stealing it.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we want to talk a little bit about a principle of success. If you have one, what is it and a story that illustrates it.
Speaker 2:So a principle of success for me is to be who you are, be who you're meant to be and act with integrity. So I think I found out more about my integrity when I left the corporate world and started out on my own and you'd meet with people and you'd get very authentic feedback about how people saw you and fortunately, I had always. I felt strongly. My father was a tremendous role model for this. I'd always acted with integrity and that was the reputation I had built, and for me that has meant everything, Because and I use an analogy of a tube of toothpaste I mean, once you squeeze the tube, the toothpaste is out. So integrity is not something to be dealt with lightly, Because if you squeeze the tube and you lose it, you can't put it back in in a big fat hurry. So that, for me, is really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you say if there's people listening and they're thinking, you know maybe their integrity, they just haven't been the upstanding citizen, been the upstanding citizen and I know when I read about. You know leadership development that you coach and you talk about. You know team dynamics when someone doesn't have the integrity but they're really trying to get it back to the person who is trying so hard to get it back. They can do it. Just give them the words of encouragement. You can do it. You can build this Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. You can do this, and I think what advice I would give them I mean, as a coach, I like to help them find their own way what advice I would give them is to be authentic about that. So stand up and say, hey, you know what, what got me here hasn't been everything I wanted it to be and I want it to be different. Going forward, and I think by being vulnerable and saying I'm not perfect I mean, none of us are perfect I mean this is one of the things we want to all recognize as Christians. We'd like to be, but we're not. So when you admit that I'm flawed and I want to do better, I think people will embrace that and I think there's always a path forward. You asked for a story my leaving of Shoppers Drug Mart. One of the challenges was I didn't see eye to eye with the head of human resources that I was now coming together with.
Speaker 2:We had, I'll say, a different value system on some things. And so I was presented with a different opportunity going forward than I had been promised or expected. And you know, I think a promise is important and so when it first happened, my reaction was okay, you know, don't just acquiesce. You know this isn't right, and be who you are. So I approached the person and said look, you know, I don't know why this has gone this way. However, you know, I think it's probably better that we just move on. And I said so.
Speaker 2:I know, in the merger we've had lots of packages. So I'm saying to you you know, if you wrote a letter and offered me a package, I'd sign that letter. And he goes well, do you already have a job? And I said no. And he said how can you do that with four kids? I said because I think it's the right thing to do and I think if you do the right thing, things will work out. And again, another angel on my shoulder story. So we go through, we make the deal. I'm having lunch with a friend because I've been the chair of the board of the Chamber of Commerce in London. I'm having lunch with a friend who's a CEO of a local company. A week later and we're sitting down and he says you left Shoppers Darkbite. I said yeah. He says, well, we need somebody. And he offered me a job a week later. So with all honesty I'd said I don't have a job, and then I had a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would want to acknowledge that I think you never gave up, right Like you put yourself out there. You were going for lunches, right? I mean, it doesn't just happen. We have to work hard to. You know, we can pray, but God can throw us a lot of ideas, but if we're not outside the house, they're not. You know, if you don't do the lunch, that you don't really want to do and do the meeting you don't really want to do, yeah, For sure you can't.
Speaker 2:you can't just say a prayer and expect all of a sudden everything to happen to you. You have to, you have to, you still have to work.
Speaker 1:You have to pursue the intent of the prayer. Yeah, good, All right, we're going to move on to talking about failures and mistakes, and we definitely learn more. So I wonder if you have, you know, maybe a failure or mistake that happened in your life and what you learned from it?
Speaker 2:So it was an interesting question to thinking about that. So I would say you know I'd go back to this idea of the mistake I made is a little bit of that story of getting trapped into pursuing the big job without thinking about the implications to who that was making me, who I was becoming as a result of that. And it was interesting because, you know, I, as I say, I feel like I'd acted with integrity. Having said that, a good friend of mine said you know, part way through, about six months before that, that, that change in role they had said Dave, you know like, know, like it feels like you're. You know you're a little different, like your things are more intense, you're more short, you know in the words, like abrupt, and it just doesn't feel like you. What do you think?
Speaker 2:And I was a little bit dismissive of that and I think the mistake was, is, wasn't self-monitoring, you know, and asking myself is you know what, am I what's really important? So in many respects, you know the bit that was the biggest mistake. And then my wife suggesting I go to Alpha and just accepting that we love each other. So she wanted to help and did it in a very loving way, and so my solution to that was to open my ears and listen, for, for lack of a term, listen for the leading of the spirit, without knowing that's really what I was doing for lack of a term listen for the leading of the spirit, without knowing that's really what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we all can resonate with getting trapped in the pursuit of more and it's and it can come out, you know, in your health. Your health starts to fail, your relationships fail when you are just so. I want the better car, I want the better house. You know, um it's, it happens, and um your health, your health, I I met with someone today and it was a health issue. The health is just starting to decline. So I think your story resonates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, interestingly enough, uh, I remember going to the reunion of my business class and of course it was always a bit competitive in the business school and it was about the 25th reunion in shortly like 2006, the fall of 2006. So about a year after I made these changes and I remember meeting people and a couple of people were asking how's your family? And they were talking about. Their definition of success was not how big is your job and what's your income. Their definition of success was very different and I started going wow, and they were really happy and there were some people there who you could tell?
