David Novak 0:03 

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. And today's guest is Larry biocity, the former chairman and CEO of Honeywell, and author of the best selling book execution, the discipline of getting things done. Now, have you ever had to pull together a business strategy that didn't work, or perhaps the plans to execute that strategy weren't effective and ultimately failed? Building the strategy is one thing and executing it successfully is another. But Larry knows what it takes to get things done. And in this conversation, you're gonna hear how he leverages three things, just three things to make big things happen, people strategy and operations. It was the process and discipline he put around those parts of the business that made his team successful. And it's what you can focus on as a leader, if you want to be successful, too. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with my friend Han soon to be yours, Larry Boschetti.

I have to tell you, this is a great pleasure for me, because I get to talk to Larry Boschetti this morning, who is really one of my heroes in business and the way how you conduct your life. So Larry, thank you very much for being on the show.

Larry Bossidy 1:36 

David. It's a pleasure to be here and particularly to be with you.

David Novak 1:38 

Well, let me tell you, I It's always fun to start out and learn by learning about somebody's upbringing. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood,

Larry Bossidy 1:45 

I was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, I was one of three children. I had a twin brother, and an older sister. And my mother and father ran a small shoe store. So I when I worked in that shoe store, as you do in family businesses when I was about 13 years old, and thereafter. What did you learn in that, Larry?

David Novak 2:04 

I mean, what what do you learn by working in the shoes,

Larry Bossidy 2:06 

I learned how to deal with customers. I was a young boy at the time, but my father made sure that I was out there trying to sell shoes, and it was a great learning experience for me. I didn't always love it. But I looked back upon it as one of the great experiences of my life.

David Novak 2:21 

Do you have a hard lesson from that you

Larry Bossidy 2:24 

might remember, I do have one lesson that's comical. But I do remember that we had an ethnic city that everybody got along well, but there was a Polish section and Irish section, Italian section. We had a welfare department at the time, and we had some farmers. And one one Saturday morning, a farmer came in a big fellow. And my mom and I were in there, my mother worked in store as well. He wanted some boots. And I was waiting, I was sitting next to my mother waiting on another customer. And my mother got the boots on the wrong feet. And when this fellow stood up, it was I couldn't stop laughing. And the lesson I learned is my father threw me out of the store that day for laughing at this incident and didn't pay me. Nothing I remember,

David Novak 3:10 

Well, speaking of getting paid, I understand you were one heck of a baseball pitcher with a wicked left hand or yet a 95 mile an hour plus, you know, it's folklore, it probably gets faster and faster every year does. But you actually got a signing bonus opportunity from a major league team of $40,000. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Larry Bossidy 3:29 

Yeah, there wasn't any draft in those days. In other words, everybody was a free agent. And I'd had a pretty good high school career. My mother and father had had not gone to college. And so one Sunday morning, a scout came from a certain team and, and that was at the door and said that he wanted to provide a bonus for me to sign with this game. And that it was a significant amount of money. $40,000. And my mother answered the door and she said, You are not welcome here. This boy is going to college. And I was at the top of the stairs listening to this. And, you know, people say, Well, this must have been a big heartbreak. I don't remember that it was instead of going into professional baseball and went to college, and the rest is history.

David Novak 4:08 

Well, that's so interesting, because I did a little homework last night and I got out the calculator and did the inflation and that that $40,000 signup bonus today is is worth $361,000. And you're saying, you know, in a modest upbringing, you've got almost $400,000 And the money didn't even matter to you. You just how much do you think just being obedient and trusting in your parents, and trusting those that maybe lead you is is important,

Larry Bossidy 4:38 

the reason that I didn't complain about this as my mother and father were so supportive of everything that I did. I played a lot of sports, as I just mentioned, and I was doing other things in my life, and I had terrific faith and confidence in them, and that they thought that the thing for me to do was to go to college, I got in a good college, I got a scholarship. And so I When I look back in my life, if I could have been a good parent, as my parents were to me, I will have been declared successful. Well, obviously,

David Novak 5:08 

they believed in education and put that above your athletic career, which was quite substantial opportunity. Where do you go to school and why

Larry Bossidy 5:16 

I went to school at Colgate University. Up in Hamilton, New York. I went there because I got a nice scholarship. And I remember thinking back today, what happens I asked my father, if I could go up and see it. He said, Why you guys scholarship there, didn't you? So why don't we have to go? Anyway, I went to college, graduated and 57 was a wonderful experience while I was there. And so I think my mother's decision was well borne out in terms of the rest of my life.

