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 Patrick Spence, the CEO of Sonos. So many tech companies that build consumer products are set up in a way where they make their products obsolete every time they launch a new product. The idea is that the minute the new device is available, their customers will abandon the old product and buy the newest model. But what's interesting is that Sonos has a very different strategy. They set out to build their products to last. They want their customers to have their products for a long, long time. It's a unique approach in their industry, but there's something about it, that core principle that ties in well with the mark of a great leader. You see, the great leaders I know, they build the last. They make decisions to keep the brand strong beyond just the present moment. They develop leaders in their organization so there's always a pipeline of strong talent when new opportunities arise. They treat their customers with dignity and respect, which breeds long-term brand loyalty. I could go on and on. And what you're about to hear from Patrick Spence and how he leads Sonos as their CEO is that he's leading with this build the last approach in all aspects of the business. I can't wait for you to listen in. Here's my conversation with my friend and soon to be yours, Patrick Spence. Patrick it's great to have you on the show. It's great to be on David. I'm looking forward to the conversation. You know, I got to start out by congratulating. I looked at your numbers. You just came off a great first quarter. Your business is on a roll. 2022 was record revenues, record bargains. You know, I can't wait to learn how you're doing it. But first, I'd like to hear you give us your snapshot of Sonos. How do you define the business? Yeah, our ambition is to be the world's leading sound experience company. And so that means creating amazing products and services that bring amazing sound into the home. And now we've started to go beyond the home as well. So really what we're trying to do is make sure that anywhere in your life that you're enjoying sound, and that's a lot of places now with it being what I call in the Golden Age of Audio that we're there for you. And we're providing that sound and doing it in an easy way, in a high quality way, and a way that brings joy to everyone's life. Speaking of sound, you got a great voice. I mean, were you really interested in sound and music and all that? Did that kind of get you really psyched up about going into Sonos? Absolutely. You know, I think music really acts as a soundtrack for our life. So you know, as you hear certain songs, they trigger certain memories. And so music is such an important thing to me. But I will tell you a funny story on the voice side is when I was in business school, we took presentation, you know, lessons and courses we had an outside presenter. And when I got up there and presented at the end of it, she was like, wow, she said, you must really love your father. And I was like, what? And she said, the people that have great voices and confident voices and those guys, the men that do, it's a result of loving their fathers and having amazing fathers. And I'd never heard that before. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I do love my dad and I look up to him as a hero. And I thought that was super cool. That is cool. I love it. And I love how you're really transforming your business. And you know, you have great legacy products, but you're constantly innovating. And by the way, one of your great new products is the Rome. My family absolutely loves it. It's a portable speaker for all of you out there that you can take wherever you want it to go. It's such a great idea. Tell me the story behind Rome and how you developed it. You know, what we're thinking about the products and what we're doing, it really like you hit an innovation is the key and the core really to any business, right? In this day and age. And when I became CEO, I actually laid out an ambition for us to be introducing at least two new products every year. And that was a huge change from where we were because we had been shipping one product every few years and we would, you know, sometimes get caught up in making the perfect product at times and we still toil over all the details. But we almost were doing a disservice to ourselves and to the world by not actually shipping something. And so I really put this stake in the ground that we were going to unleash our talent and make sure that we're introducing at least two new products every year. Well, as you can imagine, the other thing I did was say, we're going to go beyond the home. And so that really started us down the road of both the move, which is a large portable product that we have in the room that you talked about, our ultra portable product and getting into this idea of leaving the house, right? And being able to bring Sonos with you in other parts of your day and of your life. And so that meant bringing on some new expertise, expertise in Bluetooth, expertise in battery life. And so we had to go higher and add those teams. We had to learn how to do things simultaneously. So we used to just work on one product. We started to work on simultaneous products, really spur the innovation. And so one of the other things that was important at that time was trying to instill a bias to action inside the organization and saying, no, we can do this and inspire the team to really take this action. And it meant working closely with the engineering leadership to say, how are we going to do this? Right? It's not good enough to simply say, you know, we are going to do this and then disappear. It meant trying to make sure that we're prioritizing, understanding where products would fit. And we actually, in the midst of the pandemic, we actually changed our roadmap a little bit. And we prioritized Rome because, you know, we at that point had felt like Rome would be the perfect product to accompany the reopening of the economy and people starting to leave the home and those kinds of things. And we got it a little early in hindsight in terms of where it was, but we actually moved Rome ahead of another product because we felt like it would be the right product at the right time. Always the conversations we're going through internally is what's the right next product as we think about what we want to build. We look at the whole audio landscape and we look at people's lives and try to understand where are we not yet solving customer problems that we need to. And with Rome, we knew that people wanted to take a Sonos product on the go and be able to carry that through on their backpack