[MUSIC]
You know, I've had a lot of chance to
interact with your
class over the last couple of years,
starting with admit weekend, I guess.
About 27 months ago.
So, we've had lots of interactions, large
and
small but never anything quite like a last
lecture.
Come in, come in.
So I'm looking forward to it.
I, I have assembled the list of of ten
lessons that have been
important to me in my life that I'd like
to share with you.
So.
If it's all right, let's charge in.
This first one, I guess, comes from two
sources, one, as you know, I spent
seven years of my life living and working
in Australia where cricket is a national
game.
But I also spent the last nine years
teaching a second year seminar on
leadership and in
that leadership seminar I like to use the
case of Sir Earnest Shackleton the great
Antarctic explorer.
And Shackleton had something very
interesting to say about life.
He said, Some people say it's wrong to
think of life as a game.
I don't think so.
He said, Life to me means the greatest of
all games.
The danger lies in treating it as a
trivial game.
A game to be taken lightly.
And a game where the rules don't matter
much.
The rules, he said, matter a great deal.
Shackleton said, you know, the game has to
be played fairly, or it's no game at all.
And even to win the game is not the chief
end.
The chief end is to win it honorably and
splendidly.
And in Shackleton's mind, honorably and
spend, splendidly meant living it by
his values, the things that mattered most
to him, by his rules.
Now, those of you who know cricket know,
it's got a lot of rules.
But another thing about cricket that I
think is relevant, it's a long game.
You know, life ebbs and flows.
And endurance is a virtue.
Stamina is very important.
Work at staying in shape, work
at staying in shape physically, mentally,
emotionally.
In many respects, your determination and
your drive will have
as much to do with your life as your DNA.
Like cricket it's a long game.
You need to pace yourself.
And another thing a well known cricket
commentator observed
is that in addition to being a long game
where
perseverance and resilience and patience
are critical, it's a
game where he said, nothing happens and
then everything happens.
Again, only a true cricket aficionados
might appreciate this.
But applying it to life, I can tell you
that often, out of the blue, that big
opportunity or that big challenge hits you
in the face, you can't plan your life.
You can't plan your career, but you can
plan
to be prepared, and preparation is an
awfully key aspect.
Number nine.
Now this is a lesson that I got over and
over again from our CEO at Wells Fargo,
Carl Reichardt.
He liked to say this.
I don't think Carl necessarily believed
the
world was divided into good people and bad
people but we all grew up understanding
that there were people with very bad
behaviors.
You know, and life is too short.
You don't have to deal with people who are
abusive, people who are dishonest, people
who are unethical.
You can just say no.
In fact, you better just say no.
You know, in banking where you make loans
every day, you take deposits every day,
you accept investments, you, you have a
lot of opportunities to say yes and no.
Even at the GSP, when raising money, there
are times
when it's appropriate to say no because
the motivation isn't right.
And I think this lesson, aside from saving
you
an awful lot of unpleasantness, can also
save you.
Because,
oh, we're going backwards.
[SOUND] Because your reputation is
everything.
And you've got to guard it scrupulously.
For me, a corollary to this life's too
short lesson, has been another one
I've always applied, which is, don't sign
something you haven't read,
don't sign something you don't understand,
or that you don't agree with.
Life's too short.
This is another Wells Fargoism.
This is a, this is a slogan or a phrase,
it's still very much a part of the company
today.
And it's something that we began adopting
when we wanted very much to change the
culture from one that was more
bureaucratic
to one with a real sense of
accountability.
You know, when you think about a small
store, and you encounter the person that
owns that
store, you have a much different
experience and encounter
than when you're dealing with a temporary,
hired clerk.
That sense of ownership.
That comes from true ownership is is a
very real
and different behavior that we all
recognize and we all appreciate.
Run it like you own it.
Spend it like it was your own
money not somebody else's, or somebody
else's enterprise.
Whenever you're in charge of something,
anything, anywhere, any group.
If you adopt that ownership mindset and
mentality, it serves you well.
