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. You know, we all have those days where we have from meeting to meeting, only to look back at the end of the day and think, Gosh, what did I really accomplish? If that sounds familiar, then you're going to get a lot out of this conversation with Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic. He's also an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. And like me, he is passionate about developing great leaders. But he sees so many leaders spending more and more time in meetings and less and less time with customers and frontline employees. That kind of disconnect can be really dangerous, and is something that bill talks about often in this conversation. So I got a question for you. How can you eliminate the layers that tend to build up between you and the people who work on the frontlines of your organization? In today's conversation, you're going to learn how to do it and why it matters so much. Plus, there's some great wisdom about leading with authenticity, finding your purpose, and so much more. After all, Bill is the author of true north. So let's get to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Bill, George.

Bill, I gotta tell you, I'm really honored to have you on the show and really appreciate it.

Bill George 1:42 

Well, I'm honored to be on with you. And I think we're a fellow pilgrims on the same path that trying to see better leaders and all our organizations.

David Novak 1:50 

Absolutely. And, you know, I want to talk about your time as CEO of Medtronic. And in the past two decades, you spent teaching leadership at Harvard Business School. But first, I want to take you back. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader that you are today?

Bill George 2:06 

Well, it depends how far back you want to go. My father pulled me aside when I was nine years old. And he said, Son, I feel like I failed to become a leader. I thought he was a very good consultant, he worked at Booz Allen and his own firm. And he said failed to become a leader, I want you to become the leader I never became and he put in my head that I could be head of a very large company he mentioned specifically Coca Cola, or he said he had held stocks since 1937. And then he mentioned Procter and Gamble and a new low computer company called IBM out on the East Coast. And of course, I didn't know what these companies were, but somehow got in my head that I was going to be a leader. And I can tell you, I joined lots of organizations as as a kid, and never was chosen lead anything. I wouldn't have liked the student council, I wouldn't have any organizations. I was good enough tennis player to play a couple years of college tennis, but I wouldn't even co cap my high school tennis team. So I finally ran for president senior class and lost by a margin of two to one. So I realized I had a lot, a lot of learning to do about leadership.

David Novak 3:13 

Yeah, I understand you learned quite a bit about your own leadership style running for student president, both high school and college. Tell us about it.

Bill George 3:20 

Yeah, I lost six more elections in college, seniors pulled me aside and said, Bill, no one's ever gonna want to be work with you, much less be led by you. Because you're moving so fast to get a head you don't take time for other people. Man, that was like a blow to the solar plexus. But it really caused me to go back and reflect deeply that and to learn that leadership is all about relationships, about relationships with people about whether they trust you, whether they're inspired by you, whether they want to work with you, and certainly whether they want to follow you.

David Novak 3:53 

Well, you always had a lot of driving ambition, and you still do because you have a big mission and purpose for your life, in terms of trying to make the world a better place by developing better leaders. And, you know, I always look for people who had a lot of drive and ambition for the leaders that we hired. But I'm curious, you know, that can get a little bit out of control at times, you know, what advice can you give to leaders on on how to navigate their, their drive and their ambition, especially early on in their career?

Bill George 4:21 

Well, I think you know, I was the kid that wanted to get ahead too fast. And I would say today's leaders take your time, do a lot of diverse things, and really learn a lot about business I did have the privilege of working at the working level and I think a lot of people skip over that they got to go to graduate school and come out and think they can work as strategic planner and they really haven't worked on the front lines and I did a lot of that from the time I was 16 up until I was you know 26 And after that always want to be on the front line. So I think that's a key and and realize you're just like everyone else, you just come to work you try to do a good job and Uh, we all have one shot at it here in life and try to see how you can make a difference in the lives of other people. And if you can do that, I think at the end of the day, you feel like you've accomplished something,

David Novak 5:10 

you know, you made your way to Georgia Tech, and you became an engineer, and then on to Harvard Business School. And, and from there, as I understand that, you, you go to work for the Department of Defense. Now, how do you think through that decision in light of your ultimate goal, to run a large company and you know, your dad said, Hey, go run Coca Cola, Procter and Gamble, IBM, that's some pretty big, big, big thinking,

Bill George 5:35 

by the way, I did work summer jobs, or all three of those companies. But I went to her in the Defense Department, because two things I was doing in Vietnam, we thought we could help our country. That was one thing. And the second thing was that there were a lot of outstanding people in the government. And we thought we could take a lot of the ideas we learned in business school and apply them to the government about how to manage better. And so I was very involved in big weapon systems, those days, like the F 111, fighter planes, and the C five A and some real disasters. And it gave me the privilege to work with some very extraordinary people in Defense Department from the Secretary of Defense on down. So that was a great three years, but I always knew I wasn't going to stay there I was I had the opportunity the last year to work for the Secretary of the Navy. And it was just a wonderful experience. But I knew that was kind of learning about government. And I figured in my career, you'd always have to go back and work with the government eventually. I didn't know how soon because the first job I had, I went to work for Litton Industries, and I had the job of doing the plan to for them to get start the consumer microwave oven business, which I put the plan together and then it didn't go well. And I got drafted to go to Minneapolis in about nine months after I joined the company. And the date I was going there, I was packing my bags from Cleveland or my home was and Surgeon General came on and announced that microwave ovens are hazardous to your health. So we were back dealing with the FDA Little did I know I'd wind up with Medtronic working with the FDA. But we were working with the FDA very intensely in those days. And it was very challenging. And but it was great experience

David Novak 7:17 

taking you back to your Department of Defense days, what was the biggest challenge you faced in your job? And how did you handle it?

