David’s passion is to make the world a better place by developing leaders at all ages through David Novak Leadership, his family’s Lift-a-Life Foundation, Lead4Change, Global Game Changers and The Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri.
Novak has been recognized as “2012 CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review…
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ken-Langone-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text class=”hidden”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]Listen to this powerful podcast with The Home Depot, Co-Founder, Ken Langone and David Novak discussing leadership, humble beginnings, Ross Perot, Bernie Madoff, how to successfully engage your employees, and more.
He is a renowned businessman, investor and philanthropist. Ken is also the founder and CEO of Invemed Associates, a NY based investment and brokerage firm. In addition to his business interests, Langone serves on a number of non-profit boards including the board of trustees for the NYU Langone Medical Center, the Ronald McDonald House of NY, the Harlem.
[bctt tweet=”“That is the beginning of any road to success – feel good about yourself.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”12″ ][cs_element_row _id=”13″ ][cs_element_column _id=”14″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“If you’re going to be successful you have to lead. And you have to make tough choices.” – Rick Pitino” url=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/podcast/rick-pitino/” ]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
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Listen to this powerful podcast with The Home Depot, Co-Founder, Ken Langone and David Novak discussing leadership, humble beginnings, Ross Perot, Bernie Madoff, how to successfully engage your employees, and more.
He is a renowned businessman, investor and philanthropist. Ken is also the founder and CEO of Invemed Associates, a NY based investment and brokerage firm. In addition to his business interests, Langone serves on a number of non-profit boards including the board of trustees for the NYU Langone Medical Center, the Ronald McDonald House of NY, the Harlem.
“That is the beginning of any road to success – feel good about yourself.” Click To Tweet
“If you're going to be successful you have to lead. And you have to make tough choices.” – Rick Pitino Click To Tweet
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From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cornell-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text class=”hidden”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][cs_text class=”hidden” style=”margin:20px 0;font-size:14px;”]View Transcript
Ashley 0:01
Hi, everybody and welcome to the David Novak Leadership Podcast, the only podcast that brings you conversations with today’s most successful leaders that you just won’t hear anywhere else. I’m Ashley Butler, your co-host today and I’m here with my dad, David Novak, the co-founder and Former Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Taking People With You and a frequent guest host on CNBC Squawk Box. He founded David Novak Leadership to help leaders like you become the best leader you can be. So dad, who are we going to learn from today?
David Novak 0:40
Well Ashley, today’s guest is a very good friend of mine and a person I know you learned a lot from when he actually asked you to go on a market tour to visit a target in Louisville since he knows you and your family loves shopping at Target so much. I remember Ashley you telling me how impressed you were that he was kept peppering you with questions about your Target experience. Well, he wanted to learn from one of his most loyal customers. And after all, you are the definition of a heavy user. Well, of course, I’m talking about Brian Cornell, the Chairman and CEO of the iconic Target brand. You’re going to learn a lot about how a great leader dives into a turnaround situation and rights the ship. You’re going to find that Brian is a lifelong learner, teacher and coach. And since we’ve had our interview, I have to say I’ve been so impressed watching Brian take a leadership role working with the president and even his competitors to form a public private partnership to help America win the war against Coronavirus. In this conversation. You’re going to learn from Brian, how he leveled the playing field, what he wakes up every day thinking about, his favorite question when he visits Target stores, why saying, “I don’t know” actually makes you smarter, how to take your opinion out of the equation, and how the best thing that happens in business is when you see the pronouns change. There’s no doubt that this conversation is with one of today’s most successful leaders, and it’s packed with insights. Brian, thanks so much for having this conversation.
Brian Cornell 2:09
David, it’s great to be here with you.
David Novak 2:11
Let me start out, Brian, just by- you know, obviously, you’re the CEO of one of the largest and most admired retailers in the world. You know, how’d you get there? Tell us a little bit about your journey. How’d you grow up? Tell me about, you know, what was like when you were a kid?
Brian Cornell 2:24
I go back in time. And it’s pretty amazing to me to think that I somehow ended up in this amazing role, running 100 year old iconic American brand like Target. I grew up in a really humble environment. I lost my dad when I was young. My mom had a series of illnesses. And I had to grow up the hard way. And I’ve worked for as many years as you can imagine, from being just a little kid mowing lawns and shoveling snow and washing trucks at Tropicana DC. So, if you look back in time when I was a kid, you would have said, No, there’s no chance this person person ends up doing what I’m doing. But in a country like ours, where you have opportunities, I was able to take advantage of it. And I learned really early in life, that for me, David, there were only three ways when I was a kid, that I could put my economic circumstances aside and just move forward. I found that it was in school, because when the test is handed out, nobody cared who my dad was, or how much money I had. In sports on the playing field, where the playing field was level and at work, where once you showed up, it was all about performance and execution and doing the things that were put in front of you. So I learned pretty early that that for me was the level playing field, in school, in sports, when I worked, and I embraced that early. I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I said I’m going to perform, excel. Take advantage of opportunities. And somehow it all worked out. But it wasn’t some magical path. I didn’t grow up in a CEOs household. I had worked for literally everything I had. Find part time jobs. So I had money for cleats, and baseball and equipment in football. But it all worked out because, I found what worked for me. And I was really fortunate to have great mentors and leaders and people that just cared.
David Novak 4:30
You know, I was looking at your career and you’ve you’ve been, you know, had some amazing jobs. You know, after you got past you’re mowing the lawns as a kid, EVP of Safeway, CEO of Michael’s, CEO Sam’s Club, CEO of Pepsi America’s, you know, what made you shift gears? When was it- what was it that would you know, if you can generalize, what was it that made you say, “Hey, I want to do something different.”
Brian Cornell 4:54
It actually goes back David to kind of the early 2000 period, and I had, just come back from Europe with PepsiCo, I was in a great role in the US. And my phone kept ringing from one of the search companies saying, Brian, there’s this unique opportunity. It’s in retail. It’s a company that actually is pretty troubled, might be down on their luck a little bit. But they’re looking for somebody to come in, re-energize the strategy, rethink the business plan, build brands, and the first three times they called, my answer was always the same. Hey, I love what I’m doing. I’m not interested, and then hang up the phone. And after the third call, my wife looked at me and said, “You know, you keep telling them that but every time you say no, I see kind of this look in your eye as if you’re missing a big opportunity.” And the reason I was so attracted and ultimately moved from consumer packaged goods to retail, is I wanted to see if I could apply everything I had learned from a marketing standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, from a team building standpoint, in a new environment, and challenge myself, and it was uncomfortable. And one of the first things I learned is I had to get really comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” because I hadn’t done it before. You know, I was so comfortable. I knew the consumer packaged goods world. I knew PepsiCo, I knew beverages and snacks. It was in my blood. All of a sudden, I had to sit there and say, You know what, there’s some things I understand. But every once in a while, I gotta be comfortable telling the team that’s reporting to me. No, I need some help here. haven’t done this before. Can you help me? And one, it humbled me. But I think it also made me more authentic. And people rallied around the fact that I didn’t have all the answers and I wanted them to be part of the solution.
David Novak 6:49
That takes a lot of security. Brian, did you know I remember coming up my career I was trying to demonstrate to people that I knew what was going on and you know, I didn’t really- I wasn’t that open about talking what I didn’t know. And you know, I got more and more comfortable with that and I agree with the power of that. Was there a point in your career where you hit that pivot point where all of a sudden you you could be vulnerable like that?
Brian Cornell 7:13
I think it hit me, David, actually, back in 1999 and PepsiCo sent me to run a business unit in Europe. I packed my family up, we moved to Brussels, Belgium, and I’m running all these different countries and markets, different languages, different cultures, different competitors. And I realized pretty quickly, I didn’t have all the answers. Some things look the same. But people sounded different. There were competitors I’d never heard of. There are different cultural issues that I didn’t quite understand. So I had to ask a lot of questions. And I think at that point in my career, I learned the importance of making fewer statements and asking more questions. And I realized that That one, it may be a better leader. First, it showed that I did care. And I asked lots of questions. And I listened intently. And then I learned. But I really tried to make sure I asked three times as many questions as they made statements. And I had to adjust to an environment where the languages were different. The cultures were different, the teams were different. And the business model, while it looked the same on paper, it was different country by country. So I started to really put a premium on asking questions, being a great listener, and making sure my statements, yeah, I might make it from time to time, but I wanted to measure the number of things that I said. David, I’ve always felt in roles like ours, when you were leading Yum! so successfully for so many years or a company like Target that has such an important relationship with American consumers. You got to wake up every day understanding consumer trends. You know, what are consumers interested in, how are they living their lives, where do they spend their money? I spent a lot of time and I always have whether it was here at PepsiCo, understanding the customer, I’m working with. In the case of Target, it’s, you know, it’s the Target guests, those 30 million families that shop in our stores every week. I need to really make sure I understand as much about them as possible. I spent a lot of time, and I always have, trying to understand my competition. I think to be successful in jobs like ours, you need to know as much about your competition as you do your own business. And I’ve learned that you’ve got to be able to manage cost effectively. And you’ve got to build great teams. And while the consumer part is important and the customer part is important and competition’s important, and certainly you’ve got to manage cost effectively. I’ve always found out, it always comes down to people.
David Novak 9:49
I want to come back to the teams in just a minute, but you know, one of the things I do know that you do is you get out into the stores and you visit with guests firsthand and talk to team members, what’s your process that you use for going into the store? What’s your goal when you go into the store? And how do you want to, how do you want to leave the people that to you meet?
Brian Cornell 10:10
One, I almost always try to arrive unannounced. I want to go in, I want to see things the way our shopper does the way the basic consumer does. I don’t want people to know I’m coming in advance. And one of the great parts of that is, there’s nothing better than catching people doing all the right things. When you walk in, and they’re not spending days and weeks preparing for it, but they’re just doing their job. They’re providing great leadership. They’re setting up great standards, and walk in and understand what they’re doing. Where I can help. Where are their pain points. What are elements that are working for them? Where do they have challenges, but I always try to make sure I start by, how can I help? You know, because I’m there to make sure I support them. And I found once you establish that dialogue, people relax. They realize that you’re there sincerely on behalf of the company to help them. And that opens up great dialogue. They’re more comfortable telling me you know, Brian, this item over here, it’s doing great. Packaging, presentation, the pricing, guest shopper, they love it. Over here, we got a problem. Size isn’t right. Price isn’t right. Somebody’s not satisfied with the presentation. I need some help. So once I can open up the dialog and make them realize, Hey, I’m there to serve them. They open up they’re more comfortable. And people can really be themselves.
David Novak 11:43
Well that’s kind of like that old saying, “nobody will care about you unless you show that you care about them.” And by doing that they feel- they trust you enough to really give you the straight skinny versus, versus you know, giving you the company line.
Brian Cornell 11:57
Well and I try to make sure they trust me enough that they know they can deliver good news and bad news. And they’re comfortable either way.
David Novak 12:06
Now you were talking, we were talking, we mentioned team building and the importance of teams. How do you view yourself as a leader? I mean, what do you think is your approach to leadership?
Brian Cornell 12:16
I might go back in time, you know, when I was in school at UCLA, I kind of went back and forth about what did I want to do? For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. When I stopped playing football in college, I coached high school football, and I coached baseball, and I loved working with kids. I love being out on the field. And in some ways, I feel like I’m still a coach. I get to develop talent and design the plays and work with the team and get somebody ready to come off the bench and jump in when we need them. And I want to be a lifelong coach. And I’ve always recognized you can have a great game plan, a beautiful strategy, it always looks good in a boardroom or on the sideline. But it’s always the people that have to go out there and embrace it. I’ve always believed that, for me, the best things have happened in businesses that I’ve been involved in – when the pronouns change. Let me explain what that means. When I hear somebody say, David said, or Brian said, we need to do this. I usually just shake my head and say, you know, this is not going to work out well, because they don’t own it. They don’t believe it, they’re doing it because they think it’s important to you or to me, but when I hear that pronoun flip, and it’s, “Here’s what we’re gonna do.” And “Here’s what we believe in.” And “Here’s our strategy.” And “Here’s our plan,” magical things happen because people become accountable. They feel vested, they feel like they’re owners, and they’re empowered. So I always look for that pronoun to flip.
David Novak 13:52
I love that. That is such a great phrase, you know, the pronoun flip, going from me to we or in our I to- You know, that just that’s Fantastic
Brian Cornell 14:00
But in, in businesses like ours, it makes a huge difference. And when people feel like, first their voice has been heard. You want to hear their point of view. And it’s our plan. It’s not my plan. All of a sudden, great results start to materialize.
David Novak 14:18
You mentioned earlier that you’d had a number of mentors and leaders that really had helped you throughout your career. Can you talk about a couple of them and what they really provided you?
Brian Cornell 14:27
You know, I’ll start with a woman by the name of Ellen Marram, who was the CEO of Nabisco’s business, she ran the Tropicana business, and she was this incredible brand builder, and very consumer focused. Built great brands in her career. And I learned a lot from her. Ellen today still sits on the board of Ford Motor Company and the New York Times, she’s still very engaged. But one of the things she taught me from a brand building standpoint is, my opinion didn’t really count. It should be all about what the consumer is telling us, what people who are using the brand are saying. And I might have some great ideas, but she taught me to always go back and say, Alright, does the consumer like this idea? Do they like the packaging? Do they like the new product? How do they react to the campaign? As opposed to me walking in and saying, This is fantastic. You know, look at this great package. Look at this great product. She taught me a lot about brand building, and how to really stay close to the consumer and I will never ever forget that.
David Novak 15:33
Well, you certainly are doing that today. All you have to do is walk into a Target store and see the voice of the customer and action in terms of how you respond. Do you have any daily rituals or habits that you use to get yourself fired up? You’re a very positive, energetic person. You can’t be this way all the time. What do you do? How do you get yourself pumped up to go to work?
Brian Cornell 15:54
David, probably 15 years ago now. I got involved with a program called The Corporate Athlete. It’s a program out of Orlando, they call it the Human Performance Institute. And they started out training and working with professional athletes, you know, people who were competing at the highest level. And they transition this program over for executives like you and I, to say, all right, how do you manage your energy? How do you train like you’re an athlete? And transfer some of that learning from tennis and golf and football and baseball into the corporate environment. And it taught me a lot about first energy management. How do you make sure that you’re at your best when you have to be at your best? And what’s the role of nutrition and rest and exercise in making yourself a better executive? So I kind of rewired myself. I started to recognize, well, if I’m speaking in front of a big crowd, if I’ve got a really big board meeting, if I’ve had an important decision to make, I better get some sleep the night before. Just like you would if you’re playing in the US Open, or you’re playing in the Super Bowl, the night before the game, I’m going to get a good meal, I’m going to rest I’m going to show up at my very best. And for me, I also recognize the importance of exercise. And whether it’s 20 minutes in between meetings or the end of the day before I’ve got to go off to a dinner function, getting on the treadmill, doing something, to manage my stress, build back my energy. But I’ve tried to think about those principles every day. And I no longer challenge my teams to kind of show that false bravado. When you and I were growing up, go back, you know, back in the day, somebody would say, Oh, you know, I was working at two o’clock in the morning. And here I am at seven o’clock and I’m ready to go and do you need something eat? No, coffee will be fine. You know, I’m going to go to work. And you realize you’re asking somebody six hours later, a really important question, get an opinion. Well, they’re fatigued. They’re exhausted, they haven’t eaten, and you can’t expect them to deliver their best. So I really tried to balance the importance of my energy and trying to make sure I never have a bad day. But to do that, I’ve got to get the right amount of sleep, eat well, exercise and try to bring my best to work every day.
David Novak 18:21
Well, that’s that’s some absolutely great advice. And you know, the other thing I know about you, Brian, is you were very devoted family man, you got a great family, great, great partner. And you’re a CEO, and you have all these time demands and people like me want to interview you. How do you manage that all and put your family in the right priority?
Brian Cornell 18:41
Well, David, it’s actually, it’s taken some time. And I think there’s some tough lessons learned for all of us along the way. Because today, I’m so fortunate to have a wife who, in September, we’ll have been married 35 years. 35 years. She’s lived in Europe and Asia, and in different parts of the US, she supported me throughout my career. And I couldn’t be here without her. My two kids are my two best friends. And my son and my daughter, I talk to them every day. Now, I may get a text message. But you know, I hear from them, we communicate. And I’ve recognized just how important that balance is. That you have to be able to do both. And you can’t have one without the other. And I think for most of us, the importance of our family, and I know your daughter and the relationship you have with her, and the relationship you have with your wife. That’s part of who you are. And you’ve got to be able to find a way to balance your passion for work with the commitment you have your family, and when they both come together. Again, I think that’s where, you know, people like you and I find a way to excel.
Ashley 19:52
Hey, listeners, let’s take a break and talk about you. Do you want to be a more effective leader? If you want to grow and make a bigger impact as a leader, you have to check out our new Purposeful Recognition course. It’s a masterclass style course taught by David Novak, where he teaches you and your teams how to use recognition as a results driving business skill. It’s fun, it’s short, and it’s just $99. And I can tell you that if you’re interested in moving from me to we, it’s the best way to get started doing it. So I encourage you, turn your intentions to be a better leader into action. And go to DavidNovakLeadership.com and sign up today. You won’t regret it. Now back to the podcast.
David Novak 20:35
What’s your view, Brian, of just recognition. You know, a lot of people think recognition is something you should do, obviously, but they don’t think she did very often. You got to be careful with it because you know, you might, you know, people might take their foot off the accelerator, what’s your view on recognition and how often you should give it as a leader?
Brian Cornell 20:57
David, I don’t think you can give it enough. I think it’s so important. I think people want to hear that first, you care, that you recognize their contribution, that you’re giving them feedback. And I found and you’ve taught me a lot of this. But recognition is so powerful. You know, back to bringing energy to the organization, and commitment and getting people to feel ownership. When you recognize their performance and their contribution and what they bring, and you just pause to say, “thank you,” It makes such a big difference. And I talked about working in, living in the US and Asia and Europe. It’s worldwide. People want to be recognized. And it doesn’t always have to be the big giant trophy. You know, little notes, little thank yous. It goes a long way, thanking somebody for their contribution to a program or their contribution to a meeting or the fact that, you know, if they picked up one of their teammates when somebody had an issue, somebody had to run off and take care of one of their kids, they stepped up said, “Hey, I’ll do it.” And you recognize that it makes the world of difference.
David Novak 22:13
Absolutely. And you know, when you think about your company’s future, obviously, you’re going to need more and more leaders like yourself. How do you focus on leadership development? And what do you personally do to make sure that you’re developing the next generation of leaders in your company?
