Welcome to Hal Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, we all have those days where we hop from meeting to meeting, only to look back at the end of the day and think, "Gosh, what did I really accomplish?" If that sounds familiar, then you're going to get a lot out of this conversation with Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Metronic. He's also an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and like me, he is passionate about developing great leaders. But he sees so many leaders spending more and more time in meetings and less and less time with customers and frontline employees. That kind of disconnect can be really dangerous and is something that Bill talks about often in this conversation. So I got a question for you. How can you eliminate the layers that tend to build up between you and the people who work on the front lines of your organization? In today's conversation, you're going to learn how to do it and why it matters so much. Plus, there's some great wisdom about leading with authenticity, finding your purpose, and so much more. After all, Bill is the author of True North. So let's get to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Bill George. Bill, I got to tell you, I'm really honored to have you on the show and really appreciate it. Well, I'm honored beyond with you, and I think we're fellow pilgrims on the same path that's trying to see better leaders in all our organizations. Absolutely. And, you know, I want to talk about your time as CEO of Metronic and the past two decades you spent teaching leadership at Harvard Business School. But first, I want to take you back. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader that you are today? Well, it depends how far back you want to go. My father pulled me aside when I was nine years old, and he said, "Son, I feel like I failed to become a leader. I thought he was a very good consultant. He worked with Booz Allen and had his own firm, and he said, "I failed to become a leader. I want you to become the leader. I never became," and he put in my head that I could be head of a very large company. He mentioned specifically Coca-Cola, where he said he had held stocks since 1937, and then he mentioned Procter & Gamble and a new little computer company called IBM out on the East Coast. And, of course, I didn't know what these companies were, but somehow I got in my head that I was going to be a leader. And I can tell you, I joined lots of organizations as a kid, and never was chosen to lead anything. I wasn't elected to the Student Council. I wasn't head of any organizations. I was a good enough tennis player to play a couple of years of college tennis, but I wouldn't even co-cat my high school tennis team. So I finally ran for President/senior class and lost by margin two to one. So I realized I had a lot of learning to do about leadership. Yeah, I understand you learned quite a bit about your own leadership style, running for student, president, both high school and college. Tell us about it. Yeah, I lost six more elections in college. And some seniors pulled me aside and said, Bill, no one's ever going to want to be work with you, much less be led by you, because you're moving so fast to get ahead. You don't take time for other people. Man, that was like a blow to the solar plexus, but it really caused me to go back and reflect deeply that, and to learn that leadership is all about relationships, about relationship with people, about whether they trust you, whether they're inspired by you, whether they want to work with you, and certainly whether they want to follow you. Well you always had a lot of drive and ambition, and you still do because you have a big mission and purpose for your life in terms of trying to make the world a better place by developing better leaders. And, you know, I always look for people who had a lot of drive and ambition for the leaders that we hired, but I'm curious, you know, that can get a little bit out of control at times. You know, what advice can you give to leaders on how to navigate their drive and their ambition, especially early on in their career? Well, I think, you know, I was the kid that wanted to get ahead too fast, and I would say to today's leaders, take your time, do a lot of diverse things, and really learn a lot about business. I did have the privilege of working at the working level, and I think a lot of people skip over that. They got to go to graduate school and come out and think they can work as strategic planner, and they really haven't worked on the front lines. And I did a lot of that from the time I was 16 up until I was, you know, 26, and after that I always want to be on the front line. So I think that's a key. And realize you're just like everyone else. You just come to work. You try to do a good job. And we all have one shot at it here in life, and try to see how you can make difference in the lives of other people. And if you can do that, I think at the end of the day, you feel like you've accomplished something. You know, you made your way to Georgia Tech, and you became an engineer, and then on to Harvard Business School. And from there, as I understand you, you go to work for the Department of Defense. Now, how do you think through that decision in light of your ultimate goal to run a large company? And your dad said, hey, go run Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble. IBM, that's some pretty big, big, big thinking. By the way, I did work. Summer jobs were all three of those companies. But I went to work in the Defense Department because two things. I was during Vietnam. We thought we could help our country. That was one thing. And the second thing was that there were a lot of outstanding people in the government, and we thought we could take a lot of the ideas we'd learned in business school and apply them to the government about how to manage better. And so I was very involved in big weapons systems. Those