After all, next John, leadership is not
about fame
and fortune and power, it is about
responsibility.
And it's a responsibility for the group
that you have inherited.
It's a responsibility for helping that
group
to be better, to helping that group to
do better, and that's that same
responsibility that
an owner feels of his or her
establishment.
That is often missing when you come to
somebody working for a large organization.
Now, the challenge in a big organization
is if you can get everyone and every group
to have that same ownership mindset you
see in a small shop or a small business.
If everyone in the group can adopt and
have that
kind of sense of run it like you own it,
you create a culture and a climate of
discipline and
accountability that has enormous power and
energy for the enterprise.
Another thing about run it like you own
it, next Johnny, is
that when you have that sort of mindset
attention to detail really matters.
You know, in that post Enron and WorldCom
world we got Sarbanes-Oxley.
And a lot of people love to complain and
winge about Sarbanes-Oxley, too much
paperwork, too many rules.
And yet, you, at the, at the same time,
you would see CEOs in
front of congress, saying, well Mr.
Congressman,
understand that accounting wasn't part of
my job.
And that lack of ownership, if you will,
of the details, is a real sign of
difficulty.
If it was your business, you'd want it to
be in control.
You would want it to be under good
control.
Without surprises.
That's not micro managing, but it is
investing the time that
it takes to really understand what's going
on in the operation.
You can't manage and lead something you
don't understand...
And a final point about ownership.
Next Johnny.
Is that just like the owner of a small
enterprise, when
you have something that you own, people
will watch what you do.
They'll watch how you do it.
Much more than they'll listen to what you
say.
And in particular, they'll watch what you
pay
attention to, because leaders really do
cast long shadows.
So, run it like you own it.
Number seven.
This one, I think, is particularly
important for GSB graduates.
I know it was for me in my career life.
You know, when you think about leadership
and management, you
often think, we think about leading a
team, leading a group.
And it's our group that we're responsible
for, and
you think spend most of your time managing
downward.
Working with a team, building a, a lot of
excitement and enthusiasm, building
loyalty, and commitment, and achieving
whatever it
is that that team's about to achieve.
So we spend a lot of time managing down,
and yes, there's an
understanding that, you know, I should
spend some of my time managing up.
The boss needs to know what's going on.
The board needs to be aware of what's
going on.
The regulators need to know what's going
on.
But this kind of, we have an up and down
mindset, often.
And yet we often forget, next, that
wherever
you find yourself, you're always part of
some team.
You need to manage these relationships
with peers and other team members.
You wanna be part of a winning
organization.
That means you need the strongest team
possible.
That means other parts have to do just as
well as your group if you're going to be
successful.
Even a CEO is part of a team called the
board of directors.
A dean of a school is part of a team, the
executive cabinet of the university.
And another way of viewing this, I think,
is on the next slide.
You know, don't be so competitive that you
just
stick to that narrow job description of
your own job.
Wherever you are, think about your unit,
yes.
But, the entire company.
And if you are in charge of your entire
company, think about your industry.
And if you are an industry leader, think
about your country, or your world.
In terms of the way your mind operates and
works.
Don't forget to manage sideways, it's a
big world out there.
Number six.
I'm sure the number one reasons that
leaders fail, is because of hubris.
They take themselves, too seriously, as I
would put here.
In other words, they stop listening, they
stop
learning, they start believing in their
own unique importance,
they forget that an awful lot of success
has to do with luck, and timing.
The work of others.
You leave here, I know, with great
confidence, and you should have great
confidence.
Given who you are, and all that you've
done, and
what you know as you leave here, you
should have self-confidence.
But there's always a fine line between
confidence and arrogance.
And on the next slide, you know, don't let
yourself cross that line.
Leadership is about earning followers.
People want to follow a genuine leader,
they
don't want to follow a self-proclaimed,
self-important one.
That's not who you wan to follow and
that's not who you want
to be when you're interested in motivating
and attracting other people to your cause.