Brian Cornell 22:29
Well, I personally spent a lot of time on it. And if I think about, you know, my allocation of time, I would say at least a third of my time, is on the people. Working with my teams, working on leaders, thinking about that next generation. You’ve met my sensational head of HR at Target. Stephanie Lundqvist, we’ve been spending a lot of time saying alright, how do we identify the future executive leaders of Target that five years from now, 10 years from now, are going to be sitting around that table? And I see them every day. I know who those candidates are, how do we overcommit to them, give them the time, share critical experiences, make sure we’re elevating their full potential? But you’ve got to commit the time. You got to be a great coach and teacher, you got to listen, you got to be able to share what you’ve learned. You’ve got to also be willing to say, here’s all the mistakes I’ve made. And I want you to learn from what’s worked for me. But also I want to, I want to make sure I share with you, here’s all the things I’ve done wrong, and I got a long list of all the mistakes I’ve made.
David Novak 23:37
What would be at the top of that list when you look back at your career?
Brian Cornell 23:41
You know, probably, in some ways, David, moving too fast on certain issues. You know, not asking enough questions, not getting full buy-in, running ahead of the team. And watching people say, “That’s a great add. Brian loves this. Let them go. He’ll figure it out.” You’ve got it. Bring people with you. And when I was a little younger, and I was just focused on performance and execution and making sure you know, I got the a grade, I might have run ahead of the team, and I left them behind. I now recognize, you’ve got to bring people with you, you got to set a great agenda. But if you’re not bringing the team with you, flipping that pronoun, you can only do so much on your own.
David Novak 24:22
You know, Brian, I saw a recent Gallup survey where 70% on average, 70% of workers in our country today are not engaged. Why do you think that is?
Brian Cornell 24:37
They probably don’t feel ownership. They don’t feel a connection with the company. They may not feel a connection to the purpose of the organization. They don’t feel appreciated. And you think about if you’re not feeling appreciated, and you don’t feel an attachment to the organization’s purpose, and you don’t buy into the direction, it just becomes a routine for you and your energy dissipates, you’re not fully engaged, and ultimately, you walk out. But I think leadership plays such an important part in filling that engagement void. And great leaders build engagement. And they provide a platform for people to ask questions, to fill in the blanks, so that you can build that bond with the team.
David Novak 25:27
You know, Brian, you’ve had so many wins in your career, you obviously wouldn’t be where you’re at if you didn’t have such a tremendous track record, which you clearly have. What would be the number one highlight of your career? Can you point to one that you’re just really proud of
Brian Cornell 25:42
David, it’s probably what I’m doing today. When I walked into the Target headquarters, and recognize I’m running 100 year old company, this iconic American brand, 320,000 people, the sixth largest employer in the United States, 30 million shoppers every week, 85% of America shops at Target every year. I almost pinch myself. I said this everyday, How did this happen? And thyou know, I was humbled by it, and I feel this sense of responsibility every day for the brand, the business and the team, because it is this iconic company, and I want to make it better. And that’s probably the highlight of my entire business career.
David Novak 26:34
That’s, that’s amazing. You’re also very vulnerable, and you talk about things, you know, mistakes that you might have made. Can you share with us the low point in your career and event that happened and how did you cope with it?
Brian Cornell 26:50
Well, I’ll tell you, the, probably the most challenging day that I can think of in my 30+ year career, and it happened this year, David. I made a very difficult decision to stand up in front of shareholders, our business analysts at our annual investor conference in February. And I’ll remember February 28. For the rest of my career. I’d have to tell you, it’s a challenging time at retail. There’s a lot of changes, thousands of stores closing, a significant change between physical and digital shopping. And I recognized that we had to place some pretty bold bets. And that morning before I stood up in front of about 350 shareholders in the room, lots more on a webcast. I’ve watched us push the button to send out the release and it said, Target to spend $7 billion of capital in the next three years to reimagine stores and build new stores and improve technology and supply chain. I told shareholders that day, I’m going to use $1 billion of operating income to invest in more talent in their stores, in our brands, in accelerating the business. Well, once that news wire went out, I was watching a little bit of CNBC. And they’re looking saying, this can’t be right. They’re going to spend how much? Their operating income is going to come down by a billion dollars. And I watched our stock fall. And then I had to go across the street to the meeting room and get ready to get on stage. And those stairs looked like they were six feet high. I was thinking I stand up and explain to the world, here’s why we’re doing what we’re going to do. But the most satisfying part of that was I walked offstage. And one of the analysts ran up to me, and he looked me in the eye and said, Brian, I didn’t think you’d have the courage to do this, but you’re doing the right thing. If I was you running Target, I’d make those investments. I’d play the long game, I’d plan for the future. But that was one of the loneliest moments in my career, watching people question what I was doing, the bet we were placing, having the courage to crawl up on stage and stand there and explain, Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. And here’s why I need your trust that, not tomorrow, but two and three years from now, we’re going to be a better company, and we’ll be one of the future winners.
David Novak 29:32
So you coped with that basically, by knowing deep in your heart, that it was the right thing to do and when you do the right thing, the right things happen.
Brian Cornell 29:39
And I knew it was the right thing for the brand. But most importantly, it was the right thing for the team. And the response I received. We both know those front lines of our organization are so important. When I went out to stores and they were hearing, what, Brian’s investing $500 million in more hours and more talent and more people. All they could say was, Thank you. You know, thanks for believing in us. But that was a tough decision. And there were some lonely hours. And my IQ is dropping pretty quickly. But we did the right thing for the long term. And I know three years from now, we’ll be a better company, we’ll be a stronger company, we’ll be one of the future winners, and our team will drive it on those results.
David Novak 30:28
Well, you obviously project a lot of confidence in your people in the future. How do you feel, how important is that for a leader to project that kind of confidence?
Brian Cornell 30:37
I think when you’re in roles like ours, you don’t get a chance to have a bad day. You know, people watch us so carefully, to see our energy level, our confidence, our commitment, our engagement. I think it’s critically important, because as tough as it is, and I’m still learning to get used to it after all these years, we don’t get days off. Can’t say you don’t x Wednesday, I’m gonna have a bad day on Wednesday. You know, don’t ignore it. People depend on us, you know, and we have to project confidence. Because if we’re not confident, they’re not going to be confident.
David Novak 31:15
Absolutely.What’s your personal mission going forward?
Brian Cornell 31:17
You know, if I, if there’s one thing I feel really strongly about, David, is I want to leave behind, whenever the day is when they say, you know, Brian, it’s time for you to step away from Target, I want to make sure I’m leaving a company behind that’s filled with great talent, with a amazing leadership team, with people that are really engaged. And, you know, I’ve thought about this a lot. One of the things that I think is so important is when I do retire, and when you retired, you want people to miss you. And I think that’s so important. I know at Yum! people will always miss David Novak. When I leave Target, I want someone to say, you know, I still miss Brian.
David Novak 32:09
I guarantee you, they don’t want you to leave and when you do leave, it will be, it will be not a happy day for everybody because you make a difference in people. If there are three pieces of leadership advice you could leave our listeners with what would those three pieces be?
Brian Cornell 32:26
Probably I’ve talked about many of them, David, I think, again, it’s really important to be a great listener. I think the opportunity to make sure that you’re asking questions, showing great respect, showing that you really care what others think is really important, I think to do our jobs well, you have to be a lifelong student, because the business is always changing. There’s always something new, so you can’t blink. You’ve got to be studying the consumer landscape. For me, the retail landscape, understand what’s happening in the macro and micro environments. You’ve got to be a great student. But I think the one message I’d leave behind is it always comes down to the people and making sure they’re engaged, they’re recognized, they know how important they are. All these strategies, all the great documents, all the great presentations, ultimately, it always comes down to the people who own it, who live it, who execute it. They’re the ones that make it happen.
David Novak 33:32
You know, Brian, you are a leader that has amazing heart. I’ve basically been motivated just by listening to you. I mean, I can’t wait to go out and do something positive for somebody. And you certainly have done something positive for all of our listeners. Thank you for sharing your story so openly, being so vulnerable and just showing us what’s possible if you do the right things. I really appreciate you being on the show.
Brian Cornell 33:57
Thanks for having me, David. Thank you very much.
Ashley 34:01
Brian shared some great wisdom on how to determine if your workers are engaged. He calls it the pronoun flip. When you hear your workers saying, “Here’s what we’re going to do and here’s our strategy,” instead of “Here’s what Brian is going to do.” Your workers are engaged. I love this quote from Brian: “Magical things happen when the pronoun flips because people become accountable. They feel invested, they feel like owners and they are empowered.” Do you have an engaged team? Follow Brian’s advice and listen for the pronoun flip. How does your team talk about the business? Do they describe it as “your plans”? Or are they owning them and describing them as “our plans”? Listen to your team talk and see if the pronoun flip is at work. In this season of the David Novak Leadership podcasts we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where my dad will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages. You can subscribe to this podcast and our bi-weekly newsletter at DavidNovakLeadership.com. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify. Thanks for listening.
[/cs_text][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][x_gap size=”10px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”12″ ][cs_text]Hear the story behind the leader. Our featured guest Brian Cornell, Chairman & CEO of Target Corporation, has been CEO of many companies in his career. Listen to Brian tell the story of what shaped his leadership style from his youth to his current role.
Cornell joined Target in August 2014 after more than 30 years in escalating leadership positions at leading retail and global consumer product companies, including three CEO roles and more than two decades doing business in North America, Asia, Europe and Latin America. His past experience includes time as both a vendor partner and a competitor to Target, and he brings insights from those roles to the company today.[/cs_text][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“No one will care about you unless you show that you care about them.” – Brian Cornell”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”15″ ][cs_element_row _id=”16″ ][cs_element_column _id=”17″ ][x_gap size=”50px”][cs_text class=”hidden” style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“If we focus on culture… together we can make the customer happy, and then we have a chance to survive. Or If we focus on culture, making sure every employee is happy, I think that together we can make the customer happy.””]
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”20″ ][cs_text]Cornell has served on the board of directors for Yum! Brands since September 2015 and is a past director of Polaris Industries, Inc. He also serves on the board for UCLA’s Anderson School of Management Board of Visitors, providing strategic guidance to the dean in advancing the school’s mission, as well as the boards of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
Ashley 0:01
Hi, everybody and welcome to the David Novak Leadership Podcast, the only podcast that brings you conversations with today’s most successful leaders that you just won’t hear anywhere else. I’m Ashley Butler, your co-host today and I’m here with my dad, David Novak, the co-founder and Former Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Taking People With You and a frequent guest host on CNBC Squawk Box. He founded David Novak Leadership to help leaders like you become the best leader you can be. So dad, who are we going to learn from today?
David Novak 0:40
Well Ashley, today’s guest is a very good friend of mine and a person I know you learned a lot from when he actually asked you to go on a market tour to visit a target in Louisville since he knows you and your family loves shopping at Target so much. I remember Ashley you telling me how impressed you were that he was kept peppering you with questions about your Target experience. Well, he wanted to learn from one of his most loyal customers. And after all, you are the definition of a heavy user. Well, of course, I’m talking about Brian Cornell, the Chairman and CEO of the iconic Target brand. You’re going to learn a lot about how a great leader dives into a turnaround situation and rights the ship. You’re going to find that Brian is a lifelong learner, teacher and coach. And since we’ve had our interview, I have to say I’ve been so impressed watching Brian take a leadership role working with the president and even his competitors to form a public private partnership to help America win the war against Coronavirus. In this conversation. You’re going to learn from Brian, how he leveled the playing field, what he wakes up every day thinking about, his favorite question when he visits Target stores, why saying, “I don’t know” actually makes you smarter, how to take your opinion out of the equation, and how the best thing that happens in business is when you see the pronouns change. There’s no doubt that this conversation is with one of today’s most successful leaders, and it’s packed with insights. Brian, thanks so much for having this conversation.
Brian Cornell 2:09
David, it’s great to be here with you.
David Novak 2:11
Let me start out, Brian, just by- you know, obviously, you’re the CEO of one of the largest and most admired retailers in the world. You know, how’d you get there? Tell us a little bit about your journey. How’d you grow up? Tell me about, you know, what was like when you were a kid?
Brian Cornell 2:24
I go back in time. And it’s pretty amazing to me to think that I somehow ended up in this amazing role, running 100 year old iconic American brand like Target. I grew up in a really humble environment. I lost my dad when I was young. My mom had a series of illnesses. And I had to grow up the hard way. And I’ve worked for as many years as you can imagine, from being just a little kid mowing lawns and shoveling snow and washing trucks at Tropicana DC. So, if you look back in time when I was a kid, you would have said, No, there’s no chance this person person ends up doing what I’m doing. But in a country like ours, where you have opportunities, I was able to take advantage of it. And I learned really early in life, that for me, David, there were only three ways when I was a kid, that I could put my economic circumstances aside and just move forward. I found that it was in school, because when the test is handed out, nobody cared who my dad was, or how much money I had. In sports on the playing field, where the playing field was level and at work, where once you showed up, it was all about performance and execution and doing the things that were put in front of you. So I learned pretty early that that for me was the level playing field, in school, in sports, when I worked, and I embraced that early. I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I said I’m going to perform, excel. Take advantage of opportunities. And somehow it all worked out. But it wasn’t some magical path. I didn’t grow up in a CEOs household. I had worked for literally everything I had. Find part time jobs. So I had money for cleats, and baseball and equipment in football. But it all worked out because, I found what worked for me. And I was really fortunate to have great mentors and leaders and people that just cared.
David Novak 4:30
You know, I was looking at your career and you’ve you’ve been, you know, had some amazing jobs. You know, after you got past you’re mowing the lawns as a kid, EVP of Safeway, CEO of Michael’s, CEO Sam’s Club, CEO of Pepsi America’s, you know, what made you shift gears? When was it- what was it that would you know, if you can generalize, what was it that made you say, “Hey, I want to do something different.”
Brian Cornell 4:54
It actually goes back David to kind of the early 2000 period, and I had, just come back from Europe with PepsiCo, I was in a great role in the US. And my phone kept ringing from one of the search companies saying, Brian, there’s this unique opportunity. It’s in retail. It’s a company that actually is pretty troubled, might be down on their luck a little bit. But they’re looking for somebody to come in, re-energize the strategy, rethink the business plan, build brands, and the first three times they called, my answer was always the same. Hey, I love what I’m doing. I’m not interested, and then hang up the phone. And after the third call, my wife looked at me and said, “You know, you keep telling them that but every time you say no, I see kind of this look in your eye as if you’re missing a big opportunity.” And the reason I was so attracted and ultimately moved from consumer packaged goods to retail, is I wanted to see if I could apply everything I had learned from a marketing standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, from a team building standpoint, in a new environment, and challenge myself, and it was uncomfortable. And one of the first things I learned is I had to get really comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” because I hadn’t done it before. You know, I was so comfortable. I knew the consumer packaged goods world. I knew PepsiCo, I knew beverages and snacks. It was in my blood. All of a sudden, I had to sit there and say, You know what, there’s some things I understand. But every once in a while, I gotta be comfortable telling the team that’s reporting to me. No, I need some help here. haven’t done this before. Can you help me? And one, it humbled me. But I think it also made me more authentic. And people rallied around the fact that I didn’t have all the answers and I wanted them to be part of the solution.
David Novak 6:49
That takes a lot of security. Brian, did you know I remember coming up my career I was trying to demonstrate to people that I knew what was going on and you know, I didn’t really- I wasn’t that open about talking what I didn’t know. And you know, I got more and more comfortable with that and I agree with the power of that. Was there a point in your career where you hit that pivot point where all of a sudden you you could be vulnerable like that?
Brian Cornell 7:13
I think it hit me, David, actually, back in 1999 and PepsiCo sent me to run a business unit in Europe. I packed my family up, we moved to Brussels, Belgium, and I’m running all these different countries and markets, different languages, different cultures, different competitors. And I realized pretty quickly, I didn’t have all the answers. Some things look the same. But people sounded different. There were competitors I’d never heard of. There are different cultural issues that I didn’t quite understand. So I had to ask a lot of questions. And I think at that point in my career, I learned the importance of making fewer statements and asking more questions. And I realized that That one, it may be a better leader. First, it showed that I did care. And I asked lots of questions. And I listened intently. And then I learned. But I really tried to make sure I asked three times as many questions as they made statements. And I had to adjust to an environment where the languages were different. The cultures were different, the teams were different. And the business model, while it looked the same on paper, it was different country by country. So I started to really put a premium on asking questions, being a great listener, and making sure my statements, yeah, I might make it from time to time, but I wanted to measure the number of things that I said. David, I’ve always felt in roles like ours, when you were leading Yum! so successfully for so many years or a company like Target that has such an important relationship with American consumers. You got to wake up every day understanding consumer trends. You know, what are consumers interested in, how are they living their lives, where do they spend their money? I spent a lot of time and I always have whether it was here at PepsiCo, understanding the customer, I’m working with. In the case of Target, it’s, you know, it’s the Target guests, those 30 million families that shop in our stores every week. I need to really make sure I understand as much about them as possible. I spent a lot of time, and I always have, trying to understand my competition. I think to be successful in jobs like ours, you need to know as much about your competition as you do your own business. And I’ve learned that you’ve got to be able to manage cost effectively. And you’ve got to build great teams. And while the consumer part is important and the customer part is important and competition’s important, and certainly you’ve got to manage cost effectively. I’ve always found out, it always comes down to people.
David Novak 9:49
I want to come back to the teams in just a minute, but you know, one of the things I do know that you do is you get out into the stores and you visit with guests firsthand and talk to team members, what’s your process that you use for going into the store? What’s your goal when you go into the store? And how do you want to, how do you want to leave the people that to you meet?
Brian Cornell 10:10
One, I almost always try to arrive unannounced. I want to go in, I want to see things the way our shopper does the way the basic consumer does. I don’t want people to know I’m coming in advance. And one of the great parts of that is, there’s nothing better than catching people doing all the right things. When you walk in, and they’re not spending days and weeks preparing for it, but they’re just doing their job. They’re providing great leadership. They’re setting up great standards, and walk in and understand what they’re doing. Where I can help. Where are their pain points. What are elements that are working for them? Where do they have challenges, but I always try to make sure I start by, how can I help? You know, because I’m there to make sure I support them. And I found once you establish that dialogue, people relax. They realize that you’re there sincerely on behalf of the company to help them. And that opens up great dialogue. They’re more comfortable telling me you know, Brian, this item over here, it’s doing great. Packaging, presentation, the pricing, guest shopper, they love it. Over here, we got a problem. Size isn’t right. Price isn’t right. Somebody’s not satisfied with the presentation. I need some help. So once I can open up the dialog and make them realize, Hey, I’m there to serve them. They open up they’re more comfortable. And people can really be themselves.
