[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3121/keep-your-vision-front-and-center","id",3121,"title","Keep your vision front and center","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.220\nThe key part of our success has been we've had a goal, a long-term vision of\n\n2\n00:00:06.220 --> 00:00:07.200\nwhere we wanted to get\n\n3\n00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:11.720\nto. And we keep coming back to that. It's not just something you put in a\n\n4\n00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:13.040\npamphlet, something you\n\n5\n00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:19.760\ntell new employees. We were going to be a competitive force in the vacation\n\n6\n00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:20.480\nmarket,\n\n7\n00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.200\nnot just a cruise, but the competitive force in the broader vacation market.\n\n8\n00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:27.280\nAnd that's been very\n\n9\n00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:31.980\nsuccessful. We've gone to the point where we've gone from a very small niche\n\n10\n00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:33.600\ncruise line to where\n\n11\n00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:39.570\nnow market caps higher than any hotel chain, any airline, any vacation company\n\n12\n00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:40.640\nyou can think of.\n\n13\n00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:47.440\nAnd that's because we're offering so much more. And so our vision was we wanted\n\n14\n00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:48.560\nto be in the\n\n15\n00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:55.040\ntotal vacation market. And to do that, we needed to be more than just taking\n\n16\n00:00:55.040 --> 00:00:56.160\nyou from point A to B\n\n17\n00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:02.380\nand in luxury. We wanted to have more activities on board, more connection with\n\n18\n00:01:02.380 --> 00:01:03.360\nour destinations\n\n19\n00:01:03.360 --> 00:01:09.210\nthat we go to. So that's really been our North Star. And we talk about it all\n\n20\n00:01:09.210 --> 00:01:10.080\nthe time,\n\n21\n00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:13.820\nbecause as I mentioned earlier, discussing things is the way to make sure you\n\n22\n00:01:13.820 --> 00:01:14.720\nhave alignment.\n\n23\n00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:17.520\nAnd it's been very successful for us.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",705249,"end_time",783000,"keywords","Vision, north star, alignment, long term","slug","keep-your-vision-front-and-center","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","98jV02rUcT9qpAFtx5Fq7tof7qDXl024aqZP8jWliUlQE","mux_asset_id","JB6mmBHmavJSric024WGPCxNVUKwwgaxxvgzt7clSxKM","leader_id",254,"episode_id",406,"updated_at","2025-11-20T19:45:19.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3121/keep-your-vision-front-and-center","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Push past comfortable","push-past-comfortable","Listen to this leadership podcast with Richard Fain, former CEO of Royal Caribbean Group and discover how to drive innovation by pushing past what’s comfortable.","summary","

Today’s cruise ships are floating cities – complete with waterslides, sushi bars, and even roller skating rinks.

But it wasn’t always that way. Today, we’re joined by the leader who helped pioneer the megaship era and transform Royal Caribbean into a global vacation powerhouse.

Richard Fain served as CEO for 33 years, building a culture where big ideas could thrive and the whole team was willing to push past what was comfortable or passable in order to deliver truly “wow” experiences.

If you want to create a culture that’s big on innovation, don’t miss this episode.

You’ll also learn:

What “UFB” stands for (you can probably guess the middle letter)
The surprisingly simple strategy that can help your internal initiatives take off
How to apply the rule of thirds to your innovation strategy
Why he got an emergency phone call from the Swedish Air Force

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.040\nThe blimp had been blown away.\n\n2\n00:00:02.040 --> 00:00:03.800\nAlmost immediately we got a call.\n\n3\n00:00:03.800 --> 00:00:06.780\nThe captain got a call from the Swedish Air Force.\n\n4\n00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:10.200\nYour balloon, your blimp is in our airlines.\n\n5\n00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:12.040\nCan you mind if we shoot it down?\n\n6\n00:00:12.040 --> 00:00:21.480\n- You have delivered a lot of vows over the years.\n\n7\n00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:25.520\nSo many that you can actually with 1,000% credibility,\n\n8\n00:00:25.520 --> 00:00:29.000\nwrite a book on the power of really dazzling your customers.\n\n9\n00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.320\n- What's the first time you remember\n\n10\n00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:34.000\nbeing completely wowed by something?\n\n11\n00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:36.960\n- Oh, I think it was actually my,\n\n12\n00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:39.400\nprobably my very first cruise.\n\n13\n00:00:39.400 --> 00:00:42.040\nAnd I took it because I had never taken a cruise\n\n14\n00:00:42.040 --> 00:00:45.400\nand the founder Ed Stefan of Royal Caribbean said,\n\n15\n00:00:45.400 --> 00:00:46.680\n\"Richard, you gotta take a cruise\n\n16\n00:00:46.680 --> 00:00:48.160\nso you know what you're talking about.\"\n\n17\n00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:51.880\nAnd I had never thought a cruise was for somebody like me.\n\n18\n00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:54.480\nI knew it was popular, I knew it was a great thing,\n\n19\n00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:57.680\nintellectually, but to actually feel it.\n\n20\n00:00:57.680 --> 00:00:59.320\nAnd I took that cruise.\n\n21\n00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:02.000\nActually, my wife and I took her somewhat reluctantly\n\n22\n00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:03.760\nand we're just blown away.\n\n23\n00:01:03.760 --> 00:01:06.600\nAnd the thing that blew us away was the people.\n\n24\n00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:10.200\nThey were so spectacular, they were passionate,\n\n25\n00:01:10.200 --> 00:01:14.320\nthey were innovative, it was just terrific.\n\n26\n00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:17.480\nAnd I think that was probably one of the more\n\n27\n00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:19.720\ndefining moments of my career.\n\n28\n00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:20.880\n- That's interesting you say,\n\n29\n00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:23.520\nyou didn't think a cruise was for someone like you.\n\n30\n00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:25.280\nWhat do you mean by that?\n\n31\n00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.400\n- Well, you know, I had a view that back then\n\n32\n00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.640\nwas quite common today, there are still people\n\n33\n00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.720\nthat feel that way that, oh yeah, cruising is good,\n\n34\n00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:35.920\nbut I'm too sophisticated for that.\n\n35\n00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:39.000\nIt's not for me, it's not for people like us.\n\n36\n00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.880\nWe're really, we only do certain kinds of things.\n\n37\n00:01:41.880 --> 00:01:45.160\nAnd it was amazing just how wrong I was.\n\n38\n00:01:45.160 --> 00:01:48.560\nWe just enjoyed ourselves, we enjoyed the company\n\n39\n00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:52.360\nthat people we had dinner with, we enjoyed the crew,\n\n40\n00:01:52.360 --> 00:01:55.520\nwe enjoyed the ship, everything about it was wow.\n\n41\n00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:58.720\nThis was, I didn't mean to say that, but yes, wow.\n\n42\n00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:02.160\nThis was a really special vacation.\n\n43\n00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:03.560\nAnd that brought it home to me.\n\n44\n00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:06.280\n- You know, so Richard, you led Royal Caribbean\n\n45\n00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:09.640\nthen for 33 years and I understand there's a phrase\n\n46\n00:02:09.640 --> 00:02:10.840\nthat everyone knew.\n\n47\n00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:14.600\nNow I love this one, it's UFB.\n\n48\n00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:15.840\n- Oh yes.\n\n49\n00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:17.280\n- Tell me the story behind it\n\n50\n00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:19.640\nand what it says about your leadership style.\n\n51\n00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:21.320\n- You know, it's interesting,\n\n52\n00:02:21.320 --> 00:02:22.960\nit sort of developed on its own,\n\n53\n00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:26.560\nbut we had had tremendous success with our ships.\n\n54\n00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:28.680\nWe had developed some wonderful ships\n\n55\n00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:32.200\nthat were really innovative and groundbreaking\n\n56\n00:02:32.200 --> 00:02:34.400\nand game-changing and all those words.\n\n57\n00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.760\nAnd we wanted to find something that was us.\n\n58\n00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:40.200\nIt wasn't just another word that's overused\n\n59\n00:02:40.200 --> 00:02:41.880\nin the business vocabulary.\n\n60\n00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:43.760\nAnd so somebody came up and said,\n\n61\n00:02:43.760 --> 00:02:46.320\n\"Well, this should really be unbelievable.\"\n\n62\n00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:50.080\nAnd yes, we added an adjective in the middle there.\n\n63\n00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:55.080\nSo it was un-effing believable and it really empowered people.\n\n64\n00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:59.600\nSo the question when we would meet is,\n\n65\n00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:02.560\nyeah, hey, that's pretty good because by the way,\n\n66\n00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:06.320\nevery architect's drawing I've ever seen looks terrific.\n\n67\n00:03:06.320 --> 00:03:09.440\nThey all look great, but is it UFB?\n\n68\n00:03:09.440 --> 00:03:11.840\nIs it truly unbelievable?\n\n69\n00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.040\nAnd that empowered our discussion.\n\n70\n00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:16.960\nAnd if somebody came up with something\n\n71\n00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:20.040\nthat was really spectacular, we gave it the,\n\n72\n00:03:20.040 --> 00:03:23.200\nthe Appalachian, that's, wow, that's UFB.\n\n73\n00:03:23.200 --> 00:03:25.320\nAnd we're off to the races.\n\n74\n00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:26.840\n- You know, I love that.\n\n75\n00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:31.840\nAnd so many people do just use the obvious word, you know?\n\n76\n00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:34.600\nAnd they don't really think through\n\n77\n00:03:34.600 --> 00:03:36.720\nhow to break through the clutter with a phrase\n\n78\n00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:39.320\nthat really drives something that's gonna be powerful\n\n79\n00:03:39.320 --> 00:03:41.160\nin your culture.\n\n80\n00:03:41.160 --> 00:03:43.800\nIs that something you've always tried to do, Richard?\n\n81\n00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:45.680\nYou know, find that magic set of words\n\n82\n00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:48.280\nand spend in terms of communication?\n\n83\n00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.040\n- As you well know, I believe culture is everything.\n\n84\n00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:55.200\nAnd it's the people and I work with extraordinary people.\n\n85\n00:03:55.200 --> 00:03:59.840\nAnd yes, I think it's important to go at a problem\n\n86\n00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:01.760\nand find a way to describe it\n\n87\n00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:05.360\nso that it doesn't just become wrote.\n\n88\n00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:06.960\nOh yeah, we want the best of this\n\n89\n00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:08.640\nand we want the best of that.\n\n90\n00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:11.440\nAnd so something that makes it more personal\n\n91\n00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:14.240\nbecause it's really the people and the passion\n\n92\n00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:19.240\nthat they have for excellence that drives really good outcomes.\n\n93\n00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:22.920\nAnd so having a few times in our career\n\n94\n00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:24.760\nwhere we've identified something\n\n95\n00:04:24.760 --> 00:04:27.280\nand giving it special names,\n\n96\n00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:29.600\none of the things we do was every project\n\n97\n00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:31.080\nwe would give as a project\n\n98\n00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:34.240\nand the project needed to be aspirational.\n\n99\n00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:38.800\nSo when we were designing what became a very new class\n\n100\n00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:40.960\nof ships, we call it Project Eagle.\n\n101\n00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:43.800\nAnd people wanted to soar like an eagle.\n\n102\n00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:46.520\nAnd so yeah, I think it helps.\n\n103\n00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:47.640\nIf you're going to do something\n\n104\n00:04:47.640 --> 00:04:49.120\nand you really want people to understand\n\n105\n00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:50.760\nthat you need to talk about it\n\n106\n00:04:50.760 --> 00:04:53.600\nand words help you discuss it.\n\n107\n00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.360\n- Well, speaking of UFB,\n\n108\n00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:59.360\nyou got to tell me the story of why in the world\n\n109\n00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:01.760\nyou cut a perfectly good ship in half.\n\n110\n00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:05.880\n- Well, that was really my introduction\n\n111\n00:05:05.880 --> 00:05:06.960\nto the cruise business.\n\n112\n00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:09.960\nAnd that was really the concept of the founder\n\n113\n00:05:09.960 --> 00:05:11.360\nof the company who had built\n\n114\n00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:16.360\nwhat were then very large ships holding 720 people.\n\n115\n00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:19.040\nAnd they came up with this idea\n\n116\n00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.920\nthat they could cut the ship in half,\n\n117\n00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:24.960\nmake a new midsection\n\n118\n00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:29.240\nthat they would make individual independently.\n\n119\n00:05:29.240 --> 00:05:30.960\nThey would then cut the ship in half,\n\n120\n00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:33.240\nfloat the front part out,\n\n121\n00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:35.720\nfloat the new midsection in,\n\n122\n00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:38.040\nfloat the front section back in,\n\n123\n00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:39.920\nglue it all together somehow.\n\n124\n00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:41.960\nAnd it's still supposed to float\n\n125\n00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:45.200\nand provide all the services.\n\n126\n00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:46.680\nAnd it was a terrific thing.\n\n127\n00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:49.040\nI still don't understand the engineering,\n\n128\n00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:52.240\nbut the guests were fine with it.\n\n129\n00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:54.600\nIt gave us great economies of scale.\n\n130\n00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:58.720\nThe ship went from 720 to 1,040 guests.\n\n131\n00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:01.440\nIt had a little more activities on board.\n\n132\n00:06:01.440 --> 00:06:03.440\nIt had more economies of scale.\n\n133\n00:06:03.440 --> 00:06:05.080\nFinancially, it was a dream.\n\n134\n00:06:05.080 --> 00:06:07.440\n- You know, you're known for building a culture\n\n135\n00:06:07.440 --> 00:06:09.640\nwhere people aren't afraid to share ideas.\n\n136\n00:06:09.640 --> 00:06:12.520\nAnd they really step out, they innovate.\n\n137\n00:06:12.520 --> 00:06:14.400\nYou know, what have you done to create\n\n138\n00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:18.080\nthat kind of environment of innovation and creativity?\n\n139\n00:06:18.080 --> 00:06:20.160\n- You know, I think that is one of the things\n\n140\n00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.440\nthat I've always been the proudest of at Royal Caribbean\n\n141\n00:06:22.440 --> 00:06:25.760\nis the people and the culture that those people have created.