Speaker 2:they were still in that, like the gerbil in the spinning wheel, and you know, if that's what they wanted, that's not for me to judge. Having said that, I was starting to see a different interpretation of what really what wealth meant. In many respects, there's nothing wrong with money and nothing wrong with the pursuit of money. It's just when it gets out of sorts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a. I was going to bring it up on my phone and I don't want to get this wrong. But there's a study, the longest study, the longest study at Harvard, and it's about the study of happiness and it's, I don't know, 80 some years, and it really is about who you are surrounding yourself with, getting out and meeting people, being in community with people that's the happiest people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. Getting out and meeting people, being in community with people that's the happiest people. Yeah, I've read about that. It's incredible. It passed from one generation to the next of researchers because, it's been so long in going forward. Great study.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if anyone's listening, you can find it on TED Talks as well. There's the happiness, yeah, all right. Well, you are part of Leader Impact. So you know that we want to grow professionally, spiritually and personally for increasing impact. So I'm wondering if you're willing to share an example of how the spiritual makes a practical difference in your life as a leader.
Speaker 2:Well, for sure, as I've gotten closer to engaging with scripture and talking this through in a safe environment with colleagues and friends in leadership, starting to do things like I have the fruits of the spirit that are in my workspace, to remind myself that things like love and joy and peace, kindness, faithfulness these are all the expectations of us spiritually and it matches up with I was once I was working for I did some work for a CEO and he was a really great guy who had huge success in terms of the expectations, but a fantastic relationship builder, and what he shared with me is that soft skills don't mean soft expectations. So, from a spiritual standpoint, what I've learned is that you can have high expectations of people. You can be motivated, getting people motivated to drive in a particular direction. Having said that, you always want to have a loving relationship with them, because nobody cares what you know until they know that you care, and I think it has really brought home that you know.
Speaker 2:When I think about reading scripture, for example, and thinking about Jesus as a role model for leadership, he wasn't always the easiest. He was demanding of his disciples and he was, you know. You knew he cared like deeply. So that's really the spiritual side for me is that you can have both. You can have high expectations and really care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you said you have the fruits of the spirit in my workplace. Do you have words written?
Speaker 2:yes, okay so so the, the seven fruits of the spirit, as, as I know from I think it's in galatians, if I'm not mistaken chapters anyways, I don't, I don't, I don't have it, but they are the seven are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And you have them right in front of you and I have them right in front of me. And I grew up there's lots of snow on the roof now but I grew up as a redhead and self-control was not one of the stereotypes of a redhead. I was a pretty short-fused guy and, honestly, I remember golfing recently with my son-in-law, who I've known for quite some time, and I told him I had occasion to lose my temper and he looked at me. He goes I've never seen you lose your temper ever. Like I can't believe that. So back to this. You can do anything you want if you really want to, right.
Speaker 1:Proof, you can change, yeah, all right. So at Leader Impact, we are dedicated to leaders having a lasting impact. And so, as you continue to move through your own journey and it sounds amazing and who knows when the next headhunter is coming after you, david, what do you want your faith legacy to be when you leave this world?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I know I had the opportunity to do some work with Paul Henderson. We all know from hockey fame and Paul would encourage us to think of life verses, and so my legacy.
Speaker 2:I think is reflected in a verse 1 Peter 3, verse 15. And I'm going to read it here it's In your hearts, revere Christ as Lord, Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, and do this with gentleness and respect. So I would love for people to say you know, Dave was willing to step up and you knew that he had a faith, and it was always a conversation that was embedded, where there's gentleness and respect embedded in that.
Speaker 2:That would be, my hope for my legacy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Dave, for sharing that. Our last question of the podcast is what brings you the greatest joy?
Speaker 2:Gosh, you know there are many things, so I have nine grandchildren.
Speaker 2:Oh watching them laugh and have a joy in their life brings me a great deal of joy. Yeah, for sure. That, in many ways, is number one. But a close second, or, and a close second, is watching people change in positive ways. So I'll go back to you know, watching the light bulb go on has always been a lifelong joy for me, and when I'm coaching someone or I'm having a faith conversation or I'm talking with someone and something changes for them in a way that enhances or enriches their life, like I just feel like wow, yeah, I was very privileged to be a part of that. So you know, I just love watching people, uh, feel joy for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty good. Uh, david, I want to thank you for joining us for the last half hour. Uh, just listening to your story and listening to to your journey um is incredible, I think um, sometimes and I'm sure this could happen to you when you're in the moment it's tough when you get let go, or when you've got to take the package. It's tough in the moment and you know, but you look back and go. It was supposed to happen. It happened exactly how it was supposed to happen. I wouldn't be here if I didn't do that. So thank you for sharing your journey. Many people will resonate with the change that you've been through, and so just appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for letting me be here.
Speaker 1:All right Now. If anyone is listening and they're like I need to talk to David Town, how can they engage with you? Where can they find you?
Speaker 2:I am on LinkedIn, so you look up David Town LinkedIn and any of the companies I've talked about working for, or the Leadership Matters I'm sure you'd find me.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well, thanks for joining us, david. All right, well, thank you to everyone for joining us. If you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you're not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find out more about us and grow your leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You can also check out groups available in Canada at leadershipleaderimpactca. And if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out leaderimpactcom or get in touch with us by email. Info at leaderimpactca and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you.