David Novak 11:43
Well that’s kind of like that old saying, “nobody will care about you unless you show that you care about them.” And by doing that they feel- they trust you enough to really give you the straight skinny versus, versus you know, giving you the company line.
Brian Cornell 11:57
Well and I try to make sure they trust me enough that they know they can deliver good news and bad news. And they’re comfortable either way.
David Novak 12:06
Now you were talking, we were talking, we mentioned team building and the importance of teams. How do you view yourself as a leader? I mean, what do you think is your approach to leadership?
Brian Cornell 12:16
I might go back in time, you know, when I was in school at UCLA, I kind of went back and forth about what did I want to do? For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. When I stopped playing football in college, I coached high school football, and I coached baseball, and I loved working with kids. I love being out on the field. And in some ways, I feel like I’m still a coach. I get to develop talent and design the plays and work with the team and get somebody ready to come off the bench and jump in when we need them. And I want to be a lifelong coach. And I’ve always recognized you can have a great game plan, a beautiful strategy, it always looks good in a boardroom or on the sideline. But it’s always the people that have to go out there and embrace it. I’ve always believed that, for me, the best things have happened in businesses that I’ve been involved in – when the pronouns change. Let me explain what that means. When I hear somebody say, David said, or Brian said, we need to do this. I usually just shake my head and say, you know, this is not going to work out well, because they don’t own it. They don’t believe it, they’re doing it because they think it’s important to you or to me, but when I hear that pronoun flip, and it’s, “Here’s what we’re gonna do.” And “Here’s what we believe in.” And “Here’s our strategy.” And “Here’s our plan,” magical things happen because people become accountable. They feel vested, they feel like they’re owners, and they’re empowered. So I always look for that pronoun to flip.
David Novak 13:52
I love that. That is such a great phrase, you know, the pronoun flip, going from me to we or in our I to- You know, that just that’s Fantastic
Brian Cornell 14:00
But in, in businesses like ours, it makes a huge difference. And when people feel like, first their voice has been heard. You want to hear their point of view. And it’s our plan. It’s not my plan. All of a sudden, great results start to materialize.
David Novak 14:18
You mentioned earlier that you’d had a number of mentors and leaders that really had helped you throughout your career. Can you talk about a couple of them and what they really provided you?
Brian Cornell 14:27
You know, I’ll start with a woman by the name of Ellen Marram, who was the CEO of Nabisco’s business, she ran the Tropicana business, and she was this incredible brand builder, and very consumer focused. Built great brands in her career. And I learned a lot from her. Ellen today still sits on the board of Ford Motor Company and the New York Times, she’s still very engaged. But one of the things she taught me from a brand building standpoint is, my opinion didn’t really count. It should be all about what the consumer is telling us, what people who are using the brand are saying. And I might have some great ideas, but she taught me to always go back and say, Alright, does the consumer like this idea? Do they like the packaging? Do they like the new product? How do they react to the campaign? As opposed to me walking in and saying, This is fantastic. You know, look at this great package. Look at this great product. She taught me a lot about brand building, and how to really stay close to the consumer and I will never ever forget that.
David Novak 15:33
Well, you certainly are doing that today. All you have to do is walk into a Target store and see the voice of the customer and action in terms of how you respond. Do you have any daily rituals or habits that you use to get yourself fired up? You’re a very positive, energetic person. You can’t be this way all the time. What do you do? How do you get yourself pumped up to go to work?
Brian Cornell 15:54
David, probably 15 years ago now. I got involved with a program called The Corporate Athlete. It’s a program out of Orlando, they call it the Human Performance Institute. And they started out training and working with professional athletes, you know, people who were competing at the highest level. And they transition this program over for executives like you and I, to say, all right, how do you manage your energy? How do you train like you’re an athlete? And transfer some of that learning from tennis and golf and football and baseball into the corporate environment. And it taught me a lot about first energy management. How do you make sure that you’re at your best when you have to be at your best? And what’s the role of nutrition and rest and exercise in making yourself a better executive? So I kind of rewired myself. I started to recognize, well, if I’m speaking in front of a big crowd, if I’ve got a really big board meeting, if I’ve had an important decision to make, I better get some sleep the night before. Just like you would if you’re playing in the US Open, or you’re playing in the Super Bowl, the night before the game, I’m going to get a good meal, I’m going to rest I’m going to show up at my very best. And for me, I also recognize the importance of exercise. And whether it’s 20 minutes in between meetings or the end of the day before I’ve got to go off to a dinner function, getting on the treadmill, doing something, to manage my stress, build back my energy. But I’ve tried to think about those principles every day. And I no longer challenge my teams to kind of show that false bravado. When you and I were growing up, go back, you know, back in the day, somebody would say, Oh, you know, I was working at two o’clock in the morning. And here I am at seven o’clock and I’m ready to go and do you need something eat? No, coffee will be fine. You know, I’m going to go to work. And you realize you’re asking somebody six hours later, a really important question, get an opinion. Well, they’re fatigued. They’re exhausted, they haven’t eaten, and you can’t expect them to deliver their best. So I really tried to balance the importance of my energy and trying to make sure I never have a bad day. But to do that, I’ve got to get the right amount of sleep, eat well, exercise and try to bring my best to work every day.
David Novak 18:21
Well, that’s that’s some absolutely great advice. And you know, the other thing I know about you, Brian, is you were very devoted family man, you got a great family, great, great partner. And you’re a CEO, and you have all these time demands and people like me want to interview you. How do you manage that all and put your family in the right priority?
Brian Cornell 18:41
Well, David, it’s actually, it’s taken some time. And I think there’s some tough lessons learned for all of us along the way. Because today, I’m so fortunate to have a wife who, in September, we’ll have been married 35 years. 35 years. She’s lived in Europe and Asia, and in different parts of the US, she supported me throughout my career. And I couldn’t be here without her. My two kids are my two best friends. And my son and my daughter, I talk to them every day. Now, I may get a text message. But you know, I hear from them, we communicate. And I’ve recognized just how important that balance is. That you have to be able to do both. And you can’t have one without the other. And I think for most of us, the importance of our family, and I know your daughter and the relationship you have with her, and the relationship you have with your wife. That’s part of who you are. And you’ve got to be able to find a way to balance your passion for work with the commitment you have your family, and when they both come together. Again, I think that’s where, you know, people like you and I find a way to excel.
Ashley 19:52
Hey, listeners, let’s take a break and talk about you. Do you want to be a more effective leader? If you want to grow and make a bigger impact as a leader, you have to check out our new Purposeful Recognition course. It’s a masterclass style course taught by David Novak, where he teaches you and your teams how to use recognition as a results driving business skill. It’s fun, it’s short, and it’s just $99. And I can tell you that if you’re interested in moving from me to we, it’s the best way to get started doing it. So I encourage you, turn your intentions to be a better leader into action. And go to DavidNovakLeadership.com and sign up today. You won’t regret it. Now back to the podcast.
David Novak 20:35
What’s your view, Brian, of just recognition. You know, a lot of people think recognition is something you should do, obviously, but they don’t think she did very often. You got to be careful with it because you know, you might, you know, people might take their foot off the accelerator, what’s your view on recognition and how often you should give it as a leader?
Brian Cornell 20:57
David, I don’t think you can give it enough. I think it’s so important. I think people want to hear that first, you care, that you recognize their contribution, that you’re giving them feedback. And I found and you’ve taught me a lot of this. But recognition is so powerful. You know, back to bringing energy to the organization, and commitment and getting people to feel ownership. When you recognize their performance and their contribution and what they bring, and you just pause to say, “thank you,” It makes such a big difference. And I talked about working in, living in the US and Asia and Europe. It’s worldwide. People want to be recognized. And it doesn’t always have to be the big giant trophy. You know, little notes, little thank yous. It goes a long way, thanking somebody for their contribution to a program or their contribution to a meeting or the fact that, you know, if they picked up one of their teammates when somebody had an issue, somebody had to run off and take care of one of their kids, they stepped up said, “Hey, I’ll do it.” And you recognize that it makes the world of difference.
David Novak 22:13
Absolutely. And you know, when you think about your company’s future, obviously, you’re going to need more and more leaders like yourself. How do you focus on leadership development? And what do you personally do to make sure that you’re developing the next generation of leaders in your company?
Brian Cornell 22:29
Well, I personally spent a lot of time on it. And if I think about, you know, my allocation of time, I would say at least a third of my time, is on the people. Working with my teams, working on leaders, thinking about that next generation. You’ve met my sensational head of HR at Target. Stephanie Lundqvist, we’ve been spending a lot of time saying alright, how do we identify the future executive leaders of Target that five years from now, 10 years from now, are going to be sitting around that table? And I see them every day. I know who those candidates are, how do we overcommit to them, give them the time, share critical experiences, make sure we’re elevating their full potential? But you’ve got to commit the time. You got to be a great coach and teacher, you got to listen, you got to be able to share what you’ve learned. You’ve got to also be willing to say, here’s all the mistakes I’ve made. And I want you to learn from what’s worked for me. But also I want to, I want to make sure I share with you, here’s all the things I’ve done wrong, and I got a long list of all the mistakes I’ve made.
David Novak 23:37
What would be at the top of that list when you look back at your career?
Brian Cornell 23:41
You know, probably, in some ways, David, moving too fast on certain issues. You know, not asking enough questions, not getting full buy-in, running ahead of the team. And watching people say, “That’s a great add. Brian loves this. Let them go. He’ll figure it out.” You’ve got it. Bring people with you. And when I was a little younger, and I was just focused on performance and execution and making sure you know, I got the a grade, I might have run ahead of the team, and I left them behind. I now recognize, you’ve got to bring people with you, you got to set a great agenda. But if you’re not bringing the team with you, flipping that pronoun, you can only do so much on your own.
David Novak 24:22
You know, Brian, I saw a recent Gallup survey where 70% on average, 70% of workers in our country today are not engaged. Why do you think that is?
Brian Cornell 24:37
They probably don’t feel ownership. They don’t feel a connection with the company. They may not feel a connection to the purpose of the organization. They don’t feel appreciated. And you think about if you’re not feeling appreciated, and you don’t feel an attachment to the organization’s purpose, and you don’t buy into the direction, it just becomes a routine for you and your energy dissipates, you’re not fully engaged, and ultimately, you walk out. But I think leadership plays such an important part in filling that engagement void. And great leaders build engagement. And they provide a platform for people to ask questions, to fill in the blanks, so that you can build that bond with the team.
David Novak 25:27
You know, Brian, you’ve had so many wins in your career, you obviously wouldn’t be where you’re at if you didn’t have such a tremendous track record, which you clearly have. What would be the number one highlight of your career? Can you point to one that you’re just really proud of
Brian Cornell 25:42
David, it’s probably what I’m doing today. When I walked into the Target headquarters, and recognize I’m running 100 year old company, this iconic American brand, 320,000 people, the sixth largest employer in the United States, 30 million shoppers every week, 85% of America shops at Target every year. I almost pinch myself. I said this everyday, How did this happen? And thyou know, I was humbled by it, and I feel this sense of responsibility every day for the brand, the business and the team, because it is this iconic company, and I want to make it better. And that’s probably the highlight of my entire business career.
David Novak 26:34
That’s, that’s amazing. You’re also very vulnerable, and you talk about things, you know, mistakes that you might have made. Can you share with us the low point in your career and event that happened and how did you cope with it?
Brian Cornell 26:50
Well, I’ll tell you, the, probably the most challenging day that I can think of in my 30+ year career, and it happened this year, David. I made a very difficult decision to stand up in front of shareholders, our business analysts at our annual investor conference in February. And I’ll remember February 28. For the rest of my career. I’d have to tell you, it’s a challenging time at retail. There’s a lot of changes, thousands of stores closing, a significant change between physical and digital shopping. And I recognized that we had to place some pretty bold bets. And that morning before I stood up in front of about 350 shareholders in the room, lots more on a webcast. I’ve watched us push the button to send out the release and it said, Target to spend $7 billion of capital in the next three years to reimagine stores and build new stores and improve technology and supply chain. I told shareholders that day, I’m going to use $1 billion of operating income to invest in more talent in their stores, in our brands, in accelerating the business. Well, once that news wire went out, I was watching a little bit of CNBC. And they’re looking saying, this can’t be right. They’re going to spend how much? Their operating income is going to come down by a billion dollars. And I watched our stock fall. And then I had to go across the street to the meeting room and get ready to get on stage. And those stairs looked like they were six feet high. I was thinking I stand up and explain to the world, here’s why we’re doing what we’re going to do. But the most satisfying part of that was I walked offstage. And one of the analysts ran up to me, and he looked me in the eye and said, Brian, I didn’t think you’d have the courage to do this, but you’re doing the right thing. If I was you running Target, I’d make those investments. I’d play the long game, I’d plan for the future. But that was one of the loneliest moments in my career, watching people question what I was doing, the bet we were placing, having the courage to crawl up on stage and stand there and explain, Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. And here’s why I need your trust that, not tomorrow, but two and three years from now, we’re going to be a better company, and we’ll be one of the future winners.
David Novak 29:32
So you coped with that basically, by knowing deep in your heart, that it was the right thing to do and when you do the right thing, the right things happen.
Brian Cornell 29:39
And I knew it was the right thing for the brand. But most importantly, it was the right thing for the team. And the response I received. We both know those front lines of our organization are so important. When I went out to stores and they were hearing, what, Brian’s investing $500 million in more hours and more talent and more people. All they could say was, Thank you. You know, thanks for believing in us. But that was a tough decision. And there were some lonely hours. And my IQ is dropping pretty quickly. But we did the right thing for the long term. And I know three years from now, we’ll be a better company, we’ll be a stronger company, we’ll be one of the future winners, and our team will drive it on those results.
David Novak 30:28
Well, you obviously project a lot of confidence in your people in the future. How do you feel, how important is that for a leader to project that kind of confidence?
Brian Cornell 30:37
I think when you’re in roles like ours, you don’t get a chance to have a bad day. You know, people watch us so carefully, to see our energy level, our confidence, our commitment, our engagement. I think it’s critically important, because as tough as it is, and I’m still learning to get used to it after all these years, we don’t get days off. Can’t say you don’t x Wednesday, I’m gonna have a bad day on Wednesday. You know, don’t ignore it. People depend on us, you know, and we have to project confidence. Because if we’re not confident, they’re not going to be confident.
David Novak 31:15
Absolutely.What’s your personal mission going forward?
Brian Cornell 31:17
You know, if I, if there’s one thing I feel really strongly about, David, is I want to leave behind, whenever the day is when they say, you know, Brian, it’s time for you to step away from Target, I want to make sure I’m leaving a company behind that’s filled with great talent, with a amazing leadership team, with people that are really engaged. And, you know, I’ve thought about this a lot. One of the things that I think is so important is when I do retire, and when you retired, you want people to miss you. And I think that’s so important. I know at Yum! people will always miss David Novak. When I leave Target, I want someone to say, you know, I still miss Brian.
David Novak 32:09
I guarantee you, they don’t want you to leave and when you do leave, it will be, it will be not a happy day for everybody because you make a difference in people. If there are three pieces of leadership advice you could leave our listeners with what would those three pieces be?
Brian Cornell 32:26
Probably I’ve talked about many of them, David, I think, again, it’s really important to be a great listener. I think the opportunity to make sure that you’re asking questions, showing great respect, showing that you really care what others think is really important, I think to do our jobs well, you have to be a lifelong student, because the business is always changing. There’s always something new, so you can’t blink. You’ve got to be studying the consumer landscape. For me, the retail landscape, understand what’s happening in the macro and micro environments. You’ve got to be a great student. But I think the one message I’d leave behind is it always comes down to the people and making sure they’re engaged, they’re recognized, they know how important they are. All these strategies, all the great documents, all the great presentations, ultimately, it always comes down to the people who own it, who live it, who execute it. They’re the ones that make it happen.
David Novak 33:32
You know, Brian, you are a leader that has amazing heart. I’ve basically been motivated just by listening to you. I mean, I can’t wait to go out and do something positive for somebody. And you certainly have done something positive for all of our listeners. Thank you for sharing your story so openly, being so vulnerable and just showing us what’s possible if you do the right things. I really appreciate you being on the show.
Brian Cornell 33:57
Thanks for having me, David. Thank you very much.
Ashley 34:01
Brian shared some great wisdom on how to determine if your workers are engaged. He calls it the pronoun flip. When you hear your workers saying, “Here’s what we’re going to do and here’s our strategy,” instead of “Here’s what Brian is going to do.” Your workers are engaged. I love this quote from Brian: “Magical things happen when the pronoun flips because people become accountable. They feel invested, they feel like owners and they are empowered.” Do you have an engaged team? Follow Brian’s advice and listen for the pronoun flip. How does your team talk about the business? Do they describe it as “your plans”? Or are they owning them and describing them as “our plans”? Listen to your team talk and see if the pronoun flip is at work. In this season of the David Novak Leadership podcasts we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where my dad will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages. You can subscribe to this podcast and our bi-weekly newsletter at DavidNovakLeadership.com. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify. Thanks for listening.
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Hear the story behind the leader. Our featured guest Brian Cornell, Chairman & CEO of Target Corporation, has been CEO of many companies in his career. Listen to Brian tell the story of what shaped his leadership style from his youth to his current role.
Cornell joined Target in August 2014 after more than 30 years in escalating leadership positions at leading retail and global consumer product companies, including three CEO roles and more than two decades doing business in North America, Asia, Europe and Latin America. His past experience includes time as both a vendor partner and a competitor to Target, and he brings insights from those roles to the company today.
“No one will care about you unless you show that you care about them.” – Brian Cornell Click To Tweet
“If we focus on culture… together we can make the customer happy, and then we have a chance to survive. Or If we focus on culture, making sure every employee is happy, I think that together we can make the customer… Click To Tweet
Cornell has served on the board of directors for Yum! Brands since September 2015 and is a past director of Polaris Industries, Inc. He also serves on the board for UCLA’s Anderson School of Management Board of Visitors, providing strategic guidance to the dean in advancing the school’s mission, as well as the boards of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Eric-Yuan-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][cs_text class=”hidden” style=”margin:20px 0;font-size:14px;”]View Transcript
Ashley 0:01
Hi, everybody and welcome to the David Novak Leadership Podcast, the only podcast that brings you conversations with today’s most successful leaders that you just won’t hear anywhere else. I’m Ashley Butler, your co-host today, and I’m here with my dad David Novak, the Co-Founder and Former Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Taking People with You and a frequent guest host on CNBC Squawk Box. He founded David Novak Leadership to help leaders like you become the best leader you can be. So dad, who are we going to learn from today?