days, like the F111 fighter planes and the C5A and some real disasters. And it gave me the privilege to work with some very extraordinary people in the Defense Department from the Secretary of Defense on down. So that was a great three years. But I always knew I wasn't going to stay there. I had the opportunity the last year to work for the Secretary of the Navy. And it was just a wonderful experience. But I knew that was kind of learning about government. And I figured in my career, you'd always have to go back and work with the government eventually. I didn't know how soon because the first job I had. I went to work for Linton Industries and I had the job of doing the plan for them to get start the consumer microwave oven business, which I put the plan together and then it didn't go well. And I got drafted to go to Minneapolis about nine months after I joined the company. And the night I was going there, I was packing my bags from Cleveland where my home was. And Surgeon General came on and announced that microwave ovens are hazardous to your health. We're back dealing with the FDA. Little did I know I'd wind up with Medronic working with the FDA, but we were working with the FDA very intensely in those days. And it was very challenging. And but it was great experience. Taking you back to your department of defense days, what was the biggest challenge you faced in your job and how did you handle it? Well, which job? I have many challenges all along. So the job with Linton was, you know, as a young kid, I was 27 years old. I'm hiring people at twice my age, twice my salary. And I really had to learn how to run a business. And the one thing I learned, it was most important, David, is I never had a job , including all the job I had at Medronic, where I knew as much about the business or the work as my subordinates did. Every one of them knew more than I did. And my job is to figure out how to bring them together and focus on the issues that are really important, whether it was growing the business, whether it was problems we had, whether it was a design problem or a manufacturing problem, and how to get everyone to come together and focus on that and share the leadership with me. Because I was young and eager, but still, there was a lot of wisdom I had to bring people in on and extract from them. You know, one of the things that I learned, you know, just about your time at the department of defense, I want to just go back to that for one more minute, is that, you know, you helped uncover a systematic falsification of body count numbers in Vietnam, as I understand it. Okay. You know, how did you do that? And then as a leader, what was your approach to do something right about it? Well, I couldn't fix that whole problem. But, you know, we were analyzing things and we saw that I was there doing the Tet Offensive. Before the Tet Offensive, the numbers, we were always skeptical about the numbers, but the number of Viet Cong dropped from 110,000 to something like 20,000 before the Tet Offensive, how they could pull that off with so few people. And it was all a statistical error. And then they say that 35,000 people were killed in Tet Offensive on the Viet Cong side, and the numbers went to minus zero and they stopped publishing the report. But I think the point was I getting words from friends of mine who are foot soldiers in Vietnam, particularly second lieutenants in the army, and they were telling me they couldn't come back to base without counting the same body three times. But what it really taught me is that if you put enough, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense then, and he put enormous pressure on people to deliver the numbers. And the numbers got falsified by feeding them up through a system. No one intentionally falsified the numbers, it just got systemically falsified. And everyone who's relying on these numbers or finding a war of attrition, but it showed me how far in a huge organization, if you don't know what's going on at the front line, you don't know what's going on. And we can jump all the way ahead to the last three years with COVID. If you didn't realize the value of frontline people, you wouldn't have been eating unless they'd been working. It's nice to say we're home on remote, but they were the ones delivering the goods, so to speak. So we realize I did, and I have ever since, the people that really make the difference are the frontline workers, the people that are working on production lines, working in the engineering labs, working on a frontline, working with customers. And so I think that's a lesson that I think a lot of people have overlooked. Yeah, I agree with you. And you were 27 years old when you ran Linton, which is just an amazing accomplishment you think about that. And you had to obviously be the leader, act like the leader, give everybody the confidence that, and you had meteoric growth. When you were in that role, how did you make sure that you developed your own skills so that you could keep up with it? Well, I developed my skills by listening to other people and understanding what they were doing. And I remember going into, we had a problem with meeting the radiation standards of the FDA, and I remember going into the third shift we had working on, see if we could start production. It actually wasn't a third shift. It was getting ready for production the next morning, went in about 3 o'clock in the morning, and it was getting out with the people. That's how I learned. And by the way, I carried that too throughout my career. Medtronic, I learned much more about quality by going to, saying down the good production workers, going to the production on, asking people what their problems were, than I ever could, reading quality reports. So I learned the importance of being on the front line. And you can translate all the way to a challenge like Starbucks has today, the Barista customer relationship, or how you feel about when you're checking into a hotel, or