David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Lauren Hobart, President and CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, I bet you good money. If you look at any job description for a leadership role, the one thing that's always going to be listed there as excellent communication skills. And it's funny, we talk about communication skills and leadership so often that it's easy to forget what it actually means to communicate well, today's conversation with Lauren is just the best reminder of what great communicators do. It's not just about being well spoken, although Lauren certainly is, it's more than that. Lauren sees communication as a way to connect with people, it's a huge reason she has been tapped to take the reigns of Dick's Sporting Goods, making her one of only 41 Women's CEOs leading a fortune 500 company. This conversation is a masterclass in great communication, how you can relate better to your direct reports, how you can address conflict, how you can get your vision across, and so much more. I can't wait for you to learn how to communicate by making a connection. So here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Lauren Hobart.

Lauren, you've just been announced as the upcoming CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, you're gonna take over the role officially? February one, you've been present, but now I know everybody's looking at you. They're saying you're the you're the CEO. Does it feel any different? You know, thinking about becoming that CEO versus the President that you've been?

Lauren Hobart 1:56 

Um, yeah, it does in terms of it feels like a weightier responsibility. It feels like I have to deliver, which I always have felt that way. But now, even on a more public stage, and I think when you're the CEO, you know, the buck, the buck stops here. And so I feel I feel things I've always felt responsibility, but I feel even more responsibility going forward. But I am excited for the challenge.

David Novak 2:23 

You know, and as a leader, you know, how do you expect to transition into this new role? And what are the new things that you hope to accomplish?

Lauren Hobart 2:32 

Yeah, I have been working for the last several years on some of the things that are very important to me around our culture around our service organization, around are brick and mortar stores and driving experiences there. And I do in partnership with Ed. So Ed, our CEO is going to transition, he's our founder and CEO is going to transition into the executive chair role, and be chief merchant. And so a lot of the vision that we will be working on has been set for the last couple of years, the strategy will continue. And we're just going to keep driving it in a post pandemic world.

David Novak 3:07 

You know, most successful companies have continuity and people and process. So obviously, with you and Edie being a team in the past, you know, do you view that as, as a big plus, as you move ahead?

Lauren Hobart 3:21 

For sure I have I mean, not just do I get the counsel of the person who knows the business better than anybody ever would encode our business. But I get you know, somebody who's so very interested in the company's success. So, you know, he, he wants me to succeed more than I want me to succeed. And we're very aligned in that in that goal. So I think it's really it's a very seamless, it's a very seamless transition. You know, I was asked on a on an earnings call recently, kind of what was going to be so different and, and I feel like the you know, the good news is, we've been working on this together for some years, we're going to switch roles a little bit, but, but the vision has been set, and it's not going to feel like a radical change to the team, or the world.

David Novak 4:06 

How do you take on somebody like that when you disagree with them, which inevitably happens when you have so much respect for?

Lauren Hobart 4:15 

Well, I definitely read and I definitely don't agree on everything. And we joke about that, because we know we don't. But so we do have spirited conversations and debates. And sometimes we don't leave a conversation agreeing we always end up leaving, you know, on friendly terms, but we'll come back and say sleep on it, or we'll get back together in a day or two. And we'll think about it again, when when a topic is very something I feel very strongly about whatever it is an initiative or something that I want to move forward with. If I haven't successfully convinced him, I will come back at it after a day or two. And you know, and he's open to that and that's just how we that's how we move forward.

David Novak 4:54 

COVID really just kind of just shook up everybody, every leader really had to look at themselves. and say, Okay, I've got to do some things different. How did it impact your own personal leadership? Or what did you do differently to deal in this environment?

Lauren Hobart 5:09 

Yeah, COVID was an unbelievable challenge, as everybody knows, personal challenge, company challenge leadership challenge. I think for me, it was, it was the responsibility and being in the president role at the time, the responsibility of having 40 to 45,000 Different teammates who are depending on us for their livelihoods. And we talk about helping people achieve their dreams. That's one of the mantras that we have in the stores, we want to make people achieve their dreams, well, when you have 40,000 employees and a store that base that's closing, and we can barely get product out of there, it was very, very challenging. And so the one thing I'm most proud of about our company's leadership, and working hand in hand with the entire executive team is that we lead every step of the way with values with safety, we took care of our teammates from from start to finish in terms of providing health insurance in terms of making executive salaries, but first to go down, we did have to furlough people, but the people who remained worked tirelessly to get everybody back. And so it was an incredible, incredible challenge. People are going through still, obviously, lots of challenges. But in a weird way, the team has come together incredibly, incredibly strongly. And so in a way that I think is going to help us into the future.