Bill George 7:23 

Well, it which which job, many challenges all along so the job was lit and was you know, as a young kid, I was 27 years old, I'm hiring people at twice my age twice my salary. And I really had to learn how to run a business. And the one thing I learned it was most important, David, is I never had a job including all the job I had at Medtronic, where I knew as much about the business or the work as my subordinates did, every one of them knew more than I did. And my job was to figure out how to bring them together and focus on the issues are really important, whether it was growing the business, whether it was problems we had with her there was a design problem or manufacturing problem, and how to how to get everyone come together and focus on that and share the leadership with me because I was young and eager, but still they have a lot of wisdom, I had to bring people in on an extract from them.

David Novak 8:19 

You know, one of the things that I learned, you know, just about your time at the Department of Defense, like I want to just go back to that for one more minute is that, you know, you helped uncover a systematic falsification of body count numbers in Vietnam, as I understand it, okay. You know, how did you do that? And then as a as a leader, what was your approach to do something write about it?

Bill George 8:41 

Well, I couldn't fix that problem. But you know, we are analyzing things and we saw that I was there during the Tet Offensive. And before the Tet Offensive, the numbers, we were always skeptical about the numbers, but the number of Vietcong dropped from 110,000, to something like 20,000, before the Tet Offensive, how they could pull that off with so few people, and it was all a statistical error. And, and then they say that 35,000 people were killed in the Tet Offensive on the Vietcong side, and the numbers went to minus zero, and they stopped polishing the port. But I think the point was I getting word from friends of mine who are foot soldiers in Vietnam, particularly second lieutenants in the army. And they were telling me, they couldn't go back to base without counting the same body three times. But what it really taught me is that if you put enough Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense then and he put enormous pressure on people to deliver the numbers. And the numbers got falsified by feeding him up through a system, no one intentionally falsified the numbers. It just got systemically falsified, and everyone was relying on these numbers or finding a war of attrition, but it showed me how far in a huge organization if you don't know what's going on at the frontline, you don't know what's going on. And we can jump all the way ahead to the last three years with COVID If you didn't realize it now. Are your frontline people, you wouldn't have been eating unless they'd been working. It's nice to say we're home on remote, but they were the ones delivering the goods so to speak. So we realize I did and and I have ever since the people that really make the difference are the frontline workers, the people that are working on production lines working in the engineering labs working on a frontline working with customers. And so I think that's a lesson that I think a lot of people have overlooked.

David Novak 10:27 

Yeah, I agree with you. And you know, you were 27 years old when you ran Live, which is just an amazing accomplishment. You think about that? And, you know, you had to, you know, obviously, you know, be the leader act like that leader, give everybody the confidence that and you had meteoric growth, when you were, you know, in that role, how did you make sure that you developed your own skills, so that you can keep up with it?

Bill George 10:53 

Well, I develop my skills by listening to other people and understand what they were doing. And I remember going into, we had a problem with meeting the radiation standards of the FDA. And I remember going into work, you know, in the third shift we had working on see if we get start production, it actually wasn't a third shift. It was getting ready for production The next morning, on at about three o'clock in the morning, and it was getting out with the people. That's how I learned. And by the way, I carried that through throughout my career, Medtronic, I learned much more about quality by going to sitting down with the group production workers going into production on SP what their problems were, than I ever could reading quality reports. So I learned the importance of being on the front line, I mean, and you can translate all the way to challenge like Starbucks has today, the barista customer relationship, or how you feel about when you're checking into a hotel, or how the flight attendant treats you on an airplane, these things are directly translate to me, you got to get out and know what's going on. And it's really hard to do and my skill and I worked in Defense Department, it was I could go to the very frontline, and then bring things all the way back to the Secretary of Defense and his direct reports. So I think that is something that I felt was absolutely critical.

David Novak 12:06 

How were you able to manage up and down like that, you know, it's like, you know, that's a real skill in and of itself. You could go to the frontline, you say you could bring it up to top management? How did you learn that skill? And what advice could you give for people on on how to move it up the ladder?