how the flight attendant treats you on an airplane. These things are directly translate to me. You got to get out and know what's going on. And it's really hard to do. And my skill and how I worked in defense department was I could go to the very front line and then bring things all the way back to the Secretary of Defense and his direct reports. So I think that is something that I felt was absolutely critical. How were you able to manage up and down like that? You know, it's like, you know, that's the real skill in and of itself. You could go to the front line, you say you could bring it up to top management . How did you learn that skill and what advice could you give people on how to move it up the ladder? Well, I'd say just go to people and sit down and say, David help me understand. How do you do this? Tell me understand how does this product get designed? How does it work? You know, I couldn't, but after my mid-trying days, I couldn't design it a February later of my life dependent on it, but I had to understand how it worked. So I was always asking people how do things work and learning. I learned that in summer jobs when I was a kid. And if I could just keep asking that kind of people want to help you. And you know, they want to share with you what they know. And you know, people go into the labs, they want to show you their latest greatest idea. If you'll go out and work with a doctor at mid-tronic, never tell a doctor how to do his or her job, but you can sure ask him, now tell me, help me understand how you're doing this. And boy, they were willing to help. And so I just found that's always true. But so if you can get that first line knowledge, then if you can integrate that all, then you can take it to high level people like I did in the defense department or like I did with Litten Industries, corporate people or, you know, all the way to a board of directors in mid-tronic and try to span the length and breadth of the organization. Because I think the problem you've gotten organizations, David today, we're going off a little further, but is that the executive team is not talking to the front line. I wrote two cases on the Boeing 737 MAX. You probably would call that disaster 346. 346 people lost their lives because top manager wasn't listening to the engineers. The engineers know what's going on. They knew it was a problem, but no one wanted to listen to them, you know, and there are too many layers in between. So I think this is a huge problem in large organizations. You know, you work hard on developing yourself so that you can lead. That's been one of your great traits. And I understand that one of the things you've done to develop as a leader is that you have a meeting every Wednesday morning and you've had this meeting with a group of guys ever since 1975 and it started in the middle of the time you were at Litten. How'd this come to be? Well we'd gone to a retreat, some of us, and we decided let's keep meeting. We'd gone to a three-day retreat and I really wanted to keep meeting and so we have met. We're still meeting. Oh, meet time. Yeah. Every Wednesday morning, 7, 15, 8, 30, same group. Well, a couple of people have passed away. But six of us meeting and the thing that's held the group together is there is a very substantive program every week. So we pass it around. You get two weeks and you have to come up with the program. We're all guys and so in my program a couple of weeks ago is what does it mean by authentic masculinity? What does it take to be a real male in today's society? Because you know, the boys and a lot of them are dropping out, a lot of men are dropping out of work. And so there's, it used to be women and girls and now we're really concerned about the males. So but anyway, that's just a sample of a subject. You know, maybe what's the legacy you want to leave? To what's the situation where you violate your own values? And so these groups have been incredibly, so I've taken the same idea in my courses at Harvard. Every one of them, we take 50% of the time and meet or maybe 25% of the courses to meet with small groups so people can talk in a very intimate way. And I find in large groups there are a lot of things people won't say. You get to a six person group with confidentiality, then you really have an intimate discussion and that group helped me so much. There was a time when I was unhappy in my work at Honeywell and but I still had in the back of my mind, I'm going to run some big company like Honeywell and I was one of the two people on track to be CEO, maybe the leading candidate if that's a little bit immodest . And you know, I was very unhappy and I woke up one day and realized how unhappy it was. I told the guys in my group and they said, "Well, why did you turn now Medt ronic for a job three times? Why did you turn him down?" And I said, "You know, this is the single coming out here. I always thought it was going on a large company. Medtronic's got a mid-sized company." And I thought about it a lot and I finally screwed up my courage, called the CEO back and I turned the job down six months before and I said, "Is that job still open ? Be number two and be your successor?" He said, "Well, we're about ready to fill it but yeah, it's open so I got in line and walked in the company and it was the best decision I ever made. But I think the guys in my group really helped me sharpen that or have the courage to go do it and to kind of give up what this idea I'm going to run a big company. Of course Medtronic is now growing up to be quite a big company. In large part because you're a great leadership and the people that you've built within it. And you did go to Honeywell instead of going to Medtronic when they offered you the chief operating officer job and you worked for this man named Ed Spencer. What was it about his leadership that made you want to go there? Well Ed Spencer was a great global leader. I'd worked him in our community. I think that's why he offered