\n\n142\n00:06:25.760 --> 00:06:29.000\nAnd you made it, you personalize it to me,\n\n143\n00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.640\nbut it's actually a culture of a lot of people\n\n144\n00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:35.720\nwho come together and really are passionate about what they do.\n\n145\n00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:37.440\nAnd so how do we do that?\n\n146\n00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:40.760\nWell, the most important thing we do is we talk,\n\n147\n00:06:40.760 --> 00:06:44.480\nwe discuss things, we have real arguments\n\n148\n00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:49.000\nand we make it clear that we want the right answer here\n\n149\n00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.240\nand everybody gets a voice.\n\n150\n00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:54.880\nNow in the end, the leadership has to make ultimate decisions,\n\n151\n00:06:54.880 --> 00:06:58.160\nbut by giving everybody a voice and by having it,\n\n152\n00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:02.280\nwe often come up with ideas that we never would have thought of.\n\n153\n00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:05.520\nAnd then we are able to generate an alignment\n\n154\n00:07:05.520 --> 00:07:09.440\nbecause everybody has been involved in making the decision.\n\n155\n00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:11.520\nWe're not trying to reach compromises\n\n156\n00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:14.840\nwhere we adjust it so everybody's happy,\n\n157\n00:07:14.840 --> 00:07:17.080\nbut we reach a conclusion that everybody feels\n\n158\n00:07:17.080 --> 00:07:19.720\nthey've been heard on, they've been part of.\n\n159\n00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:24.680\nAnd that leads to striving for excellence,\n\n160\n00:07:24.680 --> 00:07:29.440\nwhich has resulted in innovation and performance\n\n161\n00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:31.800\nthat is, I think, remarkable.\n\n162\n00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:33.680\nI've had the best job in the world.\n\n163\n00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:35.760\nYou know, Richard, it sounds like you go through\n\n164\n00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:38.040\nsort of a healthy debate process\n\n165\n00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:39.920\nand then you get a healthy decision.\n\n166\n00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:41.600\nIs there anything unique that you do\n\n167\n00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:43.600\nto make sure you get that healthy debate?\n\n168\n00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:46.040\nWe pride debate.\n\n169\n00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:50.480\nWe really do, people who argue are rewarded for it,\n\n170\n00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:54.320\nmostly in both promotions, but also in, we say,\n\n171\n00:07:54.320 --> 00:07:55.520\n\"You know, that was really good.\n\n172\n00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:56.840\n\"You made a really good point.\n\n173\n00:07:56.840 --> 00:07:59.120\n\"You were wrong, but you made a really good point\n\n174\n00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:01.560\n\"and the discussion was terrific.\"\n\n175\n00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:04.960\nAnd we always had so much fun doing it.\n\n176\n00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:08.440\nWe always learn something and we enjoy doing it.\n\n177\n00:08:08.440 --> 00:08:11.360\nAnd I love playing devil's advocate.\n\n178\n00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.400\nDevil's advocate becomes sort of a nice word.\n\n179\n00:08:14.400 --> 00:08:16.600\nIt's a compliment, not an insult.\n\n180\n00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:18.920\nAnd so by having the back and forth\n\n181\n00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:22.120\nand by just saying over and over again,\n\n182\n00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:25.080\nwell, let's look at this again.\n\n183\n00:08:25.080 --> 00:08:27.960\nThat has proven to be very successful for us.\n\n184\n00:08:27.960 --> 00:08:29.240\nWe're never satisfied.\n\n185\n00:08:29.240 --> 00:08:33.280\nThis is constant, well, that's really very good.\n\n186\n00:08:33.280 --> 00:08:35.280\nBut is it the best we can do?\n\n187\n00:08:35.280 --> 00:08:38.120\n- You know, one of the big ideas your team gave you\n\n188\n00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:42.120\nwas to send your guests 500 feet up in the air\n\n189\n00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:44.480\nwith a blimp tethered to the cruise ship.\n\n190\n00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:46.800\nTell us, Esther, you've got some wacky things\n\n191\n00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:47.640\nthat you've done.\n\n192\n00:08:47.640 --> 00:08:48.480\nI love this.\n\n193\n00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:49.320\nI really love it.\n\n194\n00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:50.600\nAnd it's good.\n\n195\n00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:53.160\n- And who gets to do stuff like this?\n\n196\n00:08:53.160 --> 00:08:57.680\nI mean, you know, this is every child's dream\n\n197\n00:08:57.680 --> 00:09:00.960\nto play with toys of such amazing complexity and beauty.\n\n198\n00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:02.120\n- These are big toys.\n\n199\n00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:04.280\n- These are big toys.\n\n200\n00:09:04.280 --> 00:09:06.200\nMaybe my tinker toy isn't the same\n\n201\n00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:09.880\nas a $2 billion cruise ship, but it's the same concept.\n\n202\n00:09:09.880 --> 00:09:14.600\nSo we were building a ship and we wanted it.\n\n203\n00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:16.760\nPart of what has been so successful for us\n\n204\n00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:20.560\nis to give our guests more, more choice, more alternatives,\n\n205\n00:09:20.560 --> 00:09:21.840\nmore things to do.\n\n206\n00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:23.360\nAnd one of the things we thought was,\n\n207\n00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:25.240\nwell, we can put them up in a blimp\n\n208\n00:09:25.240 --> 00:09:26.880\nand they can trail it behind the ship\n\n209\n00:09:26.880 --> 00:09:28.520\nand they can see everything.\n\n210\n00:09:28.520 --> 00:09:30.800\nSo we designed this blimp.\n\n211\n00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:33.880\nThe team put together an amazing blimp.\n\n212\n00:09:33.880 --> 00:09:35.440\nThey designed it in computers.\n\n213\n00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:37.640\nThey ran computer simulations.\n\n214\n00:09:37.640 --> 00:09:41.080\nWe tried it in a factory setting.\n\n215\n00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:43.520\nThen we took it out on an abandoned runway\n\n216\n00:09:43.520 --> 00:09:47.240\nand pulled it behind a big truck to test it out.\n\n217\n00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:50.280\nAnd then we actually did a trial on the ship\n\n218\n00:09:50.280 --> 00:09:52.240\nduring the sea trial of the ship.\n\n219\n00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:54.360\nAnd we took this enormous balloon\n\n220\n00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:59.360\nwith a gondola under it that would hold up to 18 people.\n\n221\n00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.400\nI got in it and I'm afraid of heights.\n\n222\n00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:05.240\nWe went up and went up with the safety officer\n\n223\n00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:09.240\nand we went up, couldn't go much more than 300 feet\n\n224\n00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:11.840\nand my agrifobia just got to me,\n\n225\n00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:15.920\nbut got up there and we were off the coast of Sweden\n\n226\n00:10:15.920 --> 00:10:17.560\nand the view was amazing.\n\n227\n00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:19.640\nWe could see the coastline, we could see the ship,\n\n228\n00:10:19.640 --> 00:10:22.080\nwe could see for miles in every direction.\n\n229\n00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:23.500\nIt was really fun.\n\n230\n00:10:24.680 --> 00:10:27.960\nUnfortunately, you know, it was a test\n\n231\n00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:30.440\nand we didn't really tie it down very well.\n\n232\n00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:32.960\nThat night there was a storm.\n\n233\n00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.440\nWe woke up in the morning, the balloon,\n\n234\n00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.960\nthe blimp had been blown away.\n\n235\n00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:40.120\nAnd almost immediately we got a call,\n\n236\n00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:42.760\nthe captain got a call from the Swedish Air Force.\n\n237\n00:10:42.760 --> 00:10:47.680\nYour balloon, your blimp is in our airlines.\n\n238\n00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:49.600\nCan you mind if we shoot it down?\n\n239\n00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:53.160\nI mean, who deals with stuff like this?\n\n240\n00:10:53.160 --> 00:10:55.640\nI mean, how do you react to that?\n\n241\n00:10:55.640 --> 00:11:00.000\nSo we said yes, but fortunately the balloon descended\n\n242\n00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.520\non its own, but it was a great idea.\n\n243\n00:11:04.520 --> 00:11:08.000\nBut like many ideas, you have to try a lot of ideas\n\n244\n00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.400\nand choose the ones that work best.\n\n245\n00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:12.800\n- The idea that almost got shot down.\n\n246\n00:11:12.800 --> 00:11:14.360\n(laughing)\n\n247\n00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:15.920\n- I love it. - But it did get shot down\n\n248\n00:11:15.920 --> 00:11:17.760\njust not by the Swedish Air Force.\n\n249\n00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:19.440\n- Oh, okay, all right.\n\n250\n00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.480\nNow, some of your ships have ice skating rings,\n\n251\n00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.760\n40 feet rock walls.\n\n252\n00:11:24.760 --> 00:11:27.280\nAnd yet I've heard you say,\n\n253\n00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:31.720\nI think sometimes people focus too much on the easy stuff.\n\n254\n00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:34.480\nExplain.\n\n255\n00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:36.160\n- For all of these things,\n\n256\n00:11:36.160 --> 00:11:38.240\nwe wanted to have something special.\n\n257\n00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:39.920\nWe wanted to deliver the wow.\n\n258\n00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:42.040\nWe wanted to blow our guests away.\n\n259\n00:11:42.040 --> 00:11:44.880\nAnd one of the things we've had from the very beginning,\n\n260\n00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:47.760\nI think the key part of our success has been\n\n261\n00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:51.520\nwe've had a goal, a long-term vision\n\n262\n00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:53.200\nof where we wanted to get to.\n\n263\n00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.360\nAnd we keep coming back to that.\n\n264\n00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:57.880\nIt's not just something you put in a pamphlet,\n\n265\n00:11:57.880 --> 00:12:00.920\nsomething you tell new employees.\n\n266\n00:12:00.920 --> 00:12:04.200\nWe were going to be a competitive force\n\n267\n00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:07.240\nin the vacation market, not just the cruise,\n\n268\n00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:11.200\nbut the competitive force in the broader vacation market.\n\n269\n00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:13.240\nAnd that's been very successful.\n\n270\n00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:15.040\nWe've gone to the point where we've gone\n\n271\n00:12:15.040 --> 00:12:18.720\nfrom a very small niche cruise line\n\n272\n00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:23.040\nto we're now market caps higher than any hotel chain,\n\n273\n00:12:23.040 --> 00:12:26.520\nany airline, any vacation company you can think of.\n\n274\n00:12:26.520 --> 00:12:30.600\nAnd so, and that's because we're offering so much more.\n\n275\n00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:33.160\nAnd so our vision was we wanted to be\n\n276\n00:12:33.160 --> 00:12:36.000\nin the total vacation market.\n\n277\n00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.080\nAnd to do that, we needed to be more than just\n\n278\n00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:42.920\ntaking you from point A to B in luxury.\n\n279\n00:12:42.920 --> 00:12:46.040\nWe wanted to have more activities on board,\n\n280\n00:12:46.040 --> 00:12:50.160\nmore connection with our destinations that we go to.\n\n281\n00:12:50.160 --> 00:12:53.200\nSo that's really been our North Star.\n\n282\n00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:55.520\nAnd we talk about it all the time,\n\n283\n00:12:55.520 --> 00:12:57.480\n'cause as I mentioned earlier,\n\n284\n00:12:57.480 --> 00:13:01.080\ndiscussing things is a way to make sure you have alignment.\n\n285\n00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:03.440\nAnd it's been very successful for us.\n\n286\n00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:05.880\n- In your mind, that's really not the sexy stuff.\n\n287\n00:13:05.880 --> 00:13:06.940\nThat's the basics.\n\n288\n00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:09.960\n- That is a good way to put it.\n\n289\n00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:11.800\nIt's often not sexy.\n\n290\n00:13:11.800 --> 00:13:14.080\nIt's, you know, we talk about delivering the wow.\n\n291\n00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:18.080\nAnd sometimes it's extraordinary things that the crew do.\n\n292\n00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:21.240\nBut most of the time, it's small things.\n\n293\n00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:24.280\nIt's smiling when you walk past people.\n\n294\n00:13:24.280 --> 00:13:26.640\nIt's saying good morning in a pleasant way.\n\n295\n00:13:26.640 --> 00:13:29.600\nIt's when somebody says, \"Where do I find this?\"\n\n296\n00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:31.480\nInstead of saying, \"Well, you go around the corner,\n\n297\n00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:33.400\nturn left in your first right.\"\n\n298\n00:13:33.400 --> 00:13:35.480\nYou say, \"Let me show you where it is.\"\n\n299\n00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:37.440\nBut it's also not just the crew on board.\n\n300\n00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:39.560\nIt's the people on shore that say,\n\n301\n00:13:39.560 --> 00:13:41.280\nhow do we deal with,\n\n302\n00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:45.040\nwe bring amazing amounts of food and other supplies\n\n303\n00:13:45.040 --> 00:13:48.360\non a ship every day or every Saturday\n\n304\n00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:49.800\nwhen the ship is in port?\n\n305\n00:13:49.800 --> 00:13:52.960\nAnd we end up with a long queue of trucks.\n\n306\n00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:54.200\nHow do we arrange that\n\n307\n00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:56.840\nso we don't have these big traffic jam of trucks?\n\n308\n00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:01.080\nAnd how, once we've done that, do we do even better\n\n309\n00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:04.080\nand make sure that everything is put away in a way\n\n310\n00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:07.040\nthat makes it accessible to the crew members on board?\n\n311\n00:14:07.040 --> 00:14:08.040\n- Hello everyone.\n\n312\n00:14:08.040 --> 00:14:09.600\nI hope you're loving this conversation\n\n313\n00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:10.800\nwith David and Richard Fane.\n\n314\n00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:12.520\nRichard is an icon.\n\n315\n00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:15.160\nAnd you're gonna love the rest of this interview.\n\n316\n00:14:15.160 --> 00:14:16.320\nStay tuned to the very end\n\n317\n00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:17.560\nso you don't miss the debrief.\n\n318\n00:14:17.560 --> 00:14:20.040\nDavid and I are gonna break down some of the key themes\n\n319\n00:14:20.040 --> 00:14:21.640\nthat he discusses with Richard.\n\n320\n00:14:21.640 --> 00:14:23.560\nAnd we're gonna give you some really tangible takeaways\n\n321\n00:14:23.560 --> 00:14:25.360\nthat you can apply to your leadership,\n\n322\n00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:26.680\nto your work and to your life.\n\n323\n00:14:26.680 --> 00:14:29.000\nSo stay tuned to the very end of the episode\n\n324\n00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:31.200\nand don't miss the debrief.\n\n325\n00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:33.720\n- You know, I wanna dig more into your journey\n\n326\n00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:35.880\nat Royal Caribbean in just a minute.\n\n327\n00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:40.080\nBut first, you know, take me back and tell us a story\n\n328\n00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:41.560\nfrom your childhood.