Bill George 12:22 

Well, I'd say just go to people and sit down and say, David, help me understand how do you do this? Tell me understand, how does how does this product get designed? How does it work? You know, I could buy from my metro days, I couldn't design a defibrillator. My life depended on it. But I had to understand how it worked. So I was always asking people, how do things work, and learning, I learned that summer jobs when I was a kid. And if I could just keep asking that it kind of people want to help you. And you know, they want it they want to share with you what they know. And you know, people who go into the labs, they want to show you their latest, greatest idea. If you'll go out and work with a doctor at Medtronic, never tell the doctor how to do his or her job. But you can sure ask them not tell me help me understand how you're doing this. And boy, they were willing to help. And so I just found that's always true. But so if you can get that first time knowledge, then if you can integrate that all then you can take it to high level people, like I did in the Defense Department, or like I did with letting industries corporate people or, you know, all the way to a board of directors of Medtronic and try to span that length and breadth of the organization. Because I think the problem you've gotten organizations, David, today, we're going off a little further, but is that the executive team is not talking to the frontline. I wrote two cases on the Boeing 737 Max, you probably recall that disaster 346 346 people lost their lives. Because top management wasn't listening to the engineers, the engineers what was going on, they knew as a problem, but no one wanted to listen to him, you know, and there are too many layers in between. So I think this is a huge problem in large organizations.

David Novak 14:02 

You work hard on on developing yourself so that you you can leave that's been one of your, your great traits. And I understand that one of the things you've done to develop as leaders that you have a meeting every Wednesday morning, and you've had this meeting with a group of guys ever since 1975. And to start in the middle of the time you were at Linton, how did this come to be?

Bill George 14:24 

Well, we'd gone to a retreat some of us and we decided let's keep meeting, we've gone to a three day retreat, and I really want to keep meeting and so we have met we're still meeting oh me time. Yeah, every Wednesday morning 715 to 830. Same group Well, company Ville have passed away, but six of us meeting and the thing is held the group together is there is a very substantive program every week. So we pass it around you get two weeks and you have to come up with the program. We're all guys and so on my program a couple of weeks ago is what does it mean by authentic masculinity? What does it take to be a real male and today society because you know, the boys, and a lot of them are dropping out, a lot of men are dropping out of work. And so there's used to be women and girls. And now we're really concerned about the males. So But anyway, that's just a sample of a subject, you know, maybe what's the legacy you want to leave to what's the situation where you've violated your own values. And so these these groups have been incredibly, so I've taken the same idea in my courses at Harbor, every one of them, we take 50% of the time and meet, or maybe 25% of the courses to me with small groups, so people can talk in a very intimate way. And I find in large groups, there are a lot of things people won't say you get to six person group with confidentiality, then you really have an intimate discussion. And that group helped me so much. There was a time when I was unhappy in my work at at Honeywell, and but I still hadn't been back in my mind, I'm gonna run some big company like Honeywell, and I was one of the two people on track to be CEO, maybe the leading candidate, if that's a little bit immodest. And, you know, I, I was very unhappy. And I woke up one day and realized I wasn't happy it was I told the guys in my group, and they said, Well, why did you turn down Medtronic for a job three times? Why did you turn him down? And I said, you know, I always see the ego coming up here. I always thought I was gonna run a large company, Metro is kind of a mid sized company. And I thought about it a lot. And, you know, I finally screwed up my courage called the CEO back, I turned the job down six months before I says that job still open up, be number two and be your successor. And he said, Well, we're about ready to fill it. But yeah, it's open. So I got line and locked in the company. And it was the best decision I ever made. But I think the guys in my group really helped me sharpen that or have the courage to go do it. And to kind of give up what this idea I'm gonna run a big company, of course, Medtronic has now grown up to be quite a big company,

David Novak 16:51 

in large part because of your great leadership and the people that you built within it, you know, and you did go to Honeywell, instead of going into Medtronic, when they offered you the chief operating officer job. And you work for this man named Ed Spencer, what was it about his leadership that made you want to go there?

Bill George 17:08 

Well, Ed Spencer was a great global leader, I've worked him in our community, I think that's why he offered me the job in the first place. And I've always been looking for role models, my father set himself up as an anti role model. So he was like a role model for me if the kind of leader I wanted to become and I thought I could learn from him, he offered me a job reporting directly to him, which I did for a couple years. And then I, he also gave me the opportunity never lived overseas, I traveled overseas all the time, I never lived overseas, offered me an opportunity. If I did well to be present at Honeywell Europe, Middle East and Africa. That's one of the greatest jobs in my lifetime, one of the greatest growth experience I had being at Brussels, and having, you know, 50 countries or whatever, but really having a chance to really go work in a true global environment that barely spoke to the language and had to work with a really diverse people. And it was a truly great experience. And dad gave me that up to and Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago, but I learned a great deal from him about how to run a big company.

David Novak 18:08 

As EVP of Honeywell you were on track to, to basically run that that company, but you say you lost your purpose of your leadership, you know, what was going on? How did you really uncover that you talked a little bit about your group?