me the job in the first place and I've always been looking for role models. My father sent himself up as an anti-role model so he was like a role model for me. If the kind of leader I wanted to become and I thought I could learn from him, he offered me a job reporting directly to him which I did for a couple of years and then I , he also gave me the opportunity. I never lived overseas. I traveled overseas all the time. I never lived overseas. Offer me an opportunity if I did well to be president of Honeywell, Europe, Middle East and Africa. That's one of the greatest jobs in my lifetime. One of the greatest growth experiences. Being at Brussels and having 50 countries or whatever but really having a chance to really work in a true global environment. I barely spoke the language and had to work with really diverse people. That was a truly great experience. Ed gave me that opportunity. Unfortunately, he passed away a few years ago but I learned a great deal from him about how do you run a big company. As EVP of Honeywell, you were on track to basically run that company but you say you lost your purpose of your leadership. What was going on? How did you really uncover that? You talked a little bit about your group. Well, I had this great job in Europe for three years. It was fantastic. I thought it was going to be there five but we went to a major corporate reorganization. I got a two-step promotion to become executive vice president one of four and it was like the worst promotion in my life because I got separated from the people. When I was in Europe and I was at Litten Microwave, later in Medtronic, I could always been very close to the people on the front line but here was such a huge bureaucracy. I had nine divisions, three groups. All these layers in between me and the people actually doing the work. I was given a series that turned around because I was quite willing to jump in and turn businesses around and we had a lot of business that were in trouble. I spent about three years getting a whole series of businesses turned around and they gave me another group of businesses, got that done in about 18 months and then they threw me into the aerospace and defense business which is an important business but it's not the business I was inspired by. I just realized that I was very unhappy. I like to think of myself as a person that can grow businesses. We've grown in greater than 50% a year at Litten Microwave. Later on in Medtronic in my career, I was there 13 years total and we grew at a compound rate of 18% per year. I knew how to grow a business so I wasn't using my best skills and I wasn't in touch with the people as much as I wanted to be. I finally told my wife that but I had this hang up all the way back to the first story. You asked me about it about my father that I was headed around a big company and so I had to give that up. I think, am I living somebody else's dream for me or am I living my dream? When I walked into Medtronic, I realized I was living my dream to be with a group of people committed to a purpose. Honeywell purpose, kind of like General Electric, purpose of making money. I know how to generate profits and all those kind of good things cash flow but that's not how I want to live my life. Medtronic had a great purpose of restoring people to full life and health. To tell you how we measured ourselves was the question we measured, metric we measured ourselves, how many seconds does it take until another person is restored by Medtronic product to full life and health. When I went there was 100 seconds, when I left it was down to 7 seconds. If you do the math, we'd go on 14 times and today it's 2 per second. To me, that became a metric that every employee could share in. What's great about that is that you've got such a noble cause that inspires people to get up every day and go to work. You rattle off what your mission is just like TikTok. How much time did you spend working on crafting that magic set of words about what your company's all about? Well, I didn't craft it. Earl Bakken, our founder did. What I did was meet with people all the time, all around the world. Every time I went to India or China or Germany or the Netherlands, we'd meet with a group of employees and talk to them about the mission and the values. See, that's what they resident. If I went there and say, "Guys, our goal is to make so many millions this year and to make 236 this year," they can't relate to that. They don't understand that. They think that's my job, which it was. They could relate to. They had to put a product together. They had to design and develop products that would save people's lives. Everyone could relate to that. Everyone, everywhere in the world. That became the glue, the bond that brought our company together. We had to do it with taking care of our customers. Just to make it be real, I'll tell you that, see, I knew nothing about medicine when I went there. I knew a lot about technology. I knew it was because I'm an engineer and I've been an ITech business. I knew zero about medicine. The way I learned the business, I went out and put on the greens, gowned up, metaductor, 6'30", 7'o'clock in the morning. I watched him or her do surgery or work with their patients or follow up their patients. Mostly it was surgeries. I saw over between 700 and 1,000 procedures in the 12, 13 years I was there. I had the chance to see a lot of front line things. I saw some not very nice things and some pretty great things. I realized how I learned the business and I would bring those stories back and share them with people and that inspired a lot of people. I encourage all of our people to get out and spend time in the hospitals seeing what's going on because I see a lot of companies getting people get like I was a little bit at Honeywell, trapped in the ivory tower. Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week or have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do too. My name is Koolah Callahan and together with David, I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes and in them, I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading young brands and all of his answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight, David shared in one of our most recent three more questions episodes. One of the huge traits that people need today more so than ever is the ability to collaborate. The ability to get all those opinions out on the table so that you can really make the very best decisions and that that collaboration skill is something that every leader really needs to develop. And, you know, that's why I think a very important question to ask as a leader is what do you think? Get the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to How Leaders Lead wherever you get your podcasts. Bill, you say you have to know how to lead yourself before you can lead others. Well, how do leaders discover what you describe as their true north? Well, you know, I think the first thing I do is you have a unique life story. What is your story? And I had to go back and process that back in my earlier days when I was on the wrong track. What is your story? And then deal with the most difficult times you've had. See, everyone wants to talk about what's your best self? When do things really go well? That's easy to talk about. I tell you, when things don't go your way, that's when you find out who you are . You find out what really matters. I had a, if you don't mind me telling you this story, I had two tragedies that hit me after I got out of, when I was in defense or I got out of Harvard Business School and I was, you know, I've been there four months when my father called the same. My mother had died suddenly that day of a heart attack and I would not very close to my father because he traveled all the time, but very close to my mother. She was the source of my values and everything I grew up to have tried to live to ever since. And I never got a chance to say goodbye. And, you know, I was very close there. I'm an only child. And then I recovered from her death. Fell in love, got engaged to be married to a woman from Macon, Georgia, where she was living in Washington about three blocks away from where I was living. And was on track to get married. And she had been having some headaches, but we didn't know really what it was causing him. And she went back home to Macon to get ready for the wedding and I taught her on a Saturday night. And the next morning, her parents called to say that she died in the middle of the night of a malignant brain tumor. And I can tell you I was just devastated because I could explain my mother's death in the natural order of things parents pass away. But I could not explain the death of a 25 year old, even though I'm a person of faith. And so that was really tough. And fortunately, I had a lot of friends that came around me. I did it in my faith. And that was the real test for me to realize, you know, I always had these long term goals, but it really counts for the people. You and I talking to people listening in that one to one, you know, today, right now. And that was a big learning for me about the importance of the only, we don't know how long we have to live. So we got to make every moment count. Thanks for sharing that story. And you know, when you think about it, what process should you use to find your true north and then find an organization that is in sync with your true north? You know, I think a lot of us think, Oh, I want to be successful and have a great family. I want to do this. I want to do that. I really have to think through what gifts can you give to the world that you're unique? What are the gifts you bring the world? You know, I'm not a technical genius. I didn't want to be, you know, an academic or, you know, what are the gifts? And you decide then, well, how is that purpose? How can you do bring that? And you're right. If we want to be, I decided my gifts were going to be in leadership, but then I had to decide where do I want to lead? I can't just lead anywhere. I tell you, if I wanted to politics, I would lose very badly because I wouldn't be a good politician. I'm just too straightforward and too honest and say what I think. But I had to find, you know, the right match. Like you said, it took me a long time to front. I love my job at Litten Microwave, but I can tell you the corporate headquarters or a lot of values and ethics questions for me. That's one of the reasons I had to leave. Honeywell was a very ethical company, but it was a big bureaucracy and I kept trying to change your bureaucracy. And at Medtronic, it was small enough that I could help mold it with the kind of people we needed, a dedicated group of leaders that shared a common purpose and vision and set of values. And so that was like the right place for me. But I think you have to really go back and process what's really important to you in life and figure that out to find your true and north. And it really is the core essence of who you are. And see when you're successful, you start to think you're better than you are. And when it all gets stripped away as it did with me with those two deaths, I realized what's really important to me in life. And I said it's really relationships with people and helping other people learn how to lead and reach their full potential. So if I had a purpose today, I would say I do have a purpose and my purpose, you know, I'm not the guy designing the defibrillators at Medtronic of the Stents. But I would like to think my purpose is to help people reach their full potential. And I've carried that over into the two decades I've been at Harvard Business School now. That's a great, great purpose. And you've made countless positive impressions on so many people. And, you know, back on the purpose, you know, you did have to make that move to Medtronic and it was a smaller company. Do you remember that interview process? And was there anything