David Novak 5:44 

Well, you got that scholarship playing baseball. And you know, I understand you went to the College World Series, and you're in the Hall of Fame at Colgate. And as an athlete, you know, it's interesting to me, Larry, I've known you for 15 years, we've played golf together, you've been my partner. And I've never heard you mention that to me, you know, that tells me that one of your great strengths is humility. You don't talk about yourself that much. You know how important you think humility is to you and to to leaders?

Larry Bossidy 6:12 

There's two things that I think come to mind in that question. If you don't have humility, you don't grow. I'm convinced that if you look every day to get better, and you take the successes in in the right way, in other words, not believing that you're so you're supernatural, I think you can continue to grow. And so one of the things that I think about leadership, when I look at a person and evaluate them for leadership, one of the characteristics I look for is humility. Can they handle it? I always say that as you progress through a management system, David, you either grow or you swell. And the people who grow continue on to do great things, and those who sweeps well, they stop growing, and they fall off the ladder. So to me you millet is a significant characteristic, which I look for, in every one that I evaluate,

David Novak 7:04 

Larry, what was your first job out of college after you graduated from Colgate? I went to

Larry Bossidy 7:07 

work for GE and Schenectady, New York. And I went to a research lab, even though I was an economics major, I processed expense accounts. And it wasn't one of the things of high intellectual need. But I did it. And I joined the financial management program. And then I moved on to other assignments in GE and went to the corporate audit staff where I stayed for five years. And on and on.

David Novak 7:32 

Yeah, well, you were with GE for 34 years, and you obviously liked it. What advice could you give to people who want to build a career within the same company?

Larry Bossidy 7:41 

Well, you know, I think you'll look for a number of things in terms of the people you work with. And it comes down to that in my mind. You know, I always think that there's a lot of strategies, and maybe we'll talk about that as we progress here. But there's some emotional strategies. One, I want to be in a company that's authentic, they're not cheating, they're not spinning, they're telling it the way it is. I want to be around people who are self aware. In other words, they know who they are, they know what they're good at, and they know where they need help. I also want to be around people who have self mastery, who are willing to change, because the world is always in need of us making changes as we progress. And finally, as I said a minute ago, as an emotional strategy, I'm looking for humility. I found that in GE, that the time it was progressive and growing quickly and had lots of job opportunity was fun. And so to stay there for 34 years was easy. I loved it.

David Novak 8:36 

So you never really had Did you ever have a pivot point early on in your career where you thought, well, maybe I need to shift jobs or shift companies? Yes,

Larry Bossidy 8:42 

I did. I mean, I think we all do, I work for one boss, who I didn't have great chemistry with. And I didn't think I handled it in retrospect as well as they might have. But you know, in terms of the big, gentle actor, somebody noticed didn't pull me out of that role. And then I got into another one, which I found much more satisfying. That's great.

David Novak 9:00 

People leave generally, because they don't get along with their boss, or they don't feel appreciated. If you found that true. As you've looked at your career, and you've hired

Larry Bossidy 9:08 

I have, I think, you know, it's one of the things as a leader, you have to provide people with the self confidence in the growth potential, so they can prosper. It isn't about you, then it's about how well you do developing them. And if you can create an environment where they can grow and they can learn, they can have some fun, and they get paid commensurately with their contribution. Then I think you've fulfilled your objective. You don't litter

David Novak 9:33 

I read something about millennials, where 70% of Gallup survey 70% of millennials today are in jobs are are actually looking for another job outside their company. Are you surprised by that?

Larry Bossidy 9:46 

I am surprised but I also think that the employers haven't been as loyal to people as they were in my day. And as a consequence, employees are not as loyal to their employer as they once were. And I think if they're they're dissatisfied It's a healthy thing to to look for other places to go. But if you're satisfied, and you're making progress, some of them are looking for jobs as well. And I don't get that.