You know, in his book, Good to Great, our
alum
Jim Collins who taught here and obviously
got his MBA here.
And this one of the what, 25 best selling
business books of all time.
He coined this term Level 5 Leadership and
in Jim's concept of Level 5 Leadership,
it was not arrogance but humility that he
saw in these
people combined with a very, very
disciplined focus on the organization's
needs.
In other words, take your job seriously.
Take the group and its needs seriously.
Just don't take yourself that seriously
when it
comes to attributing what's making all
this happen.
And I think another way to keep yourself
humble is,
stay close to people at the entry level,
stay around people that are smarter than
you.
Stay around people that will give you
honest feedback.
Feedback is one of life's great gifts.
Feedback man you know, is right, that's
absolutely.
[LAUGH].
When you're lucky enough to get honesty
back, treat it as what it is.
One of life's great gifts.
Stay around the University, it gives you
great perspective on the future.
Number five, [COUGH]
I'm not sure who actually came up with
this saying.
You find it a lot if you look on the Web
and Google it.
I don't know who the original source was.
But I heard it at one time, and it had a
lot of resonance for me.
You
know, there are a lot of powerful emotions
in life.
There's, there's greed, and there's envy.
And, and fear is certainly one of them.
And fear can impact us in a number of
ways.
It, it can cause you to withdraw and just
not deal with a situation.
It can cause you to freeze, in the sense
you just can't decide and you can't move.
But it can also give you the courage to
act, to risk.
To change when change is appropriate, to
change yourself when change is required.
My wife said to me, you know, fear can
paralyze you or it can energize you.
And it can energize you to seek those
changes in your life that are really
critical.
When it's time for you to make a change.
And in doing so be prepared, I think in
three dimensions.
Number one, the next slide, be, be
prepared
to take intelligent risks, as I would call
them.
Here, you know, use your powers of
analysis.
What am I afraid of?
Why am I afraid?
What's the worst case that can happen?
Have I got it covered?
There, there is an approach to problem
solving an
analysis that I would call intelligence,
an intelligent risk taking.
And use that power of analysis to unlock
some of the fear.
But also be prepared to trust your
instincts.
How does it feel?
In addition to what does my analysis show,
and it's that combination I think of your
analysis
and your gut feeling that can give you the
courage to act when action is called for.
And finally, you know, you don't have to
be alone in all this.
I remember when I went to the first
parent's weekend at my daughter's
undergraduate college, and the person up
front speaking said to the parents, as we
were sitting out there, well you know,
we're trying to get these young
men and women to understand that asking
for help is an act of independence.
It's not a sign of weakness.
And I thought, as a wonderful sentiment
you
know, I heard that now, almost 25 years
ago.
But it's so true and yet it's so often not
accepted or practiced.
We see it as a sign of weakness.
Linda Hill in her studies of MBA graduates
of the Harvard Business School go off the
their first time jobs as managers or in
managerial roles which can be a real
struggle.
A lot of difficulty in terms of, why am I
having so much problem here?
She said in fewer than half the cases,
would people actually ask for help,
which is pretty amazing.
You don't have to face these fears alone.
You can ask for help.
It's not a sign of weakness.
It is an act of independence.
Number four.
I had a wonderful director at Westback
named Chris Stewart, and every time
we seem to confront the most difficult
problems, and challenges, the kind that
led
to sleep deprivation and cause your
stomach to churn a bit he would have
a smile on his face, and say, this is such
a character building experience.
I didn't necessarily find it all that
amusing at the time, but
I came to appreciate over and over again,
just how right he was.
And you know, in particular when I've
reviewed
the literature and the research on adult
learning,
and you realize you know, adults learn
most
of what they learn through experience, and
in
particular, they learn the most, we learn
the most when we have to acquire a skill
or develop a behavior that's necessary for
us
to accomplish something that's really
important to us.
That's when we learn the most.
And that is almost always without question
when you step outside your comfort zone.
That's when you get these character
building experiences.
So don't stay in that zone too long.
You've gotta stretch yourself.