that the CEO said to you that said, Hey, I'm going to be able to sync it up here? Well, the CEO, Wayne Wallen was great to me. He had a mandatory 65. The founder had a retiree earlier, a 65. And so he knew he was going to go and he had two years. So he had to find the right successor and he was under a lot of pressure on the board. And I talked to five or six or seven board members about the job. The most important part was I met with the founder Earl Bakken who flew all the way to Phoenix where I was meeting one of my Honeywell divisions. We met in a little Marriott court, you heard Hotel. And it's interesting. He never interviewed me for the job. All he told me, he wanted to talk about the mission and he wanted to see if I got it. If I was going to be true to the mission and the values of the company he'd put in place because what he cared about is that mission being carried out. And I've seen mission-driven companies flourishing and I've seen companies without a mission like General Electric that are not flourishing because there's nothing that brings people together. There's no glue. There's no there there. And I think that's why that's what I really learned from the interview process and all the board members as well as my predecessor, Wayne Wallen, were totally committed to this mission. You know, at the time, Medtronic was an industry leader and pacemakers and def ibrillators. But you had this vision to become the world's leading medical technology company. And you know, you achieved rapid growth as the CEO. What did it take to get everyone on board with this new mission or was it a no- brainer to everybody? Well, the first thing I had to get on board was I was still COO, CEO who was retiring on board with it because, yeah, why do you want to do that? And we had a long way to go just to get the company to be the leader in our own field. But I just saw the potential of our technology to help so many people. And if we could take these implantable devices we were making and not just put them in the heart, but all over the human body, we could have a huge impact. And we were fortunate enough to realize a lot of that impact. I mean, with a disease like Parkinson's, which is, you know, an incurable disease, we couldn't cure people, but we could give them a whole life and take away about 90% of the symptoms. Same with cerebral palsy, same with a lot of mental. That's the great future that neurology goes easy in the future. But we were able to help people with heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest and a lot of things that, you know, people would die from before. So that was a great satisfaction, not just to me, but to everyone who worked there of seeing how we could fulfill that mission. So I saw my role is conveying that to everyone and trying to inspire them around that mission and then come together to solve problems of what's stopping us from doing it or how do we get there faster. You had this incredible run as the CEO and yet you set this, what I think was a self-imposed 10-year term limits for the CEOs at Medtronic. You know, what compelled you to do that? Well, I'd studied the previous generation of CEOs. I thought they were staying too long. There's a great danger for a CEO you fall in love with the job. And I was just talking to the CEO who stepped aside six months ago, the world's largest privately held company, who's a friend of mine. And he stepped aside after 10 years when he hit 64 or 16. And he was saying how his board was surprised. Mine was too. But I think you can stay too long. And I think it's a high pressure job, but you go on and give it everything you got. And then your successor knows when he or she can step up. And so that gave my successor our accounts a chance to step up. But I can tell you, it's like repelling down a cliff when you give up the job. You're 20, 58 years old when I turned it over to my successor. And I had no idea what it's going to do next. But you know, you only go around once in life and like you're doing other things, David. I think you, I want to have the chance to experience all the life has. And if I identify too much with being CEO of Medtronic, then I can't develop myself as a full person because I just have that image. I'm CEO of Medtronic and I started to become my title. And that's where I think people get in trouble. And you never want to get caught up. Movie stars and celebrities get caught up in that too. You got to put all that aside. That's why you're so passionate about what you call, you know, living an integrated life. Well, that's another thing we face. You know, that time I was going from Honeywell to Medtronic. I was looking around and thinking, you know, I might get offered. I got, been offered some CEO jobs elsewhere. But so why would I do that to my family? My wife has a good job here in Minnesota and our sons are in one who was in junior high, one was in senior high school. They're happy. We have a lot of friends. And why would I disrupt their lives to be a corporate bag of bond and kind of move from one city to the next? I was looking at the GE book and they moved people every year and a half to a different city and you know, what's that do to the family? So when I was 22 years old, I was dedicated. How can I have a great family life and a great career and not constrained either? And yeah, there are trade offs. I was, couldn't kid you, you know, on new travel as much as I did. But still, I coached soccer. I coached youth soccer for 12 years. So I'm with my kids, coaching soccer. They always, I was always with the team they were on, but we wound up doing pretty well. Took a lot of time, but hey, it was worth it, you know, and I'm glad I did. You say growing companies have an opportunity and an obligation to grow leaders , you know, what are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way that's allowed you to develop leaders in an effective fashion? Well, you got to be who you are, you know, and so many