Bill George 18:21 

Well, you know, I, I had this great job at Europe for three years, it was fantastic. I thought I was gonna be there five. But we went to a major corporate reorganization, I got a two step promotion to become executive vice president one to four. And it was like the worst promotion in my life, because I got separated from the people when I was in Europe, and I was it lit and microwave and later and Medtronic had always been very close to the people on the front line. But here was such a huge bureaucracy, I had nine divisions, three groups. So all these layers in between me and the people actually doing the work. And I was given a series of turnarounds because I was quite willing to jump in and turn businesses around. And we had a lot of businesses that were in trouble. And so I spent about three years getting a whole series of businesses turned around and they gave me another group of businesses got that done in about 18 months. And then they throw me into the aerospace and defense business, which is important visit but it's not the business I was inspired by. And, you know, I just realized that I was very unhappy. I like to think of myself as a business person that can grow businesses. We've grown and greater than 50% a year at lead and microwave. Later on in Medtronic in my career, I was there 13 years total and we grew it and compound rate of 18% per year. So I knew how to grow businesses if I wasn't using my best skills, and and I wasn't in touch with the people as much as I want it to be. So I finally saw my wife that but I had this hang up all the way back to the first story you asked me about about my father, that I was gonna head around a big company, and so I had to give that up. And so I think, you know, am I living somebody else's dream for me? Or am I living my dream. And, and when I walked into Medtronic, I realized I was living my dream to be with a group of people committed to a purpose, that Honeywell purpose kind of like General Electric purpose of making money. And yeah, I know how to generate profits and all those kinds of good things, cash flow, but that's not I want to live my life. And Medtronic had a great purpose to restoring people to full life and health. And to tell you how we measured ourselves, was the question, we missed the metric we measure ourselves, how many seconds does it take until another person is restored by Medtronic product to full life and health. And when I went, there was 100 seconds, when I left, it was down to seven seconds. And if you do the math on 14 times, and today, it's two per second. So to me that became a metric that every employee could share it.

David Novak 20:58 

What's great about that is that you've got such a noble cause that inspires people to get up every day and go to work. You rattle off what your mission is just like tick tock, not, you know, how much time did you spend working on crafting that magic set of words about what your company is all about?

Bill George 21:14 

Well, I didn't craft it, or Obachan, our founder did, what I did was meet with people all the time, all around the world, every time I went to India, or China, or Germany or the Netherlands, we'd meet with a group of employees, and talk to them about the mission and the values. See, that's what they resonate, if I went there, and I say, Guys, our goal is to make so many millions this year, and I make 236 a share, they can't relate to that they don't understand that they couldn't guess my job, which was they could relate to, they had to to put a product together, they had to design and develop products that would save people's lives. Everyone could relate to that everyone everywhere in the world, that became the glue the bond that brought our company together. And we had to do it with taking care of our customers. And just to make it be real, I'll tell you that. I see. I knew nothing about medicine. When I went there. I knew a lot about technology and news because I'm an engineer and I'd been in high tech business. I knew zero about medicine. So the way I learned the business, I went out and put on the Greens gound up Mehta Doctor 637 o'clock in the morning, and then I watched him or her do surgery, and or, you know, work with their patients or follow up their patients, mostly with surgeries. And so I saw over between 700 and 1000 procedures in the 1213 years I was there. So I had the chance to see a lot of frontline things. I saw some not very nice things and some pretty great things. But I realized how I learned the business. And I would bring those stories back and share them with people and that inspired a lot of people and I encourage all of our people to get out and spend time in the hospitals seeing what's going on. Because I see a lot of companies getting people get like I was a little bit at Honeywell trapped in the ivory tower.

Koula Callahan 23:01 

Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do, too. My name is Kula Callahan and together with David I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes. And in them I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading yum brands. And all of His answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight David shared and one of our most recent, three more questions episodes.

David Novak 23:44 

One of the huge traits that people need today more so than ever is the ability to collaborate. The ability to get all those opinions out on the table, so that you can really make the very best decisions and that that collaboration skill is something that every leader really needs to needs to develop. And, you know, that's why I think a very important question to ask as a leader is what do you think?

Koula Callahan 24:09 

Get the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to how leaders lead wherever you get your podcasts.

David Novak 24:28 

Bill, you say you have to know how to lead yourself before you can lead others. Well, how do leaders discover what you describe as their true north?

Bill George 24:37 

Well, you know, I think the first thing I do is you have a unique life story. What is your story? And I had to go back and process that back in my earlier days when I was on the wrong track. What is your story and then deal with the most difficult times you've had so everyone wants to talk about what's your best self? When did things really go? Well? That's easy to talk about. I'll tell you When things don't go your way, that's when you find out who you are, you find out what really matters. I had a if you don't mind me telling you the story, I had two tragedies that hit me. After I got out of when I was in defense right after I got to Harvard Business School, and I was, you know, been there for months when my father called to say my mother had died suddenly, that day of a heart attack. And I was not very close to my father, because he traveled all the time, but very close to my mother, she was the source of my values. And everything I grew up to have tried to live to ever since. And never got a chance to say goodbye. And, you know, I was very close to I'm an only child. And then I recovered from her death and fell in love got engaged to be married to a woman from Macon, Georgia, where she was living about in Washington about three blocks away from where I was living, and was on track to get married. And she had been having some headaches, but we didn't know really what what was causing him. And she went back home to Macon to get ready for the wedding. And I talked to her on a Saturday night. And the next morning, her parents called to say that she died in the middle of the night or malignant brain tumor. Wow. And I can tell you, I was just devastated. Because I could explain my mother's death and the natural order of things parents pass away. But I could not explain the death of a 25 year old even though I'm a person of faith. And so that was really tough. And fortunately, I had a lot of friends that came around me, I did it my faith. And that was the real test for me to realize, you know, yeah, I always had these long term goals, but what really counts are the people, you and I talking to people listening that one to one, you know, today, right now, and that was a big learning for me about the importance of the only we don't know how long we have to live. So we got to make every moment count.