David Novak 0:40
Well, Ashley, it’s always fascinating to me when you can get inside of the head of a founder of a great business, hear how the company got started, and learn the keys to its success. That’s why I’m so excited to be talking to Eric Yuan, the Founder and CEO of Zoom. Now Zoom is the leader in remote conferencing services. In March of 2019, Eric and his team had the celebration of a lifetime when they rang the bell at NASDAQ and launched one of the most successful and largest IPOs of the year. And as you can imagine, given the Coronavirus outbreak, the usage of Zoom is now in more schools and more companies than ever before, and there’s no doubt in my mind that having these remote meetings online is changing the way that we learn how to work and learn forever. I had this conversation with Eric before the outbreak, but I think you’re gonna agree it’s one of a kind. You’ll hear from Eric what it was like growing up in China and then immigrating to the United States. You’ll learn how he learned his trade inside big companies, and then took on and beat the giants in his industry. And believe it or not, you’re going to hear why he thinks happiness and care – two very soft values – really represent the most important business driver for his company. And you know what, you’re gonna learn how he and his team drive innovation by focusing on what Eric calls pain points. I think you’ll also appreciate his unique advice for anyone who’s frustrated with not feeling heard in their job. Bottom line, Eric has one heck of a story to share. Eric, thanks for joining us on this Zoom call. And I want you to know that David Novak Leadership uses zoom for all our sales and conference calls.
Eric Yuan 2:33
David, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you for supporting Zoom. Thank you.
David Novak 2:39
Yeah, Eric, I want to get to your personal story in a minute. But first, tell us about what Zoom offers customers, and what it was like to recently go public.
Eric Yuan 2:48
Yeah, so Zoom offers next generation, modern collaboration services and centers around video collaboration experiences. We built a new solution from the ground up to make the video collaboration experience frictionless. So we just became a public company, you know, last month, and essentially just more like a high school graduation ceremony. We’re very excited. I think very little has changed since then.
David Novak 3:13
Yeah, I remember when Yum! Brands became public in 1997. Ringing that bell and being there with your team was really special. I’m sure you guys had to have a good time.
Eric Yuan 3:22
Yeah, yeah, we did. And we enjoyed being a partner with NASDAQ and also for every entrepreneur, it’s sort of like a dream coming true to be a NASDAQ public company.
David Novak 3:34
Well, Eric, now I want to go way back. I know you grew up in China. Tell us about your upbringing.
Eric Yuan 3:40
Yes. So I came here in 1997, and just to get my H1 working visa and directly came to the Silicon Valley. And I grew I was born in Shandong province in China and grew up there, and went to Beijing for my master degree. And I saw the huge opportunity for internet, because in 1994 when I traveled to Japan, Bill Gates was also there. And he shared, you know, the internet. And as I at that time realized, wow, internet was going to change everything, and I would like to come here to the Silicon Valley, to embrace the first wave of internet revolution.
David Novak 4:22
What can you tell us about what it’s like growing up in China versus what you see here in the United States?
Eric Yuan 4:27
I think, yeah, I have three kids here. And one thing very interesting is the way I see them learn, you know, back then when I was kid it was very different. And of course, my three kids here I know in the class, you know, they always have all kinds of questions. Your teachers try to make the class very interactive. And back then when I was a kid, I think, you know, I just sat that there to listen, you know, it’s really hard to have a dialogue, right? Because the way to learn is different for now, maybe the same, I do not know that. That’s one thing. Another thing is, I think, you know, back then it’s kind of just everyday just study, study, right and I did not have a lot of extra, you know, activities except that I did spend a lot of time playing soccer. But here you know, the kids – my kid – have all kinds of activities, right? They really pursue their own dreams, right? Rather than just to go to college. Right? I think also another thing is very similar is kids, they all work hard, right? I think, you know, back to my classmates or myself, we all worked hard. I look at my three kids, they also tend to work very hard too.
David Novak 5:41
Yeah. That’s great. You know, when you were a kid, were there any early signs that you would end up an entrepreneur?
Eric Yuan 5:47
Yeah, I think why was in elementary school, and, you know, back then, you know, every family is, I do not think they have a lot of money, right? When I tried to buy something, I never wanted to, you know, to ask for money from my parents, but always wanted to figure out a way how to earn money. So and, you know, I never thought about that, you know, to become an entrepreneur in the future. But I do think I wanted to, you know, make some money when I was a kid.
David Novak 6:18
That’s a good trait of an entrepreneur – making money is always a good idea! You know, I understand you applied for a US visa nine times before you were accepted. What did you learn from that experience?
Eric Yuan 6:31
I think one thing I learned is the culture difference. You know, the first time I almost got a visa to come here, and before the visa officer gave me a green stamp to give me the, you know, the visa, he asked about a business card. You know, on my business card, my title is Computer Consultant. I had just graduated, essentially, that’s more like a, you know, technical title, because I traveled together with the president of the company, and the visa officer mentioned, “Oh, you are not honest, because you are not a full-time employee. You are the consultant.” I think, “What? I am a full-time employee.” But you know, just more like a culture, you know, the misunderstanding. When I came here, I realized, yes, a consultant is just a consultant and normally not a full-time employee. But you know, back in China it is different. But anyway, so I got declined, you know, the first time. There’s a bigger lesson. When I came here, I realized even if I was not born here, I’ve got to spend the time to learn the culture here, and to really understand, right, otherwise, you know, those kind of things could happen again and again. So I think it was a big lesson, but it’s good for me.
David Novak 7:48
What was your first job when you came the United States, Eric?
Eric Yuan 7:51
Just to write code, and I joined WebEx. And then in 97, I was one of the first of several engineers, and I went back to write code for several years. And that’s why if you are still using WebEx, the code of I wrote in 1998 is still running there today.
David Novak 8:11
You know, you rose quickly in the ranks of WebEx and you became the VP of Engineering in charge of collaboration software. What were the unique skills that you had that helped you become a functional leader?
Eric Yuan 8:22
I don’t think I had any unique skills. I think there are two things. My father told me that if I came to Silicon Valley, he told me that, hey, this is different. The culture, different place, different country. And I just want to tell you two things: work hard, stay humble. And it was those two things, probably the one thing I learned, you know, spending time on learning American culture, right, to really understand, because I was not born here, how to make sure I understand that how to learn from my colleagues. sometimes I watched the TV, you know, or looked at the history book, to spend time on culture, work hard, stay humble, those three things are very important for me to grow.
David Novak 9:05
You know, you had so much success at WebEx, and then the company was acquired by Cisco, as I understand it. What was it like being swallowed up by a big company like Cisco?
Eric Yuan 9:15
Yeah, Cisco is a great company, and however, you know, when we sold WebEx to Cisco, you know, WebEx was focusing on software as a service, you know, SMB driven by and large, right? And Cisco’s enterprise hardware. And, you know, from a product perspective, I think, you know, there was no synergy back then. And the software services, software, hardware, and it’s very different. And it did take some time, you know, for Cisco, and WebEx, you know, to sit down to really understand what they can do together. And however, you know, I cannot wait. And before I left, I didn’t see a single happy WebEx customer. I really wanted to build a new solution to bring it happiness back to web as customers. I think that, you know, collaboration and network hardware it is really hard to have synergy.
David Novak 10:06
Yeah. So what was the decision point, the pivot point where you decided to break out and start your own company seven years ago?
Eric Yuan 10:15
Yeah, seriously, the year before I left, I was not thinking about leaving Cisco or Cisco WebEx, because, you know, I felt like I’m a part of creating this problem, because, you know, I also, you know, built WebEx through the code, given that I did not see any happy customers, you know, I should figure out a way to fix that, and I was trying to reboot WebEx. But back then, you know, Cisco’s collaboration strategy was about social networking, essentially, you know, the strategy is to build an enterprise on Facebook. I have a different opinion. But it’s really hard for me to convince other peers, you know, to rebuild WebEx, you know. One year later I decided to leave, otherwise, I was not a happy there. And that’s the reason why I left in 2011.
David Novak 11:09
Well, you entered a very crowded category with all kinds of competition, you know, with everything from WebEx, your former employer, to Skype, Google, you know you’ve got all kinds of competition. What made you think you could succeed?
Eric Yuan 11:26
I think that you are right on. And even my friends told me that, “Hey, Eric, you know, the market is so crowded, you know, why do you want to build a new solution?” And given that, you know, so many other players there, the way I look at how the market works that I did spend lots of time talking with customers. I knew for sure that there was no single, happy customer that was so happy about their existing solutions. Now, given that a customer, they are not happy, you know, my philosophy was that if I can build a solution that is better than any other competitors, that it can bring happiness to customers, I think it’s very likely for us to build a business that can survive. And I really didn’t look at it from you know, competitive landscape perspective. Otherwise, probably I even do not dare to start a company.
David Novak 12:19
Yeah. Well, you know, when you go out on your own, you have to raise capital. Was that a hard thing for you to do?
Eric Yuan 12:25
It was very hard. That’s why I wanted to raise the money from my friends. I did not think any institutional VCs would like to invest in me. I think looking back, it’s very fair. If I were to work for VC, I also do not want to invest. Right. It’s so crowded, why you think you can pull it off? Right. So however, and I, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I know customers aren’t happy, that’s why I just raised the money from all of my friends in Silicon Valley.
David Novak 12:53
Well, I’m sure you have some very happy friends now.
Eric Yuan 12:56
Hopefully, at least I tried to make them happy.
David Novak 13:00
yeah, you did. Well, when you started your company up, what were the biggest leadership challenges you faced with the startup?
Eric Yuan 13:06
I think on the way hand, you’re very excited to start a company in Silicon Valley, right? Silicon Valley is the startup valley, right? As long as you join a startup company, or you started a company, you’re very excited. However, on the other hand, you know, you really wanted to have something as quickly as possible, right? How to balance that right? And, you know, I think patience is really important. I think, looking back, that’s probably the most challenging thing because every night, I was so eager to get something out, right, to let a customer try but at the same time, your solution is not ready, and how to balance that. How to be patient. That’s very challenging.
David Novak 13:49
You know, you’re obviously a huge success and you’re getting all these accolades now, but did you have any early mistakes that really taught you some real valuable lessons?
Eric Yuan 13:58
Yeah, I think there’s so many lessons learned, I think, when I started a company. First of all is, you know, for sure the patience, right? The second thing also realize that you’ve got to make sure not only think of a one year two year, but you’ve got to think about it in the long run, so what do you, do you really want to achieve? Right? So what if your product is ready, you know, what’s the next step? You’ve got to lay out the plan. You know, for the next several years, not only just focus on the product, you know, you can do the product? How to monetize that, right? How to get the first 10 customers, how to build a, you know, the bench team, how to build a scalable marketing system? I this is very important. I think, you know, I think when I started a company, I was just focusing on the product side. I think that’s one thing I learned along the way, I think before I started a company, I think very early on. And I sometimes, you know, when I was very young, I always had a question about what’s the purpose of life? Right? And I haven’t, I had no idea, you know, how to answer to that question. So, and I stopped until probably, you know, after 35 years old, I think I got an answer, you know, I think I should try all I can do to have an answer about that question. Without that probably a lot of things can be changed, but later I realized the purpose of life is to make others happy, and the way you be happy is to pursue a sustainable happiness.
David Novak 15:35
You know, that’s fantastic. And, you know, how did you go about building your team at Zoom?
Eric Yuan 15:40
I think two things, you know, first of all, we’d like to build a team from the ground up. We never have one to see, it could have a marketing team or sales team or support team, we want to, you know, hire the doers first. And as you know, we hire a leader to manage that, to make it scalable. Also, we would like to hire those employees with self-motivation, and self-learning mentality, because everybody’s different. You know, I think we don’t want to hire those employees who want to just leverage their experience, to come here, I think wants to, you know, be very hands on, willing to learn, you know, our brand. Plus, we wanted them to motivate themselves. Otherwise, you know, every day is so busy, you know, if you need your manager to motivate you, I think that not scalable, especially, you know, in the startup world. So, you know, that’s our approach.
David Novak 16:35
You know, Eric, you’re obviously a company that is very successful, and you have to make your customers happy, which is what you say your focus is. How do you personally stay in touch with your customer base?
Eric Yuan 16:45
I think, you know, first of all, go to the start of a competent culture, that delivers happiness, right? Meaning we do all we can to make sure our customers are happy, I’ve got to lead by example. I look at my calendar, so every day I know how much time I’m spending on customers, or how much time I spend it on something else, right? We never have a request from our sales team, and try to talk with the customer or prospect, or maybe the customer that asked you to meet about something that is wrong. And it’s always a part of that. So meaning whenever you have other activities, and when it comes to a conflict, you know, how to make a decision, how to prioritize that. When I think of customer related meetings, or task, I always have the highest priority. If I do that my direct reports will do that, too.
David Novak 17:36
So you really think it’s important for the leader to cast a shadow across the organization?
Eric Yuan 17:41
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
David Novak 17:43
You know, you bring people together with technology. what do you think is the importance today of being face to face?
Eric Yuan 17:52
I think, you know, especially for startup companies, speed is everything. If you have a trust, then you can, you know, speed might be okay. I think, you know, face to face meeting or the meeting via Zoom platform, ultimately, I think it can help you build trust. Take this meeting, for example, I can see you, David, you also can see me, the only problem is that I cannot shake hands with you, right. I think with eye contact, I think we really can have a intimate experience, and it can help us build a trust. I think in the future–for now, for sure, face-to-face meetings, will assist you better than video collaboration, videoconferencing experience like Zoom. But in the future, I truly believe that videoconferencing like Zoom can deliver a much better experience than face-to-face meetings.
David Novak 18:40
You know, it’s interesting. Because of this face to face interaction, you know, I feel like we immediately hit on a chemistry that you would otherwise not have, you know, which is really great. You know, you have the opportunity to create your own culture, and how important is your culture to your success, you think? And what are you trying to drive deep in your company?
Eric Yuan 19:05
Absolutely. I think looking back, that’s probably the number one important thing. And the problem is we were very lucky to focus on company culture on day one, because when I showed up in my office, on day one, I did ask this question, “So what kind of a company do I want to work for in the next 10 to 20 years?” You know, I wanted to be happy, when I come to the office. When I wake up every day, I wanted to go to office. That’s why to have a happiness culture at Zoom is really important. And we work very hard to try to maintain that culture. Again, it’s not that easy–we have almost 2,000 employees now. So at any time, this culture can be broken, if we do not focus on that. So if we can, you know, focusing on that culture, make sure every employee is happy, I think that together, we can make a customer happy, I think we have a chance to survive. Otherwise, very soon, we’re gonna have a harder time.
David Novak 20:02
You know, one of your core values is Care, you know, C-A-R-E. You know, explain why that’s such a high priority.
Eric Yuan 20:11
I think, first of all, the reason why we have this Delivering happiness culture is that boils down to our company value, that we care. So meaning care about the community, care about the customer, care about our company, care about the teammates, and care about ourselves, I think it’s very important right, so when you try to recruit new employees, you want to find those employees who can fit well your culture, who can share, you know, the same values, right? And also, at same time, you cannot make the value, you know, too complex. Quite often you ask employees, “What’s your company’s value?” If they do not have an answer, you know, also something is wrong, right? And this was what I learned. I want to make it very simple, very catchy, just one word – Care. So and yeah, that’s pretty much how we started,
David Novak 21:01
What role does recognition play in your company?
Eric Yuan 21:03
I think it’s very important. And because every employee works so hard, right, even if we wanted them to motivate themselves, but you also need to recognize those who are outstanding employees, you know, because when you have the all-hands meeting, or whenever we got very good feedback from customers, you know, we have a Zoomy Award every quarter. And we also, you know, for any employees who are delivering an outstanding job, you know, at your all-hands meeting in the email, we’ve got to recognize them is very important, right? So even if they’re motivating themselves, for us, you know, as a management team, you’ve got to always care about employees. Look at it from their perspective, and sometimes our employee did a great job, you know, we sent a letter, you know, to their family, right, to really express our heartfelt thanks, right, and we’re also bringing, you know, employees and really appreciate their families’ support. I think that to recognize the employees’ great job is very, very important.
David Novak 22:06
As you know the vast majority of today’s workforce is Millennial. And you know, when you think of Silicon Valley, you think of this highly transit group of people who are moving from one job to another job. How do you attract and retain the best talent?
Eric Yuan 22:20
Yeah, these are good questions. Today, you look at the workforce today in the United States, over one third are millennials. It completely changed the way for us to work, for us to collaborate, for us to get the job done. Right. So you know, millennials, they needed the flexibility, you cannot force them, “Hey, you come to office to work,” you cannot give them the tools they do not like. That’s another reason why many companies deployed Zoom, because millennials really like video. They want to use the best tools, right? And if, if you try to tell all those employees, millennials, to use other tools, they might buy Zoom by themselves. Again, you know, they love flexibility, and they want the best breed of tools. I think those two things have a huge, very positive impact to every company’s culture.
Midroll 23:16
Hey, listeners, let’s take a break and talk about you. Do you want to be a more effective leader? If you want to grow and make a bigger impact as a leader, you have to check out our new Purposeful Recognition course. It’s a masterclass-style course taught by David Novak, where he teaches you and your teams how to use recognition as a result striving business skill. It’s fun, it’s short, and it’s just $99. And I can tell you that if you’re interested in moving from Me to We, it’s the best way to get started doing it. So I encourage you turn your intentions to be a better leader into action, and go to davidnovakleadership.com and sign up today. You won’t regret it. Now back to the podcast.
David Novak 23:59
You know, all the great companies that I’ve studied, they have a noble cause or purpose for their business that they use to galvanize and motivate their teams. And you know, you seem to have broken it down by the concept of Happiness and Caring. Have you always been a person who could simplify the complex?
Eric Yuan 24:16
You are so right. I have an engineering background. For anything so complex, I do not think that it will fly, right? That’s why on day one, I told our team, myself as well, “Let’s make sure every day even before we have a process, let us think about how to simplify the process.” I really wanted to avoid a situation where you establish so many processes, that a down-the-road employee is not happy, and then you think, “Okay let’s spend time to simplify that.” I think that’s too late. Every day, you’ve got to think about how to simplify your process like in terms of the approval process. Now, why do we need a two people to send it? Isn’t one enough, right? So we want to make sure everything is very simplified. Simplify our product offering, price offering, simplify our internal process. If we make these things too complex, you are not looking to bring happiness to the employees and to the customers, I think to simplify everything is always our philosophy.
David Novak 25:15
You know, technology is always changing, and you know that better than most for sure. How do you and your team stay on top of it all?