Give yourself a cold call.
You need these experiences.
You'll learn the most from these
experiences.
They will do the most for you in life.
And then when you have these experiences,
the key is to learn from them.
You know, how often do we see two people
have a pretty similar experience?
And yet you can see a huge difference in
the way people might react or learn from
that experience.
There is the experience.
There is the feedback hopefully you might
get.
There's the listening you might do.
In particular, there's the reflection.
Now what was this experience trying to
teach me?
And then, learning from that and
integrating it into
who you are and growing, and really
reinventing yourself.
Becoming a different person as a
consequence of that experience.
You know, learnings, learnings are not
possessions like diplomas that
you put in a drawer or frame on the wall.
You know, learnings are things that you
integrate into your life and who you are.
And change yourself because of what you've
learned.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
I had a boss, a different boss at Wells
Fargo.
Not Carl Riker but another CEO who said,
you know, I've got to leave you
in this job long enough so that your
mistakes bites you in the rear end.
And again like the character building
[LAUGH]
experience of my director, I didn't
necessarily get
it until I started to have some mistakes
that bit me right where he said.
And in particular, you know, I hired the
wrong person in
a very important role and how do you learn
to hire people?
Usually by hiring the wrong person, that's
the first thing.
And having to live with that and work your
way out
of it so that you don't make the same
mistake twice.
So there is a certain resilience that
comes from having to learn from
experience.
Number three.
This comes from my great, great friend and
role model and somebody that was such an
inspiration.
John Gardner.
John taught here at the business school.
He taught at the Ed school.
He passed away about eight years ago.
But one of America's great human beings.
And John had a wonderful phrase, you know?
He said.
Leaders find the words.
Leaders find the words.
And, he was talking about the fact that,
leadership is about earning followers.
And you earn followers through honest
communication.
A communication that connects with people.
And the only way you know if it's
connecting
is to try the words and to try different
words.
And it rarely works with that first set of
words that you might try.
And it could be the second or the third or
beyond.
It might be a story.
It might be an analogy.
It might be relating it to whatever
connects with the audience.
Leaders find the words.
You know, it's interesting at the reunion
here just
a few weeks ago, one of the students that
was
in my seminar last year, he came up to me,
he said you know, we had to layoff 40% of
the people where I work and I kept
thinking over
and over again what you said in the
seminar, leaders
find the words and he really worked, he
said I
worked so hard at finding the right things
to say.
It's not a, it's not a big speech, it's
not about a big
speech, it's often best to think of it as
just an honest conversation.
As someone once observed in the next
slide, you
know, after all life is an endless series
of conversations.
It's so true, that's how you build
relationships, is through conversation.
And it's building relationships that is
the
essence of how you lead people and
organizations.
It is all about building relationships
with the people.
So if someone asks you to give a talk or
asks you to teach, do it.
You'll find the words.
I know.
Number two.
[LAUGH]
Use critical analytical thinking and the
GSB learning throughout your life.
It works.
You know, we had a former faculty member
here who used to delight in saying to the
classes as they left, he'd say, you know
you're
not as smart as you think you are, but
you've learned a lot more here than you
know.
I went abroad in Australia, in a company.
We had a young general counselor there.
A couple of years ago, she said to me, you
know,
I've noticed that you always seem to have
the right question.
It just gets right to the heart of the
issue.
Just enough to cause the management team
to squirm
a little bit cuz they haven't nailed it
down.
But get to the issue and get us to solve a
really difficult challenge.
She said to me, how do you learn to do
that?
And I thought to myself, well I think it
starts at the GSB.
That's where it started.
You know, that's where I learned to
think very clearly about well what's the
problem?
Why is it a problem?
What are the alternative solutions to the
problem?
How are we going to go about evaluating
those alternatives
and get to a, a decision that seems to
make sense?
It's a real skill, a real learning, and
then to take that
learning and translate that into a skill
that you developed through practice.
You know lots and lots of reviews,
listening to a lot of people.