David Novak 26:55 

Thanks for sharing that story. And you know, when you think about it, what process should you use to find your, your TrueNorth, and then finding an organization that is in sync with your TrueNorth?

Bill George 27:08 

You know, I think a lot of us think, oh, I want to be successful and have a great family, I want to do this, I want to do that. But you really have to think through what gifts can you give to the world that unique? One of the gifts you bring the world? You know, I'm not a technical genius, I didn't want to be you know, an academic or, you know, what are the gifts? And you decide, then well, how is that purpose? How can you bring that, and you're right, if we want to be I decided my guess we're going to be in leadership. But then I had to decide what I want to lead. I can't just lead anywhere I tell you, if I wanted to politics, I would lose very badly, because I wouldn't be a good politician. I'm just too straightforward and too honest and say what I think, but I had to find, you know, the right match. Like you said, it took me a long time to find I love my job at Linden, microwave. But I can tell you, the corporate headquarters are a lot of values and ethics questions. For me, that's one of the reasons I had to leave. Honeywell was a very ethical company. But it was a big bureaucracy. And I kept trying to change the bureaucracy. And it Medtronic, it was small enough that I could help mold. It was the kind of people we needed a dedicated group of leaders that shared a common purpose and vision and set of values. And so that was like the right place for me. But I think you have to really go back and process what's really important to you in life, and figure that out to find your TrueNorth. And it really is the core essence of who you are, and see when you're successful, you start to think you're better than you are. And when it all gets stripped away as it did with me with those two deaths. I realized what's really important to me in life, and I said it's really relationships with people, and helping other people learn how to lead and reach their full potential. So if I had a purpose today, I would say I do have a purpose. And my purpose, you know, I'm not I'm not the guy designing the defibrillator, Medtronic or the stents. But I would like to think my purpose is to help people reach their full potential. And I've carried that over into the two decades, I've been at Harvard Business School now.

David Novak 29:16 

That's a great, great purpose. And you've made, you know, countless positive impressions on so many people, you know, back on the purpose, you know, you did have to make that move to Medtronic, and it was a smaller company it Do you remember that interview process? And was there anything that the CEO said to you that said, Hey, I'm gonna be able to sync it up here.

Bill George 29:38 

Well, the CEO Ed Whelan was great to me. He we had a mandatory 65. There's founder and editor retiree earlier as 65. And so he knew he was gonna go and he had two years. So he had to find the right successor, and he was under a lot of pressure on the board and I talked to five or six or seven board members about the job. The most important part was I met It was the founder Earl Bakken, who flew all the way to Phoenix where I was meeting with one of my Honeywell divisions, and we met in a little Marriott courtyard hotel, and incensing. He never interviewed me for the job. All he told me, he wanted to talk about the mission. And he wanted to see if I got it if I was going to be true to the mission, and the values of the company he'd put in place, because what he cared about is that mission being carried out. And I've seen mission driven companies flourishing. And I've seen companies without a mission, like General Electric, that are not flourishing, because there's nothing that brings people together, there's no glue, there's no they're there. And I think that's why that's what I really learned from the interview process and all the board members, as well as my predecessor when while and we're totally committed to this mission.

David Novak 30:47 

You know, at the time, Medtronic was an industry leader in pacemakers and defibrillators. But you had this vision to become the world's leading medical technology company. Yeah. And, you know, you you achieved rapid growth as, as the CEO, what did it take to get everyone on board with this new big mission? Or was it? Was it a no brainer to everybody?

Bill George 31:08 

Well, the first first had to get on board with I was still CEO, or CEO, who is retiring on board with it, because yeah, why do you want to do that. And, you know, we had a long way to go just to get the company to be, you know, the leader in our own field. But I just saw the potential of our technology to help so many people, and if we could take these implantable devices we were making, and not just put them in the heart, but all over the human body, we can have a huge impact. And we were fortunate enough to realize a lot of that impact. I mean, with a disease like Parkinson's, which is, you know, an incurable disease, we couldn't cure people, well, we could give them a whole life and take away about 90% of symptoms. Same as cerebral palsy, same with a lot of mental. That's the great future, that neurological diseases in the future, boy, you're able to help people with heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest and a lot of things that, you know, people would die from before. So that was a great satisfaction, not just to me, but to everyone who worked there, of seeing how we could fulfill that mission. So I saw my role is conveying that to everyone to try and inspire them around that mission, and then come together to solve problems. So what's stopping us from doing it? Or how do we get there faster?

David Novak 32:24 

You had this incredible run as the CEO. And yet you you set this, what I think was a self imposed 10 year term limits for the CEOs at Medtronic, you know, What compelled you to do that?