Eric Yuan 25:23
First of all, you know, we gotta understand what are our strengths, right? What kind of tools should we build internally, right? What kind of tools can we leverage, you know, from others. We subscribe to more than 100 different tools to help us simplify the process. We are using Salesforce.org, and all those good tools, right, in a work day as well. And I think, you know, if you deploy the best tools, I think your employee will be happy. And it’s a process will be, you know, very simple, right? I think, you know, we said we can, you know, save the time to focus on the most important thing, you know, our own product,
David Novak 26:01
Right, you know, you left a big company, Cisco, because of your frustration with not being heard. What advice would you give someone working in a company who doesn’t feel like they can break through with their ideas?
Eric Yuan 26:14
Leave. And a start or join a startup company. That’s it.
David Novak 26:19
I feel like that would be, you know, but not everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur. So what advice do you give to people when they think about going on their own?
Eric Yuan 26:29
Actually looking back, to be honest with you, and when I was thinking about leaving, you know, my wife, she has a different opinion: “Hey, you have a great job at Cisco, and the company pays you very well. It’s a good company, why do you want to leave?” I think, however, after we left, we just realized, wow, that’s kind of a different world. We did not realize how happy we were, right? And, you know, every morning when I woke up, I really wanted to go to office. I’m very excited. And over the weekend, I think, “Wow, it’s still Sunday or Saturday. Why not Monday, right?” It’s very exciting, you want to go the office to work, that excitement, can really change everything. I think, just don’t hesitate. Just do it. and after you join a startup company or start your own company, you will realize, wow, this is something very different. When you get older, you’re not going to regret it.
David Novak 27:21
Now, you’re building this really big company now and you’re having great success. How do you keep your entrepreneurial spirit going in a company that’s getting bigger every day?
Eric Yuan 27:30
The good news is we’re still a small company, only 2,000 employees. I think it boils down to, you know, stay with our company culture and value. And don’t think about you’re too big, right? We’re still very small, right? Be humble, keep working hard. And also really spend time with the costumers, and try to be the first to build a better solution to solve the customers. And as long as you do that, I think you should be okay. I do not think you know, you’re going to be different.
David Novak 28:02
You know, I understand now you’re looking at, you know, ways to really extend your business. Zoom phones, Zoom rooms, you know, talk about how you see your business in the future.
Eric Yuan 28:14
Yeah, we believe video is the future of communication. Video is the new voice. When we built the platform, the first application built upon our platform was video collaboration, video conferencing, and along the way you know, customers told us they really like our voiceover IP quality. You know, what, if adding a phone number support, then they do not need to have another solution for the PBX? You know, we listen to our customers carefully. That’s why we decided to introduce another solution, which was the Zoom phone system. And the costumers also told us they really like Zoom’s solution. However, you know, they do not have a good solution for their Conference Room Systems. That’s why many years ago, we introduced the Zoom rooms, essentially, that’s a cloud software commodity hardware, you know, collaboration-centric conference room solution. I think, you know, before we build any new solution, we always listen to our customers and understand the pain point. And then we try to be the first vendor to come up with a solution to serve our customers, you know, down the road that we are going to introduce more and more services, you know, cause we really stick close with our customers to focus on customers’ pain points.
David Novak 29:27
Yeah, talk about that pain point.
Eric Yuan 29:29
Yeah. So quite often, before you scale your business, you will realize, wow, there’s so many feature requests from customers, SME customers, or large enterprise customers, how to prioritize those features, it’s very hard, very difficult. And the reason why is, you know, very often customers, they would like to share with you a solution, in our case it is very different. We really want to take a step back, really wanted to talk with the customer, “Please tell us, what’s your problem? What’s the pain point? Why is that?” You know, we will not spend too much time on just talking about the solutions, because quite often, the solution given to us may not work for other customers, right? So that’s why we really want to understand the pain point or problem, and then try to understand the root cause. And then we are going to come up with a solution to sell to maybe more customers. If you do that, even if there’s so many feature requests, guess what, probably the same problem, right? We can come up with a better solution. If you only focus on the solution the customer suggested for you, I think that is really hard. You know, otherwise, you know, you need to deal with all kinds of solutions every day. you know, one company gives a solution, another company gives another solution – that is really hard to scale your business.
David Novak 30:41
You know, when I think of entrepreneurs, I think of people working night and day and totally absorbed in the excitement of their work. Are you one of those guys that’s, you know, 24/7? And how do you balance that with your family?
Eric Yuan 30:56
I think first of all, I never think about how to balance work and life. Because as long as I think about how to balance that, I think I am in to the wrong direction. And of course, there’s no answer to balancing work and life, right, you know, why should I have to spend time on that? So, you know, I really like enjoy working, you know, at Zoom, I think life is work, work is life, right? And over the weekend, in the evening, I always focus on the emails or targeting our employees or the meetings. And the same time I tell my family, you know, is very important. I want to show them, you know, how to work. But however, whenever there’s a conflict between the work and the life, see my son might have a graduation ceremony or have a basketball game. I told them family is the number one important thing if there’s a conflict. If there’s no conflict, then work is life and life is work.
David Novak 31:47
You know, you came here, obviously, as an immigrant from China. What did that experience teach you as it relates to your perspective on diversity?
Eric Yuan 31:55
I think first of all I really like Silicon Valley, right? In terms of embracing diversity, I think Silicon Valley sets up a good example for the whole world. Right? You look at all those immigrants here, you know, we’re successful, so many companies, right, you know, like my great friend, Jay, you know, is another great example, right? There’s so many great examples. They are all very successful. The reason why is because of Silicon Valley culture. I think the immigrants, they tend to work harder. Because when you come here, I came here at 27. You know, I really know one thing, you know how to work, stay humble, keep working hard. Right? That’s it. I think because of that, I think that you have maybe a higher chance to make more progress. I think that’s why I think to embrace diversity, and it’s very important, you know, like our company as well. You know, look at our management team, look at our teams, I think that for you to make the best decision, if you have a team with a different background, you always can make the best decision. I think that’s another reason why Silicon Valley is so successful.
David Novak 32:59
You know, with all of the press that you read today about the tariff and the China-U.S. relations, you know, what would you say from your vantage point would be the biggest misperception that Americans have about China?
Eric Yuan 33:14
I think first of all, I am too busy on the business side, I really didn’t get a deep dive on this topic. If I do. If I retire, somebody probably I will spend more time. The reason why I feel like is there is something of a trust issue. Similar to the company as well, right? If there’s a trust, everything can be done easily. If there’s no trust, no matter what you do, right, the other side with think that something’s wrong. I think, first of all, how to build a trust between those two countries, between the two cultures, right, between the, you know, I think the two different system that’s really important, you know. Ultimately, the highest thing, the root cause, is trust, right? How do we fix that problem, you know, or other things on the surface may not be the root cause of how to build a trust, I still do not know how to do that. But if I have time in the future someday, if I retire, I will spend some time on that, you know, I have many, many friends, I spent a lot of time learning culture here. I was born in China, I think how to help to make a world a better place. Unfortunately, I do not have bandwidth today. Otherwise, I really want to, you know, spend my time on that, how to build the trust between the two systems?
David Novak 34:25
Yeah, our country needs you someday. Right now, you’re building a great company. You know, we have a lot of aspiring leaders that are listening to this podcast right now. What would be your three best bits of advice you’d give aspiring leaders?
Eric Yuan 34:38
I think one thing I learned, and I’d like to repeat what he said that, you know, I think in terms of leadership, I think I learned one thing from the former CEO of Walmart, H. Lee Scott. I do not know him, but in the Cisco offside leadership meeting, we invited him to give us a speech about leadership. I think that several things are really important for us, you know, like communication. You know, the first thing what you decide, and it might be, you know, misunderstood or ignored, right? This is something you’ve got to communicate more, right? This is very important. Another thing is to give constructive and honest feedback is a rare talent, right? How to give others feedback, right? This is very, very important. I think that with those leadership skills, I learned a lot. I think that truly happen to me, you know, to grow into a better leader, I would love to share that with others as well.
David Novak 35:33
You know, as you look for Eric, what do you see is your unfinished business?
Eric Yuan 35:38
I think every day we try to, you know, innovate more and listen to the customer, and the care about the customer. And seriously, we think about for me, I think about how to survive, you know, what if there’s a failure, right? I don’t want to be failed, right? That’s why I keep working very hard, and also drive our team working harder as well. And we really do not want to fail, right? And how to do that is just look at everything from a customer perspective. If you do that everything should be okay. We really do not think about some other very ambitious goals. A lot of other things seriously was thinking about how to survive. That’s it.
David Novak 36:14
You know, we talked a little bit about recognition earlier, you know, what would be the biggest recognition moment that you’ve personally had?
Eric Yuan 36:23
I think one thing at a several moments at one moment is, you know, last month the company went public. And we get our, you know, executive team members there, and some of our customers there, and some early employees and live broadcast to be announced as a public company, at that time I realized, wow, you know hard work is very well paid off. And I think this is one of the best moments in my life.
David Novak 36:49
Well, Eric, I’m really looking forward to our listeners hearing this podcast. I want to thank you so much for taking time to be with us. And I want to wish you continued success in your great business that you’re building.
Eric Yuan 37:01
My pleasure. Thank you, David. I appreciate you for your invitation.
Ashley 37:06
I really enjoyed this conversation with Eric. I liked how he created a company culture based on the values of happiness and caring. One key insight that was helpful to me was Eric’s focus on finding solutions for the customers’ pain point. Eric said there’s an endless supply of new feature requests in the technology business, and there’s no possible way to keep up with the ball. The key is stepping back and really understanding the problem the customers trying to solve. By understanding the pain point you get to the root cause and can come up with a better solution that works for everyone. How about you? Are you continually chasing after a variety of possible solutions? Or do you take the time to take a step back and really understand the problem? Eric always looked at his business from a customer’s perspective and focuses on solving their pain points. If you can do that first, or better than your competitors, you have a winning strategy. In this season of the David Novak Leadership Podcast, we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where my dad will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages. You can subscribe to this podcast and our bi-weekly newsletter at davidnovakleadership.com. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify. Thanks for listening.
[/cs_text][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][x_gap size=”10px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”12″ ][cs_text]Eric Yuan is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zoom, a video collaboration platform company that is committed to delivering happiness through frictionless video communication. Eric took Zoom public in April of 2019, leading his company to one of the most successful IPOs of the year. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was corporate vice president of engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco’s collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and vice president of engineering at Webex, Eric was the heart and soul of the Webex product from 1997 to 2011.
In 2017 Eric was added to the Business Insider list of the 52 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech. In 2018, he was named the #1 CEO of a large US company by Glassdoor and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California (software category). Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.[/cs_text][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“On day one I asked myself, ‘What kind of a company do I want to work for in
the next 10 to 20 years?’ And I wanted to be happy when I come to the office. That’s why happiness culture at Zoom is really important.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”15″ ][cs_element_row _id=”16″ ][cs_element_column _id=”17″ ][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“If we focus on culture… together we can make the customer happy, and then we have a chance to survive. Or If we focus on culture, making sure every employee is happy, I think that together we can make the customer happy.””]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
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Ashley 0:01
Hi, everybody and welcome to the David Novak Leadership Podcast, the only podcast that brings you conversations with today’s most successful leaders that you just won’t hear anywhere else. I’m Ashley Butler, your co-host today, and I’m here with my dad David Novak, the Co-Founder and Former Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Taking People with You and a frequent guest host on CNBC Squawk Box. He founded David Novak Leadership to help leaders like you become the best leader you can be. So dad, who are we going to learn from today?
David Novak 0:40
Well, Ashley, it’s always fascinating to me when you can get inside of the head of a founder of a great business, hear how the company got started, and learn the keys to its success. That’s why I’m so excited to be talking to Eric Yuan, the Founder and CEO of Zoom. Now Zoom is the leader in remote conferencing services. In March of 2019, Eric and his team had the celebration of a lifetime when they rang the bell at NASDAQ and launched one of the most successful and largest IPOs of the year. And as you can imagine, given the Coronavirus outbreak, the usage of Zoom is now in more schools and more companies than ever before, and there’s no doubt in my mind that having these remote meetings online is changing the way that we learn how to work and learn forever. I had this conversation with Eric before the outbreak, but I think you’re gonna agree it’s one of a kind. You’ll hear from Eric what it was like growing up in China and then immigrating to the United States. You’ll learn how he learned his trade inside big companies, and then took on and beat the giants in his industry. And believe it or not, you’re going to hear why he thinks happiness and care – two very soft values – really represent the most important business driver for his company. And you know what, you’re gonna learn how he and his team drive innovation by focusing on what Eric calls pain points. I think you’ll also appreciate his unique advice for anyone who’s frustrated with not feeling heard in their job. Bottom line, Eric has one heck of a story to share. Eric, thanks for joining us on this Zoom call. And I want you to know that David Novak Leadership uses zoom for all our sales and conference calls.
Eric Yuan 2:33
David, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you for supporting Zoom. Thank you.
David Novak 2:39
Yeah, Eric, I want to get to your personal story in a minute. But first, tell us about what Zoom offers customers, and what it was like to recently go public.
Eric Yuan 2:48
Yeah, so Zoom offers next generation, modern collaboration services and centers around video collaboration experiences. We built a new solution from the ground up to make the video collaboration experience frictionless. So we just became a public company, you know, last month, and essentially just more like a high school graduation ceremony. We’re very excited. I think very little has changed since then.
David Novak 3:13
Yeah, I remember when Yum! Brands became public in 1997. Ringing that bell and being there with your team was really special. I’m sure you guys had to have a good time.
Eric Yuan 3:22
Yeah, yeah, we did. And we enjoyed being a partner with NASDAQ and also for every entrepreneur, it’s sort of like a dream coming true to be a NASDAQ public company.
David Novak 3:34
Well, Eric, now I want to go way back. I know you grew up in China. Tell us about your upbringing.
Eric Yuan 3:40
Yes. So I came here in 1997, and just to get my H1 working visa and directly came to the Silicon Valley. And I grew I was born in Shandong province in China and grew up there, and went to Beijing for my master degree. And I saw the huge opportunity for internet, because in 1994 when I traveled to Japan, Bill Gates was also there. And he shared, you know, the internet. And as I at that time realized, wow, internet was going to change everything, and I would like to come here to the Silicon Valley, to embrace the first wave of internet revolution.
David Novak 4:22
What can you tell us about what it’s like growing up in China versus what you see here in the United States?
Eric Yuan 4:27
I think, yeah, I have three kids here. And one thing very interesting is the way I see them learn, you know, back then when I was kid it was very different. And of course, my three kids here I know in the class, you know, they always have all kinds of questions. Your teachers try to make the class very interactive. And back then when I was a kid, I think, you know, I just sat that there to listen, you know, it’s really hard to have a dialogue, right? Because the way to learn is different for now, maybe the same, I do not know that. That’s one thing. Another thing is, I think, you know, back then it’s kind of just everyday just study, study, right and I did not have a lot of extra, you know, activities except that I did spend a lot of time playing soccer. But here you know, the kids – my kid – have all kinds of activities, right? They really pursue their own dreams, right? Rather than just to go to college. Right? I think also another thing is very similar is kids, they all work hard, right? I think, you know, back to my classmates or myself, we all worked hard. I look at my three kids, they also tend to work very hard too.
David Novak 5:41
Yeah. That’s great. You know, when you were a kid, were there any early signs that you would end up an entrepreneur?
Eric Yuan 5:47
Yeah, I think why was in elementary school, and, you know, back then, you know, every family is, I do not think they have a lot of money, right? When I tried to buy something, I never wanted to, you know, to ask for money from my parents, but always wanted to figure out a way how to earn money. So and, you know, I never thought about that, you know, to become an entrepreneur in the future. But I do think I wanted to, you know, make some money when I was a kid.
David Novak 6:18
That’s a good trait of an entrepreneur – making money is always a good idea! You know, I understand you applied for a US visa nine times before you were accepted. What did you learn from that experience?
Eric Yuan 6:31
I think one thing I learned is the culture difference. You know, the first time I almost got a visa to come here, and before the visa officer gave me a green stamp to give me the, you know, the visa, he asked about a business card. You know, on my business card, my title is Computer Consultant. I had just graduated, essentially, that’s more like a, you know, technical title, because I traveled together with the president of the company, and the visa officer mentioned, “Oh, you are not honest, because you are not a full-time employee. You are the consultant.” I think, “What? I am a full-time employee.” But you know, just more like a culture, you know, the misunderstanding. When I came here, I realized, yes, a consultant is just a consultant and normally not a full-time employee. But you know, back in China it is different. But anyway, so I got declined, you know, the first time. There’s a bigger lesson. When I came here, I realized even if I was not born here, I’ve got to spend the time to learn the culture here, and to really understand, right, otherwise, you know, those kind of things could happen again and again. So I think it was a big lesson, but it’s good for me.
David Novak 7:48
What was your first job when you came the United States, Eric?
Eric Yuan 7:51
Just to write code, and I joined WebEx. And then in 97, I was one of the first of several engineers, and I went back to write code for several years. And that’s why if you are still using WebEx, the code of I wrote in 1998 is still running there today.
David Novak 8:11
You know, you rose quickly in the ranks of WebEx and you became the VP of Engineering in charge of collaboration software. What were the unique skills that you had that helped you become a functional leader?
Eric Yuan 8:22
I don’t think I had any unique skills. I think there are two things. My father told me that if I came to Silicon Valley, he told me that, hey, this is different. The culture, different place, different country. And I just want to tell you two things: work hard, stay humble. And it was those two things, probably the one thing I learned, you know, spending time on learning American culture, right, to really understand, because I was not born here, how to make sure I understand that how to learn from my colleagues. sometimes I watched the TV, you know, or looked at the history book, to spend time on culture, work hard, stay humble, those three things are very important for me to grow.
David Novak 9:05
You know, you had so much success at WebEx, and then the company was acquired by Cisco, as I understand it. What was it like being swallowed up by a big company like Cisco?
Eric Yuan 9:15
Yeah, Cisco is a great company, and however, you know, when we sold WebEx to Cisco, you know, WebEx was focusing on software as a service, you know, SMB driven by and large, right? And Cisco’s enterprise hardware. And, you know, from a product perspective, I think, you know, there was no synergy back then. And the software services, software, hardware, and it’s very different. And it did take some time, you know, for Cisco, and WebEx, you know, to sit down to really understand what they can do together. And however, you know, I cannot wait. And before I left, I didn’t see a single happy WebEx customer. I really wanted to build a new solution to bring it happiness back to web as customers. I think that, you know, collaboration and network hardware it is really hard to have synergy.
David Novak 10:06
Yeah. So what was the decision point, the pivot point where you decided to break out and start your own company seven years ago?