or their purse. And we said, okay, we were going to go solve that problem. We'll do it in a Sonos way so that it's a great speaker when you're at home. And it's a great speaker when you're on the road and that's what we were able to achieve with Rome. You certainly did that and that's great. It's nice to be able to say which products coming next. That's a good position to be in. And I understand you basically are in about 15% of households and your customers on average have three of your products in the home and your goal is to go to four to six. Now that's a big goal. And you've already talked about how you sort of changed the thinking of the company in terms of two products a year, how do you get the people that you lead to buy into that goal and own it for themselves? I think it comes down to being very selective on who we bring into the organization. And when they come in, there's a couple of things. One is making sure they're aligned to the mission and they're excited about the mission, right? And want to go do this. And so we're in actually about 10% of the homes that we think we ultimately could be in. We'll do about $2 billion in revenue this year. There's $89 billion that is sold every year in audio products. So we have a huge opportunity in front of us and aligning with somebody that's coming into the organization that they see that opportunity and they want to be part of that story and their experience lends itself to actually being able to contribute to driving growth, thinking about new channels, thinking about new countries, thinking about new products is critical. And then the other part of that conversation we're bringing them in is as well the culture we're trying to build. And I want to make sure that we are building a company that is adaptable, enduring and admired. Those are the things that we talk about internally. And so I've found that it's very important that upfront we're having conversations about that and making sure that people are aligned to that before they come in the door. And then when they're here, we are incredibly transparent. So even though we're a public company, we share our roadmap and all of our plans with everybody across the company. And we do that because the reason people are here is because they are passionate about and get excited about our products. And we want to make sure they can see that. They see the future. They see what's coming. They get excited about it. And once you have that, it's not too hard to get people rallied to go and bring these products to market. And everybody inside the company is just really proud to work here because anybody they bump into that they tell work, they work at Sonos, they'll say, "Sonos, I have Sonos , I love it." And so that's something that's pretty special in this day and age. There's not a lot of companies out there that you can say that necessarily, you know, your parents or your friends or family members will actually know what it is that you build, right, the products that you're making. And so it's kind of like a combination of all of those things that come together to create the amazing culture that we have here. You know, we recently had the CEO of Adobe, Sean Noreyan, he was on. And I think anybody would say Adobe is a very innovative company. And he hates the word failure. How do you look at failure? Two things shape my life. One is technology and the other is sports. And so certainly, you know, losing is not something that, you know, I really take to. I hate it, in fact. But at the same time, it depends when you think about failure in the sense of, you know, maybe if it's not permanent, it's a moment for potential learning and understanding. And so I do think that there are things you can learn and there are risks that you need to take, right, in order to try and stretch yourself. And it might lead to failure in a particular area. I think it's our job as CEOs to make sure that we're not putting the organization as a whole in a position where it might fail. You know, you want to be creating areas for the company and the people that take risks and potentially fail. But if they fail, are you learning from it? Could you continue to move forward as an organization? I actually think that's critically important. And I think fear of failure can actually hold you back sometimes. So I think calculated risk taking is important to making sure that you're really pushing what you're capable of and innovating, quite frankly. Yeah, I think you and Shatnu are aligned on it. He just thinks that failure is something you have to embrace because it comes with the territory of being an innovative company. You know, you know, I've found one of the ways that frees up people as a leader in an innovative culture like what you have is to talk about the risks that you've personally taken that didn't work out. Can you share one of your risks that and you're, you know, I don't know if we want to call it a failure or not, but you know, a time where it just didn't work out the way you thought it should or would. Well, I'll tell you. So really I've worked at two companies. I've been fortunate to be part of two incredible, you know, technology stories, one blackberry and the second sodos. And when I was at blackberry, we had a really important moment when we needed to pivot the organization, in my opinion, to something called Blackberry Messenger. It was an opportunity at that point to grow something that was leading the world. We had 80 million daily active users in Blackberry Messenger. At this time, the only other messaging solution was WhatsApp at 5 million daily active users. And we had the opportunity to take Blackberry Messenger and run it on iOS, Android, desk stops and make it the standard in the industry and probably take that 80 million and grow it into hundreds of millions of people using a messaging service that people love. At least 80 million were using on a daily active basis and absolutely loved. And I was unable to convince the organization that that was the right decision and pivot to make and give up some of the hardware that was associated with Blackberry because at this point, if you wanted to be on Blackberry Messenger, you had to get a Black berry phone. But at that point as well, Blackberry phones were falling behind. And in my opinion, at that point, we'd already begun to lose the race against iOS and Android. And so we really needed to make this shift in order for us to continue and move forward. And it was classic innovators dilemma and not being able to give up the revenue stream and that business of what we built in the past, the hardware, to be able to make that shift into the services and across