Bill George 32:36 

Well, I'd studied the previous generation CEOs out there saying too long, there's a great danger for a CEO you fall in love with the job. And I was just talking to the CEO who stepped aside six months ago, the world's largest privately held company, who is a friend of mine, and he, he stepped aside after 10 years when he hit 64, six and, and he was saying how his board was surprised mine was too. But I think you can stay too long. And I think it's a high pressure job. But you go on, give it everything you got. And then your successor knows when he or she can step up. And so that gave my successor our counselor chance to step up. But I can tell you, it's like rappelling down a cliff, when you give up the job was 2058 years old when I turned it over to my successor. And I had no idea what's gonna do next. But you know, you only go around once in life, and I hear doing other things, David, I think you I want to have the chance to experience all of life has. And if I identify too much with being CEO of Medtronic, then I can't develop myself as a full person. Because I've just had that image. I'm CEO of Medtronic, I started to become my title. And that's where I think people get in trouble. And you never want to get caught at movie stars and celebrities get caught up in that too. You got to put all that aside.

David Novak 33:56 

That's why you're so passionate about what you call, you know, living an integrated life.

Bill George 34:01 

Well, that's another thing we faced, you know, that time I was going from Honeywell to Medtronic. Now when looking around and thinking, you know, I might get offered. I got been offered some CEO jobs elsewhere. But so why would I do that to my family. My wife has a good job here in Minnesota and our sons are and one was in junior high. One was in senior high school. They're happy we have a lot of friends. And why would I disrupt their lives to be a corporate Vagabond and kind of move from one city to the next? I was looking at the G book and they move people every year and a half to a different city. And you know, what's that do to the family? So when I was 22 years old, I was dedicated How can I have a great family life and a great career and not constrained either? And, yeah, there are trade offs. I was putting kid you, you know and you travel as much as I did, but still, I coach soccer coach youth soccer for 12 years. So I'm with my kids Coaching Soccer. They always I was always with the team they were on But we ended up doing pretty well took a lot of time. But hey, it was worth it. You know? And I'm glad I did

David Novak 35:05 

you say growing companies have an opportunity and an obligation to grow leaders, you know, what are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way that's allowed you to develop leaders in an effective fashion?

Bill George 35:21 

Well, you got to be who you are, you know, and so many people I remember back in the days at GE, when Jack Welch was his GE, everyone wanted to emulate Jack and I talked to some people that they said, was tough enough dealing with Jack, but trying to deal with these phonies, or trying to be like him, it was really bad. So you got to be who you are. Because I think that's where people get in trouble, they try to be something they're not they get caught up in the image, I am my title, or I am my stock price, or, you know, I am this big person going to Davos and make a great impression on everyone at the World Economic Forum, or, you know, I get called to the White House to meet with people. That's not who you are, you know, and you got to get that out of your head. That that's, that's the world you live in, because you can get carried, I've seen a lot of people destroyed by that. It's very sad to me, and then they lose sight of what they believe their values and they start trying to be something they're not. And there's nothing uglier than that.

David Novak 36:16 

Hard. Collins was is your successor, and I got to know him. In a special group of CEOs. We met twice a year. It's a fantastic person, I mean, really grounded, wonderful person. How do you determine he was the guy to take your place?

Bill George 36:30 

Well, art world class executive, and he was really good. It's hard. The hardest part was recruiting him out of Abbott Labs, or he was on a fast track there and getting him to come up. And he actually we had a lot of we had, we ran for a company that put value on integrity, we had a lot of ethical problems internationally, not in the US. And Iran had to go solve helped me solve those problems go all around the world. So he was head of international. And then he became Chief Operating Officer and then became my successor. But you could see he was going to be CEO someday. And I just thought you'd be great CEO of Medtronic, and he did a great job. So give him a lot of credit, he kept stayed on the so called straight and narrow kept the company going on track and didn't get pulled off. Because we're companies get in trouble. Succession is a time, David, when you can do really well, or you can have it go really poorly. Johnson Johnson has done a good job in their succession, the GE success and did not work well between Welch and ml. And, you know, I've seen other cases where success really failed and the company went down is probably the number one cause of companies whether they thrive, or whether they get in trouble and eventually disappear. And so I thought that was really critical to have my successor there and work together. So we got to know each other very well.

David Novak 37:52 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Bill George, and just a moment. You know, when you're connected to your frontline teams, you respect and value the work they do. That's certainly true for Autozone CEO, Bill Rhodes, in our episode on how leaders lead bill talks about the importance of valuing those you lead.

Bill Rhodes 38:12 

And so I've learned forever, that if you really want to understand what's missing in a business or what we need to improve, you go straight to the frontlines, and you deal with the people that are dealing with the customer every day. They know best. And then I just have tremendous respect for what they do. And frankly, they're just wonderful people, and I love to be around them.

David Novak 38:36 

Don't miss my entire conversation with Bill Rhodes, Episode 122 here on how leaders lead.