David Novak 10:08 

What advice do you give to somebody when really evaluating whether it is time to go?

Larry Bossidy 10:13 

I asked him, Do you have some Destiny in mind, you have some idea where you want to go? Do you think you have a chance to accomplish that here in the company you're at? Are you satisfied with the people you work with in terms of giving you that opportunity? If the answer to those questions is yes, I don't think you should be looking around. If on the other hand, you can't see yourself getting to where you want to go. And you're unhappy, then fine, you can obviously take the opportunity to look elsewhere but but be careful because the grass is not always greener. On the other side of the fence. Well, you

David Novak 10:43 

you stayed and enjoy GE for 34 years, what would be in your when you look back at that was the single biggest accomplishment that you felt greatest about.

Larry Bossidy 10:52 

And the last 15 years at GE I was associated with GE Capital. And GE Capital was at the time was just growing. And it had a consumer business. It started by financing light bulbs and refrigerators. And then went into the commercial and industrial area. So the place was growing fast. We were all thrilled with what was happening. It's great to be in a growth environment where your company is succeeding, people have a smile on their face every day. And so certainly my role in GE Capital is one of the highlights of my GE career.

David Novak 11:21 

Now you worked with a Titan and in the industry in business, Jack Welch and you're a titan I'm seriously both CEOs of the year and all the accolades that you could ever get. How can two titans stand to be with each other in the same room?

Larry Bossidy 11:36 

You know, it was kind of easy, because we were both very competitive people. And we wanted the best for GE at the time. Jack is kind of known as a tough boss, I never thought he was I thought he was reasonable. He had high standards. But we both wanted to get to the top of the ladder. And he came from modest means as I did to is, you know, so the fact that we could find a way to bring GE to new heights was a great thrill.

David Novak 12:02 

It's interesting, I hear you say the phrase, I enjoyed working with him. You didn't say for him? Is that how you felt when you were? I

Larry Bossidy 12:09 

did? I did. And I always felt the same way people who were so called working for me, I thought they would say we work together. I happen to have the biggest hat in the room in some cases. But nonetheless, we work together. So I like working with people not in any way to suggest that they're subordinate.

David Novak 12:26 

Now, when you work with Jack Welch, were there a few things that you really learned from him that you you've tried to keep in your repertoire?

Larry Bossidy 12:32 

No question. I mean, he had a great concentration and quality people as the ingredient for success. And he spent a lot of time and taught me to spend a lot of time on obtaining the right people in evaluating them and educating them, promoting them on the premise that if we don't get the great people in our company, we can't succeed. And that was something I took with me for the rest of my career.

David Novak 12:55 

Now, Larry, you're known for being someone who challenges people. Tell me what you would how you would conduct a staff meeting, for example?

Larry Bossidy 13:02 

Well, first of all, I'd send out an agenda. I don't like long meetings. And I'd ask people to be prepared. And then when we would go through the agenda, I'd ask everyone to speak, I don't want the only the people who liked to talk, and staff meetings to speak, I want everybody to talk. So I got as many opinions as I could, we would reach conclusion on most of the items, some of them, we might need more data, and we would have to come back. But I wanted something productive to happen with the staff, me, I just didn't want to gather and disperse, and talk. So to that extent, I probably was demanding, but we got a lot done.

David Novak 13:38 

I know along those lines, you're a big champion of productive conflict and sniffing out the conflict and getting it out on the table. How'd you do that?

Larry Bossidy 13:45 

Because I was provocative. And I made some comments that people had to push back on, because they're off the wall. And the more that I got people engaged, the better thinking I got and and there were arguments, and some of them were high decibel arguments. But we got to the right answer, I thought and that was the purpose of doing it.

David Novak 14:03 

You know, I've talked to people who've worked with you and enjoyed it. And they said, you know, Larry, bossy, he challenged the heck out of me, but he also challenged himself. How do you personally challenge yourself and continue to grow as a leader,

Larry Bossidy 14:15 

I think that you keep in mind, first of all, where you been, where you want to go and where you are, in terms of this, this journey. And I kept thinking that I had to get better. In other words, I'd sit down at the end of the year, and I'd get some accolades. But I also knew myself some things I could do better. And I made it a point in the next year to work on those things. And I kept asking others, do you look at yourself in the same way? Do you understand what you did well, and what you could do better? And are we getting better as a team? And what are the indications? What are the proof that we're getting better as a team? And so if I kept talking about that a lot, and I think I convinced some people is a reasonable way to go. And we did make pro aggress Yeah, absolutely.