platform messaging service. And I think if we were able to do that, we would have been able to navigate the future in a much different way. I think Blackberry would still be around more relevant. It wouldn't be known for phones, but it might be known as the standard messaging platform that's out there. And so I do look back, particularly given I grew up inside the company and I'm a proud Canadian and it's a Canadian company, as the inability for me to convince the right people at Blackberry to make that shift is probably the biggest failure of my career. When you think about that, what would you have done differently looking back and having a little bit more wisdom as you think about leadership? Probably taking it as far as the board. And I didn't do that at that point. I think I could have been even more vigilant in pitching this and laying out my vision for where the future was and wasn't and really pushing harder than I did. I think I could have taken it to another level. So as a result of that, I make sure that each person on my leadership team has a relationship with at least one of our board members and they have a trusted relationship over time because maybe there will come a time that somebody on my team needs to, I'm not listening, and maybe I can't see what they can see and they need to talk to the board and they need to potentially do something game-changing that I'm not going to see. So I try as a learning from that to create a situation and governance where the right things will happen no matter who is in the CEO seat. You've got to be really secure to do that. Have you always been that secure in yourself where you'd say, "Hey, I want you to know my board members." You know, most CEOs like to control that board like they've got it under absolute lock and key. No, I have definitely not been that secure all the way along. And I think when I was first starting out as a leader, I was trying to emulate too many other people, right? Where you read all these books about business legends and you're watching the founders and the CEOs at Blackberry and you are taking your cues from those individuals. And so I do think over my career now, and a big part of this, I would say, is the founder of Sonos, who is the one that handed the reins to me, John McFarland, just in leading from a more authentic place of who I am. And look, this is why I go back to sports is because I grew up playing a lot of team sports and ending up in a position where I was leading a lot of those teams and a lot of underdog teams, quite frankly, and having a lot of success. And it's those lessons and how to rally people and bring people together. And that's kind of my superpower is bringing a group of people together and achieving something that no one thought possible, maybe even those people. And so for me, I think I've really come into my own authentic leadership at Son os. Thanks to John and the team that has predated me and then as well our board, quite frankly, David, we have an incredible and very supportive board. And I think they enable me to create a situation and a culture that really is open, is transparent. And I'm really trying to lead in an authentic way and try to do the best thing for Sonos. And I think it's been a long journey to get there, but that is where I am today . And I just think that it's good for the people on my team. It's good for the board to have those connections and we're a better company as a result of it. You mentioned you're a Canadian and you talked about your love for sports coming up as a kid. Can you tell us a story from your childhood that really shaped the kind of leader that you are today? You know, a specific example. You'll just always remember. Yeah. So in high school, I switched high schools and I was big in a basketball. So even though I'm Canadian, I'm not the traditional Canadian that just played hockey. I'm a played a little hockey when I was young, but I focused on basketball and volleyball in fact. And so in high school, I met a coach, John Thrasher, who was absolutely incredible leader, super tough coach. And he talked about us being a band. We have different roles and, you know, I think he said, I play the tuba that we had somebody else that was a better shooter that was the lead singer and going through that. And I'd never really thought about the team in that way, but together, right, we would make beautiful music and go through it. And we were a team that was not very big. I was our center and I'm six foot four. And so we weren't the most athletic team, but we really acted as a team. I'm still great friends with, you know, five or six players from that team, all the starters. And so we were able to come together through, you know, some great coaching and motivation, but also like that teamwork and friendship to win what in the United States, I guess, would be considered our regional and upset a couple of teams that were much more talented than we were and go to, you know, our provincial finals, which was huge for us in our year. And I really look back on that as a pivotal moment in understanding the power of people playing their roles as quite good at defense and rebounding. So that's where I would focus. And we had somebody that was really good at shooting. We had somebody that was really good at defending on the perimeter. So we'd defend the breast guard and everybody playing those roles so that we could win as a team and the power of that. And we were all very different personalities as well. So it was such a fascinating life experience to go through that. And it's been something that I think about a lot. And I had a chance to coach later on as well when I was in university, coach some teams. And I certainly have brought that to bear. And I really think every day, a lot of what I put to work is from what I learned in sports. You know, you mentioned that you're a Canadian and I love Canada. I love your country and I love the people in Canada. You're really known for being really nice guys. Do you put yourself in that category? I do. I think most people that no beat would say that I'm a pretty nice person. But I also probably unlike many Canadians, I'm also very competitive. So I would say that I'm abnormally competitive for a Canadian. And I think there were a number of us like that at Blackberry. And it's why we were able to build the company into the one that it became. And so yeah, I am pretty relentless. I'm pretty competitive. And those are not typical Canadian traits. So you're nice, but you're really, really competitive. So you're no Mr. Nice Guy, you know, tell us a story of where you really had to engage in some very significant productive