Eric Yuan 10:15
Yeah, seriously, the year before I left, I was not thinking about leaving Cisco or Cisco WebEx, because, you know, I felt like I’m a part of creating this problem, because, you know, I also, you know, built WebEx through the code, given that I did not see any happy customers, you know, I should figure out a way to fix that, and I was trying to reboot WebEx. But back then, you know, Cisco’s collaboration strategy was about social networking, essentially, you know, the strategy is to build an enterprise on Facebook. I have a different opinion. But it’s really hard for me to convince other peers, you know, to rebuild WebEx, you know. One year later I decided to leave, otherwise, I was not a happy there. And that’s the reason why I left in 2011.
David Novak 11:09
Well, you entered a very crowded category with all kinds of competition, you know, with everything from WebEx, your former employer, to Skype, Google, you know you’ve got all kinds of competition. What made you think you could succeed?
Eric Yuan 11:26
I think that you are right on. And even my friends told me that, “Hey, Eric, you know, the market is so crowded, you know, why do you want to build a new solution?” And given that, you know, so many other players there, the way I look at how the market works that I did spend lots of time talking with customers. I knew for sure that there was no single, happy customer that was so happy about their existing solutions. Now, given that a customer, they are not happy, you know, my philosophy was that if I can build a solution that is better than any other competitors, that it can bring happiness to customers, I think it’s very likely for us to build a business that can survive. And I really didn’t look at it from you know, competitive landscape perspective. Otherwise, probably I even do not dare to start a company.
David Novak 12:19
Yeah. Well, you know, when you go out on your own, you have to raise capital. Was that a hard thing for you to do?
Eric Yuan 12:25
It was very hard. That’s why I wanted to raise the money from my friends. I did not think any institutional VCs would like to invest in me. I think looking back, it’s very fair. If I were to work for VC, I also do not want to invest. Right. It’s so crowded, why you think you can pull it off? Right. So however, and I, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I know customers aren’t happy, that’s why I just raised the money from all of my friends in Silicon Valley.
David Novak 12:53
Well, I’m sure you have some very happy friends now.
Eric Yuan 12:56
Hopefully, at least I tried to make them happy.
David Novak 13:00
yeah, you did. Well, when you started your company up, what were the biggest leadership challenges you faced with the startup?
Eric Yuan 13:06
I think on the way hand, you’re very excited to start a company in Silicon Valley, right? Silicon Valley is the startup valley, right? As long as you join a startup company, or you started a company, you’re very excited. However, on the other hand, you know, you really wanted to have something as quickly as possible, right? How to balance that right? And, you know, I think patience is really important. I think, looking back, that’s probably the most challenging thing because every night, I was so eager to get something out, right, to let a customer try but at the same time, your solution is not ready, and how to balance that. How to be patient. That’s very challenging.
David Novak 13:49
You know, you’re obviously a huge success and you’re getting all these accolades now, but did you have any early mistakes that really taught you some real valuable lessons?
Eric Yuan 13:58
Yeah, I think there’s so many lessons learned, I think, when I started a company. First of all is, you know, for sure the patience, right? The second thing also realize that you’ve got to make sure not only think of a one year two year, but you’ve got to think about it in the long run, so what do you, do you really want to achieve? Right? So what if your product is ready, you know, what’s the next step? You’ve got to lay out the plan. You know, for the next several years, not only just focus on the product, you know, you can do the product? How to monetize that, right? How to get the first 10 customers, how to build a, you know, the bench team, how to build a scalable marketing system? I this is very important. I think, you know, I think when I started a company, I was just focusing on the product side. I think that’s one thing I learned along the way, I think before I started a company, I think very early on. And I sometimes, you know, when I was very young, I always had a question about what’s the purpose of life? Right? And I haven’t, I had no idea, you know, how to answer to that question. So, and I stopped until probably, you know, after 35 years old, I think I got an answer, you know, I think I should try all I can do to have an answer about that question. Without that probably a lot of things can be changed, but later I realized the purpose of life is to make others happy, and the way you be happy is to pursue a sustainable happiness.
David Novak 15:35
You know, that’s fantastic. And, you know, how did you go about building your team at Zoom?
Eric Yuan 15:40
I think two things, you know, first of all, we’d like to build a team from the ground up. We never have one to see, it could have a marketing team or sales team or support team, we want to, you know, hire the doers first. And as you know, we hire a leader to manage that, to make it scalable. Also, we would like to hire those employees with self-motivation, and self-learning mentality, because everybody’s different. You know, I think we don’t want to hire those employees who want to just leverage their experience, to come here, I think wants to, you know, be very hands on, willing to learn, you know, our brand. Plus, we wanted them to motivate themselves. Otherwise, you know, every day is so busy, you know, if you need your manager to motivate you, I think that not scalable, especially, you know, in the startup world. So, you know, that’s our approach.
David Novak 16:35
You know, Eric, you’re obviously a company that is very successful, and you have to make your customers happy, which is what you say your focus is. How do you personally stay in touch with your customer base?
Eric Yuan 16:45
I think, you know, first of all, go to the start of a competent culture, that delivers happiness, right? Meaning we do all we can to make sure our customers are happy, I’ve got to lead by example. I look at my calendar, so every day I know how much time I’m spending on customers, or how much time I spend it on something else, right? We never have a request from our sales team, and try to talk with the customer or prospect, or maybe the customer that asked you to meet about something that is wrong. And it’s always a part of that. So meaning whenever you have other activities, and when it comes to a conflict, you know, how to make a decision, how to prioritize that. When I think of customer related meetings, or task, I always have the highest priority. If I do that my direct reports will do that, too.
David Novak 17:36
So you really think it’s important for the leader to cast a shadow across the organization?
Eric Yuan 17:41
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
David Novak 17:43
You know, you bring people together with technology. what do you think is the importance today of being face to face?
Eric Yuan 17:52
I think, you know, especially for startup companies, speed is everything. If you have a trust, then you can, you know, speed might be okay. I think, you know, face to face meeting or the meeting via Zoom platform, ultimately, I think it can help you build trust. Take this meeting, for example, I can see you, David, you also can see me, the only problem is that I cannot shake hands with you, right. I think with eye contact, I think we really can have a intimate experience, and it can help us build a trust. I think in the future–for now, for sure, face-to-face meetings, will assist you better than video collaboration, videoconferencing experience like Zoom. But in the future, I truly believe that videoconferencing like Zoom can deliver a much better experience than face-to-face meetings.
David Novak 18:40
You know, it’s interesting. Because of this face to face interaction, you know, I feel like we immediately hit on a chemistry that you would otherwise not have, you know, which is really great. You know, you have the opportunity to create your own culture, and how important is your culture to your success, you think? And what are you trying to drive deep in your company?
Eric Yuan 19:05
Absolutely. I think looking back, that’s probably the number one important thing. And the problem is we were very lucky to focus on company culture on day one, because when I showed up in my office, on day one, I did ask this question, “So what kind of a company do I want to work for in the next 10 to 20 years?” You know, I wanted to be happy, when I come to the office. When I wake up every day, I wanted to go to office. That’s why to have a happiness culture at Zoom is really important. And we work very hard to try to maintain that culture. Again, it’s not that easy–we have almost 2,000 employees now. So at any time, this culture can be broken, if we do not focus on that. So if we can, you know, focusing on that culture, make sure every employee is happy, I think that together, we can make a customer happy, I think we have a chance to survive. Otherwise, very soon, we’re gonna have a harder time.
David Novak 20:02
You know, one of your core values is Care, you know, C-A-R-E. You know, explain why that’s such a high priority.
Eric Yuan 20:11
I think, first of all, the reason why we have this Delivering happiness culture is that boils down to our company value, that we care. So meaning care about the community, care about the customer, care about our company, care about the teammates, and care about ourselves, I think it’s very important right, so when you try to recruit new employees, you want to find those employees who can fit well your culture, who can share, you know, the same values, right? And also, at same time, you cannot make the value, you know, too complex. Quite often you ask employees, “What’s your company’s value?” If they do not have an answer, you know, also something is wrong, right? And this was what I learned. I want to make it very simple, very catchy, just one word – Care. So and yeah, that’s pretty much how we started,
David Novak 21:01
What role does recognition play in your company?
Eric Yuan 21:03
I think it’s very important. And because every employee works so hard, right, even if we wanted them to motivate themselves, but you also need to recognize those who are outstanding employees, you know, because when you have the all-hands meeting, or whenever we got very good feedback from customers, you know, we have a Zoomy Award every quarter. And we also, you know, for any employees who are delivering an outstanding job, you know, at your all-hands meeting in the email, we’ve got to recognize them is very important, right? So even if they’re motivating themselves, for us, you know, as a management team, you’ve got to always care about employees. Look at it from their perspective, and sometimes our employee did a great job, you know, we sent a letter, you know, to their family, right, to really express our heartfelt thanks, right, and we’re also bringing, you know, employees and really appreciate their families’ support. I think that to recognize the employees’ great job is very, very important.
David Novak 22:06
As you know the vast majority of today’s workforce is Millennial. And you know, when you think of Silicon Valley, you think of this highly transit group of people who are moving from one job to another job. How do you attract and retain the best talent?
Eric Yuan 22:20
Yeah, these are good questions. Today, you look at the workforce today in the United States, over one third are millennials. It completely changed the way for us to work, for us to collaborate, for us to get the job done. Right. So you know, millennials, they needed the flexibility, you cannot force them, “Hey, you come to office to work,” you cannot give them the tools they do not like. That’s another reason why many companies deployed Zoom, because millennials really like video. They want to use the best tools, right? And if, if you try to tell all those employees, millennials, to use other tools, they might buy Zoom by themselves. Again, you know, they love flexibility, and they want the best breed of tools. I think those two things have a huge, very positive impact to every company’s culture.
Midroll 23:16
Hey, listeners, let’s take a break and talk about you. Do you want to be a more effective leader? If you want to grow and make a bigger impact as a leader, you have to check out our new Purposeful Recognition course. It’s a masterclass-style course taught by David Novak, where he teaches you and your teams how to use recognition as a result striving business skill. It’s fun, it’s short, and it’s just $99. And I can tell you that if you’re interested in moving from Me to We, it’s the best way to get started doing it. So I encourage you turn your intentions to be a better leader into action, and go to davidnovakleadership.com and sign up today. You won’t regret it. Now back to the podcast.
David Novak 23:59
You know, all the great companies that I’ve studied, they have a noble cause or purpose for their business that they use to galvanize and motivate their teams. And you know, you seem to have broken it down by the concept of Happiness and Caring. Have you always been a person who could simplify the complex?
Eric Yuan 24:16
You are so right. I have an engineering background. For anything so complex, I do not think that it will fly, right? That’s why on day one, I told our team, myself as well, “Let’s make sure every day even before we have a process, let us think about how to simplify the process.” I really wanted to avoid a situation where you establish so many processes, that a down-the-road employee is not happy, and then you think, “Okay let’s spend time to simplify that.” I think that’s too late. Every day, you’ve got to think about how to simplify your process like in terms of the approval process. Now, why do we need a two people to send it? Isn’t one enough, right? So we want to make sure everything is very simplified. Simplify our product offering, price offering, simplify our internal process. If we make these things too complex, you are not looking to bring happiness to the employees and to the customers, I think to simplify everything is always our philosophy.
David Novak 25:15
You know, technology is always changing, and you know that better than most for sure. How do you and your team stay on top of it all?
Eric Yuan 25:23
First of all, you know, we gotta understand what are our strengths, right? What kind of tools should we build internally, right? What kind of tools can we leverage, you know, from others. We subscribe to more than 100 different tools to help us simplify the process. We are using Salesforce.org, and all those good tools, right, in a work day as well. And I think, you know, if you deploy the best tools, I think your employee will be happy. And it’s a process will be, you know, very simple, right? I think, you know, we said we can, you know, save the time to focus on the most important thing, you know, our own product,
David Novak 26:01
Right, you know, you left a big company, Cisco, because of your frustration with not being heard. What advice would you give someone working in a company who doesn’t feel like they can break through with their ideas?
Eric Yuan 26:14
Leave. And a start or join a startup company. That’s it.
David Novak 26:19
I feel like that would be, you know, but not everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur. So what advice do you give to people when they think about going on their own?
Eric Yuan 26:29
Actually looking back, to be honest with you, and when I was thinking about leaving, you know, my wife, she has a different opinion: “Hey, you have a great job at Cisco, and the company pays you very well. It’s a good company, why do you want to leave?” I think, however, after we left, we just realized, wow, that’s kind of a different world. We did not realize how happy we were, right? And, you know, every morning when I woke up, I really wanted to go to office. I’m very excited. And over the weekend, I think, “Wow, it’s still Sunday or Saturday. Why not Monday, right?” It’s very exciting, you want to go the office to work, that excitement, can really change everything. I think, just don’t hesitate. Just do it. and after you join a startup company or start your own company, you will realize, wow, this is something very different. When you get older, you’re not going to regret it.
David Novak 27:21
Now, you’re building this really big company now and you’re having great success. How do you keep your entrepreneurial spirit going in a company that’s getting bigger every day?
Eric Yuan 27:30
The good news is we’re still a small company, only 2,000 employees. I think it boils down to, you know, stay with our company culture and value. And don’t think about you’re too big, right? We’re still very small, right? Be humble, keep working hard. And also really spend time with the costumers, and try to be the first to build a better solution to solve the customers. And as long as you do that, I think you should be okay. I do not think you know, you’re going to be different.
David Novak 28:02
You know, I understand now you’re looking at, you know, ways to really extend your business. Zoom phones, Zoom rooms, you know, talk about how you see your business in the future.
Eric Yuan 28:14
Yeah, we believe video is the future of communication. Video is the new voice. When we built the platform, the first application built upon our platform was video collaboration, video conferencing, and along the way you know, customers told us they really like our voiceover IP quality. You know, what, if adding a phone number support, then they do not need to have another solution for the PBX? You know, we listen to our customers carefully. That’s why we decided to introduce another solution, which was the Zoom phone system. And the costumers also told us they really like Zoom’s solution. However, you know, they do not have a good solution for their Conference Room Systems. That’s why many years ago, we introduced the Zoom rooms, essentially, that’s a cloud software commodity hardware, you know, collaboration-centric conference room solution. I think, you know, before we build any new solution, we always listen to our customers and understand the pain point. And then we try to be the first vendor to come up with a solution to serve our customers, you know, down the road that we are going to introduce more and more services, you know, cause we really stick close with our customers to focus on customers’ pain points.
David Novak 29:27
Yeah, talk about that pain point.
Eric Yuan 29:29
Yeah. So quite often, before you scale your business, you will realize, wow, there’s so many feature requests from customers, SME customers, or large enterprise customers, how to prioritize those features, it’s very hard, very difficult. And the reason why is, you know, very often customers, they would like to share with you a solution, in our case it is very different. We really want to take a step back, really wanted to talk with the customer, “Please tell us, what’s your problem? What’s the pain point? Why is that?” You know, we will not spend too much time on just talking about the solutions, because quite often, the solution given to us may not work for other customers, right? So that’s why we really want to understand the pain point or problem, and then try to understand the root cause. And then we are going to come up with a solution to sell to maybe more customers. If you do that, even if there’s so many feature requests, guess what, probably the same problem, right? We can come up with a better solution. If you only focus on the solution the customer suggested for you, I think that is really hard. You know, otherwise, you know, you need to deal with all kinds of solutions every day. you know, one company gives a solution, another company gives another solution – that is really hard to scale your business.
David Novak 30:41
You know, when I think of entrepreneurs, I think of people working night and day and totally absorbed in the excitement of their work. Are you one of those guys that’s, you know, 24/7? And how do you balance that with your family?
Eric Yuan 30:56
I think first of all, I never think about how to balance work and life. Because as long as I think about how to balance that, I think I am in to the wrong direction. And of course, there’s no answer to balancing work and life, right, you know, why should I have to spend time on that? So, you know, I really like enjoy working, you know, at Zoom, I think life is work, work is life, right? And over the weekend, in the evening, I always focus on the emails or targeting our employees or the meetings. And the same time I tell my family, you know, is very important. I want to show them, you know, how to work. But however, whenever there’s a conflict between the work and the life, see my son might have a graduation ceremony or have a basketball game. I told them family is the number one important thing if there’s a conflict. If there’s no conflict, then work is life and life is work.
David Novak 31:47
You know, you came here, obviously, as an immigrant from China. What did that experience teach you as it relates to your perspective on diversity?
Eric Yuan 31:55
I think first of all I really like Silicon Valley, right? In terms of embracing diversity, I think Silicon Valley sets up a good example for the whole world. Right? You look at all those immigrants here, you know, we’re successful, so many companies, right, you know, like my great friend, Jay, you know, is another great example, right? There’s so many great examples. They are all very successful. The reason why is because of Silicon Valley culture. I think the immigrants, they tend to work harder. Because when you come here, I came here at 27. You know, I really know one thing, you know how to work, stay humble, keep working hard. Right? That’s it. I think because of that, I think that you have maybe a higher chance to make more progress. I think that’s why I think to embrace diversity, and it’s very important, you know, like our company as well. You know, look at our management team, look at our teams, I think that for you to make the best decision, if you have a team with a different background, you always can make the best decision. I think that’s another reason why Silicon Valley is so successful.
David Novak 32:59
You know, with all of the press that you read today about the tariff and the China-U.S. relations, you know, what would you say from your vantage point would be the biggest misperception that Americans have about China?
Eric Yuan 33:14
I think first of all, I am too busy on the business side, I really didn’t get a deep dive on this topic. If I do. If I retire, somebody probably I will spend more time. The reason why I feel like is there is something of a trust issue. Similar to the company as well, right? If there’s a trust, everything can be done easily. If there’s no trust, no matter what you do, right, the other side with think that something’s wrong. I think, first of all, how to build a trust between those two countries, between the two cultures, right, between the, you know, I think the two different system that’s really important, you know. Ultimately, the highest thing, the root cause, is trust, right? How do we fix that problem, you know, or other things on the surface may not be the root cause of how to build a trust, I still do not know how to do that. But if I have time in the future someday, if I retire, I will spend some time on that, you know, I have many, many friends, I spent a lot of time learning culture here. I was born in China, I think how to help to make a world a better place. Unfortunately, I do not have bandwidth today. Otherwise, I really want to, you know, spend my time on that, how to build the trust between the two systems?
David Novak 34:25
Yeah, our country needs you someday. Right now, you’re building a great company. You know, we have a lot of aspiring leaders that are listening to this podcast right now. What would be your three best bits of advice you’d give aspiring leaders?