David Novak 15:00 

You know, you told me once Larry, and this stuck with me from the day you told told it to me, it's, uh, you know, David, you take the joy of the decision away, you take the joy of the job away. Talk about that.

Larry Bossidy 15:12 

In order to be a leader, you got to like making decisions. I don't mean unilateral decisions. But the joy is to make a decision on something important, see it implemented in the company get better as a consequence. And I love the idea that we could gather we could discuss and we could resolve and something good was going to happen. And so I like to think at the end of a staffing, we had smiles on our face, because we made some progress, we decided some things, we have found a way to move our company forward.

David Novak 15:42 

Right. And you also these great people you had you knew that if you didn't give them the the decision making capability in their functional area, they weren't going to be happy too long.

Larry Bossidy 15:51 

I thought it was important to define micromanagement. What does it mean, here are the things that I want to be involved in. And here are the things that are yours. So let's make sure that we stay on if I call you for information, that's one thing. If I called down the organization beyond a couple of people and make a decision, that's the wrong thing. So being inquisitive, and getting data is one thing, but making sure that decisions were in the right organizational level was also important. So I tried to abide by that.

David Novak 16:22 

Now, after 34 years at GE, you finally made that tough decision that you're going to go into another pond and play for a while, you know, what really drove that decision to leave? And you I know, you went on to be CEO of allied signals, what made you go to Allied Signal?

Larry Bossidy 16:36 

Well, you know, I'd been a vice chairman, then at GE for seven years, I'm the same age as Jack Welch is everybody knows he was doing a terrific job. And so I decided I wanted to be a CEO. And as a consequence, the Allied Signal opportunity came up. I liked what I saw there, because it was broken. And I thought, well, here's an opportunity to go in and see if I can repair something. And that was the basis of my leaving.

David Novak 17:00 

Now. You entered that job. Okay. What did you learn? And what did you do? Maybe there's some we could learn from terms of how you went from GE go into a new job, new situation, what was your process? And what did you learn first

Larry Bossidy 17:12 

thing I decided never used the word GE, this is not how we did things at GE, nobody likes to hear that. Secondly, I had that staff, my staff and the first day and I said, you know, you're all batting 1000 I don't know what your reputation was with the wrong with the last boss and I don't care. You're all batting 1000. Let's define where we are, this company is not doing what it needs to be done, there's going to have to be some tough action taken. If this isn't for you, it's okay, then I suggest that you go somewhere else. But we are going to be ambitious and competitive in this business. And that's kind of the way I started.

David Novak 17:53 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Larry bossy in just a moment. Now one of the keys to execution. One of the keys that's really important, if you want to improve as a leader, is you have to learn how to engage in constructive confrontation. Now a leader who does this exceptionally well, and has done a great job on execution throughout his career is Ken Chenault off the former chairman and CEO of American Express fundamental in a crisis is people have to trust you, because you're gonna make decisions and you're gonna take actions. And part of what you have to do in a crisis is you have to be decisive, very decisive, and you have to be compassionate. So if you want to learn how to leverage constructive confrontation, to get superior execution, and the very best out of your team, go back and listen to episode 68, with Ken Chenault called here on how leaders lead.

You had great success. I know you had years of double digit EPS growth, the stock took off, it was amazing. Consistency is a hallmark of any great company in any great leader. What do you think really drives the consistency and performance?

Larry Bossidy 19:13 

keeping your eye on the basics? I think a lot of these organizations overcomplicate the business situation, I believe that if you have the right strategy, you have the right people, and you pay attention to operations. That's the basis for continuity. If you can do those three things in depth correctly, and have it cascade down through the organization and then have the stock price begin to rise with people who you deal with owning the stock or the stock options. Then everybody gets momentum and there's a positive nature of things and one thing leads to another and you're on your way.