conflict. Probably the most conflicted would be. So at Sonos, we partner with, but we also compete with all of the biggest technology companies in the world. And many of your listeners will probably know that at one point, it reached a point with one of those partners slash competitors, Google, where I had to make the decision to actually sue them for patent infringement and also testify in front of Congress in terms of some of their behavior. And so that being a innovative small technology company in the United States, taking on one of the largest, most powerful companies in the world, that probably tells you a lot about what I'm willing to do to stand up for what I believe are the rights and the inventions of the little guy, quite frankly. And so that is probably the most public and prominent example of me being willing to stand up and embrace conflict at the end of the day. When you got great products like you have big people like Google, they're going to try to rip you off. I mean, there's no doubt about it. And you had the courage to take on the big guy. When you were going through that process as a leader, did you have any slee pless nights on that? I mean, you ultimately win, but did you have any sleepless nights along the way or did you just business as usual? You know, as a leader, many sleepless nights. It is the loneliest job in the world. I have an incredible wife who's a social worker and an amazing support. I'm an incredible board that are great and supportive and amazing sounding board in those situations. But there's many sleepless nights when you're dealing with decisions that impact people's livelihoods that take on big decisions that can distract an organization. In some cases, one of the things I'm most proud of is we didn't lose any of our innovation pace while we took on Google. So we continued to introduce at least two new products every year. So you want to keep the organization focused. But all of those things went into my mind, the money associated. We're not a hugely profitable organization. And so the investment that it requires is that better spent somewhere else. There's a lot of those things that you think about late at night and you have to process. And then you have to process in the light of day, you do with yourself, you do with people you trust, and then you make a call and you stand behind it and you adapt as necessary, right? I think that's the other thing is there's some situations where you might have to adjust, right? And from what you learn and from what you hear and what happens. And so I think being open to that as well is pretty important as a leader. But as you know, many sleepless nights. What role do you think that independent small mid-sized tech companies have in American innovation? Oh, this is why I've testified in front of Congress. Why I believe that it's harmful to society, that more and more power gets concentrated in fewer, fewer hands is that I think society would be much better off with many more independent, smaller businesses employing a lot of Americans. We have half the number of public companies we did 20 years ago. I mean, we could do with a lot more innovation, a lot of different perspectives , more diversity out there, stronger balance in the country. So we're not so coastily heavy, if you will. If we were able to create the conditions to have more and more small and medium sized businesses and really see them thrive. And I worry about the future of innovation. I worry about the ability for startups to really thrive in a world where there 's a few companies that really dominate and acquire companies along the way to try and reduce competition and some of those things. That's why I've been trying to stand for innovation and competition. And I just think David, we would be a much more vibrant country if we had a lot more small and medium sized businesses. Well, I really appreciate your passion and noble cause for that effort. I think it takes a lot of guts to stand up for something like that and put your neck out there. You mentioned your wife earlier and I got to ask you this. I want to find out if this is really true. She said she's fairly supportive and I know she must be because is it true that after you got married, you moved your wife to Australia basically one week after you got married. How in the world did you pull that off? My wife is probably more adventurous than me. And thankfully, even more understanding that I have. And so she saw it as an adventure. Her best friend, thankfully, was actually living in Australia if you can believe that or not. And she saw that I had a great career opportunity, which was to really open Asia Pacific for Blackberry as well. And so we sat down, we had that conversation and she has just been incredible. We had our first child in Australia, like halfway around the world. It's just amazing to think about. We moved back to Canada after a couple of years in Australia. And then an opportunity came up to go lead the Blackberry business in New York, Middle East, and London. And there my wife was again saying, yeah, let's go. Let's go have this adventure as a family. And then when it was time, you know, and I was worried about joining Sonos and leaving Blackberry and we're living in London, then it was okay. There's this company that's just starting up in Santa Barbara, California. And again, Aaron was there to say, if you think this is the right thing to do, you know, for our family, then we're up for the challenge. And she has been so understanding and influential and such a strong partner, you know, in all of this, I could not be more grateful. She really is just an amazing person. And I would not be the leader I am today without her influence. I feel the same way about my wife, Wendy. And you're a true global executive. I mean, you've traveled the world. You just mentioned Asia, specific, Middle East, North Africa, Europe, you know, tell us a story about an experience that taught you the most from your international days. The thing I've taken away, you know, having worked in probably 40, 50 countries specifically at this point. I will tell you the thing that surprised to be the most, being a Canadian who had never traveled outside Canada and the United States before I went and started to open the Asia Pacific region for a Blackberry was the fact that we're much more similar, you know, than different to anybody in any country. What I found, David, is most people, when it comes down to it, you know, are trying to build a great life with their family. And I got to meet a lot of amazing people and their families and build a career , right? You know, and do a good job, if you will, going through it. And