Beginning to recognize patterns when you
pose a question, and
you really can develop the art of asking
great questions.
Ron Heifetz, who's a leadership scholar at
the Kennedy School,
has a marvelous phrase that I think is
really, really great.
He said, you know, one, one can lead with
no more
than a question in hand, and it is often
so true,
that, asking that penetrating question
that you learn
to get a start on here, is the real, the
real beginning of leadership.
[SOUND] Number one, [LAUGH] I'd
like to talk with you in this last
point about personal renewal.
You know, John Gardner, who said leaders
find the words, was passionate
about leadership, but his other passion
was about something he called personal
renewal.
And particularly later in his life, after
he
was about 70, he was quite interested, he
wrote some of the most interesting things,
I
think, some of the most insightful about
personal renewal.
And what John observed was, he said, you
know, I'm puzzled.
I'm puzzled why some men and women go to
seed.
And others remain vital all throughout
their lives.
He said I, I'm not talking about a failure
to get to the top in some achievement.
He said that's not the point anyway.
He agreed with Shackleton on this.
That's not the point.
But he said I'm talking about people
who, for whatever reason, stop learning
and growing.
And they're operating far below the level
of their potential.
It is John said, as if their clock
stopped.
Now he observed you know, most people
enjoy learning and growing.
And to do that, it's critical.
It's very important to make a periodic
self assessment.
How am I doing in the learning and growing
department?
It starts with that awareness.
Awareness is a key because if you're going
to
make a change, if you're going to fix the
course you're on to better course, if
you're going
to get that clock, that maybe is slowing
down rewound.
You have to start with that assessment.
How am I doing in the learning and growing
department?
And I hope you'll do that periodically
throughout your life.
But I also hope when you, when you engage
in
such assessment that you won't be too hard
on yourself.
That's something John cautioned, don't be
too hard on yourself.
He said, someone once observed that life
is the art of drawing without an eraser.
He said it's good to look back for lessons
learned, but look forward for optimism,
for change, for confidence.
But above all, when making those
assessments,
don't imagine that the story is over.
You know, life John said has a lot of
chapters.
Just keep learning, learning is not just
for
young people, learning is a life long
journey.
Learn from your mistakes.
As he said, we, we all want to
be interesting, we want to be interesting
people.
And the way to be interesting is to be
interested.
So be interested, be curious, care about
things,
risk failure, and reach out to other
people.
Life, John said, is not a mountain that
has a
summit, and it's not a game that has a
final score.
It is, he said, an endless unfolding, it's
an endless process of self-discovery.
It's an endless and unpredictable dialogue
between our own potentialities
and they are much greater than you can
ever imagine.
Our own potentialities and life situations
in which we find ourselves.
The challenges will keep changing.
But life pulls things out of you.
He took particular delight in examples of
people who were over 70
and, or at least in that age group, and
kept opening new chapters.
John-Paul the 23rd was made Pope when he
was 76 years old, but he launched
the most vigorous renewal of the Church
that had been seen in a century.
Winston Churchill was 66.
When he became Prime Minister in 1940, you
know a friend
of Churchill's said he was a man who
jaywalked through life.
>> [LAUGH].
>> But as John observed, you know, it's
okay to
be a late bloomer, if you don't miss the
flower show.
And Churchill didn't miss it.
Well Reagan turned 70 two weeks before, or
two after his first inauguration.
Life has many chapters if you allow them
to open.
And above all as John said, we all want a
life of meaning.
We want our lives to have meaning.
And he said, look meaning is not something
you
stumble across, you have to build meaning
into your life.
And you build that meaning into your life
by the commitments that you make.
Perhaps your commitment will be to your
life's
work, perhaps to your loved ones, perhaps
to your
religion, perhaps to your fellow human
beings, the
important thing is that they be
commitments beyond yourself.
Now as John said, self-preoccupation is a
prison, and the key to getting out
of that prison, are these commitments to
something beyond yourself.
When we're young we search for identity,
who am I.