David Novak 19:51 

There's nothing like being on a winning team. Success begets success. No question about that, you know, then you made this big decision to merge with Honeywell then you became a chairman, CEO of Honeywell, talk a little bit about that decision, what would into your decision to merge with Honeywell and talk about the two businesses and how they work together?

Larry Bossidy 20:09 

I thought we had at the time, a good but narrow chemical business. We had a great, I thought aerospace business. But we didn't have a lot in industrial, industrial business in the history valid signal was automotive. I never liked the automotive business, it was too volatile. You never got paid for what you delivered, I thought. So I needed an industrial linchpin in order to round out what I thought could be a great company. And Honeywell was one of the ones we looked at. And so we talked together and Mike Bonsignore, and I, and we decided it was a good fit. He kept telling me Honeywell had the better brand name, and I thought it did. So we changed the brand name. But I moved the business to Morristown, New Jersey, because I thought Minneapolis was somewhat sleepy between you. And I know you got some listeners out there in Minneapolis, until I say I'm sorry. But anyway, New Jersey was competitive and feisty. And I wanted to have that as one of the characters,

David Novak 21:05 

almost the personality of the company, I want to have that competitiveness. How do you drive a competitive fire within your organization?

Larry Bossidy 21:13 

I think you make sure people know how much you care about things. I gave a lot of plaudits as you did for success. And I was very candid about some things we didn't do well. But I everybody knew I cared. And I was involved every day and the important thing to the business. If you can get that attitude around the company, then everybody becomes competitive. I see

David Novak 21:33 

that you clearly showed people your heart, your commitment to them. And then they followed you, did you have any tricks up your sleeve? In terms of selecting the right people,

Larry Bossidy 21:43 

you selected a lot of people so did I and I made some mistakes. But after time, you begin to narrow the definition of what might be a good person to come to your company. And so I wandered, and look where they worked was that a competitive environment from whence they came? How important was the job that they had, and I would call their boss myself on key jobs to get a background check on who they are. So the harder I worked in qualifying the person, the better I did. And so I made some mistakes. But we did get a cadre of people who were competitive and ambitious and fun. And things began to perk

David Novak 22:20 

that's interesting, you would call the person's boss yourself, you asked him about that instead of delegating it to HR, you know, talk about that. I think that's a very key point, an HR

Larry Bossidy 22:31 

person, and they're very valuable might take a liking to a person and might soft peddle some of the stuff that they heard that wasn't the top of the line. So if I could find out myself directly, I didn't have anybody sifting through. And I felt better at the end of the day, you know,

David Novak 22:45 

after you told me that, you know, I've always listened to you. And you've given me a lot of wisdom over time, I really I made sure that I called every key hires boss, because I found literally that nobody, they're not going to be eschewed because they know you and their reputation, OSI. So you really got the skinny on the people

Larry Bossidy 23:00 

I did. And the more I got, the better I did in terms of

David Novak 23:03 

quality Allah, you're a person who gives back and then you've given back by really articulating your business beliefs and putting it down and on paper and with books. And you know, one of the best business books I ever read, in fact, I had my entire organization read it was execution. Talk about why you wrote the book execution.

Larry Bossidy 23:20 

You know, at the time I wrote an app back in early 2000s. And I thought that there was too much business discussion about strategy, and a lot of things that I didn't think were central to making a good business. And I thought, at the end of the day, the great companies had wonderful repetitive execution. So I had known romps around for a long time, who was co author of the book. And I knew a lot about two companies, he knew a little about 100 companies or 200, navy. So together, you know, we compared notes that we had, and we tried to write a definitive book on what it took to continually be on the top of your game and get things done. Why is execution so hard for companies, because it involves some hard decisions, as you certainly proved in the time and you're at yum. It involves doing some things that, for example, you might have to reduce the size of a workforce, which is very hard to do, particularly when the people did nothing wrong. It might mean cutting out a product line, which isn't working, it might mean changing a price on on a customer who finds it difficult to accept a price increase. So it takes some courage and belief in conviction. In order that underlines execution, I think then you have to have accountability. You got to measure people in what they do. And the more accountability that you can promote in an organization, combined with the other things I mentioned, the better chance you have to be good at x. You also

David Novak 24:49 

talked in that book about the importance of having process and discipline around what really matters. I did. How do you go about that as a leader