those two things, you know, really stood out for me as I think about people . And I think about sometimes the differences that we see or we are perceived to have, you know, country to country, region to region is the biggest thing to me was landing in all these different places, meeting all these different people and realizing, you know what, we're all largely trying to do the same things, do a good job, raise a family, you know, have a good life. And if we can remember that and stay focused on that, I think we could maybe reduce some of the conflict and the tension that's out there. But I'll tell you my first experience and it just blew my mind. First time I was in Hong Kong was to launch Blackberry. And when launched in any Asian countries at that point. And we were doing it with Canning Fock, who was leading Hudgison. And he was basically a celebrity there. And so we turn up in this giant ballroom in Hong Kong. He arrives on a speedboat across the harbor and he walks in and there must have been 50 photographers, like taking pictures of him. Like he's a celebrity basically coming to present on the stage. And he presents and talks about how to bring you Blackberry to Hong Kong. And there I am, you know, at that point 26, I want to say, you know, first time ever in Hong Kong, turns it over to me to present about Blackberry in front of all this media, all these people in this massive, massive exhibition hall. And then I started to go through the Blackberry story and some of those. And I just, I look back on that and it was like, wow. And you realize like sometimes, okay, like here I am and you just got to own it and present and go through it. But there were a few moments like that where you pinch yourself when we were launching in India and there was a Bollywood star there and she was incredible and gorgeous and there like all the attention there. And then here's Patrick to talk about Blackberry. And it's kind of like these surreal situations that you just kind of are like, okay, this is strange, but I'm going to go with it. I love it. And so you're at Blackberry for 14 years. You obviously had a lot of love for the company. What was it like watching Blackberry's ultimate demise? And what did you learn from it that you try to keep front and center as you lead Sonos? You know, I put those lessons to work every day. I think it's the reason that I'm in a healthy way paranoid as well about the importance of innovation and culture and some of these things. If you would have caught me, David, I would have bled Blackberry. You know, both as a Canadian and then somebody who was there, I joined when there were 150 people, virtually no revenue. And we took that to 70,000 people and 20 billion in revenue in my last year. And I played an instrumental role in making that happen that I'm still very proud of. But a couple of things that really happened there, I feel, that are the reason that it is where it is today. And the first is when Apple introduced the iPhone, we got overly focused on responding to the iPhone and Apple. Verizon wrote us a ginormous check to create the response to the iPhone. It was called the Blackberry Storm, our first touchscreen product. And we launched that. And over the course of a weekend, we almost threw away 10 years of hard work in building up everything Blackberry stood for because the product was not good, was not reliable. We'd rushed it to market as this response based on the pressure from both Apple , competitively and then Verizon. Instead of building our own response. And so I'll tell you how that directly related to Sonos. When Amazon and Google brought out their smart speakers that were $25 and our speakers would range from $200 to $1,000. And there were people inside the company saying, "We need to rush out a $25 speaker." I said, "That's exactly what we're not going to do. We are not going to respond. We are going to build the next set of best Sonos products. And we're going to take advantage of some of the services that they're offering because those are valuable to customers. But our future is not copying what somebody else is doing and selling at a loss , for instance. And then the other big lesson I think is the classic notion that what you do today may not be what you need to be doing for the next five years from now, 10 years from now. And so that story I was telling about Blackberry Messenger where I think we really needed to pivot and open up Blackberry Messenger was something that I think about every day. And it has directly translated into a relationship we have at Sonos with IKEA. Where we actually take Sonos inside of IKEA products and you still use the Son os app, but IKEA has embedded Sonos with some of our sound inside a lamp, inside a bookshelf speaker because a lot of our magic is the software and what we've built and the whole experience. And so I've used that as an opportunity to teach the organization that, "Hey, we may need to think about other ways to really build our business and our company as we think about the future." So those are two specific, big examples that I think I put to work every single day. I think it's really cool what you're doing with IKEA. That's really, really smart thinking. So you joined Sonos in 2012. Five years later, you become the CEO. Was becoming CEO always the goal for you? One of our early investors tells a story about sitting with me early on maybe like a year into Sonos and me saying, "I absolutely want to be a CEO." So he told me in hindsight, he said, "No one's ever said that to him." And he always thought it was weird. But I kind of felt like, and this still sounds strange as a Canadian, but it's probably the competitive thing, but it's also, I think, my experience from team sports, I kind of felt like it was something I was destined to do. And maybe not specifically CEO, but just leadership in general and leading a team. But it's kind of where I ended up with most sports teams. It was kind of the trajectory I was on at Blackberry. And then when I joined Sonos, I knew the founder, John. We had open conversations that he wasn't going to do the job forever. And so it was something that I was interested in. I was always curious about, and I'm just so grateful I've had the opportunity to actually take on the role and see what it's all about here at Sonos. You know, when you're having the big company meeting, you sound to me like one of those guys who just can't wait to get up there and give the big speech. Do you feel like the organization is needing you? How do you feel? I always crave that. I mean, I don't mind admitting it. How about you? I love it. But I'll tell you, I got some interesting feedback through