\n\n329\n00:14:41.560 --> 00:14:43.200\nYou know, one that shaped the kind of leader\n\n330\n00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:44.360\nthat you are today.\n\n331\n00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:48.880\n- Well, I was born and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.\n\n332\n00:14:48.880 --> 00:14:52.360\nAnd inculcated me from the very beginning\n\n333\n00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:55.640\nwas the importance of family and education.\n\n334\n00:14:55.640 --> 00:14:58.440\nAnd that was something that I was always told\n\n335\n00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:00.880\nwas simply something one had to do.\n\n336\n00:15:00.880 --> 00:15:03.320\nI was lucky enough to go to school at Berkeley\n\n337\n00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:06.000\nand to meet my first mentor.\n\n338\n00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:11.000\nWe met both as freshmen and eventually we married\n\n339\n00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.000\nand had what is now four wonderful kids\n\n340\n00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.400\nand eight extraordinary grandchildren.\n\n341\n00:15:17.400 --> 00:15:19.160\nI've been lucky actually in my career\n\n342\n00:15:19.160 --> 00:15:21.280\nto have mentors at a number of stages\n\n343\n00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:26.280\nthat have believed in me, supported me and become friends.\n\n344\n00:15:26.280 --> 00:15:30.080\n- So you describe your wife as your first mentor?\n\n345\n00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.120\n- She was and is.\n\n346\n00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.160\n- And how do you get her involved in your business\n\n347\n00:15:37.160 --> 00:15:39.040\nand the decisions you made?\n\n348\n00:15:39.040 --> 00:15:40.880\n- Of course, everything we do is confidential,\n\n349\n00:15:40.880 --> 00:15:43.920\nbut I don't have any conferences from my wife.\n\n350\n00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:48.920\nBut probably the most clear it came was during the pandemic,\n\n351\n00:15:48.920 --> 00:15:51.520\nwhen I was doing things from home\n\n352\n00:15:51.520 --> 00:15:56.280\nand I would finish a Zoom call and she would say,\n\n353\n00:15:56.280 --> 00:15:58.920\n\"Did you really mean to talk like that?\"\n\n354\n00:15:58.920 --> 00:16:02.120\nI would know this was a time when I should call somebody back\n\n355\n00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:06.360\nand reset the conversation.\n\n356\n00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:08.160\nBut just throughout the period\n\n357\n00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:11.080\nand I'm proud of my business career,\n\n358\n00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:16.080\nbut you do not have a good business career by itself.\n\n359\n00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:21.160\nAnd after 56 years of an amazing marriage\n\n360\n00:16:21.160 --> 00:16:23.400\nand amazing life together,\n\n361\n00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:25.920\nI'm lucky on both counts.\n\n362\n00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:28.960\nI have the best job in the world\n\n363\n00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:31.320\nand I have the best family life in the world.\n\n364\n00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:33.040\n- How did you bring all the stuff\n\n365\n00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:34.280\nthat you've learned about leadership\n\n366\n00:16:34.280 --> 00:16:37.680\nand you're an acknowledged leader and you've made it happen?\n\n367\n00:16:37.680 --> 00:16:41.200\nHow did you bring leadership to the family?\n\n368\n00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:42.680\n- You know, it's always the people\n\n369\n00:16:42.680 --> 00:16:46.120\nand especially with the family,\n\n370\n00:16:46.120 --> 00:16:47.960\nI'm not sure that you can define.\n\n371\n00:16:47.960 --> 00:16:52.400\nI'm not a big one for seven lessons of great leaders.\n\n372\n00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:56.480\nI think there is something where you have to be in it together.\n\n373\n00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:59.280\nIt is a question of working together, aligning,\n\n374\n00:16:59.280 --> 00:17:02.360\nseeing the world in the same way\n\n375\n00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.120\nand moving towards a common goal.\n\n376\n00:17:05.120 --> 00:17:09.520\nAnd I've been extraordinarily fortunate in business\n\n377\n00:17:09.520 --> 00:17:14.520\nwhere I've worked with people who share my passion.\n\n378\n00:17:14.520 --> 00:17:17.440\nIt's pretty obvious I'm a passionate person\n\n379\n00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:21.120\nand I think that's important to success.\n\n380\n00:17:21.120 --> 00:17:22.960\nIf you don't love what you do,\n\n381\n00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:24.840\nyou're not gonna do it well.\n\n382\n00:17:24.840 --> 00:17:27.280\nAnd the same thing in my family life.\n\n383\n00:17:27.280 --> 00:17:30.160\nAnd what we do together,\n\n384\n00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.200\nwe love to do together.\n\n385\n00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:35.680\nWe've always tended to do two more active things\n\n386\n00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:37.400\nto do together and vacations.\n\n387\n00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:41.800\nAnd the result has been, as I said,\n\n388\n00:17:41.800 --> 00:17:43.720\neight extraordinary grandchildren.\n\n389\n00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:45.320\nTheir parents are pretty good too,\n\n390\n00:17:45.320 --> 00:17:47.760\nbut the grandchildren are quite extraordinary.\n\n391\n00:17:47.760 --> 00:17:51.320\nI feel you on that one for sure.\n\n392\n00:17:51.320 --> 00:17:54.560\n- You know, you started out in finance\n\n393\n00:17:54.560 --> 00:17:56.240\nbefore joining Royal Caribbean.\n\n394\n00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:58.960\nWhat drew you to the cruise industry in the first place?\n\n395\n00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:01.480\n- Never imagined it.\n\n396\n00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:03.400\nAs you say, I started out in finance.\n\n397\n00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.240\nI thought I was a financial person,\n\n398\n00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:10.840\nbut what I found was that finance doesn't exist in a vacuum.\n\n399\n00:18:10.840 --> 00:18:15.360\nSo I became the treasurer, the surprising young age.\n\n400\n00:18:15.360 --> 00:18:18.400\nI had a great mentor who gave me that opportunity,\n\n401\n00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:22.680\nKen Tripp back in the early '70s.\n\n402\n00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:26.480\nAnd I thought I was a purely financial person.\n\n403\n00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:30.440\nBut what I found was that finance doesn't exist in a vacuum.\n\n404\n00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:33.960\nIf you just take the world as it is\n\n405\n00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:37.840\nand say, now my job is to finance it, that doesn't work.\n\n406\n00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:39.080\nIn order to do the financing,\n\n407\n00:18:39.080 --> 00:18:41.520\nthere really has to be a symbiotic relationship\n\n408\n00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:45.520\nbetween the finance people and the operating people.\n\n409\n00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:47.520\nAnd so at an early stage,\n\n410\n00:18:47.520 --> 00:18:51.560\nI found that to raise the kind of finance we had to raise,\n\n411\n00:18:51.560 --> 00:18:53.400\nI needed to be actively involved\n\n412\n00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:57.600\nin how we were operating our business.\n\n413\n00:18:57.600 --> 00:19:01.600\nAnd that led in effect at one stage\n\n414\n00:19:01.600 --> 00:19:04.080\nto the whole issue of Royal Caribbean.\n\n415\n00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:06.440\nThe company I worked for, the shipping company I worked for,\n\n416\n00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:09.120\nhad a small interest in Royal Caribbean.\n\n417\n00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:11.680\nAnd I was asked to do some work with that.\n\n418\n00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:16.400\nAnd I got more interested in it, more active.\n\n419\n00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:19.320\nI found it an interesting business.\n\n420\n00:19:19.320 --> 00:19:23.160\nAnd what really got me into it was,\n\n421\n00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:26.240\nthere was a disagreement amongst the board\n\n422\n00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.680\nover whether or not we should build another ship.\n\n423\n00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:33.280\nAnd they wanted really a neutral party,\n\n424\n00:19:33.280 --> 00:19:35.400\nsomebody who hadn't expressed a view\n\n425\n00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:37.400\nto do an analysis of it.\n\n426\n00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:39.960\nAnd that was an amazing opportunity.\n\n427\n00:19:39.960 --> 00:19:42.720\nSo that's really how I got into the cruise business.\n\n428\n00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:46.200\nNever imagined that that's where my future lay.\n\n429\n00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:47.920\nBut when I got into it, I said,\n\n430\n00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:51.800\noh my God, this is a real business.\n\n431\n00:19:51.800 --> 00:19:56.800\nThis is not some niche that's only good for certain people.\n\n432\n00:19:56.800 --> 00:20:00.040\nAnd one thing led to another.\n\n433\n00:20:00.040 --> 00:20:02.240\n- So how would you describe the spirit of the company\n\n434\n00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:04.400\nthat you joined back then?\n\n435\n00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:06.800\nI know it was a while back, but take it yourself back.\n\n436\n00:20:06.800 --> 00:20:11.400\nWhat was it like if you were Royal Caribbean at the beginning?\n\n437\n00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:14.680\n- Well, the Royal Caribbean had been founded by Ed Steffen\n\n438\n00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:16.880\nwho had a passion for the industry.\n\n439\n00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:20.120\nAnd he created a culture that was strong\n\n440\n00:20:20.120 --> 00:20:24.040\nand passionate about doing excellent,\n\n441\n00:20:24.040 --> 00:20:27.280\nproviding excellent service to our guests.\n\n442\n00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:31.120\nAnd so I started with something and I was impressed by that.\n\n443\n00:20:31.120 --> 00:20:36.120\nAnd then when I was asked to be chairman and CEO,\n\n444\n00:20:36.120 --> 00:20:38.840\nI basically said, this is a wonderful foundation\n\n445\n00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:42.880\nand in consistent with our mantra of continuous improvement,\n\n446\n00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:45.240\nhow can we take it to the next level?\n\n447\n00:20:45.240 --> 00:20:49.600\nOver 33 years, every year, we look to make it better.\n\n448\n00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:53.240\nAnd it wasn't so much this an absolute amount of,\n\n449\n00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:54.320\nthis is perfect.\n\n450\n00:20:54.320 --> 00:20:59.920\nPart of our success, I think, was we were never really satisfied.\n\n451\n00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:04.400\nWe had an amazing culture and have an amazing culture,\n\n452\n00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.760\nbut we always want to improve it.\n\n453\n00:21:07.760 --> 00:21:10.800\nIt improved while Ed was running it.\n\n454\n00:21:10.800 --> 00:21:15.560\n33 years, I think I had 33 years where I felt every year\n\n455\n00:21:15.560 --> 00:21:18.040\nwe got a little stronger and stronger.\n\n456\n00:21:18.040 --> 00:21:21.640\nI stepped down to CEO almost four years ago\n\n457\n00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:24.840\nand the culture has continued to do very well\n\n458\n00:21:24.840 --> 00:21:26.320\nand continue to strengthen.\n\n459\n00:21:26.320 --> 00:21:29.760\n- Did you have a process you used to think through the culture?\n\n460\n00:21:29.760 --> 00:21:33.520\nLike when did you know that it needed to shift\n\n461\n00:21:33.520 --> 00:21:35.520\nin a certain way?\n\n462\n00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:39.280\nAnd can you give me an example of when you added this\n\n463\n00:21:39.280 --> 00:21:42.160\nto a culture, whatever this is, what, X?\n\n464\n00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:43.960\n- It's hard to define a culture\n\n465\n00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:46.320\nand it isn't one great epiphany.\n\n466\n00:21:46.320 --> 00:21:50.560\nIt is a continual, every single day,\n\n467\n00:21:50.560 --> 00:21:53.120\nliving that you believe.\n\n468\n00:21:53.120 --> 00:21:56.720\nI see a lot of companies that talk about,\n\n469\n00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:00.480\nwell, this is our DNA and everybody believes that.\n\n470\n00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.400\nAnd it's bullshit.\n\n471\n00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:05.200\nThe truth is if you want people to believe\n\n472\n00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:08.960\nwhether it is integrity or commitment to excellence\n\n473\n00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:12.480\nor whatever it is, you need to be intentional about it.\n\n474\n00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:16.400\nYou need to go at it and you need to talk about it all the time.\n\n475\n00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:18.200\nYou don't just take it for granted.\n\n476\n00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:21.400\nAnd you also do it by example.\n\n477\n00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:23.360\nAnd I'll give you one example.\n\n478\n00:22:23.360 --> 00:22:28.200\nOne point we were talking about having a large secondary room\n\n479\n00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:31.480\nwe discussed having an ice skating rink in it.\n\n480\n00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:34.200\nAnd a lot of people said, well, of course,\n\n481\n00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:35.680\nice skating rinks are very expensive\n\n482\n00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:38.360\nand it's technically very difficult to do in a cruise ship.\n\n483\n00:22:38.360 --> 00:22:41.040\nSo we can get almost the same thing\n\n484\n00:22:41.040 --> 00:22:44.120\nby having artificial ice.\n\n485\n00:22:44.120 --> 00:22:48.000\nArtificial ice is essentially a big piece of teflon.\n\n486\n00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.400\nAnd you can skate on artificial ice and people do.\n\n487\n00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:51.840\nIt's all over the place.\n\n488\n00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:55.560\nBut it doesn't give you that beautiful fluidity\n\n489\n00:22:55.560 --> 00:22:58.240\nthat you see when you see a really good skater\n\n490\n00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:01.800\njust skate as though there's no friction.\n\n491\n00:23:01.800 --> 00:23:05.880\nAnd that's something that you don't get by artificial ice.\n\n492\n00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:08.600\nYou don't get that from artificial anything.\n\n493\n00:23:08.600 --> 00:23:10.680\nYou get it by being real.\n\n494\n00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:14.280\nAnd in the end, we said, we're going to do this right\n\n495\n00:23:14.280 --> 00:23:16.080\nor we're not going to do it.\n\n496\n00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:20.200\nAnd that example resonated with people.\n\n497\n00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:22.320\nIt made it tangible.\n\n498\n00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:24.560\nIt was very expensive.\n\n499\n00:23:24.560 --> 00:23:26.440\nAnd of course, a lot of people said,\n\n500\n00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:30.480\nfirst of all, I don't see who wants an ice skating rink\n\n501\n00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:32.240\non a cruise ship.\n\n502\n00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.440\nSo there was a lot of that.\n\n503\n00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:37.160\nBut there was much more, oh yeah, I can see why.\n\n504\n00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:41.440\nThis is really sexy, but it's so expensive.\n\n505\n00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:45.840\nWe basically said, either do it right or don't do it,\n\n506\n00:23:45.840 --> 00:23:50.160\nmake it authentic or make it real or don't build it.\n\n507\n00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:52.480\nAnd once we had that mantra,\n\n508\n00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.560\nit becomes an example, an example in the company.\n\n509\n00:23:55.560 --> 00:23:58.040\nAnd so others come back with the same feeling\n\n510\n00:23:58.040 --> 00:24:01.800\nand that it empowers people to come up with weird\n\n511\n00:24:01.800 --> 00:24:03.400\nbut wonderful ideas.\n\n512\n00:24:03.400 --> 00:24:06.360\n- And doing it right, which was a big part of your culture.\n\n513\n00:24:06.360 --> 00:24:08.120\nIf you're going to do something, do it right.\n\n514\n00:24:08.120 --> 00:24:10.720\nAnd that's a great story that you could tell.