And what will my identity be, and as John
said, [SOUND] your identity is what you've
committed yourself to.
And it is so much the case at any point
in your life where your commitments are,
becomes your identity.
And at any moment in time that may simply
mean just doing a better job at what
you're doing.
That, that may be your commitment and
that's a great commitment.
As John said, in a marvelous phrase that's
been quoted over and over again, some men
and women make the world a better place
just by being the kind of people they are.
They have the gift of kindness, or
courage, or loyalty, or integrity
and be that kind of person would be worth
all the years of living and learning.
So keep learning, never stop.
Keep trying, pick yourself up when you
fall.
Stay interested, so that you'll be
interesting.
Stay involved, but above all make and
keep commitments, commitments to things
greater than you.
So you can keep building meaning, into
your lives.
And my greatest wish tonight for each of
you,
for each of you, would be a life with
meaning.
And I take great comfort in knowing that
such lives will make the world a better
place.
So that's my top ten.
And I thank you for the privilege of being
invited
to give a last lecture to the class of
2010.
Thank you.
[SOUND]
Yeah?
>> Could you talk a little bit about the
capability of students?
I know recently
we [INAUDIBLE].
>> Being here at the school, and yeah.
What do you [INAUDIBLE].
>> Yeah we certainly had a situation
starting in the fall of 08 when we can
see [LAUGH] our endowment revenues were
gonna be
down, and our giving was gonna be down and
the last thing I, you know, this was my
last year and I didn't wanna turn the
school over to the new dean with the
expenses going up and the revenues going
this way.
And I guess I'd had the benefit of living
through quite a
few recessions and ups and downs
and recognizing, again that's this pattern
recognition.
Recognizing that the best way to deal with
these situations is
to deal quickly, you know, confront
reality and deal with it.
I had a director at Wells Fargo who
actually was the dean of
the business school at the time R.J.
Miller, famed for friends of R.J. Miller.
[LAUGH] And R.J. had a wonderful saying at
the board.
He'd say, you know, if you have to cut off
a dog's tail, do it once.
Don't do it an inch at a time for the poor
dog, you know.
And it's, and it's so, you know, it's
painful
but we also knew look the best thing is to
get it right sized, the way it should be.
We ended up having to lay off 50 staff
people.
Make some decisions about what would stay
open and not but to, to figure
the priorities, make the move, do it and
get on with it, it, you
know, and it's never easy, it's never
easy.
I think having done it a few times and
know
you're doing it for the right reason,
you're doing it
for the good of the greater group and it
turns
out to be easier in that sense, but it's
never easy.
But that was, you know, I, I'd been there
before.
I could see the bad news coming, better to
get on it and get on it early.
And I certainly didn't wanna leave it to
dean
so [UNKNOWN] to have to, have to do that.
And most, you know, interestingly the, the
rest of the university kinda caught the
same momentum and we really are much
better as a university on top of things.
A lot of universities are still now in a
budget cutting rollback
phase whereas Stanford made the move and
we're in much better shape today.
Yeah.
>> [INAUDIBLE].
>> I got it you know, there are a lot of
people I admired.
Today, unfortunately, the world of CEO's
is
it's come to the point where no one trusts
anybody and I think part of the problem is
compensation.
I think compensation got out of whack.
I, I admire Jack Welch enormously when
Jack was CEO, admired
Bill Gates, I admired Meg Whitman when she
was running eBay.
Ann [UNKNOWN] is a friend of mine I admire
her enormously for
the way she inherited way she did with
[UNKNOWN] with out any experience
and pulled them out of dungeons and, and
as really got them
back on track and I particularly
admire people who have taken [UNKNOWN]
institutions.
They got off the rails and brought them
back.
I have huge admiration for Steve Jobs got
fired when he was
the CEO of Apple once, he came back later,
and like resurrected into
a, into a whole new company there, there
just, there are lots of,
lots of great advice for the CEOs we've
had at Wells Fargo [UNKNOWN].
So it's, it, the [UNKNOWN] and what he
built when he brought the two together.