the pandemic, which was that we shifted. So we would do typically an all hands meeting, you know, once a month prior to the pandemic. And I would stand up on a stage here in Santa Barbara, and it would be broadcast around the world and our people here would be in person. And I would say I got good reviews. It fired me up for sure. But the interesting thing that I heard during the pandemic was I shifted the cadence. So we went to weekly all hands just so that we could keep communications high, right? Because there was a lot of uncertainty. I wanted to make sure people had the support they needed. And I was communicating pretty frequently. And I got a lot of positive feedback on presenting from my home office, sitting down in a little more casual environment of it seeming much more authentic and much less like the CEO you all expect to see on the stage versus Patrick, the person and, you know, human leader. And actually people needed to see in the pandemic. So it was fascinating to me to get that feedback kind of through this. And it's made me think in terms of the way that I show up and how I make sure that there's almost like that presentation mode versus, you know, just trying to make sure that I'm being authentic and, you know, being kind of relaxed, maybe a little bit more and a little bit more, you know, natural in terms of that versus going into this presentation mode and try to nail it and, you know, win the presentation to some degree and win those hearts and minds. I find it energizing. I absolutely do. And the crazy thing is I am an introvert, but I find that very energizing to speak to the whole company and be able to tell our story and we have such great people. So I just love it. I love it. You know, you mentioned you work on showing up the right way. Do you have any daily rituals that you do to show up? I do. The most important daily ritual for me is I get up at five in the morning. I get hydrated. I have a coffee start to get ready for the day. And then I hit the beach at five 30 a.m. And I work out on the beach here in Santa Barbara with an amazing group of people. We left sandbags. We run sand sprints. We do some pretty crazy stuff, but I have found it incredibly powerful to start the day with physical activity on the beach, you know, watch the sunrise, breathe that fresh air, hear the waves crashing. And that puts me in a frame of mind that I feel like allows me to be a better husband, father, and leader because I'm ready to take on the day. I've done that. It's under my belt to have the energy from that. And it allows me to put any of the challenges and you know this from your past, like all the daily crises that come up, be able to put those in perspective and deal with those in the way that I want to deal with them, right? Which is in a calm, collected, you know, kind of calculated way. And that has been something that is incredibly important and I think made me just a better person. Patrick, you've moved up. You've taken on more and more responsibility, had more and more people working for you, more and more people that you're accountable for. As you've taken on more and more responsibility, what was the biggest personal leadership challenge you had? You know, I think the biggest mistake that I made was in my career at Black berry, I felt like the number of people reporting to me and the number of things I could be involved in, you know, was a sign of strength versus thinking about the kind of team I'm building and how I'm supporting the team. And so I'll take you back to when I left Blackberry, I think at the last moment I had 21 direct reports and I was trying to be involved in every major deal that we were doing as leading our sales and marketing globally. And in hindsight, I thought that was a show of strength and I was a great leader as a result and I wasn't because I wasn't giving those leaders the kind of support that they needed. I wasn't empowering them and I wasn't leveraging myself in that way. I was way too involved. And so John and really my experience at Sonos and some of the board members here helped me understand that that is not, you know, the key to being successful and it wasn't going to enable me to really rise to the next level of leadership. I was a little bit leadership by brute force and ego quite frankly. You know, here I've taken a much different approach and I would say to a person , all the leaders on my team here are much better at their area. And really in terms of my weekly one to one with them, they have the agenda and my question is how do I support you? What can I do to help? And that is why I am here. If I am successful, I'm making very few decisions and I'm helping those people on my team be successful. And that's the way I look at it now. And really I think the test of any leader, particularly CEOs is where is the organization, you know, 10 or 20 years after you leave? And that is what I think about every day and I think about my team in that way. I think about our next generation of leaders in that way. I think about recruiting in that way. And am I, you know, setting up the team and the leaders so that one of them can step into this role when my time is done and that we're building the capabilities in the organization to adapt as necessary so that we can be one of those companies that endures. You know, Patrick, as I was learning about your company, it seems to me that Sonos has a very unique approach to technology. Most technology companies want to obsolete their products so that you have to buy new ones. You want your products to last. Walk me through the journey of arriving at that kind of strategy. And why do you think it's an enduring strategy? It is so counter to everything in consumer electronics. Like you said, most companies are quote unquote refreshing their products every year and they're trying to get you to buy new ones and they're not investing in those components . You know, both John, our founder and myself, having done large companies before and built something of scale and I would say importance, we decided that building something for the long term and enduring is something we wanted to do because too many companies are built for the short term, maybe to sell or to go public and then, you know, they kind of lose their way. And so that goes right down to the product that we wanted to build and thinking about how we build something that lasts for a long time and what our hypothesis was and this is played out. And so we've taken a while. We've been shipping products since 2005 at this point is that those customers would be loyal to Sonos if we're loyal to them and creating better experiences over time . And so we are