\n\n515\n00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:14.280\nYou helped pioneer the mega ship era\n\n516\n00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:16.240\nat a time when a lot of people thought it was crazy\n\n517\n00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:19.520\nto build ships as big as you built them.\n\n518\n00:24:19.520 --> 00:24:21.880\nWhat did that teach you about taking risks?\n\n519\n00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:26.520\nJust that whole process of trying to reinvent\n\n520\n00:24:26.520 --> 00:24:29.080\nthe size of what you offer.\n\n521\n00:24:29.080 --> 00:24:34.160\n- You know, that was a key learning for me\n\n522\n00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:38.200\nand a key part of our culture is taking risks.\n\n523\n00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:41.280\nYou can't innovate without taking risks.\n\n524\n00:24:41.280 --> 00:24:43.800\nNow, you can do a lot to mitigate those risks\n\n525\n00:24:43.800 --> 00:24:45.840\nby studying it, by trying things.\n\n526\n00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:50.160\nBut in the end, there just has to be a confidence\n\n527\n00:24:50.160 --> 00:24:52.200\nthat you know enough about your customers,\n\n528\n00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:55.240\nthat your customers are giving you enough feedback,\n\n529\n00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:57.840\nthat you can feel good about this.\n\n530\n00:24:57.840 --> 00:24:59.360\nThese were in fact,\n\n531\n00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:02.000\nbet your company kinds of decisions.\n\n532\n00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:05.160\nBut what we had seen, and one of the quotes\n\n533\n00:25:05.160 --> 00:25:08.040\nthat I like to use when we talked internally\n\n534\n00:25:08.040 --> 00:25:13.040\nand our people like to use was attributed to Henry Ford.\n\n535\n00:25:13.040 --> 00:25:16.280\nI don't know if he actually said it,\n\n536\n00:25:16.280 --> 00:25:18.520\nbut I still like the quotes, so I'll use it.\n\n537\n00:25:18.520 --> 00:25:21.880\nAnd it was, if I asked people what they wanted,\n\n538\n00:25:21.880 --> 00:25:24.680\nthey would have said they wanted a faster horse.\n\n539\n00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:27.200\nAnd so you really have to say,\n\n540\n00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:30.800\nlet's not just ask people what they want,\n\n541\n00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:33.520\nbut what are they ultimately trying to do?\n\n542\n00:25:33.520 --> 00:25:37.240\nAnd what we saw was that people wanted a good vacation,\n\n543\n00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:39.400\nthey wanted time with their families,\n\n544\n00:25:39.400 --> 00:25:43.320\nthey wanted something that different people could do.\n\n545\n00:25:43.320 --> 00:25:47.760\nAnd so it was a number of these innovations\n\n546\n00:25:47.760 --> 00:25:50.080\nthat we did, particularly the size.\n\n547\n00:25:50.080 --> 00:25:53.360\nThe real thing we saw was that people wanted choice.\n\n548\n00:25:53.360 --> 00:25:55.360\nAnd the tradition in the industry was,\n\n549\n00:25:55.360 --> 00:25:58.080\nlet's give everybody what they want.\n\n550\n00:25:58.080 --> 00:26:01.560\nAnd it turns out that not everybody wants the same thing.\n\n551\n00:26:01.560 --> 00:26:06.560\nSo if you build a ship where everything satisfies everybody,\n\n552\n00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:08.640\nit's a smaller ship because you don't have to have\n\n553\n00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:10.040\nso much choice.\n\n554\n00:26:10.040 --> 00:26:12.600\nBut if you build a ship where this satisfies\n\n555\n00:26:12.600 --> 00:26:16.080\nthis category of guests, this satisfies your families,\n\n556\n00:26:16.080 --> 00:26:18.440\nand this satisfies somebody who just wants to read,\n\n557\n00:26:18.440 --> 00:26:20.600\nand this satisfies somebody else,\n\n558\n00:26:20.600 --> 00:26:25.600\nthat we felt confident would attract them.\n\n559\n00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:27.840\nWe've been proven very right.\n\n560\n00:26:27.840 --> 00:26:31.240\nThe ships, nobody ever imagined ships of the scale\n\n561\n00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:33.000\nthat we're looking at today.\n\n562\n00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.840\n- So you build this big, your first big mega ship, right?\n\n563\n00:26:36.840 --> 00:26:39.760\nAnd you say it's a bet your company kind of decision.\n\n564\n00:26:39.760 --> 00:26:44.320\nYou know, what do you have inside of you, Richard,\n\n565\n00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:46.600\nthat makes you go for it like that?\n\n566\n00:26:46.600 --> 00:26:48.600\nI mean, you know, what can leaders learn\n\n567\n00:26:48.600 --> 00:26:52.880\nfrom just how you build your own conviction on a big idea?\n\n568\n00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:54.280\n- You know, people think about it.\n\n569\n00:26:54.280 --> 00:26:58.200\nIt's the inspiration, it's the confidence.\n\n570\n00:26:58.200 --> 00:27:00.480\nNo, it's the people.\n\n571\n00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:02.920\nIt's the people, it's the people, it's the people.\n\n572\n00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:07.360\nAnd in this case, the people were two sets of people.\n\n573\n00:27:07.360 --> 00:27:10.280\nOne were the people within the company\n\n574\n00:27:10.280 --> 00:27:12.160\nwho studied this and studied this\n\n575\n00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:15.040\nand really felt confident about it.\n\n576\n00:27:15.040 --> 00:27:18.080\nAnd the other was some of my mentors,\n\n577\n00:27:18.080 --> 00:27:23.160\nthe board of directors, we said, yes, we also believe this.\n\n578\n00:27:23.160 --> 00:27:27.800\nAnd so we had alignment, we all saw this the same way.\n\n579\n00:27:27.800 --> 00:27:31.280\nAnd we all said, we actually have nothing to lose\n\n580\n00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:33.800\nbecause if we continued the path we were,\n\n581\n00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:36.000\nwe would remain a niche industry\n\n582\n00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:39.600\nthat was sort of incidentally interesting\n\n583\n00:27:39.600 --> 00:27:42.480\nto a few specialist magazines.\n\n584\n00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:44.560\nBut if we were right about this,\n\n585\n00:27:44.560 --> 00:27:47.880\nthis was something that would become mainstream America,\n\n586\n00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:50.120\nmainstream Europe, this would be something\n\n587\n00:27:50.120 --> 00:27:52.200\nthat everybody would enjoy.\n\n588\n00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:57.200\nAnd so it was a risk, but it was a necessary risk\n\n589\n00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:02.560\nbecause either way you were not gonna do well,\n\n590\n00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:04.480\nyou were not gonna do well as an niche player.\n\n591\n00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:06.560\nAnd if this failed, you wouldn't do well.\n\n592\n00:28:06.560 --> 00:28:09.200\nBut this was really the only way\n\n593\n00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:12.240\nthat you could become a meaningful competitor\n\n594\n00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:13.800\nin the vacation business.\n\n595\n00:28:13.800 --> 00:28:16.640\nAnd of course, as you know, it's been very successful.\n\n596\n00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:17.840\n- Yeah, absolutely.\n\n597\n00:28:17.840 --> 00:28:21.440\nBut when you think of visionaries,\n\n598\n00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:25.080\nvisionaries often like yourself,\n\n599\n00:28:25.080 --> 00:28:30.080\nyou're out there before other people many times can get there.\n\n600\n00:28:30.080 --> 00:28:33.560\nHow do you bring people with you\n\n601\n00:28:33.560 --> 00:28:35.440\nso that they can see what you see\n\n602\n00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:38.320\nand see the possibilities that the people\n\n603\n00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:40.720\nthat helped you develop this idea had\n\n604\n00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:42.680\nand the board supported?\n\n605\n00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:43.680\nHow do you bring people,\n\n606\n00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:45.800\nwhat's the key to bringing people along\n\n607\n00:28:45.800 --> 00:28:46.760\nso that everybody says,\n\n608\n00:28:46.760 --> 00:28:49.680\nyeah, we really need to build this mega-ship\n\n609\n00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:51.880\nor is that something you even try to do?\n\n610\n00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:53.600\n- You do need to bring everybody along,\n\n611\n00:28:53.600 --> 00:28:55.560\nbut everybody needs to bring you along.\n\n612\n00:28:55.560 --> 00:28:58.760\nAnd it really is a symbiotic relationship.\n\n613\n00:28:58.760 --> 00:29:02.280\nAnd we pondered this, we really focused on it.\n\n614\n00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:07.040\nAnd also, when we did things, we learned from them.\n\n615\n00:29:07.040 --> 00:29:12.040\nSo the first mega-ship was 72,000 tons.\n\n616\n00:29:12.040 --> 00:29:16.200\nThat at the time was an unheard of scale of ship.\n\n617\n00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:21.040\nBut today, our newest ship is 258,000 tons.\n\n618\n00:29:21.040 --> 00:29:23.760\nIt's bigger than two aircraft carriers.\n\n619\n00:29:23.760 --> 00:29:27.440\nWe have, there'll be 10,000 people on board this one ship.\n\n620\n00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:30.360\nSo it's quite a change from the early days,\n\n621\n00:29:30.360 --> 00:29:32.920\nbut we didn't get there in one big step.\n\n622\n00:29:32.920 --> 00:29:34.480\nIt was a series of steps,\n\n623\n00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:37.280\neach of which proved the previous one\n\n624\n00:29:37.280 --> 00:29:40.000\nand gave us confidence to go to the next one.\n\n625\n00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:43.960\nI'm actually surprised others, more others didn't look\n\n626\n00:29:43.960 --> 00:29:46.760\nat what we had done and said, oh, that worked.\n\n627\n00:29:46.760 --> 00:29:51.800\nBut I think how do we get the confidence to do it?\n\n628\n00:29:51.800 --> 00:29:53.240\nWe talked about it.\n\n629\n00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:56.480\nWe had huge discussions and we ran scared.\n\n630\n00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:58.480\nI actually think I'm gonna mention that.\n\n631\n00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:02.120\nAt every point, we were terrified.\n\n632\n00:30:02.120 --> 00:30:07.000\nAnd so we overcompensated by studying it more.\n\n633\n00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:10.040\nSo we would look at something and say, wow, that's terrific.\n\n634\n00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:13.200\nBut is it good enough?\n\n635\n00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:15.360\nIt's good, but is it good enough?\n\n636\n00:30:15.360 --> 00:30:18.240\nIs it UFP to come back to your earlier moment?\n\n637\n00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:24.160\nAnd so, and that, and by the way, it is interesting.\n\n638\n00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:27.360\nBeing able to say, is that UFP?\n\n639\n00:30:27.360 --> 00:30:31.240\nThat helps galvanize people and gets them to say,\n\n640\n00:30:31.240 --> 00:30:33.080\nwell, I better check this.\n\n641\n00:30:33.080 --> 00:30:36.280\nSo it was that fear factor that actually drove us\n\n642\n00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:39.560\nto be overcarsious.\n\n643\n00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:41.480\n- I always love learning from great leaders\n\n644\n00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:43.080\nand go into companies and pick it up something.\n\n645\n00:30:43.080 --> 00:30:45.240\nI guarantee you, if I would have heard UFP,\n\n646\n00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.800\nI guarantee you, we would have been using that all over\n\n647\n00:30:48.800 --> 00:30:51.240\nyoung brands and Taco Bell and KFC and pizza.\n\n648\n00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:52.080\nI love it.\n\n649\n00:30:52.080 --> 00:30:56.760\nAnd I mentioned at the top that you've written this book\n\n650\n00:30:56.760 --> 00:31:01.160\nabout WOWs and it's called \"Delivering the WOW.\"\n\n651\n00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:04.200\nYou know, take me back to the moment\n\n652\n00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:06.560\nthat that phrase was born in your mind\n\n653\n00:31:06.560 --> 00:31:10.240\nand why it became a rallying cry for your company.\n\n654\n00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:13.680\n- Actually, the evolution of it was rather prosaic.\n\n655\n00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:18.400\nWe wanted, we had decided that we were going to give a series.\n\n656\n00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:20.320\nI do believe in the power of words.\n\n657\n00:31:20.320 --> 00:31:22.240\nI do believe in the power of symbolism.\n\n658\n00:31:22.240 --> 00:31:26.240\nSo having words, having project names, et cetera.\n\n659\n00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:29.760\nAnd we really wanted to have a coherent set\n\n660\n00:31:29.760 --> 00:31:34.280\nof guidelines and thought processes for our crew.\n\n661\n00:31:34.280 --> 00:31:37.680\nAnd we decided we were going to call it gold anchor standards.\n\n662\n00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:41.200\nAnd we had gold being an acronym.\n\n663\n00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:45.320\nAnd we had a G, we had an O, we had an L,\n\n664\n00:31:45.320 --> 00:31:47.960\nbut we couldn't come up with a D.\n\n665\n00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:50.080\nAnd we needed a D if we were going to have gold.\n\n666\n00:31:50.080 --> 00:31:53.600\nSo we're sitting there and we're arguing and discussing,\n\n667\n00:31:53.600 --> 00:31:55.600\n\"Can you come up with a D?\"\n\n668\n00:31:55.600 --> 00:31:58.120\nAnd nobody's really making much progress.\n\n669\n00:31:58.120 --> 00:32:02.320\nAnd then all of a sudden, one of the people in the room said,\n\n670\n00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:06.040\n\"What about deliver the WOW?\"\n\n671\n00:32:06.040 --> 00:32:08.760\nAnd we all just kind of looked at each other and said,\n\n672\n00:32:08.760 --> 00:32:10.640\n\"My God, that's just what we do.\n\n673\n00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:13.080\nThat's exactly what we do.\"\n\n674\n00:32:13.080 --> 00:32:15.760\nAnd it's so descriptive.\n\n675\n00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:19.760\nIt's one of those phrases that everybody knows what it means,\n\n676\n00:32:19.760 --> 00:32:21.720\nbut nobody can define it.\n\n677\n00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:25.360\nAnd it is that \"indefinable je ne sais quoi\"\n\n678\n00:32:25.360 --> 00:32:29.480\nthat just brings you to a level of excellence in performance.\n\n679\n00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:31.680\nAnd it's delivering the WOW.\n\n680\n00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:35.560\nAnd it's not, it's the crew member that goes above and beyond,\n\n681\n00:32:35.560 --> 00:32:37.920\nbut it's the accountant that really comes up\n\n682\n00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:39.000\nwith a new way of doing things.\n\n683\n00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:41.760\nIt's the revenue manager that works on things.\n\n684\n00:32:41.760 --> 00:32:47.400\nAnd so that name, it wasn't that we were going to do it.\n\n685\n00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:50.400\nIt's what we did, but it described it well.\n\n686\n00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:51.400\nI love it.\n\n687\n00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:54.480\nAnd you know, you said it already a few times.\n\n688\n00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.560\nIt's a people, it's a people, it's a people.\n\n689\n00:32:56.560 --> 00:33:01.560\nAnd that's the people driven culture that you drove\n\n690\n00:33:01.560 --> 00:33:04.600\nacross your over 100,000 employees around the world.\n\n691\n00:33:04.600 --> 00:33:06.520\nAnd David, I do have to say,\n\n692\n00:33:06.520 --> 00:33:09.240\nI know that I'm speaking to the choir here\n\n693\n00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:13.120\nbecause you are famous for that approach.\n\n694\n00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:15.440\nWell, I think you put me to shame, to be honest with you.\n\n695\n00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:18.600\nBut I have to tell you, you know, when you do that,\n\n696\n00:33:18.600 --> 00:33:22.360\nyou know, it's a challenge, you know, to spread that\n\n697\n00:33:22.360 --> 00:33:27.160\naround the globe, you know, with so many diverse people.\n\n698\n00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:30.040\nYou know, what do you think was your key\n\n699\n00:33:30.040 --> 00:33:32.200\nin being able to not just talk it,\n\n700\n00:33:32.200 --> 00:33:33.680\nbut really make it happen?\n\n701\n00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:36.560\nWell, I think it's a challenge.\n\n702\n00:33:36.560 --> 00:33:38.040\nIt's a constant challenge.\n\n703\n00:33:38.040 --> 00:33:40.360\nAnd it's acknowledging that it is a challenge\n\n704\n00:33:40.360 --> 00:33:42.040\nand you'll never get it right.\n\n705\n00:33:42.040 --> 00:33:43.640\nYou'll never be perfect at this.\n\n706\n00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:45.680\nI mean, that is key.