David Novak 6:30 

Did you have to change anything you specifically do to adapt in your own leadership style?

Lauren Hobart 6:36 

Yeah, actually, it's interesting, I would, I think, inadvertently, and because of technology, we actually were able to communicate even more. So I might, my communication style, my leadership style does include a lot of open communication, a lot of honest dialogue, a lot of transparency. But during during the first stages of the pandemic, when there was so much unknown and so much concern, we really lit that up. And so we were having all company town halls, frequently, in addition to daily stand up meetings everyday with the leadership team. So I think it took communication, which has always been something that I'm passionate about, but it dialed it up to a level that, frankly, I think has long term benefits, because we will be communicating in this way with all of our teammates, you know, for years to come. You know,

David Novak 7:27 

I've seen you on your feet. I've seen you deal with people in these town halls, and you're really good at it, you know, how did you develop that skill?

Lauren Hobart 7:35 

Oh, boy, I don't know, I think that actually, well, I'm gonna give credit back to my Pepsi days. Because and then, you know, from your Pepsi past, Pepsi does, how there's a lot of excitement around sharing ideas and, and making sure you can sell things in. And so that's been something that has just been a part of my career development from from way back when and I'm grateful to Pepsi for for giving those those opportunities way back, when in my career,

David Novak 8:04 

you're also entering the CEO role at a time when racial justice and diversity and inclusion, you know, that the importance of this as never been, you know, higher. You know, how do you see your role as CEO in terms of really making sure that the Dix is doing the right thing.

Lauren Hobart 8:23 

In our company, we've done a lot of soul searching, and realize that we had opportunities and that we needed to really lean into the conversation around inclusion and diversity. And so we created almost immediately right when George Floyd was murdered, we ended up having what we call dialogue circles, because we had tremendous upset across the country with different teammates, and we had teams going through different issues in their neighborhoods. And we ended up just across the country having these what we call dialogue circles, which have now become a big part of our culture. And we are meeting and just sharing thoughts, how are you feeling? There's no wrong answers. On top of that, we put together the 19 different we call impact teams, and we've sourced 1000s of people from our company who want to help with the initiatives, and are really activating across everything you can think of to make us a really a better place to work and a better contributor to the to the community. We have a no to zero, we we always had a zero tolerance policy, but it wasn't something that we had championed. We now have a zero tolerance policy against any form of racism whatsoever. And that's for our internal employees as well as our customers who come into our stores. We're not going to tolerate it. So lots of change in a very small amount of time. And I'll just I'll just say that the dialogue circles in particular have brought the company together through the pandemic, with people being virtual still being able to have these sessions even virtually with tears and with a lot of great info machine, it's actually brought us all much closer.

David Novak 10:03 

You know, that's, that's fantastic. And I've mentioned to a couple people today I was going to do a podcast with the CEO of Dick's. And they said, Well, who is that? And I said, Well, it's Lauren Hobart, she just got the job. And, you know, people are really impressed that that you're a woman moving into this field. I mean, are people surprised by that, Lauren, that that, that a woman would be running a sporting goods company?

Lauren Hobart 10:29 

It definitely seems that people are a little surprised. But you know, there's, I think we just hit an all time high of 41 women in the Fortune 500, who will be CEOs. So that's, that's a great mark to make. But yeah, I mean, getting to the C suite as a woman, obviously, is not a well worn path. And in a sporting goods industry, perhaps that part surprises people more than I realized it would have. I know, it's, but it just has never been something that has been a challenge in from my perspective. I mean, I grew up at companies with women leaders, I had that kind of a role model. And at Dick's I've, I It's never been an issue that I'm, I'm a woman, I'm just doing my job and trying to do a good job. So so it didn't it didn't. This morning, good surprise some people but it doesn't it's maybe not as unusual as it seems.

David Novak 11:23 

It doesn't surprise you one iota basically. Do you feel like it puts more pressure on you being a female, CEO and moving into one of those 41 CEOs in the Fortune 500.

Lauren Hobart 11:35 

I don't know if pressure is the right word, I actually think responsibility is the right word. I don't feel any more pressure, I'm sure all new CEOs feel pressure to succeed and deliver, I really want to deliver for the company, I want to deliver for all of our teammates. But I do feel a responsibility to young girls and to and to women everywhere to just to open doors and to show the path and to talk and to show people that you can, you know, have have in the case of female leaders, you can have kids, and no, you can't have it all. But you can you can really do a lot of different things. And so I do feel a responsibility to champion young girls and women.