very proud of the fact that we create products that last the longest of any consumer electronics products out there. And it's paid off in the sense that customers have come back and added more over time. And that is also a business model that is very different than anyone's that's out there. We don't want customers to upgrade their product every year or replace or what have you. What we look at is how many additional products have you added to your home? And as you mentioned, you know, now we're up to an average of three products per home. We're fortunate enough to have some people that have, you know, 30 Sonos products in their home. I really think that the maximum of what we can have as an average of people's home is really just a figment of our imagination. Like what products can we come up with as we think about that life and sound throughout your life, right? And so it's really been a philosophical thing to try and build amazing products that last for a long time because it's something we would want as consumers. It's something we think is better for the environment. And so it's just something that's been important to us. And I think when you're hiring for that, when you're thinking in that way, it can't help but influence also the kind of people that you're attracting to your culture. And so I think that helps in trying to build a company as well that's enduring. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Patrick Spenson just a moment. Creating products that are built to last is something another great leader keeps top of mine. Scott Mahoney, the chairman and CEO of Peter Millar. It's not about margin. It's doing it right. It's controlling distribution. It's doing the right things. It's treating your customers right, making your products great and having integrity in your company and in your products. If you're enjoying this conversation with Patrick Spenson, I just know you're going to learn a lot from my interview with Scott as well. Go back and listen to episode 59 with Scott Mahoney here on How Leaders Lead. You've mentioned culture more than once in this conversation and I can tell you 're really passionate about that. Give us an example of how you personally champion the culture you want to see. What are those behaviors that you want to see in your company that you purposely recognize and reinforce every day? Respect, transparency, ownership and collaboration are the ones that we're very focused in on. Probably the most important thing is actually measuring the people on my team and all of the managers in the organization on those. Half of your performance review is what did you achieve and half is how did you achieve it. We used 360s, we used our employee surveys to see how we're doing in terms of living up to those behaviors. We put a pretty rigorous system in place to actually make sure we're living up to them because as you know, you've seen this a million times, right? It's easy to say these words. We actually put examples of what it means and what it doesn't mean into documentation that we share with the organization and I lead that session. There's a session that a video now for all new employees that walks through the behaviors and what it means and what it doesn't. That comes from me because it does start with me and I think about how I show up in those ways and work through it. That's very important to me that I live to those behaviors as we call them internally. Then looking at my review with the board and then the review for everybody on my team and all the managers, like I said, we make sure that we're living up to those. That I think is important because that is what enables you to walk the talk. I have to tell you, my ears kind of perked up. But I heard you say that cultural fit is a misnomer. You're not a big fan of the idea of cultural fit. Explain. Yeah, no. I think that's a huge misnomer and I think it's what's led to a lack of diversity in organizations as well. What we're looking for in every hire is cultural evolution. If you are not evolving in this day and age and heading in the right direction and getting better every day, you are dying and companies out there need to recognize that. Every new hire needs to contribute to the culture and help push the culture into the future and in a new direction versus just fit in with the thing that worked yesterday. We're always looking for that cultural evolution as we think about our next hires. I've also heard you say that everything you say as a CEO has outsized impact. Give us an example of where you might have learned that the hard way. Well, I think they won't tell me the ones where it's been used as a hammer, if you will. I remember at RIM, there were many where you'd be sitting at a meeting and somebody said, "Well, Mike or Jim, because we had co-CEOs, Mike or Jim said this." It was something crazy. They said this and I would hear it and be like, "But if we did that, that would be the wrong thing for the customer or for the business." I'm sitting there going, "They wouldn't." I knew both of them well enough to know. I would often, because I'm, again, probably just a little bit more determined than most, I would weigh in and say, "Well, they may have said that, but that's not what they meant in terms of why then people would be like, "Oh, who are you to interpret what they say?" They actually said this. I'm just careful about where I show up and what I say and I'm pretty thoughtful in terms of how I do that. I've actually said to my team and I've said to the broader company at times, if you heard that used, I've actually said this. If you hear my name used in that way and you don't think it's the right thing, please make a better decision or flag it to me or something like that. Of course, it's never perfect. I'm sure it gets used here and there. I remember that being such a hammer used on certain things to reduce debate or push through something that seemed silly and I wouldn't let it happen. I hope we're building a culture where certainly when my name gets taken in vain , it doesn't just pass through. That's for sure. This has been so much fun and I'd like to have a little bit more with you, Patrick, if you don't mind with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready for this? I'm ready. Fire away. What are the three words that best describe you? Humble, loyal, and I hope indomitable. If you could be one person for a day, who would it be besides yourself? There's two on this, right? There's got to be a business and a sports angle. On the business side, I'd love to be Tim Cook just to see the operations of an amazing product company at that scale, right? At scale that society's never