You know, you've said a couple things about GE and you know, 20 years ago, everybody was raving about how brilliant they are. And then you know, today everybody says, look what's happened. If you had to diagnose the single greatest thing that drove GE down, what would you say would be? They

Bill George 39:09 

chose the wrong leader and Jeff ml. And they gave him 16 years. Where's the board? How can the company go downhill for 16 years and you keep the CEO you know, if you can't do it after five years, move on, find a new way. Another example that you know, GE is gone today, there is no general here's the world's most valuable the most admired company and the most valuable company in the world in 2000. And, you know, today there is no GE and it's a tragedy. There's a couple of divisions left with you know, the jet engine divisions, great division, but, and I think it was really someone that didn't find himself and he was lived in Welch's shadow. You can't do that. Now give me another example of a company that was going downhill that turned around brilliantly. That's Microsoft. Bill Gates knighted Steve Ballmer, his original partner To be CEO, the company did nothing for 14 years, they missed every single innovation came along and they were milking the Office and Windows software suites and then Satya Nadella takes over. And Satya had his own tragic life with his son who sadly died of cerebral palsy. But Satya came in and said, you know, we're gonna go for No at all to learn at all, we're going to have empathy, if you don't have empathy, you can't work here, he changed the whole company, they were the most arrogant company in the world when I tried to work with him. You know, back in my Medtronic days, today, it's a totally different company, and he is totally transformed, and the company is just flourish. So that's a good example of where leadership change encouraged the company to do or enable the company to do exceptionally well. Number one, Tim Cook at Apple, everyone said, No one can succeed Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator. He's not a great leader. And you see what Tim Cook has done. It's just been incredibly good. But here's a person knows himself. You know, Tim is gay. He's openly gay. But he's talks about his I'm proud to be that. And I've learned more being a gay man. Well, good for him. You know, that's not my experience. But hey, you know, he can be who he is. And I think that's what we all have to do, David is be who we are. And, you know, I'm not some rock star. And so you just got to, you know, just got to do what you could do? Well,

David Novak 41:20 

Bill, you obviously tell it like it is, at least from your perspective, you don't mince words of a you offer up your point of view. Was this something that always came natural to you? Or is this something you developed over time? And what advice could you give to people who are a little bit afraid of confronting reality and are getting their point of view out there? Well,

Bill George 41:40 

you know, I tend to be too plain spoken, good friend of mine as Paul Polman has had a Unilever, he's Dutch, my ethnic heritage is Dutch. And it tends to be very direct. And sometimes that offends people, even in the classroom, I'll offend people by challenging him. So yeah, that's kind of the way up. But I tell you, for a long time, I had trouble being vulnerable. And just making mistakes, I thought I had to be on top of everything. And it took me a while. And when I could do that, when I could be vulnerable and admit mistakes, say I'm sorry, I've always been, it'll say, I'm sorry, but you really admit mistakes more freely. Wow. Then that's where I could really grow and become into being myself. It took me a while. And so I tell people today, you got to be willing to be vulnerable. You got to admit your mistakes. If you're on top, you don't admit your mistakes, no one else can now so I saw in the Defense Department, no one's willing to admit their mistakes. We made horrible mistakes. Why not admit it? And so I think a lot of people can't do that. And because they feel vulnerable. And I think when you can, you can be vulnerable and say I made a mistake. All right, David, I'm sorry, I offended you. I didn't mean to say that. That's okay. People will forgive you.

David Novak 42:51 

What port did recognition play in your your leadership style? Look, I

Bill George 42:56 

always say, if we have a problem, if say you're on my team, and you cause a problem, I'm gonna step in front and say, I'll take responsibility for that. But if we do really well, the team is going to get the credit people on the team and I've always operated with that philosophy, as the engineers made met Trango is all those people are working with doctors insured, every pacemaker every February stent was a successful procedure, people in their production line to produce the perfect quality everyday, they're the ones that made it go, not me. I was just there to support them. And I think a lot of people don't understand their roles. They think I'm in charge, I'll tell them what to do. We really have to realize that they're the ones that make the difference. Hey, go on an airline. What do you remember about the airline once the last time you saw a CEO on a commercial airline? You don't see him, right? You know, who the people making? It's the pilot is a flight attendant is the people you're interacting with the person at the gate, how you're treated, that's it makes a difference. So whether you like flying in that particular airline. So I think that's so important that we recognize people and give them that credit, and never take credit for it. But also don't be a blamer. And I've seen leaders that are real blamers are leaders, managers, executives, toxic executives, everytime there's a problem they blame someone else. Carly Fiorina when she was at Hewlett Packard was blaming everyone else and you got to look yourself in the mirror and say, am I the problem?

David Novak 44:18 

That's absolutely true. You don't. And Bill this has been a lot of fun. I want to have some more with I always do a lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? Yeah. What's one word others would use to best describe you?

Bill George 44:29 

I hope is a person of integrity. That may be the one word

David Novak 44:33 

you'd say to describe yourself as truthful.

Bill George 44:35 

I guess I'd like to describe myself as a person who was true to his values one word integrity.

Speaker 1 44:41 

Who would play you in the movie? Who would play me in a movie? Yeah, yeah,

Bill George 44:46 

I don't know that's a really good you know, I'd like to play me buddies to see styles Henry Fonda just he was a great man I looked up to

David Novak 44:56 

hey, go. If you could be one person for a day besides yourself. Who would it be and why?