people, I remember back in the days of G when Jack Welch was his GE, everyone wanted to emulate Jack and I thought to some people that they said it was tough enough dealing with Jack, but trying to deal with these phone users, trying to be like him. It was really bad. So you got to be who you are because I think that's where people get in trouble . They try to be something they're not. They get caught up in the image. I am my title or I am my stock price or, you know, I'm this big person going to Davos and make a great impression on everyone at the world economic forum or, you know, I get called to the White House to meet with people. That's not who you are, you know, and you got to get that out of your head that that's the world you live in because you can get carried. I've seen a lot of people destroyed by that. It's very sad to me. And then they lose sight of what they believe, their values and they start trying to be something they're not and there's nothing uglier than that. Art Collins was his, your successor and I got to know him in this special group of CEOs. We met twice a year. He's a fantastic person. I mean, a really grounded, wonderful person. How did you determine he was the guy to take your place? Well, Art's a world class executive and he was really good. The hardest part was recruiting him out of Abbott Labs or he was on a fast track there and getting him to come up and he actually we had a lot of, we had, we ran for a company that put value on integrity. We had a lot of ethical problems internationally, not in the US and Art had to go solve, help me solve those problems, go all around the world. So he was head of international and then he became chief operating officer and then became my successor. But you could see he was going to be CEO someday and I just thought he would be a great CEO met Johnny and he did a great job. So I give him a lot of credit. He kept stayed on the so-called straight and narrow, kept the company going on track and didn't get pulled off because where come he's getting trouble? Succession is the time David when you can do really well or you can have it go really poorly. Johnson and Johnson had done a good job in their succession. The GE succession did not work well between Welch and ML. And I've seen other cases where success really failed and the company went down . It's probably the number one cause of companies, whether they thrive or whether they get in trouble and eventually disappear. And so I thought that was really critical to have my successor there and work together. So we got to know each other very well. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Bill George in just a moment. You know, when you're connected to your frontline teams, you respect and value the work they do. That's certainly true for AutoZone CEO Bill Rhodes. In our episode on how leaders lead, Bill talks about the importance of valuing those you lead. And so I've learned forever that if you really want to understand what's missing in a business or what we need to improve, you go straight to the front lines and you deal with the people that are dealing with a customer every day. They know best. And then I just have tremendous respect for what they do and frankly, they're just wonderful people and I love to be around them. Don't miss my entire conversation with Bill Rhodes, episode 122 here on How Leaders Lead. You know, you've said a couple of things about GE and, you know, 20 years ago, everybody was raving about how brilliant they are. And then, you know, today everybody says, look what's happened. If you had a diagnosis, the single greatest thing that drove GE down, what would you say would be? They chose the wrong leader in Jeff ML and they gave him 16 years. Where is the board? How can the company go downhill for 16 years and you keep the CEO? You know, if you can't do it after five years, move on, find a new way. Another example of that, you know, GE is gone today. There is no general. Here's the world's most valuable, the most admired company and the most valuable company in the world in 2000. And you know, today there is no GE and it's a tragedy. There's a couple of divisions left, but you know, the jet engine division is a great division. And I think it was really someone that didn't find himself and he was lived in Welsh's shadow. You can't do that. Now, I'll give you another example of a company that was going downhill that turned around brilliantly. That's Microsoft. Bill Gates, anointed Steve Baumer, his original partner to be CEO. The company did nothing for 14 years. They missed every single innovation. It came along. They were milking the office and windows software suites. And then Sacha Nadella takes over. And Sacha had his own tragedy in his life with his son who sadly died of cerebral palsy. But Sacha came in and said, you know, we're going to go for know-it-alls to learn-it-alls. We're going to have empathy. If you don't have empathy, you can't work here. He changed the whole company. They were the most arrogant company in the world when I tried to work with them . You know, back in my Medtronic days. Today, it's a totally different company. And he is totally transforming. The company is just flourish. So that's a good example of where a leadership change encouraged the company to do or enable the company to do exceptionally well. Another one, Tim Cook at Apple. Everyone said, no one can succeed Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator. He's not a great leader. And you see what Tim Cook has done. It's just been incredibly good. But here's a person who knows himself. You know, Tim is gay. He's openly gay. But he talks about it. He's so proud to be that. And I've learned more being a gay man. Well, good for him. You know? That's not my experience. But hey, you know, he can be who he is. And I think that's what we all have to do with David, is be who we are. And you know, I'm not some rock star. And so you just got to, you know, just got to do what