David Novak 12:14 

Well, I have a daughter, and she has two young daughters. And you know, they're pretty impressed that you're running that company. And so, you know, you're gonna be a great role model for them. I'm sure. You know, Lauren, you you got your MBA from Stanford, as I understand it, and and that's a that's a real hotbed for entrepreneurs. You know, there's no question about that. Did you ever think about going that route?

Lauren Hobart 12:37 

You know, I didn't think of going entrepreneurial in the sense of high tech, the way he took his tech bubble, the tech bubble was booming at the time, and it still is booming. But I had come out of a background in finance, I had spent five years in banking, and I was excited to continue kind of leveraging those skills. So technology was never was never my calling. But I do think it's important that innovation, entrepreneurship, all of those different capabilities have have been something that has drawn me to the companies that I've worked for, including index, which really is the an entrepreneurial company that got big, very, very quick, $9 billion coming from two little stores, you know, not that long ago. How do you

David Novak 13:22 

take a big company like that and keep it small and entrepreneurial and nimble, I think

Lauren Hobart 13:26 

it has to be the leadership. And it has to be the culture, though, the one thing that's really important to the best of intentions can build a lot of bureaucracy. And I think clarity of decision making. And clarity of vision and purpose is just really important. So you have to set the vision, empower the team to so that they know what the goals are, we talk a lot about commander's intent and sharing those kinds of, you know, those kinds of principles so that people can make good decisions, but not becoming bureaucratic with decision making. We are very nimble from a decision making standpoint,

David Novak 14:02 

explain that principle to us the commander's intent?

Lauren Hobart 14:05 

Well, I think you can, you can lay out a bunch of different mandates or tasks that people have to do. Or you can say, I want you to do ABC, but the reason I'm telling you to do ABC is because the goal we're trying to achieve is this. And if you paint the vision, A, B and C may not work out exactly the way we planned and they never do. But if you know what the vision is, the smart people on the ground can adapt. And there's a million different examples of that, you know, throughout our throughout our company every single day where people have to make calls. And if they know where they're trying to go and what the intent is, then they can get there. So you

David Novak 14:41 

drive in an entrepreneurial spirit and taking that forward to Dick's material. You went the big company route. You know, you've mentioned you work in Pepsi and you also worked at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase as I understand it. When did you get that first ambition to say hey, I'm I'm going to be as CEO and I think I've got what it takes to make that happen.

Lauren Hobart 15:03 

Oh, four, eight? That's a tough question, because I'm not sure I should answer it the way I'm going to answer it. I'm not sure it's a very CEO like answer to give you what I'm about to give you, which is, you know, I never set out and said, I'm going to be the CEO of any company, even when I joined Dec. So I joined. It's been about 10 years now. But I joined as the Chief Marketing Officer and was very excited to continue down that path. So I actually think that the goes back to the entrepreneurial environment, and the fact that there were all these new opportunities that just kept coming my way to, you know, to run a p&l to run our E commerce business, when all of a sudden that started to seem possible. That something I had never been planning to do. So, you know, the last three, three or four years, as we've been working on this have been incredibly educational and diversify from from my skill set standpoint, but it's not it's not as if this was a well laid plan from the beginning. Well, you

David Novak 16:00 

certainly got a broad background, you know, you worked at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase and in banking and and then you decided to go to Pepsi Cola and get into the marketing world, you know, after your after your time at Stanford, you know, what made you decide to go from sort of a left Brill left brain field into into the right brain area?

Lauren Hobart 16:25 

Well, it's a funny thing, two things. First of all, it wasn't an immediate step. So after I left Stanford, I did join Pepsi. But I joined in our strategic planning group, which was part of the finance organization. And I spent four years in strategic planning. So really kind of leveraging the banking background I had had, but really getting immersed in in the products and into CPG. Generally, before deciding pretty, I mean, at that point pretty late in my career was over 30, at least, certainly well over that now. But, but that I wanted to try marketing. So I went into marketing, already as a director or senior director, and at Pepsi. Marketing is both a combination of right brain and left brain and I think all good marketing companies are I mean, it's highly analytic, but it did tap into the more creative side and trying to tell stories. So it was it was a for me, it was a perfect blend. Again, not something I planned in advance on the journey to get where I am today.