Bill George 45:01 

Ah living or dead living? Doesn't matter. Just cease to be Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Jefferson living probably be the Dalai Lama, or I've just met with him last October.

David Novak 45:15 

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Bill George 45:17 

biggest pet peeve? People that don't give a damn.

David Novak 45:21 

You've been married your wife Penny for 54 years. What's your best piece of marriage advice?

Bill George 45:28 

Be true to your marriage vows be true to your wife and communicate all the time. You never stop because we go in different directions. keep communicating. Keep talking and telling your lover

David Novak 45:42 

who's the leader you admire most Today.

Bill George 45:45 

Today. I mentioned Satya Nadella there I marry Mary Barra General Motors. I really admire their two just fantastic leaders. I think there's some great leaders out there today and in business and I really admire them. David Gergen is a good friend of mine, I look up to him. He's a great leader Noria, or Dean, these are all very wise people.

David Novak 46:11 

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

Bill George 46:16 

You probably hear a soccer channel or CNN, or maybe some music, because I can change the dial all the time. I don't like it. So I'm very impatient. So I'm moving the dial around. If I don't want to listen

David Novak 46:27 

to any ads, what's something about you few people would know

Bill George 46:31 

that I mentioned earlier to you intensely that I coach soccer for 12 years. Now many people would know that except for some of my former soccer players, while I was CEO of Medtronic and executive vice president Honeywell,

David Novak 46:43 

that's the end of the lightning round. Good job, by the way. You've been at Harvard Business School for the past 20 years. What have you learned about leadership from teaching?

Bill George 46:52 

Well, I think, you know, if you're teaching, you are leading a class, and I think it's the care about every person, help them realize their full potential. Sometimes you do that by challenging them. Sometimes you do it by encouraging them. And I spent a lot of time I spent two and a half, three hours a day when I was teaching MBAs trying to give counsel to them.

David Novak 47:15 

You're on this mission to help people fulfill their potential. What's the biggest challenge you see when you look at what's going on in the companies that you study,

Bill George 47:26 

being captive of the shareholder, the last five minutes now there was the short term shareholder and falling prey to that and capitulating to it, I think is the biggest problem, you lose sight of your mission. And your strategy and the bigger picture.

David Novak 47:40 

How do you stay focused on that big picture? Bill, when you know, it's, you know, it's raining outside your sales are down that quarter? I mean, you know, you had a tremendous run, and deservedly so. But you know, when you had those seasons in your life when it was rough, how did you how did you stay focused on the big picture?

Bill George 47:58 

Well, you know, you have bad times and just admit it, man, say, Guys, we're having a bad quarter or having a bad time. Let's, we're all going to pull together and we're going to, we're going to pull it out, it can be better than the months ahead the year ahead. And we got to pull everyone together to do that. But admit you got a problem. You can't solve any problem to your minute. And then you gotta look yourself in the mirror, and realize that maybe I'm the source of the problem. Maybe I over promised and under delivered. So you got to make sure that you're honest with yourself first.

David Novak 48:31 

All right, last question. What's one piece of advice you've given to someone who wants to be a better leader?

Bill George 48:37 

Oh, that's easy. Be yourself because everyone else is taken. There you go. So don't try don't start emulate your predecessor. Don't try to act like you're a CEO. Just be yourself, be who you are. And if you can do that, you'll be very successful.

David Novak 48:52 

Absolutely. Bill, thank you so much. i This has been really fun and really, you know, vibrant interview. I appreciate it very much.

Bill George 49:01 

Well, David, you're a fabulous interviewer. And it's been my privilege to be with you and let's stay on this course of helping people become better leaders.

David Novak 49:18 

I love leaders like Bill who just don't mince words. He says exactly what he means. And boy, he means what he says. And it's funny. As Bill was talking, I found myself just nodding my head over and over again in agreement. Every time he talked about the importance of your people on the frontlines, I thought about all the time I spent in KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants all around the world. And I gotta tell you, for me, that was where the magic happened. talking to customers listening to team members. It was such a powerful way to understand the true needs and pain points of our restaurants. And by staying connected to the front line, I was able to make better decisions in here break through ideas. When you let layers pile up between you and the people who really do the day to day work, it's easy to lose perspective on the heart of your business. What makes your business really tick? This week, I want you to ask yourself, how many layers are standing between you and your frontline? How often do you get truly connected with the people who make your product and serve your customers who really keep things moving day to day, come up with three ways you could cut through some of those layers. When you prioritize your connection to the frontline of your business. It's gonna help you make better decisions, discover new ideas, and build the kind of culture where big things happen. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders stay connected to the frontlines. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Michael Bungay Stanier, Best Selling Author of the Coaching Habit and founder of Box of Crayons, a leadership development company that helps leaders tap into the power of curiosity.

Speaker 2 51:04 

It really pays dividends to stay curious longer to figure out what the real challenges. And in fact, if you're looking to be an aspiring leader, if you can become known as the person who figures out what the real problem is, rather than the person who has fast advice that is a far rarer and a far more valuable resource within an organization.

David Novak 51:26 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen and 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 have become the best leader you can be