\n\n707\n00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:47.600\nBut it's something that you understand\n\n708\n00:33:47.600 --> 00:33:49.440\nis essential to your success.\n\n709\n00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:51.480\nSo you keep working at it.\n\n710\n00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:55.240\nAnd you keep this concept of continuous improvement.\n\n711\n00:33:55.240 --> 00:33:56.720\nI'm always going to be better\n\n712\n00:33:56.720 --> 00:33:58.960\nand I'm going to be better on the culture.\n\n713\n00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:03.040\nBut it's also trying to get everybody to make sure\n\n714\n00:34:03.040 --> 00:34:04.920\nthat everybody understands where you're going.\n\n715\n00:34:04.920 --> 00:34:06.800\nWhat is your North Star?\n\n716\n00:34:06.800 --> 00:34:08.640\nAnd it really needs to be tangible.\n\n717\n00:34:08.640 --> 00:34:11.920\nEverybody talks about having a long-term vision.\n\n718\n00:34:11.920 --> 00:34:14.160\nEverybody wants to be called a visionary,\n\n719\n00:34:14.160 --> 00:34:18.800\nbut it's not just some vague vision\n\n720\n00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:20.560\nthat this is going to be wonderful\n\n721\n00:34:20.560 --> 00:34:23.800\nand everything's going to be sugarplums.\n\n722\n00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:26.880\nIt's very specific\n\n723\n00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:30.600\nand very specific tangible steps to do that.\n\n724\n00:34:30.600 --> 00:34:33.280\nAnd so the ice skating rink,\n\n725\n00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:35.680\nwhich we talked about earlier, was a good example.\n\n726\n00:34:35.680 --> 00:34:39.040\nYou show, you demonstrate by example.\n\n727\n00:34:39.040 --> 00:34:40.680\nIt isn't just words.\n\n728\n00:34:40.680 --> 00:34:42.400\nWe were consistent at it.\n\n729\n00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:45.640\nAnd when people did come up with new ideas,\n\n730\n00:34:45.640 --> 00:34:47.720\nwe didn't just poo poo them.\n\n731\n00:34:47.720 --> 00:34:48.560\n- Absolutely.\n\n732\n00:34:48.560 --> 00:34:51.840\nAnd you've mentioned earlier that you're passionate\n\n733\n00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:52.720\nabout what you do.\n\n734\n00:34:52.720 --> 00:34:54.840\nAnd it's obvious, it comes through.\n\n735\n00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:57.200\nAnd you've talked many times\n\n736\n00:34:57.200 --> 00:34:59.200\njust about how you guys studied things\n\n737\n00:34:59.200 --> 00:35:02.080\nover and over again, just to make sure\n\n738\n00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:04.720\nthat if you were terrified by an idea,\n\n739\n00:35:04.720 --> 00:35:07.720\nyou just studied it until you could move forward on it.\n\n740\n00:35:07.720 --> 00:35:11.400\nHow do you balance that often conflicting\n\n741\n00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:14.200\nthought of emotion, being emotional\n\n742\n00:35:14.200 --> 00:35:15.280\nabout what you want to do?\n\n743\n00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:19.000\nAnd also then being database, in fact, base.\n\n744\n00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:20.200\nHow do you balance that?\n\n745\n00:35:20.200 --> 00:35:23.360\n- Balance is a very important term here.\n\n746\n00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:25.040\nAnd I'm glad you raised that\n\n747\n00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:26.920\nbecause you also have to worry\n\n748\n00:35:26.920 --> 00:35:31.920\nthat you can paralysis by analysis.\n\n749\n00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:34.560\nSo you can overthink things.\n\n750\n00:35:34.560 --> 00:35:37.120\nBut you really have to be a little bit obsessive.\n\n751\n00:35:37.120 --> 00:35:38.960\nYou have to think about that.\n\n752\n00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:43.480\nI'll just give you one example of what I now view\n\n753\n00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:46.800\nas one of my best ideas was when a group came\n\n754\n00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:49.520\nand we were trying to decide what to do with the space.\n\n755\n00:35:49.520 --> 00:35:52.400\nAnd they said, let's build a rock climbing wall there.\n\n756\n00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:57.000\nIt was one of the dumbest ideas I had ever heard of.\n\n757\n00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:58.200\nAnd I told them so.\n\n758\n00:35:58.200 --> 00:36:02.160\nAnd what I didn't tell them was that I had actually,\n\n759\n00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:04.320\nI wanted to try out the idea.\n\n760\n00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:06.280\nI went to a gym and tried it.\n\n761\n00:36:06.280 --> 00:36:10.720\nAnd I proved to my satisfaction\n\n762\n00:36:10.720 --> 00:36:12.400\nthat it was a really dumb thing to do.\n\n763\n00:36:12.400 --> 00:36:15.160\nI mean, it was awful and I got scraped and I fell\n\n764\n00:36:15.160 --> 00:36:16.360\nand it was just terrible.\n\n765\n00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:20.240\nAnd so I said, that's an awful idea.\n\n766\n00:36:20.240 --> 00:36:22.640\nGo back and come back with the better one\n\n767\n00:36:22.640 --> 00:36:24.760\nand give me three options.\n\n768\n00:36:24.760 --> 00:36:26.800\nAnd they came back and they said,\n\n769\n00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:29.920\nwell, giving you the three options you asked for,\n\n770\n00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:32.320\nbut we're reopening the first one\n\n771\n00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:36.080\n'cause it really is a good idea and you should accept it.\n\n772\n00:36:36.080 --> 00:36:37.880\nAnd I eventually did.\n\n773\n00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:40.040\nI still didn't think it was a particularly good idea,\n\n774\n00:36:40.040 --> 00:36:41.680\nbut it was the best of the four.\n\n775\n00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:44.800\nAnd when we brought the ships out with a rock climbing wall,\n\n776\n00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:47.640\nit was an unbelievable success.\n\n777\n00:36:47.640 --> 00:36:51.320\nThis stupid wall was all people could talk about.\n\n778\n00:36:51.320 --> 00:36:53.640\nAnd it became such a good idea\n\n779\n00:36:53.640 --> 00:36:57.280\nthat we decided to retrofit it on all of our ships.\n\n780\n00:36:57.280 --> 00:36:59.760\nAnd I now say it's one of my best ideas.\n\n781\n00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:05.280\nBut they were persistent at it\n\n782\n00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:06.920\nand it isn't just analysis.\n\n783\n00:37:06.920 --> 00:37:08.000\nThey think about it.\n\n784\n00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:09.040\nThey think about it in a shower.\n\n785\n00:37:09.040 --> 00:37:12.760\nThey think about it on their way home and they care.\n\n786\n00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:15.280\nIt's their caring that makes it right.\n\n787\n00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:17.360\nYou know, tell me a story that captures\n\n788\n00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:20.480\nwhat you call your rule of thirds in action.\n\n789\n00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:22.760\nIt's interesting that thank you for raising that\n\n790\n00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:25.640\nbecause the rule of thirds actually proved to be quite good.\n\n791\n00:37:25.640 --> 00:37:28.880\nSo Royal Caribbean started to get a reputation\n\n792\n00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:31.120\nin the industry for innovation.\n\n793\n00:37:31.120 --> 00:37:35.800\nDeservedly so, it had come out with some fantastic new ideas.\n\n794\n00:37:35.800 --> 00:37:38.480\nBut what started to happen was everybody started saying,\n\n795\n00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:40.400\n\"Well, we're going to revolutionize everything.\n\n796\n00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:42.840\n\"You don't want to revolutionize everything.\"\n\n797\n00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:46.000\nAnd a lot of what we did was terrific\n\n798\n00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:48.480\nand should continue to be terrific.\n\n799\n00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:52.080\nSo what we said was we were going to divide the ships,\n\n800\n00:37:52.080 --> 00:37:56.520\nevery new ship and every new project into three categories.\n\n801\n00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:59.920\nTraditional, evolutionary and revolutionary.\n\n802\n00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:01.920\nOne third, one third, one third.\n\n803\n00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:04.200\nSo when we look at the ship,\n\n804\n00:38:04.200 --> 00:38:09.200\nand part of the process is you look at every idea on the ship\n\n805\n00:38:09.200 --> 00:38:11.120\nbut then you have to go back and look at it\n\n806\n00:38:11.120 --> 00:38:13.160\nas a cohesive whole.\n\n807\n00:38:13.160 --> 00:38:16.360\nAnd so you don't want a cohesive new ship\n\n808\n00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:18.640\nthat is all revolutionary.\n\n809\n00:38:18.640 --> 00:38:21.840\nSo what we said was, what are we going to do?\n\n810\n00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:24.760\nWhat do we have that people really love?\n\n811\n00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:27.480\nAnd let's give them that and make sure\n\n812\n00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:30.040\nthat we can add other stuff,\n\n813\n00:38:30.040 --> 00:38:33.080\nbut what they love, they're going to get.\n\n814\n00:38:33.080 --> 00:38:36.040\nAnd then we take other stuff that they really love\n\n815\n00:38:36.040 --> 00:38:37.720\nand we're going to make it just a little bit better,\n\n816\n00:38:37.720 --> 00:38:39.480\na little evolutionary.\n\n817\n00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:43.080\nAnd then we're going to throw in some wacko ideas.\n\n818\n00:38:43.080 --> 00:38:47.960\nThe ice skating rink, the surf simulator,\n\n819\n00:38:47.960 --> 00:38:50.560\nthe skydiving simulator,\n\n820\n00:38:50.560 --> 00:38:54.000\nthe pearl, this amazing circle that is sphere\n\n821\n00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:56.520\nin the middle of the ship, the roll promenade.\n\n822\n00:38:56.520 --> 00:38:58.240\nSo we're going to dry these things.\n\n823\n00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:00.680\nAnd if they don't work, there's no harm done\n\n824\n00:39:00.680 --> 00:39:04.600\nbecause two thirds of the ship is what they already loved.\n\n825\n00:39:04.600 --> 00:39:07.080\n- Oh, that makes so much sense.\n\n826\n00:39:07.080 --> 00:39:08.720\nAnd what a great way to innovate\n\n827\n00:39:08.720 --> 00:39:11.680\nand give your people the freedom to go after it.\n\n828\n00:39:11.680 --> 00:39:14.520\nBut then the world basically stopped for you\n\n829\n00:39:14.520 --> 00:39:18.560\nlike almost no other industry when COVID hit.\n\n830\n00:39:18.560 --> 00:39:21.280\nI mean, literally your revenues dropped to zero\n\n831\n00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:23.160\nseemingly overnight.\n\n832\n00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:26.280\nWhat did that experience teach you\n\n833\n00:39:26.280 --> 00:39:28.160\nabout leading through a crisis?\n\n834\n00:39:28.160 --> 00:39:30.080\n- First of all, it wasn't seemingly overnight.\n\n835\n00:39:30.080 --> 00:39:31.080\nIt was overnight.\n\n836\n00:39:31.080 --> 00:39:33.880\nIt was March 13th of 2020.\n\n837\n00:39:33.880 --> 00:39:36.040\nAnd it was one day and one event\n\n838\n00:39:36.040 --> 00:39:38.400\nand all of a sudden revenues ceased.\n\n839\n00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:40.520\nSomething we had never, you know,\n\n840\n00:39:40.520 --> 00:39:45.520\nwe do a lot of analysis of bad times and downside risk.\n\n841\n00:39:45.520 --> 00:39:51.240\nThe idea of zero revenue had never crossed our thought process.\n\n842\n00:39:51.240 --> 00:39:56.240\nSo we're faced with running a company on zero revenue.\n\n843\n00:39:56.240 --> 00:39:58.320\nIt was traumatic.\n\n844\n00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:02.880\nBut again, we fell back on what had worked for us.\n\n845\n00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:04.760\nWhat are we trying to accomplish?\n\n846\n00:40:04.760 --> 00:40:06.880\nWhat's our long-term goal here?\n\n847\n00:40:06.880 --> 00:40:08.720\nWe had long discussions about it.\n\n848\n00:40:08.720 --> 00:40:09.880\nAnd there were those who said,\n\n849\n00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:12.320\n\"Well, our goal is to survive this.\"\n\n850\n00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:14.000\nWhen we sat around and looked at it,\n\n851\n00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:15.920\nwe said, \"That's a terrible goal.\"\n\n852\n00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:20.760\nIf all we do to survive, what are we?\n\n853\n00:40:20.760 --> 00:40:24.880\nWe need to come out of this strong and it will come out.\n\n854\n00:40:24.880 --> 00:40:26.280\nWe don't know how long it'll last.\n\n855\n00:40:26.280 --> 00:40:29.480\nWe don't know how terrible it will be, but it will end.\n\n856\n00:40:29.480 --> 00:40:32.880\nAnd if all we do is focus on the short-term,\n\n857\n00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:35.880\nwhen we come out of this, we will be in trouble.\n\n858\n00:40:35.880 --> 00:40:40.680\nSo our mantra was our objective here\n\n859\n00:40:40.680 --> 00:40:42.960\nis to come out of this strong.\n\n860\n00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:47.280\nAnd everything we do, what we do with our employees,\n\n861\n00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:48.840\nwhat we do with our ships.\n\n862\n00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:52.800\nSo for example, one of the questions on a ship is,\n\n863\n00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:56.040\nit's very common if you're not using a ship, you lay it up.\n\n864\n00:40:56.040 --> 00:40:58.640\nYou simply park it somewhere,\n\n865\n00:40:58.640 --> 00:41:00.280\nleave a couple of people on board\n\n866\n00:41:00.280 --> 00:41:03.240\nto make sure nothing happens and go away.\n\n867\n00:41:03.240 --> 00:41:06.480\nAnd then come back and when you come back,\n\n868\n00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:07.920\nyour ship is deteriorated.\n\n869\n00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:11.240\n'Cause the worst thing for a ship is to just lay idle.\n\n870\n00:41:11.240 --> 00:41:13.320\nSo we said, \"No, we're not going to go\n\n871\n00:41:13.320 --> 00:41:15.800\ninto standard cold layup.\n\n872\n00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:18.080\nWe're gonna go into warm layup.\n\n873\n00:41:18.080 --> 00:41:21.360\nWe're gonna keep 100, 120 people on every ship,\n\n874\n00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:23.640\njust to keep operating the ship.\n\n875\n00:41:23.640 --> 00:41:27.240\nThey're gonna keep as though there are people on board.\"\n\n876\n00:41:27.240 --> 00:41:31.280\nAnd so that when we come out, that ship is in great shape.\n\n877\n00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:33.440\nWe won't have problems that things are breaking down\n\n878\n00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:35.240\nbecause they've been idle for two years.\n\n879\n00:41:35.240 --> 00:41:38.400\nWhat we do with our crew, how we help them,\n\n880\n00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:40.600\nour relationships with our travel advisors\n\n881\n00:41:40.600 --> 00:41:42.280\nwho are key to our success.\n\n882\n00:41:43.160 --> 00:41:47.640\nSo, and a big one, as I think you know, was the financing.\n\n883\n00:41:47.640 --> 00:41:51.520\nGood thing I had a financial background,\n\n884\n00:41:51.520 --> 00:41:55.680\nbut the temptation was issue equity\n\n885\n00:41:55.680 --> 00:41:58.240\nso that you just have some cash.\n\n886\n00:41:58.240 --> 00:42:00.760\nBut issuing equity at a low value\n\n887\n00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:03.280\nwasn't gonna give us a lot of cash.\n\n888\n00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:07.280\nAnd when we came out, it would seriously undermine\n\n889\n00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:08.800\nour profitability.\n\n890\n00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:13.800\nSo, we took the harder tack of going after more financing\n\n891\n00:42:13.800 --> 00:42:16.520\nand we were able to raise it\n\n892\n00:42:16.520 --> 00:42:19.840\nbecause again, we had had such great relationships\n\n893\n00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:24.200\nwith our bankers and they trusted us.\n\n894\n00:42:24.200 --> 00:42:27.240\nAnd so, our mantra during the thing\n\n895\n00:42:27.240 --> 00:42:29.160\nwas come out of this strong.\n\n896\n00:42:29.160 --> 00:42:30.960\nAnd fortunately, we did.\n\n897\n00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:33.160\n- You know, the other thing that I love that you did\n\n898\n00:42:33.160 --> 00:42:35.360\nis you didn't say you wanted to recover.\n\n899\n00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:38.240\nYou said you used the word restart.\n\n900\n00:42:38.240 --> 00:42:40.120\nYou know, I mean, there you go.\n\n901\n00:42:40.120 --> 00:42:41.520\nYou're gonna restart the business.\n\n902\n00:42:41.520 --> 00:42:44.560\nAnd what did you mean by that exactly?\n\n903\n00:42:44.560 --> 00:42:47.840\n- Literally, the business was closed.\n\n904\n00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:50.600\nWe weren't operating. - I can't say right about that.\n\n905\n00:42:50.600 --> 00:42:52.600\n- Gotta start it back up again.\n\n906\n00:42:52.600 --> 00:42:54.120\n- Gotta start it back up.\n\n907\n00:42:54.120 --> 00:42:58.520\nAnd we need to bring tens of thousands of crew members.