David Novak 17:23 

Do you think Kevin both the right brain and the left brain? Is that a big advantage to you? And what advice can you give to people on how to get that? Oh,

Lauren Hobart 17:33 

it's I do think it's probably an advantage to have both although I sure envy people who are so super creative that they can ideate better are so super analytic that they can look at a spreadsheet and and figure out there's one number that isn't quite adding up properly. You know, for me, the I appreciate left brain and right brain, I appreciate sort of looking at things analytically, and also seizing a big idea and going going for that. But that's not all may not work for everybody. It's I think you have to go with where you're, where your passions are, and where your strengths are. You can't force it if, if you're not creative, you're not going to make it up. I don't like you know,

David Novak 18:09 

speaking of passion Did, did you have a unique passion for sports? And if so, how much do you think that's really driving your success at Dick's?

Lauren Hobart 18:18 

Yeah, it's funny, I do get that question quite a bit. And I have a little bit of an unusual journey in that I was not a fantastic athlete. Growing up, I played some high school sports, but I certainly wasn't winning any awards. And I took to running in my late teens, and became somewhat obsessed with running and the fitness side of sports. So I have been an avid runner all that time, like literally, you know, four times a week, except for when I had babies or surgery like right around that time. And that's really been how I've experienced athleticism, sports, fitness, and, and the joy that all of that can can give you. My kids all plays, played sports in high school. And, you know, it was an active parent in that regard. And I have incredible passion for for what we do as a company and the vision that we have that we do want people we do think sports, make people better and provide opportunities for people and teach them how to win and how to lose and, and so it's super important. It feels very consistent with my values. And it does keep me excited every day to come to work.

David Novak 19:30 

You know, Lauren, you're renowned and and you mentioned technology a little bit earlier, and you're renowned for the great job you did leading Dick's digital and E commerce efforts. Tell us a story of how you did it.

Lauren Hobart 19:43 

Ah, well, first of all, wasn't just me. There's a whole army of people who have been building index technology and E commerce over many, many years. And it has been a long journey because we we were one of the first companies to actually have an E commerce business back in like 1999 Well before I got to Dick's. But it took us a while to realize that we needed to bring the capability in house and so that we could control our own destiny so that we could make the business more profitable so that we can innovate more quickly and not be beholden to other people. So we've been on this journey for I mean, I think it's six or seven years where we brought it in house. And then in the past three or four years, really starting to innovate and build the capability so that we can make things that the consumer sees because you're working on the back end, it's not so consumer facing, but in the last three or four years, we've been able to so it's it's just honestly, it's putting the focus putting the investment, not worrying that some short term investment, you know, might create some short term issues with profit, but it was important for the long term. And so we did muscle through that. And thankfully, you know, when the when the pandemic did hit, it was quite clear that we had made good investments and good decisions.

David Novak 20:55 

Absolutely. And, and I also know you were the you're the the architect, teaming up with Carrie Underwood is one of my favorites and, and starting the successful Kalia brand of women's workout clothes. Yeah, I kind of want to get I want to get inside of your head about how this came about. First, when did you get the idea that this was a line that was needed to needed at Dick's

Lauren Hobart 21:21 

so clear, was born about five and a half years ago. So we got the idea, probably six and a half years ago, maybe even a little more, where we realized that there was a whitespace. In our stores, there was a lot of product for athletes, for boy athletes, for girl athletes, a lot of products for men, and not so much for what we call the athletic female. So we have the female athlete, but we didn't have what we call the athletic female, which is you know, really, again, the fitness the fitness athlete, or the woman who wants to be ready for a workout at any moment. And so we thought we had a white space. And we went into our private brand group, our group, which we now call our vertical brand group, and we developed this product. But it was a funny journey, because we'd never worked with a celebrity like that before. I mean, it was very much not something we were familiar with doing. And thankfully, we got put in touch with with Carrie Underwood, who has been an incredible partner all these years. I mean, she's, she's helped us with both the product and the inspiration. She she became a mom, literally as we signed the deal. She was she was pregnant soon thereafter. And so all of her journey about how to how to you know, she, the latest thing we talked about is how do you choose you as as a working mom, how does she do all that and the product is meant to support that lifestyle. So we've been really, really pleased with Kalia. It is now our number two female athletic brand, which is pretty amazing. And we think it has tremendous upside.