You know, there are lots and lots of
really great CEOs out there and great
leaders.
But it's, it's very hard now to get much
in the way of decent press.
And it's it's difficult for CEOs to get
much airtime, I think.
But the, and that's partly a problem of
compensation.
Yeah?
>> Can you talk a little more about
renewal, specifically the times that
you've renewed, yourself [INAUDIBLE].
>> Yes, you know, I think the, the things
that help me
the most was when I had some of the
biggest struggles,
some of the biggest challenges and I
needed to change.
We needed to change an organization.
We needed to change a company or change a
unit whether I was at West
Park in Australia or, or the business I
inherited at Wells Fargo in various areas.
And it took me quite a while to realize,
you
know, you're not getting any change if you
don't change.
You know, I think that's the single
biggest learning [LAUGH]
that I didn't have at business school but
I got later.
You know, it, it, you, you have to, you
have
to model the changes you want other people
to, to implement.
If you want more customer orientation, if
you want more attention to detail, if you
want more discipline around finance,
whatever it is
that's really critical to make the
organization successful.
You, you have to, you have to be
willing to change yourself, and oftentimes
people aren't.
You know, they'll bring in a consultant,
they'll run a
training program, they'll have other
people do the training [LAUGH],
and I kind of learned the hard way that,
that,
you know, you know, you have to do it
yourself.
You, you have to lead the training.
If, if you wanna run a program for all
your senior management.
You better learn, lead the first class and
show what your willing to do
yourself, and therefore what you want
other
people, what you expect from other people.
So I, I you know I guess I went through
that, the hardest for me.
I, I was in 1981 I had a group at Wells
Fargo.
That I inherited and I got, you know, I
needed change and I gave some orders and
all sort of things and six people emailed
me that they were quitting and they quit.
They went to form they went to a
competitor to form a competing firm.
[LAUGH].
So that was a character-building
experience.
[LAUGH] I, suddenly everyone was gone and
I
was able to recruit a person very
successfully
but he said look you've got to go out
there and apologize to all our clients.
And that was hard for me, you know I
though I
didn't do anything wrong, I'm just trying
to get this thing right.
>> Mm-hm.
>> That's the way they see it and I think
to that, that was
part of a reinvention was to be able to
say oh, you know, he's right.
I could've done it better and I think
that's one of the, one of
the things about you know, and I'll tell
you about being a different person.
You know, you have to be yourself.
But as we talk about it in class you can
be yourself with more skill.
[COUGH] And that's what reinvention is
about.
It's getting more skillful at being
yourself.
You know, I don't how many of you have Deb
Gruenfeld's Acting with Power, but you
know in talking to Deb,
I love what she's trying to do because,
you know, she's
talking about using more than just your
brain power, you know?
We all leave here as MBA students very
good
at the analytics and using our brains, but
we're
not necessarily good at using our emotions
and our,
our ourselves sometimes, and other aspects
of our personality.
And in particular just yourself as an
actor and a lot of
people would say as she says I can't do
that, it's not me.
And the question well, how do you know if
you've never tried that part of you?
Often you've only exercised about this
much of who you might be.
And I think willing to take those risks
I've become, I've really came to see
particularly
in leadership, is an awful lot, as John
Gardner said, you know, leadership is an
art.
It's a performing art, and you're the
instrument.
[COUGH] And you've gotta use every bit of
that instrument that you can, you know?
And that may, and that, it doesn't just
include your analytical brain power, so
there's an awful lot of that I learned
along the way and, and I'm still learning.
You know, I think particularly the power
of symbolism and the power
of what what, what you might call almost
what an actor, you
think of an actor getting into character,
he's trying to connect with
the audience in an emotional way, as well
as an intellectual way.
And I think that's something that I try to
develop
over the last ten or 15 years, of my
career.
[COUGH] Yeah.
>> [INAUDIBLE] currently don't have time
for that I'd like to [INAUDIBLE].
>> What do I currently don't have time for
that I'd like to have time for?