\n\n908\n00:42:58.520 --> 00:43:03.520\nYou know, we now have 105,000 employees around the world.\n\n909\n00:43:04.080 --> 00:43:09.080\nWe needed to bring them back, in some case, retrain.\n\n910\n00:43:09.080 --> 00:43:14.160\nWe also needed to provide some help during the period\n\n911\n00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:16.360\nthat everybody was suffering.\n\n912\n00:43:16.360 --> 00:43:18.680\nSo, it was a restart.\n\n913\n00:43:18.680 --> 00:43:20.960\nAnd I have to say the restart was one\n\n914\n00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:23.120\nof the more emotional days of my life.\n\n915\n00:43:23.120 --> 00:43:26.760\nWe were the first cruise ship\n\n916\n00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:28.600\nand the first cruise line to start up\n\n917\n00:43:28.600 --> 00:43:32.640\nback in the United States in 2021.\n\n918\n00:43:33.720 --> 00:43:37.960\nThe first ship to start from an American port\n\n919\n00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:40.720\nwas a celebrity edge.\n\n920\n00:43:40.720 --> 00:43:43.720\nI went to the ship the day before.\n\n921\n00:43:43.720 --> 00:43:45.440\nAll the crew were now back.\n\n922\n00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:48.960\nAnd I walked on the gangway and I expected\n\n923\n00:43:48.960 --> 00:43:52.160\nto sort of meet everybody in the central plaza.\n\n924\n00:43:52.160 --> 00:43:56.080\nAnd you walk in the crew gangway\n\n925\n00:43:56.080 --> 00:43:57.920\nand then there's an elevator lobby\n\n926\n00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:01.480\nabout 30, 40 feet ahead of you.\n\n927\n00:44:01.480 --> 00:44:03.600\nIt took me an hour and a half\n\n928\n00:44:03.600 --> 00:44:07.520\nto go from the crew gangway to the elevator lobby,\n\n929\n00:44:07.520 --> 00:44:09.080\nan hour and a half.\n\n930\n00:44:09.080 --> 00:44:12.640\nEvery person, it was just so emotional\n\n931\n00:44:12.640 --> 00:44:15.840\nfor them and for us and for me.\n\n932\n00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:17.480\nThere wasn't a dry eye there.\n\n933\n00:44:17.480 --> 00:44:21.940\nWe probably took eight million selfies.\n\n934\n00:44:21.940 --> 00:44:28.440\nAnd I heard and I also played back.\n\n935\n00:44:29.200 --> 00:44:32.760\nI told my stories and I heard their stories\n\n936\n00:44:32.760 --> 00:44:36.000\nand it was a remarkable time.\n\n937\n00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:41.000\nAnd with the greeting was we're back.\n\n938\n00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:45.160\nAnd one person said to me, you know, Richard,\n\n939\n00:44:45.160 --> 00:44:48.360\nactually he said, Mr. Richard, you know, Mr. Richard,\n\n940\n00:44:48.360 --> 00:44:51.080\nwhen we start operating tomorrow,\n\n941\n00:44:51.080 --> 00:44:55.680\nthese people are gonna have the best crews in their lives.\n\n942\n00:44:55.680 --> 00:44:59.040\nAnd that's summarized, their dedication,\n\n943\n00:44:59.040 --> 00:45:02.760\ntheir passion, we knew they were gonna deliver the wow.\n\n944\n00:45:02.760 --> 00:45:06.680\nIt was such an emotional time to be back,\n\n945\n00:45:06.680 --> 00:45:08.520\nto restart, to use your work.\n\n946\n00:45:08.520 --> 00:45:11.960\n- You know, that was such obviously a high touch moment.\n\n947\n00:45:11.960 --> 00:45:16.120\nAnd here we are in this big technology boom now\n\n948\n00:45:16.120 --> 00:45:19.800\nwhere AI is everything that everybody is talking about.\n\n949\n00:45:19.800 --> 00:45:23.640\nHow do you say AI impacting Royal Caribbean?\n\n950\n00:45:23.640 --> 00:45:26.120\n- You know, I think AI infects all,\n\n951\n00:45:26.120 --> 00:45:29.880\nevery business everywhere.\n\n952\n00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:33.280\nAnd it has blessings and curses.\n\n953\n00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:34.960\nBut one of the things that allows us to do\n\n954\n00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:37.440\nis to be more responsive, to understand more\n\n955\n00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:38.960\nabout what people want.\n\n956\n00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:40.680\nIt allows us to be more efficient\n\n957\n00:45:40.680 --> 00:45:45.760\nof what we're doing and the way we're providing it.\n\n958\n00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:48.760\nIt allows us to imagine things\n\n959\n00:45:48.760 --> 00:45:50.960\nthat we never would have thought of before.\n\n960\n00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:55.960\nSo it's really gonna be transformational.\n\n961\n00:45:55.960 --> 00:46:01.920\nAnd I know the company is focused on that heavily.\n\n962\n00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:05.960\nAnd I think we'll all see the impact\n\n963\n00:46:05.960 --> 00:46:07.960\nalong with some of the dangers.\n\n964\n00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:09.440\nAnd I think we have to be careful\n\n965\n00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:14.080\nthat we are balancing the word you used earlier,\n\n966\n00:46:14.080 --> 00:46:18.000\nthe dangers, the risks with the obvious rewards.\n\n967\n00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:19.720\n- What do you see as the biggest danger?\n\n968\n00:46:19.720 --> 00:46:22.920\n- Well, I mean, I think it's seductive.\n\n969\n00:46:22.920 --> 00:46:29.080\nAgain, I think we learn by thinking things through,\n\n970\n00:46:29.080 --> 00:46:32.360\nby obsessing about them.\n\n971\n00:46:32.360 --> 00:46:36.880\nAnd so whereas before we would take weeks\n\n972\n00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:38.720\nto think something through,\n\n973\n00:46:38.720 --> 00:46:43.040\nnow we tend to put it into AI and get an answer in 72 seconds.\n\n974\n00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:48.040\nAnd but we've lost that personal, in that case,\n\n975\n00:46:50.080 --> 00:46:52.040\nwe've lost the personal input.\n\n976\n00:46:52.040 --> 00:46:57.040\nAnd so does the person lose that hands-on touch,\n\n977\n00:46:57.040 --> 00:46:59.160\nwhich makes it so special?\n\n978\n00:46:59.160 --> 00:47:01.240\nI don't know, we don't know yet.\n\n979\n00:47:01.240 --> 00:47:04.000\nWe're still in such an early day of AI.\n\n980\n00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:06.600\nRight now we're realizing the benefits,\n\n981\n00:47:06.600 --> 00:47:08.360\nbut I think we do need to be careful.\n\n982\n00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:10.120\n- Most people are realizing the benefits\n\n983\n00:47:10.120 --> 00:47:11.480\non the productivity side.\n\n984\n00:47:11.480 --> 00:47:15.080\nDo you see AI really driving your revenue?\n\n985\n00:47:15.080 --> 00:47:18.440\n- It does, it clearly helps us understand who's out there.\n\n986\n00:47:18.440 --> 00:47:21.400\nIt's clearly from a marketing point of view.\n\n987\n00:47:21.400 --> 00:47:23.720\nIt's also, as you say, productivity.\n\n988\n00:47:23.720 --> 00:47:25.760\nIt makes us more efficient.\n\n989\n00:47:25.760 --> 00:47:29.800\nIt allows us to try out new ideas.\n\n990\n00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:33.600\nIf you have an idea, you can ask AI to draw it for you.\n\n991\n00:47:33.600 --> 00:47:35.400\nSo there's a lot of advantages\n\n992\n00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:38.760\nthat will actually help us make the experience better.\n\n993\n00:47:38.760 --> 00:47:40.440\nWe're using AI.\n\n994\n00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:43.360\nSo one of the things that we started in a while ago,\n\n995\n00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:48.360\nis what we call win on waste.\n\n996\n00:47:48.360 --> 00:47:52.520\nAnd there's a lot of food that gets wasted.\n\n997\n00:47:52.520 --> 00:47:54.840\nWe bring out the food, it's not used,\n\n998\n00:47:54.840 --> 00:47:57.320\nand we have to throw it away.\n\n999\n00:47:57.320 --> 00:48:00.160\nWe can't, we use food for health reasons.\n\n1000\n00:48:00.160 --> 00:48:02.400\nSo there's a lot of waste there.\n\n1001\n00:48:02.400 --> 00:48:04.560\nAI has already been very helpful\n\n1002\n00:48:04.560 --> 00:48:07.000\nin helping us refine that,\n\n1003\n00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:11.000\nhow to manage our food operations better\n\n1004\n00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:12.440\nso that there's less of that.\n\n1005\n00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:14.560\nSo there's some real value there.\n\n1006\n00:48:14.560 --> 00:48:16.760\n- What advice can you give other leaders\n\n1007\n00:48:16.760 --> 00:48:19.560\non how to get up to speed, on AI,\n\n1008\n00:48:19.560 --> 00:48:22.000\nand driving a new force like that,\n\n1009\n00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:24.080\na new force of technology,\n\n1010\n00:48:24.080 --> 00:48:27.680\nand making it a success in your company?\n\n1011\n00:48:27.680 --> 00:48:32.680\n- I actually think it's a point that to me is very important\n\n1012\n00:48:32.680 --> 00:48:36.880\nand that it is intentionality.\n\n1013\n00:48:36.880 --> 00:48:40.760\nYou really, I hear so many people say,\n\n1014\n00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:42.400\n\"Well, we're still experimenting with it.\n\n1015\n00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:43.840\n\"We're still trying to understand it.\n\n1016\n00:48:43.840 --> 00:48:45.760\n\"We're still learning.\"\n\n1017\n00:48:45.760 --> 00:48:47.400\nIt's too late for that.\n\n1018\n00:48:47.400 --> 00:48:50.600\nWe have to be using it and we have to say,\n\n1019\n00:48:50.600 --> 00:48:52.120\n\"We are going to use it,\"\n\n1020\n00:48:52.120 --> 00:48:55.800\nbecause only by using it to you truly understand it.\n\n1021\n00:48:55.800 --> 00:48:58.680\nAnd it's a little bit like we've done with our ships,\n\n1022\n00:48:58.680 --> 00:49:00.880\nonly by talking with our guests,\n\n1023\n00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:02.880\nonly by talking with our crew member.\n\n1024\n00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:06.960\nDo we understand and you have to do that with intentionality?\n\n1025\n00:49:06.960 --> 00:49:09.960\nIt didn't just osmosis.\n\n1026\n00:49:09.960 --> 00:49:14.760\nAnd the same thing with something new like AI,\n\n1027\n00:49:14.760 --> 00:49:15.880\nyou really have to say,\n\n1028\n00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:18.880\n\"This is going to be an important part of who we are\n\n1029\n00:49:18.880 --> 00:49:20.560\n\"and how we operate.\"\n\n1030\n00:49:20.560 --> 00:49:22.800\nAnd so you have to really say,\n\n1031\n00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:26.800\n\"I'm going to go at this clearly and with intentionality\n\n1032\n00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:29.120\n\"that I'm going to accomplish these goals,\n\n1033\n00:49:29.120 --> 00:49:32.240\n\"not just let's try and see what happens.\"\n\n1034\n00:49:32.240 --> 00:49:34.400\n- You know, looking back, Richard,\n\n1035\n00:49:34.400 --> 00:49:37.720\nwhat do you think is the biggest leadership lesson\n\n1036\n00:49:37.720 --> 00:49:39.960\nyou wish that you would have learned earlier?\n\n1037\n00:49:39.960 --> 00:49:45.960\n- I think probably the biggest lesson for me was,\n\n1038\n00:49:45.960 --> 00:49:47.280\n\"Don't look back.\"\n\n1039\n00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:51.960\nThere's no forward progress without screwing up.\n\n1040\n00:49:51.960 --> 00:49:56.320\nAnd I had my share of mistakes\n\n1041\n00:49:56.320 --> 00:50:01.080\nand I tried to be as open as anybody can be in the book.\n\n1042\n00:50:01.080 --> 00:50:06.420\nIt's a little hard to be that self-aware, but I did try.\n\n1043\n00:50:07.640 --> 00:50:12.400\nAnd I think one of the lessons I learned was,\n\n1044\n00:50:12.400 --> 00:50:15.960\nif you spend time obsessing about your mistakes,\n\n1045\n00:50:15.960 --> 00:50:19.000\nyou won't, you'll become so risk averse\n\n1046\n00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:21.600\nthat you won't do the things that are necessary\n\n1047\n00:50:21.600 --> 00:50:23.680\nto make you successful.\n\n1048\n00:50:23.680 --> 00:50:27.160\nSo I think if I had one piece of advice to my earlier self,\n\n1049\n00:50:27.160 --> 00:50:30.680\nit was, \"Don't look back, only look forward.\"\n\n1050\n00:50:30.680 --> 00:50:32.320\n- I love it, you know.\n\n1051\n00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:33.560\nYou know, this has been so much fun\n\n1052\n00:50:33.560 --> 00:50:36.120\nand I want to have some more with my lightning round\n\n1053\n00:50:36.120 --> 00:50:37.960\nof questions, so are you ready for this?\n\n1054\n00:50:37.960 --> 00:50:39.760\n- All right, I'll go for it.\n\n1055\n00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:42.040\n- The three words that best describe you.\n\n1056\n00:50:42.040 --> 00:50:45.480\nPassionate, loving, insatiable, I guess.\n\n1057\n00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:47.240\n- If you could be one person for a day\n\n1058\n00:50:47.240 --> 00:50:49.000\nbesides yourself, who would it be?\n\n1059\n00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:50.840\n- Colleen Fane, my wife.\n\n1060\n00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:52.400\n- Your biggest pet peeve.\n\n1061\n00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:53.840\n- Jumping to conclusions.\n\n1062\n00:50:53.840 --> 00:50:55.320\n- Who would play you in a movie?\n\n1063\n00:50:55.320 --> 00:50:56.800\n- Ben Affleck.\n\n1064\n00:50:56.800 --> 00:51:00.560\n- Okay, the most breathtaking view you've ever had\n\n1065\n00:51:00.560 --> 00:51:01.880\nfrom the deck of a ship.\n\n1066\n00:51:01.880 --> 00:51:05.160\n- Was definitely from the blimp\n\n1067\n00:51:05.160 --> 00:51:08.040\nthat nobody has ever had such a view.\n\n1068\n00:51:08.040 --> 00:51:10.080\nIt was breathtaking.\n\n1069\n00:51:10.080 --> 00:51:12.560\nLooking at the coastline, looking at the ship,\n\n1070\n00:51:12.560 --> 00:51:14.440\njust amazing.\n\n1071\n00:51:14.440 --> 00:51:17.000\n- What's the most expensive bottle of champagne\n\n1072\n00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:18.080\nyou've ever ordered?\n\n1073\n00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:19.040\n- That's easy.\n\n1074\n00:51:19.040 --> 00:51:23.080\nWe had to have a special bottle made called a sovereign.\n\n1075\n00:51:23.080 --> 00:51:25.280\nAnd we were building the sovereign of the seas.\n\n1076\n00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:27.120\nIt was the biggest cruise you've ever built.\n\n1077\n00:51:27.120 --> 00:51:30.440\nTattinger offered to give us first a Jeroboam\n\n1078\n00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:35.440\nand then Balthazar and then a Methuselah and then a Nebuchadnezzar\n\n1079\n00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:37.760\nand we said they're all too small.\n\n1080\n00:51:37.760 --> 00:51:40.200\nAnd so they made a special bottle of wine\n\n1081\n00:51:40.200 --> 00:51:44.640\nthat holds sort of this high\n\n1082\n00:51:44.640 --> 00:51:49.120\nand holds the equivalent of 25 bottles of champagne.\n\n1083\n00:51:49.120 --> 00:51:51.240\nIt's almost impossible to lift up.\n\n1084\n00:51:51.240 --> 00:51:54.920\n- Bagpipes at company events.\n\n1085\n00:51:54.920 --> 00:51:56.880\nWhere'd the idea come from?\n\n1086\n00:51:56.880 --> 00:51:58.400\n- I love bagpipes.\n\n1087\n00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:01.760\nThat's one of the few things I just get to do\n\n1088\n00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:02.760\nbecause I love it.\n\n1089\n00:52:02.760 --> 00:52:08.120\n- What's the day in the life of a CO aboard a cruise ship\n\n1090\n00:52:08.120 --> 00:52:10.040\non a work day, not a vacation?\n\n1091\n00:52:10.040 --> 00:52:12.720\n- Well, it's never a vacation for me on a work day.\n\n1092\n00:52:12.720 --> 00:52:18.120\nAnd I have to say it is thrilling.\n\n1093\n00:52:18.120 --> 00:52:19.680\nI see the people.\n\n1094\n00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:21.600\nI get to be with them.\n\n1095\n00:52:21.600 --> 00:52:22.800\nI get to hug them.\n\n1096\n00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:26.680\nI get a lot of requests for selfies\n\n1097\n00:52:26.680 --> 00:52:30.640\nand I am blessed every time\n\n1098\n00:52:30.640 --> 00:52:33.240\nand I feel complimented every time.\n\n1099\n00:52:33.240 --> 00:52:36.080\nIt's a wonderful experience.\n\n1100\n00:52:36.080 --> 00:52:38.320\nAnd people tell me their stories\n\n1101\n00:52:38.320 --> 00:52:40.680\nand when you hear these stories,\n\n1102\n00:52:40.680 --> 00:52:43.520\nyou just have to admire these people so much.\n\n1103\n00:52:43.520 --> 00:52:45.480\n- What's the one thing you do just for you?\n\n1104\n00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:48.000\n- I have a really comfortable, easy chair\n\n1105\n00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:50.480\nand I sit in it and I read.\n\n1106\n00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:52.520\nAnd I read trash and I love it.\n\n1107\n00:52:52.520 --> 00:52:55.640\n- Besides your family and your friends,\n\n1108\n00:52:55.640 --> 00:52:57.920\nwhat's your most prized possession?\n\n1109\n00:52:57.920 --> 00:52:59.200\nAnd maybe that chair.\n\n1110\n00:52:59.200 --> 00:53:03.480\n- Well, that's an interesting one.\n\n1111\n00:53:03.480 --> 00:53:08.240\nSo from the very first ship that I was involved in,\n\n1112\n00:53:08.240 --> 00:53:13.280\nI asked them to, we had the naming ceremony\n\n1113\n00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:15.760\nand we broke the bottle of champagne against the side.\n\n1114\n00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:17.460\nI asked them to save the bottle.\n\n1115\n00:53:17.460 --> 00:53:21.320\nAnd then I didn't know what I would do with it.\n\n1116\n00:53:21.320 --> 00:53:22.720\nI just asked them to save it.\n\n1117\n00:53:22.720 --> 00:53:25.160\nAnd I've asked them to save every one of the ships\n\n1118\n00:53:25.160 --> 00:53:26.880\nwe've named since then.