Eric Yuan 34:38
I think one thing I learned, and I’d like to repeat what he said that, you know, I think in terms of leadership, I think I learned one thing from the former CEO of Walmart, H. Lee Scott. I do not know him, but in the Cisco offside leadership meeting, we invited him to give us a speech about leadership. I think that several things are really important for us, you know, like communication. You know, the first thing what you decide, and it might be, you know, misunderstood or ignored, right? This is something you’ve got to communicate more, right? This is very important. Another thing is to give constructive and honest feedback is a rare talent, right? How to give others feedback, right? This is very, very important. I think that with those leadership skills, I learned a lot. I think that truly happen to me, you know, to grow into a better leader, I would love to share that with others as well.
David Novak 35:33
You know, as you look for Eric, what do you see is your unfinished business?
Eric Yuan 35:38
I think every day we try to, you know, innovate more and listen to the customer, and the care about the customer. And seriously, we think about for me, I think about how to survive, you know, what if there’s a failure, right? I don’t want to be failed, right? That’s why I keep working very hard, and also drive our team working harder as well. And we really do not want to fail, right? And how to do that is just look at everything from a customer perspective. If you do that everything should be okay. We really do not think about some other very ambitious goals. A lot of other things seriously was thinking about how to survive. That’s it.
David Novak 36:14
You know, we talked a little bit about recognition earlier, you know, what would be the biggest recognition moment that you’ve personally had?
Eric Yuan 36:23
I think one thing at a several moments at one moment is, you know, last month the company went public. And we get our, you know, executive team members there, and some of our customers there, and some early employees and live broadcast to be announced as a public company, at that time I realized, wow, you know hard work is very well paid off. And I think this is one of the best moments in my life.
David Novak 36:49
Well, Eric, I’m really looking forward to our listeners hearing this podcast. I want to thank you so much for taking time to be with us. And I want to wish you continued success in your great business that you’re building.
Eric Yuan 37:01
My pleasure. Thank you, David. I appreciate you for your invitation.
Ashley 37:06
I really enjoyed this conversation with Eric. I liked how he created a company culture based on the values of happiness and caring. One key insight that was helpful to me was Eric’s focus on finding solutions for the customers’ pain point. Eric said there’s an endless supply of new feature requests in the technology business, and there’s no possible way to keep up with the ball. The key is stepping back and really understanding the problem the customers trying to solve. By understanding the pain point you get to the root cause and can come up with a better solution that works for everyone. How about you? Are you continually chasing after a variety of possible solutions? Or do you take the time to take a step back and really understand the problem? Eric always looked at his business from a customer’s perspective and focuses on solving their pain points. If you can do that first, or better than your competitors, you have a winning strategy. In this season of the David Novak Leadership Podcast, we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where my dad will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages. You can subscribe to this podcast and our bi-weekly newsletter at davidnovakleadership.com. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify. Thanks for listening.
View Transcript
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Eric Yuan is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zoom, a video collaboration platform company that is committed to delivering happiness through frictionless video communication. Eric took Zoom public in April of 2019, leading his company to one of the most successful IPOs of the year. Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was corporate vice president of engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco’s collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and vice president of engineering at Webex, Eric was the heart and soul of the Webex product from 1997 to 2011.
In 2017 Eric was added to the Business Insider list of the 52 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech. In 2018, he was named the #1 CEO of a large US company by Glassdoor and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California (software category). Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.
“On day one I asked myself, 'What kind of a company do I want to work for in
the next 10 to 20 years?' And I wanted to be happy when I come to the office. That's why happiness culture at Zoom is really important.” Click To Tweet
“If we focus on culture… together we can make the customer happy, and then we have a chance to survive. Or If we focus on culture, making sure every employee is happy, I think that together we can make the customer… Click To Tweet
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Recent EpisodesKraft Heinz Vice Chairman, John Cahill03/31/2020Rick Pitino, Head Coach at Iona & NCAA Hall of Famer03/19/2020City National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
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From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
What comes to mind when you hear the words leadership mistake? Maybe you thought of a bad decision by an executive that costs the company millions of dollars. Or perhaps you thought of a poor personnel decision that has caused dysfunction on your team. You might even have thought about a mistake you recently made in leading a project.
Often, we don’t consider our own leadership mistakes, yet, these mistakes tend to happen more frequently and can have the longest impact on our success as a leader. If you want to become a better leader, you need to eliminate the most frequent leadership mistake leaders make. What is that mistake? It’s probably not what you think.
The most frequent mistake a leader can make is being insecure.
An insecure leader wants everyone to think they are the smartest one in the room. They are always looking for an opportunity to show they know more than others on the team, and they are constantly trying to prove that they belong in the job.
If you’re the kind of leader who struggles with insecurity, here’s some truth for you: if no one thought you could do the job, you would not have been appointed to a leadership role.
So, what should you do? Start by asking others for their input, and then give them credit when you use their ideas. When you celebrate another person’s idea, you gain that person’s trust. Confident leaders enjoy showing how others contributed to the success of the team.
Recognizing your team members is the best way to ensure they will continue to share ideas. Then, you and your team can build on those great ideas together, and you’ll be known as a leader people want to follow.
Want more insight on leadership? Check out the David Novak Leadership Leadership Podcasts. You’ll hear from some of the best leaders in the country as they share about mistakes they’ve made, how they became successful, and you’ll even get tips on how you can grow as a leader.
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cahill-Circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text class=”hidden”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]John Cahill is a proud alumnus of Yum! Brands, having served as chief financial officer of KFC under David Novak. Since leaving KFC, the numbers-driven finance officer has gained extensive leadership experience in the food and beverage industry, serving as Chairman and CEO of Pepsi Bottling Group, Chairman and CEO of Kraft, and in various key roles at other food and beverage companies. After spinning off from Mondelez International in 2012, Kraft food groups made John CEO in 2014, after which he was responsible for merging Kraft with Heinze to form North America’s third largest food and beverage company behind PepsiCo and Tyson Foods. John brings global leadership, operating, marketing and product development experience, as well as insight into corporate governance, accounting, and financial subjects.
John is currently the lead director of American Airlines, director of Colgate, Palmolive, and Chairman of the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation. He has been married to Betsy Kirkland Cahill for thirty years. They have four children and reside in their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.
[/cs_text][x_gap size=”20px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“Put yourself in the seat of the person listening to you and try to figure out how they would receive the question, how they received the comment so that you’re not offensive, but you’re constructive.” – John Cahill” url=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/podcast/kraft-john-cahill/” ][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][x_gap size=”10px”][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“I think it’s extraordinarily important to articulate where the objective is, what the goal is, how you’re going to get there, and how each team member contributes to that goal.” – John Cahill” url=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/podcast/kraft-john-cahill/” ]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
John Cahill is a proud alumnus of Yum! Brands, having served as chief financial officer of KFC under David Novak. Since leaving KFC, the numbers-driven finance officer has gained extensive leadership experience in the food and beverage industry, serving as Chairman and CEO of Pepsi Bottling Group, Chairman and CEO of Kraft, and in various key roles at other food and beverage companies. After spinning off from Mondelez International in 2012, Kraft food groups made John CEO in 2014, after which he was responsible for merging Kraft with Heinze to form North America’s third largest food and beverage company behind PepsiCo and Tyson Foods. John brings global leadership, operating, marketing and product development experience, as well as insight into corporate governance, accounting, and financial subjects.
John is currently the lead director of American Airlines, director of Colgate, Palmolive, and Chairman of the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation. He has been married to Betsy Kirkland Cahill for thirty years. They have four children and reside in their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.
“Put yourself in the seat of the person listening to you and try to figure out how they would receive the question, how they received the comment so that you're not offensive, but you're constructive.” – John Cahill Click To Tweet
“I think it's extraordinarily important to articulate where the objective is, what the goal is, how you're going to get there, and how each team member contributes to that goal.” – John Cahill Click To Tweet
Shareable Insights
Leave David a question for our upcoming quarterly Q&A episode
Send David your question: Ask Now!
Recent EpisodesRick Pitino, Head Coach at Iona & NCAA Hall of Famer03/19/2020City National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
I can’t use your idea because “it’s not invented here.” While you may not use those exact words, I wonder if you’ve ever ignored an idea because it wasn’t your own. The phrase “not invented here” refers to an unwillingness to adopt something because it didn’t originate with you. As leader, it’s your job to make sure that nothing gets in the way of a good idea, no matter where it comes from. Being open to and on the lookout for good ideas yourself is only half the battle. You have to position yourself so that good ideas can come to you. That means creating an atmosphere in which the people around you feel comfortable speaking up and know that there is a benefit to doing so.
Early in my career, I had a boss who, every single time I came to him with a new idea, would answer by saying, “That’s funny, I’d been thinking the same thing.” At first, I thought it was spooky how alike we were, but pretty soon, I caught on. As the big boss, he didn’t want to admit he hadn’t thought of something himself. And it wasn’t just me. Around the office, “I was thinking the same thing!” became a punch line that one of us would shout anytime anyone had an idea, no matter how trivial. Not only did our boss’s bad habit dampen our drive to come to him with ideas that could improve the business, but it also caused us to lose respect for him as a leader.
By having to claim our ideas as his own, he was unfortunately demonstrating his lack of security and need to prove his own self-worth. The reality is, I’ve learned when you become a leader, you need to realize the importance of celebrating other people’s ideas more than your own. Because you don’t have to get all the credit, you demonstrate confidence and it lets everyone know you are counting on them to contribute.
In contrast, Howard Draft, former Executive Chairman of Foote, Cone & Belding, one the world’s largest communication agencies, once told me how, even though he’s been in the business for more than thirty years, he often relies on the ideas and opinions of young people right out of college. In a meeting where a team was working on a creative strategy for a Kraft product, he was offering the group his viewpoint when “this young woman with a pierced nose and red hair looks up at me and goes, ‘You’re absolutely wrong and here’s why you’re wrong.’ I was so proud of her I went over and hugged her.”
Imagine the difference in working for these two guys: One won’t even admit your ideas are your own; the other is hugging an employee in front of everyone because she had the guts to stick up for her opinion, which she backed up with knowledge. Who would you want to work for?
Here’s another example of how wiping out “not invented here” led to positive results. I was the first president of Tricon (later Yum! Brands) when PepsiCo originally spun off the restaurant brands. The restaurant business had been struggling, which was a major reason why PepsiCo leaders thought they’d do better if they spun us off. But in my mind, that gave us the opportunity for what I characterized as a gigantic do-over. In business, we sometimes get too caught up in the idea that we need to be different, that we need to innovate. Too often we start from scratch and try to reinvent the wheel. Of course, we need to distinguish ourselves from our competition, but that does not mean we can’t borrow good ideas, make them our own, and do an even better job executing them.
To take advantage of our unique position of being a brand-new public company made up of well-established brands, we went out and did a best-practice tour of some of the most successful companies around at the time in order to take inspiration from them and borrow any good ideas we could find. We visited lots of companies, including GE, Walmart, Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, Target, and UPS – and then came back and crystalized what wed learned into five things that we called our Dynasty Drivers, because these were the things that we believed would make us an enduring great company.
Just think how much we advanced our position on the learning curve to becoming a great company just because we were willing to wipe out “not invented here.” Great leaders learn how to wipe out “not invented here” because there’s a danger if you don’t wipe it out. I think Linus Torvalds, the Finnish-American software engineer who created the Linux kernel (which became the kernel for operating systems like Android and Chrome OS) got it right when he said, “The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease.”
How is the “not invented here” disease suppressing your team or company’s performance? Download this guide for five tactics that will help you ensure that you are truly wiping out “not invented here.”
Do you know someone who could use help wiping out “not invented here?” If so, equip them by sharing this blog and guide. You have the power to make a difference by sharing what you’re learning with others. Go Lead!
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/rick-pitino-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text class=”hidden”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]Rick Pitino is one of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball. He is the first coach to have taken three different schools (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville) to the NCAA Final Four and the first to win a NCAA Championship at two different schools (the last of which was later vacated).
Coach Pitino was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. Prior to being named the head coach at Iona, Pitino was the head coach of Panathinaikos, one of the leading teams in the EuroLeague and has been named the head coach of the Greek National team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Pitino has served as head coach for the University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Providence College, Boston University, Hawaii and the NBA’s New York Knicks and Boston Celtics. [/cs_text][x_gap size=”20px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“You know success is not something you’re born with, success is not something that’s given to you. Success is a choice you make.” – Rick Pitino” url=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/podcast/rick-pitino/” ][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“If you’re going to be successful you have to lead. And you have to make tough choices.” – Rick Pitino” url=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/podcast/rick-pitino/” ]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
Rick Pitino is one of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball. He is the first coach to have taken three different schools (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville) to the NCAA Final Four and the first to win a NCAA Championship at two different schools (the last of which was later vacated).
Coach Pitino was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. Prior to being named the head coach at Iona, Pitino was the head coach of Panathinaikos, one of the leading teams in the EuroLeague and has been named the head coach of the Greek National team for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Pitino has served as head coach for the University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Providence College, Boston University, Hawaii and the NBA’s New York Knicks and Boston Celtics.
“You know success is not something you're born with, success is not something that's given to you. Success is a choice you make.” – Rick Pitino Click To Tweet
“If you're going to be successful you have to lead. And you have to make tough choices.” – Rick Pitino Click To Tweet
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Leave David a question for our upcoming quarterly Q&A episode
Send David your question: Ask Now!
Recent EpisodesRick Pitino, Head Coach at Iona & NCAA Hall of Famer03/19/2020City National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Kelly-Coffey_circle-1.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text class=”hidden”][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]Kelly Coffey is the Chief Executive Officer of City National Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). As the fourth CEO in City National’s 65-year history and the bank’s first female chief executive officer, Kelly has been working to establish a leadership team that can strategically embrace new technology and changing marketplaces at home and abroad while maintaining the core values that have helped to define City National’s success thus far. City National Bank has more than $60 billion in assets, 5,200 colleagues and 72 offices in seven states and Washington, D.C.
Kelly has been named three times to American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Finance List and to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s annual list of the most influential Angelenos. She began her career in mergers and acquisitions and spent six years working in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She also chaired J.P. Morgan’s Reputation Risk Committee in North America and led the investment bank’s Women’s Network. [/cs_text][x_gap size=”20px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“Collaboration is just making sure you’re constantly getting feedback and input into the business and how to make it better.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“Listen, listen, listen…you have to come into a new job making sure you’re listening to people and understanding why things are, what they think is special about what they do, how the approach is…””]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
Kelly Coffey is the Chief Executive Officer of City National Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). As the fourth CEO in City National’s 65-year history and the bank’s first female chief executive officer, Kelly has been working to establish a leadership team that can strategically embrace new technology and changing marketplaces at home and abroad while maintaining the core values that have helped to define City National’s success thus far. City National Bank has more than $60 billion in assets, 5,200 colleagues and 72 offices in seven states and Washington, D.C.
Kelly has been named three times to American Banker’s Most Powerful Women in Finance List and to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s annual list of the most influential Angelenos. She began her career in mergers and acquisitions and spent six years working in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She also chaired J.P. Morgan’s Reputation Risk Committee in North America and led the investment bank’s Women’s Network.
“Collaboration is just making sure you're constantly getting feedback and input into the business and how to make it better.” Click To Tweet
“Listen, listen, listen…you have to come into a new job making sure you're listening to people and understanding why things are, what they think is special about what they do, how the approach is…” Click To Tweet
Shareable Insights
Leave David a question for our upcoming quarterly Q&A episode
Send your question: Ask Now!
Recent EpisodesCity National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020Henry Kravis, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. | Part 202/06/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/solomon-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]David Solomon is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., one of the most revered financial institutions in the world. Since his appointment to CEO in 2018 and Chairman in 2019, David has taken steps towards reforming the culture at Goldman Sachs to be more collaborative and diverse internally, and smarter with financial technology externally. [/cs_text][x_gap size=”20px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“ Transparency and communication are increasingly important on the part of leaders.””][/cs_text][cs_text]
Under his leadership, Goldman Sachs signed a historic deal with Apple to create the first-ever Apple Credit Card. David joined Goldman Sachs as a Partner in 1999 after rising through the ranks at Bear Stearns. Often perceived as an organizational outsider, David has successfully established himself as a leader who is transparent, strategic, and an effective communicator, with big plans for the future of Goldman Sachs as a financial leader in a changing world.
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”15″ ][cs_element_row _id=”16″ ][cs_element_column _id=”17″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“I think you got to be very purposeful in how you choose to spend your time, and if you are, there’s a lot of time to get a lot accomplished.””]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
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David Solomon is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., one of the most revered financial institutions in the world. Since his appointment to CEO in 2018 and Chairman in 2019, David has taken steps towards reforming the culture at Goldman Sachs to be more collaborative and diverse internally, and smarter with financial technology externally.
“ Transparency and communication are increasingly important on the part of leaders.” Click To Tweet
Under his leadership, Goldman Sachs signed a historic deal with Apple to create the first-ever Apple Credit Card. David joined Goldman Sachs as a Partner in 1999 after rising through the ranks at Bear Stearns. Often perceived as an organizational outsider, David has successfully established himself as a leader who is transparent, strategic, and an effective communicator, with big plans for the future of Goldman Sachs as a financial leader in a changing world.
“I think you got to be very purposeful in how you choose to spend your time, and if you are, there's a lot of time to get a lot accomplished.” Click To Tweet
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Recent EpisodesCity National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020Henry Kravis, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. | Part 202/06/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Lynne-Doughtie_circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]
Lynne Doughtie is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of KPMG LLP —one of the world’s leading professional services firms providing tax, audit and advisory services to many of the world’s most iconic companies. Elected to her role in 2015, Lynne leads more than 32,000 partners and professionals across the United States. She drives KPMG’s inclusive and purpose-driven culture, which is defined by a commitment to corporate responsibility and to maintaining the highest levels of professionalism and quality in KPMG’s client service and support of the capital markets.
[/cs_text][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“What would the world miss if you weren’t in it? And those are some of the most important things to focus on that will make you successful going forward.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“I try to encourage women especially on the importance of owning your career. Don’t think that people around you can read your mind on what you are aspiring towards. Make that known.””]
Lynne has received numerous accolades, including Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Business, Accounting Today magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People, the National Association of Corporate Directors’ 100 most influential people in the boardroom, and “Woman of Achievement” by the National Association of Female Executives. Lynne is dedicated to seeing increasingly more women rise to senior leadership positions in companies across industry spectrums, and is seeking to develop women in her own company through KPMG’s Women’s Leadership Summit and the Executive Leadership Institute for Women.
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
Lynne Doughtie is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of KPMG LLP —one of the world’s leading professional services firms providing tax, audit and advisory services to many of the world’s most iconic companies. Elected to her role in 2015, Lynne leads more than 32,000 partners and professionals across the United States. She drives KPMG’s inclusive and purpose-driven culture, which is defined by a commitment to corporate responsibility and to maintaining the highest levels of professionalism and quality in KPMG’s client service and support of the capital markets.