David Novak 22:56 

That's interesting about Carrie Underwood, because I she isn't necessarily associated with sports or I didn't think so she

Lauren Hobart 23:03 

is a fitness enthusiast of unbelievable proportions. And I can only say that when when I was in marketing and it was on those shoots. I mean, you would see her working out you'd be very impressed. She is strong and she is disciplined. And yeah, she's absolutely terrific. She's super passionate. Her husband is a professional athlete. I mean, they're very athletic. How'd you

David Novak 23:25 

arrive at the Kalia brandy. That's a cool name.

Lauren Hobart 23:28 

Yeah, it is a cool name. And it wasn't a we I did we ideated around a ton of different names. We ended up with Kalia because of the the origins of beautiful design. We saw the head calla lilies in it. And we just thought that it would be a really nice takedown and a nod to that. And we thought we could infuse it with what's the meaning of the brand. So Kalia is what it became. And that's what it is. Yeah, to this day.

David Novak 23:55 

How big of a challenge was it to get the organization behind Kalia and how do you go about doing it?

Lauren Hobart 24:02 

I don't think Ed will and NRC. I won't I don't think mind me saying it because he admits very publicly that he and a lot of the organization what we're a little skeptical about the idea and particularly the idea of us partnering with a celebrity and getting into what was a little bit more of fashion forward brand and doing it in house all of that. But we have a team, a dedicated team of people working on the brand we had product that we knew was exceptional. We met that we met with Carrie and knew we had a real connection with her and her lifestyle. And and this is an example where Edie Edie just really did let the team go and there was a few of us advocating really hard to let us go and he said fine, do it. And he'll joke now that it was one of the one of the you know, times that maybe maybe he wasn't right. But he's very grateful for that.

David Novak 24:55 

Yeah, when you get that kind of pushback and you have an idea and you know got people at senior levels, you know, really pushing back at you, you know? How do you how do you overcome that, as a

Lauren Hobart 25:07 

leader? I think you have to a couple of things. First of all, you have to pick your battles, right? I mean, I think you don't want to fight every fight, you have to pick what's important to you. And then it's just about sharing the reasons why. So I don't think you win an argument by putting your your, you know, head in the sand and saying, I'm right, and I want to move on. And that's it, you have to convince and I've always felt that way. And as a team, we do have at our executive team level, a lot of dialogue, where we start off with different opinions and gently challenge each other. And eventually, you know, a lot of different opinions are raised. And then in the end, we we agree, so I think you just you pick your battles, and you, you come back at it if you don't win the first time.

David Novak 25:53 

I've also seen the Lord on television as the spokesperson for Dick's, you know, was this something that you were excited to? To do?

Lauren Hobart 26:03 

Oh, my gosh, no, not even a little bit. And I am going to say you're gonna have to go interview Edie, because he'll admit that he he forced me and I know, you did interview him before. But he, he we literally were, we were trying to ideate around a back to school campaign. And this is going back many years. And and he had the vision that you know what, you've got kids, they're going to school, you're a mom, you should be in the commercial? And I was No, no, no, no, no, that is not what I wanted to do. And I didn't want to do it. But I but I have to say it was it was funny, my kids still remember that there was a line in the commercial that says, As a mother of three, and they all felt very famous at that moment. Well, you did

David Novak 26:45 

a good job, you know, and, and you lead like, nearly 2000 retail stores, maybe more now? How do you go about getting ideas from from store managers,

Lauren Hobart 26:55 

ah, we get a ton of inspiration and ideas from store managers, and Ed and I, and the entire leadership team. I think we're out in the stores more than almost any company I know of it, we are out all of the time and we go out, we check you know, the environments, the how the how the store is doing generally. But most of all, our goal is to hear from the stores what they think the opportunities are, some of our absolute best ideas have have come out of the store. So it enables me to connect with with the team, it enables great ideas to come and work. It's just a hallmark of how we lead Adex What do you personally

David Novak 27:35 

do Lauren, to stay on top of customer needs? Do you have a process that you use personally to make sure you really have a good feel for what the customer is thinking?