seen before. But on the sports side, I'd have to say Nick Nurse, the amazing coach of the Toronto Raptors, just to see how he brings all those personalities together and gets them to play together as a unit. I think that would be amazing. Your biggest pet peeves. Undisciplined people. Your favorite Canadian band? Oh, the Tragically Hip. On a scale of one to 10, rate the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show. Oh, 10 out of 10. They rocked it. That was amazing. Do you play any instruments? I do not. What's one thing that only a Canadian would know about Canada? What a took is. And what's a took? I think many Americans call it a beanie. There you go. And what's one thing about you that few people would know? I was with Paris Hilton the night before she went to jail. And we'll leave it at that. What would one piece of advice be you'd give to anyone who wants to improve as a leader? Be authentic. You mentioned I think that you want to be adaptable, enduring, and admired as a company. And I understand the adaptable. I understand enduring. Why admired? Why is that so important to you as a trait that you want Sonos to have? Because it's a reflection of whether we're building something that people care about, quite frankly, and that they see and they admire the craftsmanship of what it is that we're building. And that's important to me. That's important to all the people that's on us. Patrick, I've just written a book called Take Charge of You, How Self Coaching Can Transform Your Life and Career. And I've learned over the years that really great leaders like yourself, you're really good at self coaching. You're really good at assessing yourself and figuring out where you need to go next. How do you self coach? What's your process for really saying, "Okay, this is how I'm going to take Patrick to the next level?" So I consume an incredible amount of reading and podcasts about what other leaders are doing and I'm trying to learn all the time. So I am a voracious consumer of content around what the best leaders are doing to try and pick up tips here and there. And then having conversations with both my team and the board and anybody I can . So what I've found, which is really interesting to me, is most of the CEOs out there are willing to take a call from another CEO and just have a conversation about challenges they're going through and these kind of things. And so I've never really found that having one individual mentor has worked for me. And so instead, what I've done is basically try to learn something or pick something up from every single person that I interact with, regardless of where they are in the organization, regardless of whether they're CEO or not. And so for me, just trying to be curious and learn and get better over time picking up things from people I work out with in the morning, from anybody that we happen to come across in social situations and just trying to understand their story and learn something from them. I think you'd be surprised where you can pick those things up. And of course, a podcast like yours and many of the different podcasts and books that are out there today, everything is out there that'll allow you to kind of learn and figure out the way that you should be thinking about yourself and maybe how you can get better as well. And then in that early morning period, I do a little bit more reflection before I work out typically. And so I'm generally reflecting and doing a little bit of gratitude to just in terms of how fortunate I am, but also reflecting on the way I showed up yesterday and the way I hope to show up today. One last question here, you're highly reputed for being what I would call a customer maniac. I mean, you are focused on your consumers. You want to know what makes them tick. What do you do that is unique on that front as a leader? Yeah, I mean, my email is available on our website. And so I get emails from customers all the time, good and bad. And I will tell you the number of emails I get from customers talking about how much they love their Sonos and the way it's helped a family member that was suffering. You know, actually get through and people in the pandemic having challenges or a dance party for a young family. I mean, just these incredible stories that people share with me are so powerful . And I share those then with the rest of the company too. And I've gotten more feedback on sharing those customer stories with people internally and how positive it is for them because, you know, day to day, you're grinding through like a lot of different challenges, right? But to give the organization a chance to hear the stories from our customers of how Sonos is bringing joy to their life and how it's impacting them is so powerful. Of course, I'm getting, you know, lots of customer care and support asks as well and going through that. But I can't imagine, you know, another company that gets the kind of glowing emails and positive customer reviews, like people are taking their time to write me about how much joy Sonos is bringing to them. I mean, I just could not be more grateful for the opportunity to receive those and for what we're building here. Well, I got to tell you, I couldn't be more grateful for the time you've taken out of what I know has to be an incredibly grueling schedule to have this podcast with me. You know, our goal is to really help leaders learn from other great leaders. And there's lots of wisdom that you provided today. So thank you very much, Patrick. I appreciate it. Thanks, David. I really enjoyed it. Can you believe that? Patrick has his email on the company website. Talk about building a brand to last. He's getting great insight from these customers and showing them how committed he is to their success. That's fantastic. And now it's time for my favorite part of these podcast episodes where I get to give you a little coaching. This week, as part of your weekly personal development plan, here's what I want you to do. Think about the key functions of your business and ask this simple question about each one of them. Are they built to last? Your business strategy, your people capabilities, your products and services, your key processes. Are they built to last? If not, I'm going to give you marching orders for the next several months because I want you to make the necessary changes to strengthen each part of your business so it's successful and sustainable. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders build to last. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, 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. I'll see you next week. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]