\n\n1119\n00:53:26.880 --> 00:53:29.520\nAnd I've just now been working on an art piece\n\n1120\n00:53:29.520 --> 00:53:31.840\nthat uses all those scraps.\n\n1121\n00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:35.040\nBut for 35 years, I just kept the bottles\n\n1122\n00:53:35.040 --> 00:53:36.640\nwithout knowing what I would do with them.\n\n1123\n00:53:36.640 --> 00:53:39.520\nAnd now I'm making use of them and I'm loving it.\n\n1124\n00:53:39.520 --> 00:53:41.400\n- I love that, you know.\n\n1125\n00:53:41.400 --> 00:53:45.000\nIf I turn the radio on in your car, what would I hear?\n\n1126\n00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:46.120\n- Golden oldies.\n\n1127\n00:53:46.120 --> 00:53:48.480\n- What's something about you a few people would know?\n\n1128\n00:53:48.480 --> 00:53:50.360\n- Oh, I'm not gonna tell you that.\n\n1129\n00:53:50.360 --> 00:53:53.160\n(both laughing)\n\n1130\n00:53:53.160 --> 00:53:56.280\nBut I think people know I'm passionate.\n\n1131\n00:53:56.280 --> 00:54:00.160\nMaybe people don't realize just how lucky I've been\n\n1132\n00:54:00.160 --> 00:54:02.880\nin my family life, in my career.\n\n1133\n00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:06.600\nNobody gets to be as lucky as I've been\n\n1134\n00:54:06.600 --> 00:54:09.920\nand I thank my lucky stars every day.\n\n1135\n00:54:09.920 --> 00:54:11.520\n- What's one of your daily rituals,\n\n1136\n00:54:11.520 --> 00:54:13.220\nsomething that you never miss?\n\n1137\n00:54:13.220 --> 00:54:14.820\n- Well, now I do wirtle.\n\n1138\n00:54:14.820 --> 00:54:16.160\n(both laughing)\n\n1139\n00:54:16.160 --> 00:54:18.000\n- There you go, there you go.\n\n1140\n00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:19.880\nWe're out of the lighting round, Richard,\n\n1141\n00:54:19.880 --> 00:54:24.880\nbut I love the fact that you've been collecting these bottles.\n\n1142\n00:54:24.880 --> 00:54:30.000\nTalk a little bit about the bottle tradition\n\n1143\n00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:31.200\nthat you have for ships.\n\n1144\n00:54:31.200 --> 00:54:34.160\n- Well, it's actually a tradition of the shipping business\n\n1145\n00:54:34.160 --> 00:54:36.960\nfor literally thousands of years\n\n1146\n00:54:36.960 --> 00:54:40.440\nand to have a woman of some accomplishment\n\n1147\n00:54:40.440 --> 00:54:43.720\ngive the ship her blessing and break a bottle of champagne.\n\n1148\n00:54:43.720 --> 00:54:45.600\nThe French have been good about getting champagne\n\n1149\n00:54:45.600 --> 00:54:46.560\ninto the act.\n\n1150\n00:54:46.560 --> 00:54:49.480\nAnd so it's a tradition to break this bottle of champagne.\n\n1151\n00:54:49.480 --> 00:54:52.200\nWe've had great godmothers.\n\n1152\n00:54:52.200 --> 00:54:55.680\nIn fact, more recently we had a godfather with Messi.\n\n1153\n00:54:55.680 --> 00:54:58.280\nWe've had President Carter's wife,\n\n1154\n00:54:58.280 --> 00:55:02.040\nRosalind Carter, we've had Malala was on Godmother.\n\n1155\n00:55:02.040 --> 00:55:05.280\nWe've had such such wonderful whoopi Goldberg\n\n1156\n00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:07.320\nwas a terrific godmother,\n\n1157\n00:55:07.320 --> 00:55:10.040\none of our funniest and most gracious.\n\n1158\n00:55:10.040 --> 00:55:12.360\nWe just had so many wonderful people do it.\n\n1159\n00:55:12.360 --> 00:55:15.160\nAnd it's just an honor.\n\n1160\n00:55:15.160 --> 00:55:17.200\nIt's just a way of saying thank you to them,\n\n1161\n00:55:17.200 --> 00:55:19.480\nbut also imbue the ship, hopefully,\n\n1162\n00:55:19.480 --> 00:55:23.280\nwith some of their expertise and their successes.\n\n1163\n00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:27.080\nMariners are a superstitious lot\n\n1164\n00:55:27.080 --> 00:55:32.080\nand having the godmother give her blessing to the ship\n\n1165\n00:55:32.080 --> 00:55:34.960\nand rub off some of her expertise\n\n1166\n00:55:34.960 --> 00:55:37.440\nand her success is always good.\n\n1167\n00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:41.360\nAnd we've been very proud to carry on this tradition.\n\n1168\n00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:44.520\n- You know, you've mentioned the fact that you feel lucky,\n\n1169\n00:55:44.520 --> 00:55:47.960\nthat you feel blessed, how do you feel\n\n1170\n00:55:47.960 --> 00:55:51.880\nabout just the privilege of being a leader?\n\n1171\n00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:53.800\n- It is such a privilege.\n\n1172\n00:55:53.800 --> 00:55:56.400\nAnd people focus on the fact\n\n1173\n00:55:56.400 --> 00:55:58.920\nthat I'm leading such a large organization.\n\n1174\n00:55:58.920 --> 00:56:02.120\nI've had just as much of a thrill\n\n1175\n00:56:02.120 --> 00:56:04.440\nin some of the smaller organizations\n\n1176\n00:56:04.440 --> 00:56:06.280\nthat I've been involved in.\n\n1177\n00:56:06.280 --> 00:56:10.200\nI just get such personal satisfaction,\n\n1178\n00:56:10.200 --> 00:56:13.640\nsuch personal feeling of being blessed\n\n1179\n00:56:13.640 --> 00:56:16.920\nto be involved in almost anything that's successful.\n\n1180\n00:56:16.920 --> 00:56:21.920\nAnd so while most people focus on my career or Caribbean,\n\n1181\n00:56:21.920 --> 00:56:26.920\nI think I and I think my family would say\n\n1182\n00:56:26.920 --> 00:56:31.040\nI get just as much satisfaction and pride\n\n1183\n00:56:31.040 --> 00:56:34.320\nfrom some of the smaller things that I've been involved in.\n\n1184\n00:56:34.320 --> 00:56:36.000\n- You know, you've mentioned, you know,\n\n1185\n00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:38.080\npeople taking selfies with you\n\n1186\n00:56:38.080 --> 00:56:40.920\nand everybody wanting to shake your hand\n\n1187\n00:56:40.920 --> 00:56:45.760\nat magic moment and day when you restarted after COVID.\n\n1188\n00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:50.240\nThere's so much adulation that you get as a leader,\n\n1189\n00:56:50.240 --> 00:56:52.400\nyou know, and being that person.\n\n1190\n00:56:52.400 --> 00:56:56.160\nHow do you handle it and still stay grounded?\n\n1191\n00:56:56.160 --> 00:56:58.880\n- Well, I think part of the problem is\n\n1192\n00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:03.440\nthat it's a little bit frustrating\n\n1193\n00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:07.320\nbecause you don't always feel that I've earned it.\n\n1194\n00:57:07.320 --> 00:57:11.200\nAnd people are very gracious\n\n1195\n00:57:11.200 --> 00:57:14.960\nand people have been just incredibly kind to me\n\n1196\n00:57:14.960 --> 00:57:16.440\nover the time.\n\n1197\n00:57:16.440 --> 00:57:19.760\nBut I am self-conscious of the fact\n\n1198\n00:57:19.760 --> 00:57:23.840\nthat I happen to be in the right place at the right time.\n\n1199\n00:57:23.840 --> 00:57:28.840\nI've been blessed by being surrounded by imaginative\n\n1200\n00:57:28.840 --> 00:57:34.160\nand creative and hardworking and thoughtful people.\n\n1201\n00:57:35.200 --> 00:57:39.360\nAnd so I actually, I guess part of it is\n\n1202\n00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:41.840\nI feel overwhelmed by it\n\n1203\n00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:44.040\nand I feel that I have to work a little harder\n\n1204\n00:57:44.040 --> 00:57:46.560\nto try and earn at least part of it.\n\n1205\n00:57:46.560 --> 00:57:49.920\n- What do you see, Richard, as your unfinished business now?\n\n1206\n00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:53.760\n- Watching and applauding my successor, Jason Liberty,\n\n1207\n00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:55.760\nhas taken the reins.\n\n1208\n00:57:55.760 --> 00:57:58.600\nThis is my pride and joy.\n\n1209\n00:57:58.600 --> 00:58:02.000\nJason and I have worked together for 20 years.\n\n1210\n00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:05.440\nIt's more than a friendship, it is, in fact, a love affair.\n\n1211\n00:58:05.440 --> 00:58:09.400\nBut to see him thrive and take the company\n\n1212\n00:58:09.400 --> 00:58:14.000\nto get higher levels, to see him continuing the concept\n\n1213\n00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:18.000\nof continuous improvement and continually making it better.\n\n1214\n00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:20.320\nCouldn't ask for anything better.\n\n1215\n00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:22.600\nAnd I see the same thing, by the way, with my children.\n\n1216\n00:58:22.600 --> 00:58:25.640\nLike my children, Jason keeps making mistakes,\n\n1217\n00:58:25.640 --> 00:58:27.400\nbut they're his mistakes,\n\n1218\n00:58:27.400 --> 00:58:30.480\njust as my children's mistakes are their mistakes.\n\n1219\n00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:33.240\nFortunately, they get it more right than wrong\n\n1220\n00:58:33.240 --> 00:58:37.760\nand that makes Jason and that makes my children\n\n1221\n00:58:37.760 --> 00:58:38.800\nreally extraordinary.\n\n1222\n00:58:38.800 --> 00:58:41.320\n- Last question here.\n\n1223\n00:58:41.320 --> 00:58:43.800\nWhat's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone\n\n1224\n00:58:43.800 --> 00:58:46.080\nwho wants to be a better leader?\n\n1225\n00:58:46.080 --> 00:58:49.320\n- I wish I could narrow it down to one piece of advice,\n\n1226\n00:58:49.320 --> 00:58:52.240\nbut love what you do, or don't do it.\n\n1227\n00:58:52.240 --> 00:58:53.840\n- Perfect, perfect.\n\n1228\n00:58:53.840 --> 00:58:56.880\nRichard, you obviously love what you do\n\n1229\n00:58:56.880 --> 00:58:59.000\nand you are doing it and you're doing it\n\n1230\n00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:01.680\nunlike anybody who's ever done it in your business\n\n1231\n00:59:01.680 --> 00:59:05.080\nand you're a great example of a leader\n\n1232\n00:59:05.080 --> 00:59:08.200\nwho cares about people and knows that's the magic\n\n1233\n00:59:08.200 --> 00:59:10.320\nthat you gotta have to do big things.\n\n1234\n00:59:10.320 --> 00:59:12.920\nSo thank you so much for being on this show.\n\n1235\n00:59:12.920 --> 00:59:14.560\n- David, thank you.\n\n1236\n00:59:14.560 --> 00:59:16.800\nYou've been an inspiration.\n\n1237\n00:59:16.800 --> 00:59:20.560\nYour books and your own career are inspiration\n\n1238\n00:59:20.560 --> 00:59:22.120\nto a lot of potential leaders.\n\n1239\n00:59:22.120 --> 00:59:23.400\nSo thank you for that\n\n1240\n00:59:23.400 --> 00:59:25.560\nand thank you for doing this interview with me.\n\n1241\n00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:33.760\n- David, I have to admit that I have never been\n\n1242\n00:59:33.760 --> 00:59:36.840\none to think that I was a cruise girl.\n\n1243\n00:59:36.840 --> 00:59:39.160\nLike, that's never just, that's not really been my vibe.\n\n1244\n00:59:39.160 --> 00:59:41.840\nHowever, this interview with Richard Feynn\n\n1245\n00:59:41.840 --> 00:59:44.200\nhas changed my heart in a significant way\n\n1246\n00:59:44.200 --> 00:59:46.920\nand I'm ready to book a Royal Caribbean cruise.\n\n1247\n00:59:46.920 --> 00:59:49.760\n- Oh man, it sounds like you really are gonna rough it.\n\n1248\n00:59:49.760 --> 00:59:51.480\n(laughing)\n\n1249\n00:59:51.480 --> 00:59:53.560\n- I loved this episode.\n\n1250\n00:59:53.560 --> 00:59:55.840\nRichard was at Royal Caribbean for over 30 years\n\n1251\n00:59:55.840 --> 00:59:59.480\nand I love how frickin' passionate he is\n\n1252\n00:59:59.480 --> 01:00:01.440\nabout the cruise business.\n\n1253\n01:00:01.440 --> 01:00:03.360\nI mean, for a finance guy,\n\n1254\n01:00:03.360 --> 01:00:06.200\nthis man's got a ton of passionate excitement around\n\n1255\n01:00:06.200 --> 01:00:07.720\nwhat it is he gets to do.\n\n1256\n01:00:07.720 --> 01:00:09.600\n- Well, I mean, his roots were in finance\n\n1257\n01:00:09.600 --> 01:00:13.200\nbut he quickly became a people leader.\n\n1258\n01:00:13.200 --> 01:00:16.600\nI mean, everything that he talked about is how people do this\n\n1259\n01:00:16.600 --> 01:00:19.200\nand people do that and they wouldn't have been able to do this\n\n1260\n01:00:19.200 --> 01:00:20.560\nif it hadn't have been for the people.\n\n1261\n01:00:20.560 --> 01:00:24.920\nAnd he's a culture driver and a big believer\n\n1262\n01:00:24.920 --> 01:00:28.440\nthat you can only make big things happen\n\n1263\n01:00:28.440 --> 01:00:29.960\nif you can take people with you\n\n1264\n01:00:29.960 --> 01:00:32.240\nand he's got a lot of people who are really fired up\n\n1265\n01:00:32.240 --> 01:00:34.680\nto get big things done at Royal Caribbean.\n\n1266\n01:00:34.680 --> 01:00:36.560\n- Well, David, we're gonna debrief this conversation\n\n1267\n01:00:36.560 --> 01:00:39.080\nand give the listeners a couple of tangible takeaways\n\n1268\n01:00:39.080 --> 01:00:41.440\nfrom this conversation that they can apply\n\n1269\n01:00:41.440 --> 01:00:43.760\nto their leadership, to their life and to their work\n\n1270\n01:00:43.760 --> 01:00:48.360\nand I'm so excited to talk about this first theme\n\n1271\n01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:50.440\nbecause it's a part of the episode\n\n1272\n01:00:50.440 --> 01:00:52.840\nthat's gonna stick with me for a very long time\n\n1273\n01:00:52.840 --> 01:00:57.200\nand it is Richard's phrase, \"UFB.\"\n\n1274\n01:00:57.200 --> 01:01:00.680\n(both laughing)\n\n1275\n01:01:00.680 --> 01:01:02.760\nUneffing believable.\n\n1276\n01:01:02.760 --> 01:01:04.760\n- I love that because, you know,\n\n1277\n01:01:04.760 --> 01:01:07.840\nI love the fact that, you know, internally,\n\n1278\n01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:10.120\nthey said, \"Is this UFB?\"\n\n1279\n01:01:10.120 --> 01:01:12.600\nYou know, unfricken believable.\n\n1280\n01:01:12.600 --> 01:01:16.840\nI mean, that's, that's, that's the use of words.\n\n1281\n01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:19.440\nYou know, words have such power.\n\n1282\n01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:22.040\nYou know, if you can pick the right words,\n\n1283\n01:01:22.040 --> 01:01:23.760\nyou know, they stand out.\n\n1284\n01:01:23.760 --> 01:01:25.600\nThey break through the clutter\n\n1285\n01:01:25.600 --> 01:01:29.000\nand basically says, \"This is what we do.\"\n\n1286\n01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:33.680\nAnd to be able to say, \"Is it UFB or not?\"\n\n1287\n01:01:33.680 --> 01:01:34.520\nOkay?\n\n1288\n01:01:34.520 --> 01:01:35.520\n- It's so fun.\n\n1289\n01:01:35.520 --> 01:01:36.360\n- I love it.\n\n1290\n01:01:36.360 --> 01:01:37.960\nIt's such a great criteria to have\n\n1291\n01:01:37.960 --> 01:01:41.560\nfor how you look at ideas and processes\n\n1292\n01:01:41.560 --> 01:01:43.560\nor whatever you're working on.\n\n1293\n01:01:43.560 --> 01:01:45.400\nIs it UFB?\n\n1294\n01:01:45.400 --> 01:01:48.760\nAnd I think that that was, that's so powerful\n\n1295\n01:01:48.760 --> 01:01:52.160\nbecause I always talk about in culture, you know,\n\n1296\n01:01:52.160 --> 01:01:54.680\npeople a lot of times they'll come up with these words.\n\n1297\n01:01:54.680 --> 01:01:59.240\nLike, we, we want to be transformational.\n\n1298\n01:01:59.240 --> 01:02:01.400\nIt's like, oh, you know,\n\n1299\n01:02:01.400 --> 01:02:03.560\nwell, I mean, that's so boring.\n\n1300\n01:02:03.560 --> 01:02:06.160\nI mean, transformational, yeah, it's a nice thing to be.\n\n1301\n01:02:06.160 --> 01:02:09.000\nBut does that really stand out as language?\n\n1302\n01:02:09.000 --> 01:02:10.800\nUFB, that stands out.\n\n1303\n01:02:10.800 --> 01:02:11.640\n- It stands out.\n\n1304\n01:02:11.640 --> 01:02:13.600\n- You know, and, and I think when you're,\n\n1305\n01:02:13.600 --> 01:02:16.600\nwhen you're thinking about the cultural behaviors\n\n1306\n01:02:16.600 --> 01:02:18.200\nthat you want to drive in your company,\n\n1307\n01:02:18.200 --> 01:02:21.040\nthe more you can put it in, in, in language\n\n1308\n01:02:21.040 --> 01:02:23.960\nthat, that breaks through the clutter the better.\n\n1309\n01:02:23.960 --> 01:02:26.680\nYou know, for example, when I was at Yum,\n\n1310\n01:02:26.680 --> 01:02:28.560\nwe wanted to be customer focused.\n\n1311\n01:02:28.560 --> 01:02:30.320\nNow, what company in the world\n\n1312\n01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:31.920\ndoesn't want to be customer focused?\n\n1313\n01:02:31.920 --> 01:02:34.360\nI mean, that was boring as hell, okay?\n\n1314\n01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:35.360\nAnd then I said, you know what?\n\n1315\n01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:37.200\nWe're not being customer focused enough.\n\n1316\n01:02:37.200 --> 01:02:39.120\nSo I changed the cultural value to be,\n\n1317\n01:02:39.120 --> 01:02:41.080\nwe wanted to be customer maniacs.\n\n1318\n01:02:41.080 --> 01:02:43.080\nPeople said, you want me to be a maniac\n\n1319\n01:02:43.080 --> 01:02:46.640\naround customers, I said, yeah, I do, okay?\n\n1320\n01:02:46.640 --> 01:02:48.720\nBut the word made people think,\n\n1321\n01:02:48.720 --> 01:02:51.160\nwell, how can you be a customer maniac?\n\n1322\n01:02:51.160 --> 01:02:53.120\nYou know, how can you go above and beyond?\n\n1323\n01:02:53.120 --> 01:02:56.120\nWhat's really, how do you show your mania\n\n1324\n01:02:56.120 --> 01:02:58.200\nfor making customers happy?\n\n1325\n01:02:58.200 --> 01:03:00.640\nAnd, but it was much more powerful\n\n1326\n01:03:00.640 --> 01:03:01.880\nthan just customer focus.\n\n1327\n01:03:01.880 --> 01:03:04.600\nSo, so I think people really need to think very hard\n\n1328\n01:03:04.600 --> 01:03:07.240\nabout what behaviors they want to drive in their culture\n\n1329\n01:03:07.240 --> 01:03:09.640\nand the look for a very powerful language\n\n1330\n01:03:09.640 --> 01:03:10.640\nthat drives it home.\n\n1331\n01:03:10.640 --> 01:03:14.320\nAnd UFB may be one of the best examples I've ever heard.\n\n1332\n01:03:14.320 --> 01:03:16.080\n- It's so good, it's so good.\n\n1333\n01:03:16.640 --> 01:03:20.880\nI feel like this is an exercise that I did\n\n1334\n01:03:20.880 --> 01:03:22.000\nat a company I used to work for,\n\n1335\n01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:24.680\nbut we looked at our core values and cultural values\n\n1336\n01:03:24.680 --> 01:03:28.040\nand circled all of the kind of descriptor words\n\n1337\n01:03:28.040 --> 01:03:28.880\nof what they were.