Lauren Hobart 27:45 

That's a good question. We have a ton of different ways where we can get Insight and Analytics around how the athletes doing. Customer athlete is doing everything from you know, the call center where we do get calls. And we we pay strict attention to that we have emails, obviously that if anybody comes in to complain that we that we codify and see what kind of the themes are, we also do customer satisfaction surveys real time and we're just testing now, something called happier, not, which you probably have seen if you've been out and you know, I've seen them in public rest areas, but it's just really trying to get that real time feedback. Because I think our team if they can get that real time feedback, not having to wait for a delay and not having to wait a week for a survey to come in. Whether or not customers are delighted in the stores at that time. It really does drive that behavior. So all of those different metrics sort of weigh into how we look at you know, just this morning, even we looked at how our O sat our satisfaction scores were for the last month and we spend a lot of time diving into that.

David Novak 28:52 

You know, you're very articulate, you're you're very confident. Was there ever a time when you personally felt underestimated? And how did you handle it?

Lauren Hobart 29:02 

Oh, that's a good question underestimated. I don't know if I would say I've felt underestimated I'm gonna I would go back to there were there were a couple of times in my career where I made very large career leaps into a lateral position where I really didn't know anything. So I was starting with when I moved from strategic planning into marketing at Pepsi, I had no marketing background whatsoever. And then, and secondly, you know, when I moved into retail on had decks and had never had that side of the equation either but so I would say when I moved into marketing, it was a little frustrating because I really, I was at a level where I should know more than I knew about the subject matter at hand. I don't think I was underestimated. I think it just took me a while to get my sea legs and learn the skills and take training classes and I went did a bunch of courses and then also just a ton of on the job training so that so that I felt like I slowed down a little bit but to go faster in the long run,

David Novak 30:09 

you've also you know, you've had so much success, but can you tell us about what you would consider maybe your epic fail? Or? Or have you had one? Oh, I've had?

Lauren Hobart 30:19 

Yeah. I think the biggest most noteworthy failure, the one that people might remember is product that we launched it at Pepsi called Pepsi blue, which went into the archives along with, you know, the crystal Pepsi's of the world as a very large not so good experiment. But, you know, that was right. When I moved into marketing, it was maybe a year or two as my first innovation job, entrepreneurial. And, and, and, you know, we really got all the signals wrong, we thought we had a product that consumers would like. And that turned out not to be true, we thought we'd have repeat purchases, that turned out to be true and trial wasn't even there. And so that that was an epic fail, and that we, you know, we just had such high expectations. And we have a lot of data and analytics, saying that we were going to achieve those expectations. So it was a real lesson, in maybe going slow to go fast in the long run and testing and learning rather than just modeling.

David Novak 31:21 

Well, I'm glad to know that you develop Pepsi blue, because I was the inventor of Crystal Pepsi. So those both of those goes into the archives of Pepsi failure story for the long run. Yeah. All right. I want to ask you a couple of hypotheticals, because this is all about how leaders lead. Let's say you have a person who's getting great results, but they're deep demotivating, the their team members, how would you handle it,

Lauren Hobart 31:47 

that's a real example. That happens decent amount of time, and I would say the first opportunity is, is strong coaching and, and specific coaching with examples about how they are having that impact on people that could be done through 360 feedback that could be done through observation. But it's really important that the person has awareness. If the person can't get on board, and and it's somewhat of a toxic force, I don't care how good of a result performer they are. There they to me, they can't stay, I think the team has to be rowing in the same direction supporting each other. And there's just no tolerance for people who, who are bringing other people down.

David Novak 32:29 

Alright, here's another one, let's, let's say you really want to make a huge change in the organization. How would you go about doing that? What would be your process,

Lauren Hobart 32:39 

I think you have to start with setting a long term vision, I mean, by a huge change, I'm assuming you mean something that's going to take a year or two to you know, could be a cultural change, or it could be a change in how we deliver goods. I think you have to set the vision, set the rationale, and bring people with you bring key stakeholders with you, including the board of directors, and the money has to come as well. But I would argue set the vision test and learn into it. Don't get over your skis in terms of building the Taj Mahal, when you have to know first how to build and I think that that will ultimately in the end be successful, you have to set the vision long term.

David Novak 33:21 

You mentioned coaching a little bit earlier. What's a one on one coaching session? Like with you?

Lauren Hobart 33:25 

Um, I am? Yeah, I think that people would say that my touch base is my coaching sessions are highly informal. I am, I joke around a lot in a way. But I am able to deliver good feedback and real feedback. So if I'm having a performance review, it's not all laughs I mean, we're talking about the business and we're talking about strengths and where the person has done always starting with where people do well, and then talking about opportunities. But I don't I don't have a lot of formality and, you know, seriousness, but it's always it's always person to person.