Larry Bossidy 24:56 

I think you set up you set in other words, we had a definitive strategic planning process. And I tried to reduce strategy to something that we could be sure to do. Every time I went to a business and a strategy session, I had a people session the same day, do we have the people to execute the strategy without that the dead on arrival. And secondly, we as I said, we had in what I call an invasive people process where we evaluated the top 200 people in the company. And then we spent a lot of time on operations. We did not only in the budget preparation, but on the execution of the budget. And the more more time I spent in those three things, and the people the strategy in the operations, the better we got,

David Novak 25:36 

it's one thing to have a strategy, if you don't put the structure around it so that you can execute it, you don't have a chance

Larry Bossidy 25:41 

you don't. So you know, lots of people get proud of the big books that they produce on strategy. And they're basically dead on arrival, because they have no concept of how they're going to execute it.

David Novak 25:50 

Now, you also wrote another book called confronting reality. Yeah. You know, what was the basic premise in that book, Larry,

Larry Bossidy 25:55 

I thought that we were coming upon a time where business world was changing quickly. And there are a lot of people that weren't facing up to what they might, for example, and I don't mean to be critical, but just as an example, I thought IBM was got way behind the times I, you know, Xerox got way behind the time, you know, Kodak got way behind the time. And I think the causes they weren't facing the realities, the marketplaces they were in. So the idea of the book was to just make people aware that you got to concentrate on where you are in this market segment. And are you thinking further enough ahead, in order to continue to stay profit now? Like,

David Novak 26:32 

let's say, Take Honeywell, you know, how did you build awareness of the reality at a company like Honeywell,

Larry Bossidy 26:38 

I always tried to have meetings, they were real. In other words, I didn't want somebody coming in and give me a presentation that didn't have the financial consequences of it didn't have the risk factors, as well as the reward factors. Every conversation, I wanted to be real. And if I can impress that upon people, and they pressed it on their own people, then we got to where we want to go. Now, Larry, you've

David Novak 27:01 

been chairman of the board, you've worked on boards, what really makes a director? I mean, is that just a superfluous role? Or is that a role that really should make a difference in a company? You

Larry Bossidy 27:12 

know, I don't think it's a superfluous role. But I do think it's a role that's misunderstood in a lot of companies. In other words, I think there's a need to define the difference between running the company and acting as an advisor to the company. There's some boards who get too deep involved in operations, I think, and there's some boards that get don't get involved at all an operation. So I always thought the board deserves to see the results of the people process. They deserve to see the strategic plan. They deserve to see the budgets, they deserve to see the progress against those budgets. The good ones encouraged the CEO to bring the issues of significance to the Board for discussion. I think the boards have got better in the last 10 years. I don't think they're as good as they need to be.

David Novak 27:56 

But there again, you're talking about the importance of bringing the reality forward and having that those tough discussions. Yeah. You know, a lot of our listeners want to be entrepreneurs, and you've seen a lot of entrepreneurs. And even though you're a big company, I know you take a lot of pride in really running it like an entrepreneur, what advice would you give somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur,

Larry Bossidy 28:15 

I'm in private equity. So I see some intrapreneurial people. And, you know, the first thing is to do they have an idea. Let's make sure you test the idea. If you look at the new venture projects brought before, the revenues are always way too high. I always like to say keep your revenue forecasts down, and then build around that. And if you happen to hit it strike, that's dirt, you can add people you can do whatever you want to do, but be realistic about your plan. And if you're doing it for two years, and you're not going anyplace face into it, either change it or drop it or do something with it, but don't keep going down the same road that leads to nowhere. So if intrapreneurial people, I love their ideas, I love their enthusiasm, but they gotta be realistic in order for them to be successful.

David Novak 29:03 

Now, you mentioned you're in private equity. How are you spending your time these days in business?

Larry Bossidy 29:08 

Well, I like private equity. You know, we have eight or nine companies that I like to work with those companies and I work basically operationally with them in terms of what they're doing. I enjoy that. There's a company called World 50 where we bring in junior executives for seminars, and I work with them. And then I do some nonprofit stuff. So I'm not busy every day, but I'm busy enough. Yeah, that's great.