\n\n1338\n01:03:28.880 --> 01:03:31.960\nSo similar to what you did, customer focused,\n\n1339\n01:03:31.960 --> 01:03:33.960\nexcellent quality, those sorts of things.\n\n1340\n01:03:33.960 --> 01:03:37.840\nAnd we asked ourselves, do these words ignite action?\n\n1341\n01:03:37.840 --> 01:03:39.000\nAnd the answer was no.\n\n1342\n01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:42.400\nAnd so that exercise of going through and saying,\n\n1343\n01:03:42.400 --> 01:03:43.960\nokay, this is the value we want,\n\n1344\n01:03:43.960 --> 01:03:46.480\nbut people are just going to forget\n\n1345\n01:03:46.480 --> 01:03:49.480\nabout being customer focused or having excellent quality,\n\n1346\n01:03:49.480 --> 01:03:52.440\nbut they won't forget about being maniacal,\n\n1347\n01:03:52.440 --> 01:03:54.680\nabout satisfying customers.\n\n1348\n01:03:54.680 --> 01:03:58.720\n- And you just can't underestimate the power of words\n\n1349\n01:03:58.720 --> 01:04:00.880\nor let's just say one word.\n\n1350\n01:04:00.880 --> 01:04:03.640\nYou know, I remember Raid, I think they still have this.\n\n1351\n01:04:03.640 --> 01:04:06.720\nYou know, Raid had this thing, you know,\n\n1352\n01:04:06.720 --> 01:04:09.320\nwhat their functional purpose was is they kill bugs.\n\n1353\n01:04:09.320 --> 01:04:11.400\nThey came up with this advertising line\n\n1354\n01:04:11.400 --> 01:04:14.240\nwas raid kills bugs dead.\n\n1355\n01:04:14.240 --> 01:04:20.240\nWell, that one extra word, raid kills bugs dead.\n\n1356\n01:04:20.240 --> 01:04:24.200\nThat's like, that means those bugs, they get killed.\n\n1357\n01:04:24.200 --> 01:04:25.200\n- That'd be bad.\n\n1358\n01:04:25.200 --> 01:04:28.280\n- But the power of that one word, no pun intended,\n\n1359\n01:04:28.280 --> 01:04:30.160\nis extremely powerful.\n\n1360\n01:04:30.160 --> 01:04:32.720\nAnd so I just think leaders need to think about language\n\n1361\n01:04:32.720 --> 01:04:36.040\nand the words they use to break through the clutter\n\n1362\n01:04:36.040 --> 01:04:39.080\nand really make sure people understand\n\n1363\n01:04:39.080 --> 01:04:40.920\nthat they're serious about this behavior\n\n1364\n01:04:40.920 --> 01:04:42.120\nthat they're trying to drive.\n\n1365\n01:04:42.120 --> 01:04:43.680\n- It's just, it's so memorable too.\n\n1366\n01:04:43.680 --> 01:04:46.520\nIt's like no one's going to forget on effing believable.\n\n1367\n01:04:46.520 --> 01:04:47.360\n- Yeah.\n\n1368\n01:04:47.360 --> 01:04:48.960\nAnd by the way, the other thing I love about that\n\n1369\n01:04:48.960 --> 01:04:51.120\ntook a little courage, you know?\n\n1370\n01:04:51.120 --> 01:04:55.320\nI mean, to say UFB, you know, that takes courage,\n\n1371\n01:04:55.320 --> 01:04:57.160\nbut it takes courage to stand out.\n\n1372\n01:04:57.160 --> 01:04:59.160\nIt takes courage to break through the clutter.\n\n1373\n01:04:59.160 --> 01:05:01.440\nIt takes courage to break through the rules.\n\n1374\n01:05:01.440 --> 01:05:04.160\nIt takes courage to get out of your comfort zone.\n\n1375\n01:05:04.160 --> 01:05:05.880\nAnd that's what I loved about UFB.\n\n1376\n01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:08.040\n- Being a risk taker and being bold and courageous\n\n1377\n01:05:08.040 --> 01:05:10.840\nis something that clearly marked Richard's tenure\n\n1378\n01:05:10.840 --> 01:05:12.320\nat World Caribbean Cruises.\n\n1379\n01:05:12.320 --> 01:05:15.920\nI mean, he put a rock climbing wall in most of his ships.\n\n1380\n01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:19.400\nHe doubled the size of the largest cruise ship ever.\n\n1381\n01:05:19.400 --> 01:05:21.200\nAnd you ask him in the episode, you know,\n\n1382\n01:05:21.200 --> 01:05:25.320\nhow do you get the conviction to go after these risks\n\n1383\n01:05:25.320 --> 01:05:27.640\nwhen, you know, if it doesn't work, you're kind of screwed.\n\n1384\n01:05:27.640 --> 01:05:29.960\nAnd he said, David, that was easy for me.\n\n1385\n01:05:29.960 --> 01:05:32.320\nIt was the people I had belief in my people.\n\n1386\n01:05:32.320 --> 01:05:35.120\nAnd I knew that they were going to be the ones\n\n1387\n01:05:35.120 --> 01:05:37.960\nto execute it well and bring that vision to life.\n\n1388\n01:05:37.960 --> 01:05:40.960\nSo I knew we weren't going to lose and I wouldn't get embarrassed.\n\n1389\n01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:44.400\nWhat else can leaders do to build that conviction\n\n1390\n01:05:44.400 --> 01:05:46.720\nwith themselves when they know that they're about to make\n\n1391\n01:05:46.720 --> 01:05:49.080\na pretty risky decision for their business?\n\n1392\n01:05:49.080 --> 01:05:54.080\n- Well, I think you got to understand what the risk is.\n\n1393\n01:05:54.080 --> 01:05:56.880\nYou know, I think in this particular case,\n\n1394\n01:05:56.880 --> 01:05:59.760\none of the things that he talked about was the rock climbing wall.\n\n1395\n01:05:59.760 --> 01:06:02.080\nOkay, he didn't even know what a rock climbing wall was.\n\n1396\n01:06:02.080 --> 01:06:06.360\nBut then he went and he observed it and he saw the fun\n\n1397\n01:06:06.360 --> 01:06:09.760\nthat people had doing it and he listened to his people\n\n1398\n01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:12.680\nand he thought it was crazy idea at the beginning.\n\n1399\n01:06:12.680 --> 01:06:16.720\nAnd, you know, he got a little bit more knowledge\n\n1400\n01:06:16.720 --> 01:06:18.000\nand they kept pushing back.\n\n1401\n01:06:18.000 --> 01:06:20.040\nAnd then finally, he did it.\n\n1402\n01:06:20.040 --> 01:06:23.480\nAnd it was one of the best decisions that he made.\n\n1403\n01:06:23.480 --> 01:06:27.280\nBut he also knows that, you know, if it didn't work,\n\n1404\n01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:29.280\nyou can take it down, you know.\n\n1405\n01:06:29.280 --> 01:06:32.560\nBut when you're trying to really delight your customers,\n\n1406\n01:06:32.560 --> 01:06:36.040\ncreate an experience that you can't find anywhere else,\n\n1407\n01:06:36.040 --> 01:06:37.480\nyou're not going to do that\n\n1408\n01:06:37.480 --> 01:06:39.960\nif you just keep doing the same old, same old.\n\n1409\n01:06:39.960 --> 01:06:43.880\nSo you got to constantly look for ways to change the game.\n\n1410\n01:06:43.880 --> 01:06:48.880\nAnd that's something that he took a lot of delight in doing.\n\n1411\n01:06:48.880 --> 01:06:51.240\nUFB, UFB.\n\n1412\n01:06:51.240 --> 01:06:52.080\n- Pretty UFB.\n\n1413\n01:06:52.080 --> 01:06:55.080\nI love how he also doesn't seem like the type of person\n\n1414\n01:06:55.080 --> 01:06:58.440\nto take those risks in isolation.\n\n1415\n01:06:58.440 --> 01:07:01.520\nHe galvanizes his team and really understands\n\n1416\n01:07:01.520 --> 01:07:05.320\nhow to take people with him and get them fired up\n\n1417\n01:07:05.320 --> 01:07:09.080\nto conquer what might be seen as a risky move.\n\n1418\n01:07:09.080 --> 01:07:11.080\n- Yeah, well, I think what's really interesting about him,\n\n1419\n01:07:11.080 --> 01:07:15.120\nhis approach is almost like his people are taking him with them.\n\n1420\n01:07:15.120 --> 01:07:16.880\n- And he says that in the episode too.\n\n1421\n01:07:16.880 --> 01:07:18.400\nThey took me with them.\n\n1422\n01:07:18.400 --> 01:07:19.960\n- Yeah, and I love that.\n\n1423\n01:07:19.960 --> 01:07:23.040\nAnd it's like we just did the conversation\n\n1424\n01:07:23.040 --> 01:07:24.720\nwith the bumble CEO.\n\n1425\n01:07:24.720 --> 01:07:27.680\nAnd she basically said the same thing.\n\n1426\n01:07:27.680 --> 01:07:31.520\nHow do you take people with you on, you know, AI\n\n1427\n01:07:31.520 --> 01:07:32.400\nand different things?\n\n1428\n01:07:32.400 --> 01:07:35.360\nAnd she goes, oh, they're taking me with them.\n\n1429\n01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:36.680\nThey're ahead of me.\n\n1430\n01:07:36.680 --> 01:07:39.560\nBut I think it's giving people respect.\n\n1431\n01:07:39.560 --> 01:07:42.800\nGiving people respect and acknowledgement\n\n1432\n01:07:42.800 --> 01:07:46.920\nthat hey, you value what they have to say\n\n1433\n01:07:46.920 --> 01:07:48.680\nand that they really count.\n\n1434\n01:07:48.680 --> 01:07:51.520\nAnd, you know, you truly listen to them\n\n1435\n01:07:51.520 --> 01:07:55.240\nand recognizing them for showing you things\n\n1436\n01:07:55.240 --> 01:07:58.160\nthat maybe you wouldn't be able to figure out on your own.\n\n1437\n01:07:58.160 --> 01:07:59.600\nThat's really powerful.\n\n1438\n01:07:59.600 --> 01:08:02.480\nI always loved, you know, recognizing people\n\n1439\n01:08:02.480 --> 01:08:04.800\nwho saved me from myself.\n\n1440\n01:08:04.800 --> 01:08:08.000\nYou know, who gave me ideas that I would have never had\n\n1441\n01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:09.600\nor showed me something that, you know,\n\n1442\n01:08:09.600 --> 01:08:11.240\nthere's no way I would have possibly done it\n\n1443\n01:08:11.240 --> 01:08:12.760\nbut it hadn't been for them.\n\n1444\n01:08:12.760 --> 01:08:15.200\nAnd I would scream it from the rooftop.\n\n1445\n01:08:15.200 --> 01:08:17.760\nI would tell everybody that I was going down this path\n\n1446\n01:08:17.760 --> 01:08:20.680\nuntil Coola, you know, told me to do this\n\n1447\n01:08:20.680 --> 01:08:23.040\nor Tim told me to do that, you know.\n\n1448\n01:08:23.040 --> 01:08:25.280\nAnd, you know, that says, hey, look,\n\n1449\n01:08:25.280 --> 01:08:27.920\nyou want people's opinions, you value it.\n\n1450\n01:08:27.920 --> 01:08:30.040\nAnd, you know, you're going to change\n\n1451\n01:08:30.040 --> 01:08:31.560\nif they got a better idea.\n\n1452\n01:08:31.560 --> 01:08:35.360\nAnd just as importantly, if they have a great idea,\n\n1453\n01:08:35.360 --> 01:08:37.680\nyou'll recognize it and you'll hop all over it.\n\n1454\n01:08:37.680 --> 01:08:39.720\n- David, last point that I want to debrief with you.\n\n1455\n01:08:39.720 --> 01:08:41.960\nAnd I think this is so important.\n\n1456\n01:08:41.960 --> 01:08:43.680\nIn the episode, you asked Richard, you know,\n\n1457\n01:08:43.680 --> 01:08:45.840\nwhat makes his culture so special?\n\n1458\n01:08:45.840 --> 01:08:49.160\nBecause he, as we have mentioned in this debrief,\n\n1459\n01:08:49.160 --> 01:08:51.720\nis so super committed to his people\n\n1460\n01:08:51.720 --> 01:08:55.200\nand just has an excellent, amazing UFB culture\n\n1461\n01:08:55.200 --> 01:08:56.160\nat Royal Caribbean.\n\n1462\n01:08:56.160 --> 01:08:58.800\nBut he says, David, our culture is so amazing\n\n1463\n01:08:58.800 --> 01:09:00.920\nbecause what we do is we talk\n\n1464\n01:09:00.920 --> 01:09:03.960\nand we have real arguments that are healthy\n\n1465\n01:09:03.960 --> 01:09:07.440\nwhen things aren't odds and when people are at odds.\n\n1466\n01:09:07.440 --> 01:09:10.440\nAnd I just love that he calls that out\n\n1467\n01:09:10.440 --> 01:09:12.200\nbecause a lot of companies, you know,\n\n1468\n01:09:12.200 --> 01:09:15.080\nsay that they encourage healthy conflicts,\n\n1469\n01:09:15.080 --> 01:09:18.120\nbut a lot of times it's usually only the person in charge\n\n1470\n01:09:18.120 --> 01:09:20.160\nwho is going after other people.\n\n1471\n01:09:20.160 --> 01:09:22.600\nA lot of folks might not feel safe to engage\n\n1472\n01:09:22.600 --> 01:09:24.080\nin healthy conflict at work.\n\n1473\n01:09:24.080 --> 01:09:27.200\nSo from your experience, I'm just curious\n\n1474\n01:09:27.200 --> 01:09:28.480\nwhat you would say to leaders\n\n1475\n01:09:28.480 --> 01:09:30.600\nwho might be having a hard time\n\n1476\n01:09:30.600 --> 01:09:33.240\nencouraging healthy debate and healthy conflict\n\n1477\n01:09:33.240 --> 01:09:34.440\nin their business.\n\n1478\n01:09:34.440 --> 01:09:37.080\n- Well, I think you tell everybody\n\n1479\n01:09:37.080 --> 01:09:39.240\nthat you think that debate is important,\n\n1480\n01:09:39.240 --> 01:09:41.760\nthat debate is all about collaboration.\n\n1481\n01:09:41.760 --> 01:09:43.840\nCollaboration's one of the most important behaviors\n\n1482\n01:09:43.840 --> 01:09:45.200\nyou can build in any company day.\n\n1483\n01:09:45.200 --> 01:09:48.160\nThere's no computer that's ever gonna take the power\n\n1484\n01:09:48.160 --> 01:09:50.560\nof people collaborating together.\n\n1485\n01:09:50.560 --> 01:09:53.360\nAnd so when you collaborate, well, you always have\n\n1486\n01:09:53.360 --> 01:09:56.040\nhealthy debate and you get to a healthier decision.\n\n1487\n01:09:56.040 --> 01:09:58.200\nWe used to coin that phrase at Yum.\n\n1488\n01:09:58.200 --> 01:10:00.160\nIt's healthy debate, healthy decision.\n\n1489\n01:10:00.160 --> 01:10:05.160\nAnd, you know, I think that it's also fundamental\n\n1490\n01:10:05.160 --> 01:10:09.480\nto what I think is a law of leadership,\n\n1491\n01:10:09.480 --> 01:10:12.480\nwhich is no involvement, no commitment.\n\n1492\n01:10:12.480 --> 01:10:15.880\nYou wanna have people feel free that they can speak out\n\n1493\n01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:18.560\nand give you their perspective\n\n1494\n01:10:18.560 --> 01:10:21.400\nand share their ideas.\n\n1495\n01:10:21.400 --> 01:10:24.360\nAnd when you're able to do that,\n\n1496\n01:10:24.360 --> 01:10:29.160\nthen you can have commitment to whatever the decision is.\n\n1497\n01:10:29.160 --> 01:10:34.160\nBut if you're in the total dark about the decision\n\n1498\n01:10:34.160 --> 01:10:40.800\nand why it's being made\n\n1499\n01:10:40.800 --> 01:10:44.680\nand you find out about it later when it's an area\n\n1500\n01:10:44.680 --> 01:10:48.440\nthat maybe you have the potential to impact in,\n\n1501\n01:10:48.440 --> 01:10:51.960\nman, that's really, really sappy, really, really frustrating.\n\n1502\n01:10:51.960 --> 01:10:55.400\nSo I think healthy debate, healthy decision\n\n1503\n01:10:55.400 --> 01:10:57.920\ngets everybody involved and that always drives\n\n1504\n01:10:57.920 --> 01:10:58.960\nmuch more commitment.\n\n1505\n01:10:58.960 --> 01:11:00.360\n- And it always starts with the leader.\n\n1506\n01:11:00.360 --> 01:11:01.480\nI mean, they cast the shadow\n\n1507\n01:11:01.480 --> 01:11:03.840\nand if the leader starts engaging in this healthy debate\n\n1508\n01:11:03.840 --> 01:11:05.080\nand admits to being wrong,\n\n1509\n01:11:05.080 --> 01:11:08.440\nthen other people will feel more comfortable doing the same.\n\n1510\n01:11:08.440 --> 01:11:12.560\n- I think the leader obviously is key to that.\n\n1511\n01:11:12.560 --> 01:11:14.520\nBut I also think when you're coming up,\n\n1512\n01:11:14.520 --> 01:11:16.440\nthe way how you really distinguish in yourself\n\n1513\n01:11:16.440 --> 01:11:18.760\nis when you have the courage to speak up.\n\n1514\n01:11:18.760 --> 01:11:22.440\nAnd you have the courage to speak up and step out\n\n1515\n01:11:22.440 --> 01:11:26.760\nand say, this is what I think we need to do.\n\n1516\n01:11:26.760 --> 01:11:30.320\nAnd that's how you can set a mark for yourself.\n\n1517\n01:11:30.320 --> 01:11:32.440\nI know this doesn't sound too good,\n\n1518\n01:11:32.440 --> 01:11:36.720\nbut I used to like love to be sitting in meetings\n\n1519\n01:11:36.720 --> 01:11:40.760\nand my boss would say something that I disagreed with.\n\n1520\n01:11:40.760 --> 01:11:42.840\nI just couldn't wait for those moments.\n\n1521\n01:11:42.840 --> 01:11:44.800\nSo I can tell him that,\n\n1522\n01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:46.880\nhey, this is how he should be faking.\n\n1523\n01:11:46.880 --> 01:11:50.200\nBut that was just,\n\n1524\n01:11:50.200 --> 01:11:52.560\nI enjoyed those moments.\n\n1525\n01:11:52.560 --> 01:11:55.960\nBut I think that demonstrated that I had the courage\n\n1526\n01:11:55.960 --> 01:11:57.760\nof conviction, the courage to speak up.\n\n1527\n01:11:57.760 --> 01:11:59.520\nAnd then I had a point of view.\n\n1528\n01:11:59.520 --> 01:12:02.040\nAnd I think as you're an up-and-coming leader,\n\n1529\n01:12:02.040 --> 01:12:05.280\nI think you wanna express your point of view.\n\n1530\n01:12:05.280 --> 01:12:07.640\nYou're not gonna get anywhere by being a brown spot\n\n1531\n01:12:07.640 --> 01:12:08.480\non a brown wall.\n\n1532\n01:12:08.480 --> 01:12:10.360\nI mean, you gotta step up and step out.\n\n1533\n01:12:10.360 --> 01:12:11.240\n- Never heard you say that,\n\n1534\n01:12:11.240 --> 01:12:13.160\na brown spot on a brown wall.\n\n1535\n01:12:13.160 --> 01:12:15.840\n- Well, it's not, it's great.\n\n1536\n01:12:15.840 --> 01:12:16.680\nI love it.\n\n1537\n01:12:16.680 --> 01:12:18.380\nPretty UFB, if you ask me.\n\n1538\n01:12:18.380 --> 01:12:21.520\nOkay, last question here, David.\n\n1539\n01:12:21.520 --> 01:12:23.880\nWhat Royal Caribbean cruise would you go on\n\n1540\n01:12:23.880 --> 01:12:25.560\nif you had to go on one tomorrow?\n\n1541\n01:12:25.560 --> 01:12:27.160\n- There's nothing like the Amalfi Coast.\n\n1542\n01:12:27.160 --> 01:12:28.000\nThat's pretty good.\n\n1543\n01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:28.840\nI'm sure they do that.\n\n1544\n01:12:28.840 --> 01:12:30.240\nThat would be good. - Great answer.\n\n1545\n01:12:30.240 --> 01:12:31.840\n- Great answer. - Hello.\n\n1546\n01:12:31.840 --> 01:12:34.520\n- Well, David, another excellent edition\n\n1547\n01:12:34.520 --> 01:12:35.520\nof How Leaders Lead.\n\n1548\n01:12:35.520 --> 01:12:37.360\nStay tuned for our next episode,\n\n1549\n01:12:37.360 --> 01:12:38.880\nand we'll see you next week.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL2687412598.mp3","dx_media_id",2585,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2025-11-20","itunes_episode_id",266,"youtube_id","tXg5CGhojwk","2025-11-20T16:18:43.000000Z","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/ZW6eeAM3IJ3ylIRkZTkaZzNHWMxdxweD8Bk5kJUA.mp3","dx_filename","ZW6eeAM3IJ3ylIRkZTkaZzNHWMxdxweD8Bk5kJUA.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","Sl2nJvg02mOY8Rd4ziw1GEbdq9Ml64kzHd9R1DCpPOyI","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/2585.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",4360585,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/tXg5CGhojwk/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_95":79,"_96":77,"_97":-5,"_31":81,"_33":98,"_99":-5,"_100":83,"_86":87,"_101":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","ufthqLLrjBxxYsXfUsiVz3jbKTOVGz8kOjmVohppBZQ","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Richard","last_name","Fain","job_title","Royal 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