Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joel Manby, former President and Chief Executive Officer of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, served the company through its most difficult time and the start of its subsequent turnaround. Prior to SeaWorld, Joel was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Herschend Enterprises, the largest family-owned theme park and entertainment company in the United States. Before Herschend, he served as the CEO of Saab Cars North America.  

Manby has incorporated the definition of love, the verb, into his leadership philosophy to establish how true leaders are to behave. He views love as a mode of thinking―one that has helped him deliver tangible results.

While at Herschend Enterprises, Joel was featured on the hit CBS show Undercover Boss. He and the employees of Herschend inspired millions of viewers across the world with their unique approach to leadership. 

Joel received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Albion College. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Board of Orange, whose mission is to develop innovative church curriculum and provide tools that enable families to learn biblical virtues in the home, church and school. He also serves as a member of the National Advisory Board of The Salvation Army.

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Love Works

ZONDERVAN

Contents

Foreword............................................................................7Introduction........................................................................91. A Hard Day's Night...............................................................152. The Jedi Masters.................................................................253. Patient: Have Self-Control in Difficult Situations...............................354. Kind: Show Encouragement and Enthusiasm..........................................515. Trusting: Place Confidence in Someone............................................696. Unselfish: Think of Yourself Less................................................877. Truthful: Define Reality Corporately and Individually............................1118. Forgiving: Release the Grip of the Grudge........................................1339. Dedicated: Stick to Your Values in All Circumstances.............................14910. A Choice You Make...............................................................167Appendix: Herschend Family Entertainment History and Properties.....................185Acknowledgments.....................................................................193

Chapter One

It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog. John Lennon and Paul McCartney

1.1 Is This What Life Is All About?

* * *

It was a cool June evening in 2000. I was sitting alone in a one-room apartment in northern California, more than three thousand miles from my wife and kids in Atlanta. My place was completely bare inside: no pictures, no personal items, not even a single fake plant to warm the joint up. It was just a place to sleep.

Outside, the steady sheets of rain pouring down were a perfect picture of my life. I was the brand-new leader of an Internet startup called GreenLight.com—and the dot-com bubble had just burst.

That night I had consumed enough wine to dull the sharp edge of the emotional pain and stress that were cutting into me. But what was I going to do, drink more and more each night? I had struggled with short seasons of depression before in my life, but this episode was getting the best of me. I didn't know if I could endure the pain anymore. I had no idea where to turn, and for every raindrop spattering against my window, I had a question running through my mind.

My career was like a high-speed treadmill. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1985, my wife, Marki, and I moved ten times in fifteen years as I accepted new leadership positions of increasing responsibility and pressure. The constant moving put a tremendous strain on our home life and our four girls.

One of our moves was to the startup of Saturn Corporation, which went from zero to $5 billion in revenue in three years. That job required countless hours of single-minded focus. While at Saturn, I was promoted to CEO of Saab North America. The division was losing money, and my job was to change that. The countless late nights and constant travel continued as a result of the seemingly endless pressure to hit the numbers. And we did—my family sticking with me despite my constant absence, while my team and I helped return the company to the second best year in Saab's North American history.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a finish line. I never "made it" or earned a chance to spend more time at home with my family. In 1999, three years into my Saab assignment, Asia and South America were added to my responsibilities. So, just one year before the night I sat alone in that empty apartment in California, I spent more than 250 days on the road, mostly in Asia—and even when I was home, I consistently had 6:00 a.m. phone calls with Sweden and 11:00 p.m. phone calls with the Asian markets.

I was burning out, and so was Marki.

On September 13, 1999, I was in Australia for a Saab distributor meeting and called Marki to catch up. As she started to talk, her voice cracked. "This is the second year in a row you've been away on my birthday. When you're home, which isn't often ..."

I could tell she was struggling to speak.

"When you're home, you're not really home."

There was a long pause, and I could tell she was trying to gather herself. "This is not what I signed up for," she finally said. "I thought I could handle this, and I've tried. But this isn't working for our family. You're frustrated. You're not happy, and neither am I. The kids don't really know you. Something needs to change."

The moments of silence that followed seemed like eternity.

Marki was right. Something did need to change. Divorce wasn't an option for us, but I knew that if I left her "holding the rock" at home, our marriage would never be all that it was meant to be. I wanted a great marriage, and I wanted to be a good dad. So I asked my boss, the CEO of Saab worldwide, if I could return to "only" being CEO of North American operations, which would cut my travel in half.

He refused.

Have you ever had a moment when a single conversation changes the course of your life irrevocably? It's almost as if time slows down so much that you can see the fork in the road. I was determined to make the right choice and the right choice was not the path that lead to year after year of missed birthdays and kids who were slowly becoming strangers.

I made the difficult choice to leave Saab for what I thought was a better lifestyle and a chance to get my family back on track. I decided to take the CEO position at GreenLight.com, the "car tab" at Amazon.com that let people buy a car with a few mouse clicks. I knew a startup would be tough, but I also knew there would be no international travel, and there was a large financial upside.

So I thought. Then the bubble burst, and it took me with it.

On my first week of work at GreenLight.com, the NASDAQ crashed and lost more than a third of its value. We weren't yet generating cash, and what was a three-year cash reserve quickly became a ninety-day cushion. In other words, as an organization, we suddenly had only ninety days to live, not the three years I thought we had when I took the job. At the end of my second week of work, I was laying off three-quarters of our team.

How's that for bad timing?

We took our Atlanta home off the market, delaying my family's relocation, since I would be working 24/7 trying to salvage GreenLight.com. I rented an apartment in California and traveled back to Atlanta only once or twice a month.

The path that I had thought would lead me back home to my family had instead led me to a bare, lonely apartment in California, with rain coming down outside and a sense of hopelessness descending inside. As I sat alone, finishing off my last glass of wine, the questions continued to beat against me:

My entire career I've been so driven ... for what?

The harder I work and the higher I'm promoted, the worse life gets. Is there any hope of balancing my career goals with my family goals?

My self-esteem is tied up in the performance of the companies I run. Do I really want my emotional highs and lows to be based on quarterly profit reports? Is that what life is all about?

If this is what a career in the business world looks like, should I go into a different line of work one that can unite my skills and my values? But is it right to give up all the...