Welcome to the aggressive life.

Do you like the Home Depot?

Come on.

Big orange store with all kinds of cool manly stuff inside of it.

Of course you do.

It's one of the most beloved and revered brands in

America. Today we're going to talk to the man responsible for the rebirth of the big

orange as it's known. In 2007, when Frank Blake became the CEO of the Home Depot, the

company's stock price was stagnant. Customer service was poor,

and it was being outpaced in nearly every metric by its competitors. Mr. Blake's predecessor

had led the company in a purely numbers-based fashion, but Blake came into leadership taking a

personal approach. The Home Depot was founded on customer service,

and that's what he believed would bring it back to life.

His strategy sounds like old school, fuddy-dutty things that are idealistic values,

but it actually is something he worked, a culture of service.

He worked it.

Investing in employee morale. He worked it. Engaging in

employees or slash associates. He worked it. And he measured success by more than just sales charts.

And it worked. His leadership, his value system, his optimism, and breathe new life into the failing

brand. And since then, the Home Depot has been

the world's largest home improvement retailer. It's got something like 500,000, as they call

them, 500,000 orange-blooded associates and 2,300 stores in North America. All this from a man who

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