You know my, I, I should be spending more
time with my wife.
[LAUGH] But but I, I'm spending time with
my family, and my grandkids.
And I'm spending time doing some things I
really enjoy doing.
I'm working I'm back in banking again.
I'm working with Citigroup quite a bit.
I'm working with Bechtel and I'm doing a
little teaching.
And that's kind of what I like to do.
I like to work with a couple of companies
I admire and would like to
help, in one case get back on track and in
another case just a great company.
And I like to spend some more
time teaching and stretching myself in
that dimension.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Yeah.
>> You've seen a lot of classes lead the
geo speak, and I'm wondering if
you can comment on what mistakes you see
them make commonly out of the gates.
And how we might avoid making the same
mistake.
>> What mistake do I see people making out
of the gates?
Well I don't, I, I don't that I, all I can
tell is what I hear,
you know, feedback from from alarms, and
feedback from
recruiters I think by large students do a
tremendous job.
And they get started out of the gate very
good.
If there's one mistake they make out of
the gate it's relying so much on
the analytics and on the intellectual and
less
on the team work or the peer relations.
I think just the interpersonal skills, the
people management.
But I think our students do that better
than
any other group of MBAs in the world you
know?
So they all had touchy feely, right?
[LAUGH] You know, I hear lots of great
things
about us, but I think, I think if there's
something to be on guard for it, it's
that,
it's that managing sideways, that was a
huge thing.
I never even thought about it [COUGH]
until I was about 15 years
into my career, I realized how many
enemies I was making of my peers.
Because I was just so focused, on doing a
good job and I felt if I do a good job
I'll get ahead, I'll be fine and I, I just
wasn't focused on those peer relationships
like I should have been.
It doesn't mean schmoozing and all that it
just means being aware of what
they're trying to do and what, what it
takes from them to be successful,
cuz it's hard for, it's hard for me to be
successful if the other
units also aren't even though I, even
though they don't, they're not my
responsibility.
If I'm thinking about the greater good,
they are my responsibility.
Yeah.
Nish.
>> [INAUDIBLE] global leader?
How do you gain, the credibility and trust
of local stakeholders?
And what are some of the main [COUGH] the
faults
you've seen managers make when meeting
internationally for the first time?
>> I think, I think the biggest challenge
in working in another culture which
usually we're
talking about another country but I know
in
my case even I saw academia as another
culture.
And it really, [COUGH] it really was
almost like another country.
You know, they come here because of just
you know, the way people think.
The, the things they value.
The way decisions get made are different.
At, and I think the biggest mistake people
make
in another culture is they make too many
assumptions.
They just assume that this is the
way people are thinking, and acting, and
behaving.
That is, it, they come from their frame of
reference.
Years ago, the first time I was involved
in Japan for example.
It was very easy to make a mistake that,
that the good English speakers were the
bright ones.
Because those are the ones you can connect
with and communicate with.
And we often put the good english speaker
in a
job when they really weren't the best for
that job.
And that is a kind of an assumption that
you make that's really flawed.
And so you make the assumption that
because
someone is quite, they haven't got
anything to offer.
But, in fact they have a lot to offer.
You got to find a way to, to bring them
out.
And I think the biggest mistakes are not
taking the time to understand the culture.
You never fully understand, [COUGH] those
of you know that, and you never fully
understand it, but [COUGH] you need to
spend a huge amount of time listening.
So probably a mistake [UNKNOWN] too much
of talking instead
of listening particularly if you find
yourself in another culture.
I, I think that's, that's the biggest
challenge, and you
never can learn, you'll never learn and
understand deeply another culture.
But, so I think partly is to, to recognize
that.
And to be quite humble about that.
And do your best at listening a lot and
trying to figure out, you know, what is
the value system and the things going on
in
that culture so that you might be more
effective.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Anything else Casey?
We got where you wanna get?
>> I think we're good, thank you so much.
>> Yeah, thank you, thank you very much,
thank you.
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[BLANK_AUDIO]