“What would the world miss if you weren't in it? And those are some of the most important things to focus on that will make you successful going forward.” Click To Tweet
“I try to encourage women especially on the importance of owning your career. Don't think that people around you can read your mind on what you are aspiring towards. Make that known.” Click To Tweet
Lynne has received numerous accolades, including Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Business, Accounting Today magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People, the National Association of Corporate Directors’ 100 most influential people in the boardroom, and “Woman of Achievement” by the National Association of Female Executives. Lynne is dedicated to seeing increasingly more women rise to senior leadership positions in companies across industry spectrums, and is seeking to develop women in her own company through KPMG’s Women’s Leadership Summit and the Executive Leadership Institute for Women.
Shareable Insights
Recent EpisodesCity National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020Henry Kravis, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. | Part 202/06/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
If you have been around leadership circles for very long, you’ve likely heard the term “avid learner”. Being an avid learner means you are deliberate about gaining new insights to become better at what you do. With the amount of knowledge readily available these days, anyone can be an avid learner. If you want to grow your career, you should absolutely be doing this.
Whether you are just starting out, or you’ve been working on developing your skills for a while, it’s important to beware of the leadership learning trap.
When you take in new information, does it influence your day-to-day actions? Have you spent time and energy trying to develop yourself with no noticeable results? If learning doesn’t lead to transformation, then you’ve fallen into the leadership learning trap. To grow in your leadership, you need to be learning and developing. The two are not the same and it’s important to understand the difference if you want to be an effective leader.
Being an intentional learner isn’t just about taking in knowledge. The most important thing is what happens after you consume information. It’s absorbing new ideas and letting them change the way you believe. When your beliefs change, your behavior changes.
Intentional learning is transformational
It is taking in new information and turning it into action.
The most inspiring, dynamic leaders use learning to challenge themselves to become better. If you’re going to join their ranks, you need to be putting into practice what you learn by evolving in your leadership mindset and implementing new habits in your daily routine. Learning is only intentional when it develops you.
If you really want to excel as a leader, don’t settle for being a passive learner who remains unchanged by the knowledge you’ve gained. This happens so often to people in leadership, and it will hinder you from reaching your fullest potential.
If you want to be a leader others want to follow, don’t make the mistake of being a passive learner. Be intentional.
At David Novak Leadership, we’ve made intentional learning simple. Our Essential Leadership Traits Program is a fully interactive experience designed to help you transform your leadership. This course will challenge your beliefs and provides you with real actions to implement. We help leaders be more intentional so they can truly be effective. Click here to begin growing in your leadership today.
Henry Kravis of the world’s greatest business leaders and philanthropists. He co-founded one of the most renown global investment companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR) in 1976 and currently serves as KKR’s Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Kravis has been referred to as the father of private equity, an industry that he helped pioneer. Under the leadership of Henry Kravis, KKR has grown to a $200B private equity giant with substantial investment interest in over 100 companies and nearly a million employees around the world.
Mr. Kravis currently serves on the boards of First Data Corporation and ICONIQ Capital, LLC. He also serves as a director, chairman emeritus, or trustee of several other cultural, professional, and educational institutions, including the Business Council, Claremont McKenna College, Columbia Business School (co-chairman), Mount Sinai Hospital, the Partnership for New York City (former chairman), the Partnership Fund for New York City (founder), Rockefeller University (vice chairman), Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (chairman), and the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in China.
[/cs_text][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“I think it’s one of the most important things that a CEO can do with his troops, to let them know that you’re open. You make mistakes like everybody else. You’ll admit to your mistakes.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“I would encourage anybody to get some professional help that is going to make you a better executive, whether you’re the CEO or you’re a Chief Financial Officer, Head of Marketing, whatever it is, and make sure that you see your shortcomings.””]
Through KKR, Henry helped to pioneer private equity as a fund option, and since his first private equity leverage buyout in the 70s, the market has exploded with hundreds of small private equity firms vying with firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.
“KKR has expanded into new business segments since the launch of their first private equity fund. The company holds investments in a wide range of income-producing real estate throughout the United States. This includes office rentals, retail spaces and health care properties. In 2013, KKR raised $1.2 billion for a real estate investment fund. KKR also constructs and manages hedge funds. The firm was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 and raised $1.25 billion from its initial public offering (IPO).” –Investopia article.
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this Post
Welcome to Part 2 of the Henry Kravis interview.
View Transcript
Henry Kravis of the world’s greatest business leaders and philanthropists. He co-founded one of the most renown global investment companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR) in 1976 and currently serves as KKR’s Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Kravis has been referred to as the father of private equity, an industry that he helped pioneer. Under the leadership of Henry Kravis, KKR has grown to a $200B private equity giant with substantial investment interest in over 100 companies and nearly a million employees around the world.
Mr. Kravis currently serves on the boards of First Data Corporation and ICONIQ Capital, LLC. He also serves as a director, chairman emeritus, or trustee of several other cultural, professional, and educational institutions, including the Business Council, Claremont McKenna College, Columbia Business School (co-chairman), Mount Sinai Hospital, the Partnership for New York City (former chairman), the Partnership Fund for New York City (founder), Rockefeller University (vice chairman), Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (chairman), and the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in China.
“I think it's one of the most important things that a CEO can do with his troops, to let them know that you're open. You make mistakes like everybody else. You'll admit to your mistakes.” Click To Tweet
“I would encourage anybody to get some professional help that is going to make you a better executive, whether you're the CEO or you're a Chief Financial Officer, Head of Marketing, whatever it is, and make sure that you see… Click To Tweet
Through KKR, Henry helped to pioneer private equity as a fund option, and since his first private equity leverage buyout in the 70s, the market has exploded with hundreds of small private equity firms vying with firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.
“KKR has expanded into new business segments since the launch of their first private equity fund. The company holds investments in a wide range of income-producing real estate throughout the United States. This includes office rentals, retail spaces and health care properties. In 2013, KKR raised $1.2 billion for a real estate investment fund. KKR also constructs and manages hedge funds. The firm was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 and raised $1.25 billion from its initial public offering (IPO).” –Investopia article.
Shareable Insights
Recent EpisodesCity National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020Henry Kravis, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. | Part 202/06/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/kravis-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]
Henry Kravis of the world’s greatest business leaders and philanthropists. He co-founded one of the most renown global investment companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR) in 1976 and currently serves as KKR’s Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Kravis has been referred to as the father of private equity, an industry that he helped pioneer. Under the leadership of Henry Kravis, KKR has grown to a $200B private equity giant with substantial investment interest in over 100 companies and nearly a million employees around the world.
Mr. Kravis currently serves on the boards of First Data Corporation and ICONIQ Capital, LLC. He also serves as a director, chairman emeritus, or trustee of several other cultural, professional, and educational institutions, including the Business Council, Claremont McKenna College, Columbia Business School (co-chairman), Mount Sinai Hospital, the Partnership for New York City (former chairman), the Partnership Fund for New York City (founder), Rockefeller University (vice chairman), Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (chairman), and the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in China.
[/cs_text][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“I’m a big believer that if you have a common objective and common values and mutual respect, and don’t worry about who gets credit, you can go a long, long way.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”“We wanted a ‘We’ culture, not an ‘I’ culture. And so that was very simple and very easy to do. That took maybe a couple minutes, because we all three were in absolute agreement. And here we are 43 years later, David. Our culture, even though we now have about 1,300 people, and we’ve got $210 billion of assets under management of 21 offices, it’s identical to what we set up.””]
Through KKR, Henry helped to pioneer private equity as a fund option, and since his first private equity leverage buyout in the 70s, the market has exploded with hundreds of small private equity firms vying with firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.
“KKR has expanded into new business segments since the launch of their first private equity fund. The company holds investments in a wide range of income-producing real estate throughout the United States. This includes office rentals, retail spaces and health care properties. In 2013, KKR raised $1.2 billion for a real estate investment fund. KKR also constructs and manages hedge funds. The firm was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 and raised $1.25 billion from its initial public offering (IPO).” –Investopia article.
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content][cs_content_seo]Share this PostFree Leadership Insights
View Transcript
Henry Kravis of the world’s greatest business leaders and philanthropists. He co-founded one of the most renown global investment companies, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company (KKR) in 1976 and currently serves as KKR’s Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Kravis has been referred to as the father of private equity, an industry that he helped pioneer. Under the leadership of Henry Kravis, KKR has grown to a $200B private equity giant with substantial investment interest in over 100 companies and nearly a million employees around the world.
Mr. Kravis currently serves on the boards of First Data Corporation and ICONIQ Capital, LLC. He also serves as a director, chairman emeritus, or trustee of several other cultural, professional, and educational institutions, including the Business Council, Claremont McKenna College, Columbia Business School (co-chairman), Mount Sinai Hospital, the Partnership for New York City (former chairman), the Partnership Fund for New York City (founder), Rockefeller University (vice chairman), Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (chairman), and the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in China.
“I'm a big believer that if you have a common objective and common values and mutual respect, and don't worry about who gets credit, you can go a long, long way.” Click To Tweet
“We wanted a 'We' culture, not an 'I' culture. And so that was very simple and very easy to do. That took maybe a couple minutes, because we all three were in absolute agreement. And here we are 43 years later, David. Our… Click To Tweet
Through KKR, Henry helped to pioneer private equity as a fund option, and since his first private equity leverage buyout in the 70s, the market has exploded with hundreds of small private equity firms vying with firms like Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.
“KKR has expanded into new business segments since the launch of their first private equity fund. The company holds investments in a wide range of income-producing real estate throughout the United States. This includes office rentals, retail spaces and health care properties. In 2013, KKR raised $1.2 billion for a real estate investment fund. KKR also constructs and manages hedge funds. The firm was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010 and raised $1.25 billion from its initial public offering (IPO).” –Investopia article.
Shareable Insights
Recent EpisodesCity National Bank CEO, Kelly Coffey03/10/2020Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO, David Solomon02/27/2020KPMG Chairman & CEO, Lynne Doughtie02/11/2020Henry Kravis, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman & Co-CEO of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. | Part 202/06/2020
Attract and retain top talent by providing your managers with “must-have” leadership skills.Building People Capability First Leads To:
Purposeful RecognitionThe Secret to Achieving
Great Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
Essential Leadership TraitsLearn the Soft Skillsthat Drive Hard Results
Buy NowFor Individuals
Contact UsFor Team Pricing
Learn More
From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/david-podcasting.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”6″ ][cs_text]
We’re starting this new season of the podcast with a twist. We’re giving you a behind the scenes look at our founder David Novak. In this podcast Ashley Butler Novak interviews her father and gets him to share the leadership lessons that helped him become one of the most successful and admired CEO’s in the world. On this season of the David Novak Leadership Podcast we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where David will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages.
[/cs_text][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]David Novak is Founder and CEO of David Novak Leadership, a digital leadership development platform he created to help people move from Me to We and become the best leaders they can be. He is Co-Founder, retired Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC), one of the world’s largest restaurant companies with over 45,000 restaurants in more than 135 countries and territories. Novak’s passion is to make the world a better place by developing leaders at all ages through David Novak Leadership, his family’s Lift-a-Life Foundation, Lead4Change, Global Game Changers and The Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri.
A renowned expert on leadership and recognition culture, Novak is also a bestselling leadership book author. His highly respected and critically acclaimed books include The New York Times bestseller Taking People With You, The Only Way to Achieve Big Things, The Education of an Accidental CEO, Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office and his latest parable, O GREAT ONE! A Little Story About the Awesome Power of Recognition.
[/cs_text][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“You have to really follow your passions, what you really like, what your interests are, and that means you have to be true to yourself. You can’t do what somebody else thinks you need to do. You need to follow what you love.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”][bctt tweet=”DAVID NOVAK ON BALANCE: “The only person that can really figure that out is yourself. You have to really look deep within and figure out what’s important, and nobody can do that for you.””]
[/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”18″ ][cs_text]Novak has been recognized as “2012 CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review. He received the prestigious 2015 Horatio Alger Award for his commitment to philanthropy and higher education.
David is the host of the David Novak Leadership Podcast. You can subscribe to David’s bi-weekly podcast, leadership newsletter and learn more about his online courses at DavidNovakLeadership.com
Listen above and click here to learn more about David.
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
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We’re starting this new season of the podcast with a twist. We’re giving you a behind the scenes look at our founder David Novak. In this podcast Ashley Butler Novak interviews her father and gets him to share the leadership lessons that helped him become one of the most successful and admired CEO’s in the world. On this season of the David Novak Leadership Podcast we’ll have a quarterly Q&A where David will answer your most pressing leadership questions. You can submit your questions by following David Novak and commenting on his Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages.
View Transcript
David Novak is Founder and CEO of David Novak Leadership, a digital leadership development platform he created to help people move from Me to We and become the best leaders they can be. He is Co-Founder, retired Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC), one of the world’s largest restaurant companies with over 45,000 restaurants in more than 135 countries and territories. Novak’s passion is to make the world a better place by developing leaders at all ages through David Novak Leadership, his family’s Lift-a-Life Foundation, Lead4Change, Global Game Changers and The Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri.
A renowned expert on leadership and recognition culture, Novak is also a bestselling leadership book author. His highly respected and critically acclaimed books include The New York Times bestseller Taking People With You, The Only Way to Achieve Big Things, The Education of an Accidental CEO, Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office and his latest parable, O GREAT ONE! A Little Story About the Awesome Power of Recognition.
“You have to really follow your passions, what you really like, what your interests are, and that means you have to be true to yourself. You can’t do what somebody else thinks you need to do. You need to follow what you… Click To Tweet
DAVID NOVAK ON BALANCE: “The only person that can really figure that out is yourself. You have to really look deep within and figure out what's important, and nobody can do that for you.” Click To Tweet
Novak has been recognized as “2012 CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review. He received the prestigious 2015 Horatio Alger Award for his commitment to philanthropy and higher education.
David is the host of the David Novak Leadership Podcast. You can subscribe to David’s bi-weekly podcast, leadership newsletter and learn more about his online courses at DavidNovakLeadership.com
Listen above and click here to learn more about David.
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From Podcast Action Journal
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?[/cs_content_seo]
By: David Novak, Co-Founder & CEO of David Novak Leadership
I have said so many times in my life, “Positive energy lifts you up. Negative energy brings you down.” It’s important for us to get rid of the negative energy in our lives and move forward with a positive attitude. Even though I know this, I admit I need to practice what I preach and work on this in certain areas of my life.
We all have difficult or challenging things happen that force us into the dismal path of negativity. Unfortunately, the more we keep this baggage around, the more it feeds on itself and takes you further down the drain. As much as I know this, I still sometimes fall into the negativity trap.
Since I’ve retired, I’ve had the opportunity to work on my golf game. I set a goal to qualify for a major amateur tournament, but recently failed to do so by making some silly errors, which put me in a negative mindset in the second round of the qualifying tournament. I have to admit, I spent way too much time having a pity party and reliving all my bad shots again and again. Doing this made me question my abilities and created all kinds of anxiety about playing a game I love—a game that brings me joy.
I clearly needed to let it go and focus on the future. After all, the past should help us learn and inspire us about what’s possible in the future. In that game, I actually played better than most of my competitors, and I hit some fabulous shots. I had to take time to realize this and get back into a positive mindset. Doing that energized me to improve my game and enjoy that process. I realized there are new opportunities ahead, but only if I let go of the past. Believe me, I’m doing my best to let it go and I know I am better for it.
Conversely, in a much more significant area in my life, I recently concluded chemotherapy and radiation treatments for breast cancer. I never once asked myself, “Why me?” I didn’t allow myself to fill my mind with negative baggage. Instead, cancer forced me to realize just how blessed I’ve been in my life. I have had 63 years of near perfect health. I have the love and support of an amazing family. And I loved my work so much I never felt I worked a day in my life—work was actually my hobby! So far, I’ve lived a life of joy, traveled the world and achieved more than I ever imagined.
Having gratitude gave me the positive attitude I needed to persevere through the treatments and focus on getting well. For example, the doctors told me exercise would be key to my well being, so I worked out before and after my chemotherapy and worked out every other day of the week. It got my endorphins going, which energized me and kept me positive. I also started every day having quiet time with God and writing down three things I was grateful for in my life. It all helped me stay positive throughout my treatments and virtually eliminated the anxiety and worry I could have had.
The lesson here is, focusing on things that went wrong keeps you stuck in the past and bogs you down, while being grateful helps you keep a positive attitude—even through negative situations. Let’s all do our best to stay positive this year and focus on the great things ahead.
[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_column _id=”3″ ][x_image type=”none” src=”https://davidnovakleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ryan-serhant-circle.png” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” style=”border:8px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.10);border-radius:50%;”][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”true” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][cs_text][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][cs_element_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_audio _id=”8″ ][x_gap size=”30px”][cs_element_content_area_modal _id=”10″ ][cs_text]Edward D. Herlihy is co-chairman of the Executive Committee and has been a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz since 1984, focusing on some of the largest and most complex bank and financial institution mergers and acquisitions and recapitalizations throughout the United States. He is often called upon to represent companies involved in takeover battles and proxy contests, including investment banking firms in connection with a wide variety of financial institution matters.
Mr. Herlihy writes and lectures regularly on issues involving banking and financial matters. Mr. Herlihy graduated from Hobart College in 1969 (B.A.) and from George Washington University Law School in 1972 (J.D.)[/cs_text][x_gap size=”40px”][cs_text style=”margin-top:-20px;”][bctt tweet=”“The best leaders have an incredible commitment and will to accomplish it and get it done. No matter the obstacles. No matter the challenges.””][/cs_text][/cs_element_column][/cs_element_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”14″ ][cs_element_row _id=”15″ ][cs_element_column _id=”16″ ][cs_text style=”line-height:1;”]ON HOW TO DISTINGUISH YOURSELF FROM THE REST:
[bctt tweet=”“Take responsibility, make recommendations, get the facts, don’t be afraid to break glass, state your views and be definitive.””]
Becky recalls a significant failure in her career. She was working with someone she respected to launch a new product. Becky thought they should do it in a specific way, but her colleague didn’t agree. Becky relented, and later a competitor launched the product her way with great success. Becky knew she was right but second-guessed herself. Despite the failure, she is grateful that it happened when she was young. She learned that the next time she needed to fight harder.
Have you ever experienced a failure? What did you learn?
If your colleague disagreed with you, how would you respond?
Becky has the following thoughts on recognition:
Feedback is a gift, something we have lost in Corporate America. Becky says, “If I am not giving you feedback, then I am not investing in you. If I’m not getting feedback, people aren’t invested in me.”
What is the best piece of constructive feedback you’ve ever received?
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