David Novak 29:29 

Well, you're one of my favorites on Squawk Box. Why don't you go on Squawk Box and what do you hope to accomplish?

Larry Bossidy 29:35 

Well, you know, I like to go on Squawk Box because number one, I like the people that I associate with them. And I also I'd like to be as direct as I can be in some subjects that I don't always hear. And CNBC so if I can add a little clarity, or a little truthfulness or little realism to some of the topics discussed. I've accomplished my mission.

David Novak 29:56 

Can you remember what you think is one of the more provocative things you've had? ever said on Squawk Box and how to go?

Larry Bossidy 30:02 

No, I can't remember one thing I had the day can get into your area? No, yeah, once in a while, one time, at least the guy said, Okay, that's enough.

David Novak 30:14 

Do you remember the toughest question you ever got asked on television? No. We like to forget those. You'd like to ask the questions. Well, I'm gonna throw you a softball, okay. When you look at leaders today, who are a few leaders that are making it happen today that you might recommend people study or learn from,

Larry Bossidy 30:29 

you know, I don't know a lot of the leaders today, I do admire what's happening in Google in the sense that they continue to reinvent themselves. I love that. Amazon, I think, you know, you can like them or hate them. But they've done some miraculous things. And they're going to be around for a while. So I like what they've done. But the characteristics are not different than when you and I were there in the sense that they're positive people. They're optimistic people. They're realistic people. They have passion, they have energy, they're competitive. And those kinds of things, I think, are the ingredients of what will not only was successful in our day, but will be successful tomorrow as well.

David Novak 31:06 

Now, Larry, you're on the personal side. I know you've been married to Nancy, I think for 61 years, you know, you have nine kids, you have 31 grandkids. I know Nancy, and she's such an impressive person in her own right? How is she really been such a great life partner as it relates to getting through all the things that you had to do in business.

Larry Bossidy 31:27 

You know, first of all, I knew her all my life. And she comes in Pittsfield, as I did, I didn't data Rama life on a neuron my life. And so she knew who I was to. We didn't expect to have the family the size of what we did. But we and she handled that with grace. And she loves the kids still does and her grandkids, and she took my achievements, accomplishments with a grain of salt. In other words, she was proud. But she never boasted, she never thought, you know, that separated me from the rest of the people, if you will. So she had a great headset on that. She kept me thinking straight and things that I needed to think straight about. So it was a gift. I mean, I have a lifelong partner that I've been so fortunate to have. And she's been a big part of my success. And

David Novak 32:10 

Larry, I know you're a man of great faith, you know, how is that your faith? How's that guided your life?

Larry Bossidy 32:16 

You know, it's always been a lynchpin for me. In other words, in difficult times, I can always lean on my faith for some support and some help. And I'm not a proselytizer. I don't go around talking to people about it. But privately, it's been an important asset to me, the fact that I could go back and rely on some things and ask for some guidance on some things, has been an enormous help to me. So I would encourage the young people in business to embrace some faith, that doesn't matter which one but embrace some faith, because it can be a wonderful ally to you, as you progress. You are great,

David Novak 32:49 

man. I mean, you know, you meet people, and you know, greatness when you see it. You're a great man, I want to thank you for the impact you've had on my life and the impact on so many other people. And I want to thank you for sharing the wisdom that you've shared in this brief time that we've had together. Well, thank

Larry Bossidy 33:05 

you. You've been very kind. And I always love talking with you. I wish you'd put a little bit better, but we're gonna win it next year. Thank you, David. Okay, buddy, thanks.

David Novak 33:21 

Well, there's so many great lessons to pull from that conversation with Larry. But there was a particular distinction he talked about that I want to highlight. Larry always feels people work with him, not for him. And if we want to get big things done as a leader, that's a mental shift we need to make as well. I'd like to give you a little coaching to help you develop as a leader. This week as a part of your weekly personal development plan. Here's what I want you to do. Be mindful of the language you use when you're talking to your team. Are you using AI and me language? Or are you using us and we language? I want you to pay special attention to the words you're using this week. Because if you want to get things done, your team needs to feel like they work with you, not for you. This simple shift will make all the difference and will have your team leaning in wanting to tackle problems together. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders know how to leverage people strategy and operations to get things done. 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 in 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.