David Novak 34:06 

You mentioned touch bases. Is that a phrase that you use it or is that company jargon

Lauren Hobart 34:11 

that's company jargon. I probably I probably this blind think it's a word in the English dictionary. Maybe it isn't. But it's yeah, it's a one on one. It's a touch base. We call them touch bases to me, in all seriousness, that the the weekly touch bases that I schedule with each individual direct report of mine are the one thing on my calendar that I will protect no matter what. So you know, if I can't do anything in a week, other than have one touch base meeting with everybody because I'm traveling or I'm unavailable or meetings, that is what I protect, because that's where I really connect with people and also hear what hear what's going on and get the real deal.

David Novak 34:46 

I like that phrase touch bases. That's a it's a great, great way to think about coaching. How do you give yourself coaching? How do you self coach yourself?

Lauren Hobart 34:54 

Oh, I think I am probably my harshest critic, or at least I am a harsh critic of myself. So I do. I don't know if I would say I give myself formal coaching. But I do rethink things to how could I have done better in that situation? How did I have an unintended outcome of a behavior am i or an action I took it didn't go the way I wanted. I've had some best of intentions that have, you know, even with people, but people things I'm thinking one in particular, where I really thought that was the best of intentions to bring two people together who were not collaborating well, and it ended up backfiring. And I think you have to sit back and learn why did it what what did I do? What could I have done better here? What did where did it go wrong? I do have an executive coach, who I use for things like that, who is super helpful to me and does keep me grounded in terms of, you know, what are the important things? And what do I want my impact to be?

David Novak 35:46 

You know, Lauren, is terrific. And I saw where you recently joined the yum brands board, which is my old company, tell us the thought process you used in making that decision?

Lauren Hobart 35:58 

Yes, I'm thrilled to have just joined the young board I was on? Well, I'm on the Dix board. But I was also on an external board, Sonic burger company for five years, until we sold the company about a year and a half ago. And so I was looking for another board opportunity. But I only wanted it to be with a team that I thought was really excellent with a company that might have interesting capabilities, and also bring things that for me would be very interesting. Like I haven't had a ton of global experience. So it was really exciting for me that that young has such a global presence. But it also felt like areas where I could add value, just given my you know, the beverage experience franchise experience, traffic driving experience that we have in retail has very similar to what you have in QSR. So a lot of it feels so just feels comfortable in a really good way that I feel like I can add value while also learning the team also. And maybe it is because yum is a spin off of Pepsi. I mean, it just feels culturally like exactly what I'm looking for in a company and aboard. So that was another major deciding factor.

David Novak 37:09 

Lauren, this has been so much fun. I want to have some more with a lightning round of q&a. Okay, let's start with this one. You know, what are the three words that best describe you?

Lauren Hobart 37:18 

Yeah, um, I would say, one of them. One would be insightful and that meaning in terms of just kind of having good instincts have how to read a room. And situations, I think I'm also empathetic, you know, caring. And then while many of my team and my family might disagree with me, I do. I do think I'm pretty funny. At least I crack myself up so insightful, empathetic, and funny.

David Novak 37:49 

What do you see in business that makes you the happiest? I think business

Lauren Hobart 37:53 

has such a unique opportunity to make the world a better place. And I've seen it this past year, both with how we handled the pandemic and and how we're handling the the issues of civil unrest and racial injustice. But I go back to what we did a dix a few years ago, when we took a big stand with firearms and ended up taking the assault style rifles out of the stores and limiting the age of anyone to buy a firearm to over 21 and high capacity magazines. And I think that's an example where business can actually make a real difference in the world where we had an expertise in an area, we believed that there were certain loopholes, the government wasn't getting there. And we felt it was our responsibility to act. So I get pretty excited about the impact that business can have.

David Novak 38:39 

That's great. What's your biggest pet peeve?

Lauren Hobart 38:42 

Chewing gum?

David Novak 38:43 

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself? Who would it be? And why?

Lauren Hobart 38:48 

Um, I think one of my favorite people in the world is maybe who I would say in that example would be Tina Fey. And I love her because she's so real. And she's she's also very funny. I would give her more funny than me but but but I also I love if I could go back in time, if I could time travel also that, you know, the work that she did on on SNL and as writers and how they had to work under such incredibly rushed circumstances, you only have like three days to put on an entire show. It had to be culturally relevant in real time. So I would be pretty psyched to go back and be in her body and see what some of those were like those days.

David Novak 39:26 

That'd be cool. What's something about you that few people would know?

Lauren Hobart 39:30 

Well, you may know by the end of this if I go back and listen, but I do have I mixed metaphors quite a bit. I probably did it here. If you go back, you'll hear but I actually I find it it's either brilliant or it's stupidity. I don't know. But I can perfectly put two, two metaphors together. I will give you some of them on me next to each other.

David Novak 39:51 

Okay, great. And what do you think is the most interesting factoid about dicks?

Lauren Hobart 39:58 

I think that it starts did as a little bait and tackle store back in 1948. And that it's grown. It's an American Dream story. I mean, it's grown as a founder led company, it truly just continues to, to metamorphosis and change and adapt to times and, and I'm just super proud of the part of American culture and the family culture that, that it brings

David Novak 40:23 

it who would be your favorite leader and why

Lauren Hobart 40:25 

I have a lot of people I look up to, across my career and even in my personal life. But I have to say that I'll give that one to ed ed stack, our CEO, former former CEO, former co founder, executive chair, he is an unbelievable leader in terms of many different things. But in this case, why he'd be my favorite is leading with values. And I think it's rare to see a CEO stand up so much for what he or she believes in. And in this case, you look somebody like Edie who put $250 million of sales at risk when we made some of those announcements about firearms. And I have to say, it never, he never blinked. I mean, we were doing what was right for the company and for the country, and it was the right thing to do. So I have incredible respect for that.

David Novak 41:15 

You know, Lauren, you're in a really competitive industry, retails? 24/7. I mean, it's just dog eat dog, you know, it's, it's, you know, you worry about the sales every day, you know, I know, I've been there, I've done that. It's it's not it's not easy. And you've got a family and, you know, how do you balance it all? And what advice can you give to people?

Lauren Hobart 41:34 

I? Well, I think the probably the biggest piece of advice and how I would balance it all has been with friends and family. And in particular, my family I have, I do think that the partner you pick in life is super important. And I've been very, very lucky to have a husband who's as supportive as he is, and who could help me raise raise the three kids, I had parents, when I when my kids were young, I had parents who live nearby, and were willing to help out if I couldn't be somewhere for work. My kids were thrilled to have my mom calm. And she would do that. And it just gave me incredible, an incredible support system. And even even friends. I mean, we had, we had four other families that we raised our kids with who I used to joke, I could sort of drop my kids off, if I got transferred to Asia, I could just drop the kids off, and they'd be fine in any one of those houses. And that just gives it's you know, it takes a village and it did take a village. So,

David Novak 42:24 

you know, Lauren, you worked at JPMorgan Chase wells, Wells Fargo, you get your Stanford MBA, go to Pepsi ended up being president Dix, you know, and the thing that really impresses me the most is you have all these credentials. And yet, you're really down to earth, a real person, you know, how do you how do you stay humble?

Lauren Hobart 42:45 

Oh, my gosh, I stay humble. Because I'm certainly have reasons to be critical of myself. I appreciate you listing out all those accomplishments. But but it's it actually, you know, joy every day is connecting with people and trying to have a positive impact in the world. I don't look at it the way you just laid it out. I look at it, as I'm really grateful for the opportunities I've had, and I hope to make a difference going forward.

David Novak 43:11 

Well, I know you will. And I want to thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. You know, we're trying to make a difference make the world a better place by developing better leaders. And you know, having the opportunity to learn from you, I think is is a great, great gift you're giving others. So thank you very much, Lauren, I really appreciate it. Thank you,

Lauren Hobart 43:30 

David, I appreciate it.

David Novak 43:40 

Well, there's no doubt in my mind that Dick's Sporting Goods is in really good shape. With Lauren at the helm. She shared so many practical tools for how she connects and communicates with her team. I love the weekly touch bases, where she sits down with her direct reports. And I really love that they really are the only non negotiable thing on her calendar. That's just fantastic. I also love the phrase she uses called Commander's Intent to describe how important it is for leaders to communicate the vision of where they're going, and not just give people the ABC list of things to do. Because you know what, people really want to know why they need to do A, B and C. So this week as part of your weekly personal development plan. I want you to think about that Commander's Intent. Anytime you give direction to your team this week, make sure you're telling them the why behind those tasks. Communication isn't just a transfer of information from one person to another. It's the connection. When you share the vision behind your objectives. You're bringing your people along with you and connecting them to the big idea. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is that great leaders see communication as a connection. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders LEED where every Thursday you get to listen in. While I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be