you could do well. Bill, you obviously tell it like it is, at least from your perspective. You don't miss words. I mean, you offer up your point of view. Was this something that always came natural to you? Or is this something you developed over time? And what advice could you give to people who are a little bit afraid of confronting reality or getting their point of view out there? Well, you know, I tend to be too plain spoken. Good friend of mine is Paul Polman, who's had a Unilever. He's Dutch. My death, the heritage is Dutch. And it tend to be very direct. And sometimes that offends people. But in the classroom, I'll offend people by challenging them. So yeah, that's kind of the way up. But I tell you, for a long time, I had trouble being vulnerable. And just admitting mistakes, I thought I had to be on top of everything. And it took me a while. And when I could do that, when I could be vulnerable and admit mistakes, say I 'm sorry. I've always been ill, say I'm sorry, but to really admit mistakes more freely. Wow. Then that's where I could really grow and become into being myself. It took me a while. And so I tell people today, you got to be willing to be vulnerable. You got to admit your mistakes. If you're on top, you don't admit sharing mistakes, no one else can. That was what I saw in the Defense Department. No one's willing to admit their mistakes. We made horrible mistakes. Why not admit it? And so I think a lot of people can't do that. And because they feel vulnerable. And I think when you can, you can be vulnerable and say, I made a mistake or I 'm David, I'm sorry I offended you. I didn't mean to say that. That's okay. People will forgive you. What part did recognition play in your leadership style? Look, I always say, if we have a problem, you say you're on my team and you cause a problem, I'm going to step in front and say, I'll take responsibility for that. But if we do really well, the team's going to get the credit. People on the team. And I've always operated with that philosophy. Hey, it was the engineers made met, trying to go as all those people are working with doctors and shirt, every pacemaker, every defender, every extent was a successful procedure. They're on the production line to produce the perfect quality every time. They're the ones that made it go, not me. I was just there to support them. And I think a lot of people don't understand their roles. I think I'm in charge. I'll tell them what to do. We really have to realize that they're the ones that make the difference. Hey, go on an airline. What do you remember about the airline? Once the last time you saw a CEO on a commercial airline, you don't see them, right? You know, who are the people making their efforts? It's the pilot. It's the flight attendant. It's the people you're acting with, the person at the gate, how you're treated. That's what makes a difference, whether you like flying in that particular airline. So I think that's so important that we recognize people and give them the credit and never take credit for it. But also, don't be a blamer. And I've seen leaders, or real blamers, or leaders, managers, executives, toxic executives. Every time there's a problem, they blame someone else. Carly Fiorina, when she was at Hewlett-Packard, was blaming everyone else. And you've got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, "Am I the problem?" That's absolutely true. And Bill, this has been a lot of fun and I want to have some more with that. I always do a lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Yeah. What's one word others would use to best describe you? I hope there's a person of integrity. That may be the one word you'd say to describe yourself as truthful. I guess I'd like to describe myself as a person who was true to his values. One word integrity. Who would play you in the movie? Who would play me in a movie? Yeah. Yeah. Really good guy. You know, I'd like to play me, but he's deceased. I was Henry Fonda because he was a great man I looked up to. There you go. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be and why? A living or dead? Living? Doesn't matter. Deceased to it, Beiber, Ham Lincoln, or Thomas Jefferson. Living would probably be the Dalai Lama where I've just met with him last October. What's your biggest pet peeve? Biggest pet peeve. People that don't give a damn. You've been married to your wife, Penny, for 54 years. What's your best piece of marriage advice? Ah, be true to your marriage vows. Be true to your wife and communicate all the time. You never stop because we go in different directions. Keep communicating. Keep talking. And tell her you love her. Who's the leader you admire most today? Today, I mentioned Sacha Nadella. I'm Mary Barra, General Motors. I really admire. They're just fantastic leaders. I think there's some great leaders out there today in business. And I really admire them. David Gurgen's a good friend of mine. Look up to him. He's a great leader. Norea, or Dean. These are all very wise people. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You probably hear a soccer channel or CNN or maybe some music because I change the dial all the time. I don't like ads. I'm very impatient. So I'm moving the dial around because I don't want to listen to any ads. What's something about you a few people would know? That I mentioned earlier to you and essentially that I coached soccer for 12 years. Not many people would know that. Except for some of my former soccer players. Well I was CEO of Medtronic and Executive Vice President Honeywell. That's the end of the lightning round. Good job, by the way. You've been at Harvard Business School for the past 20 years. What have you learned about leadership from teaching? Well, I think if you're teaching, you are leading a class. And I think it's to care about every person, help them, realize their full potential. Sometimes you do that by challenging them. Sometimes you do it by encouraging them. And I spent a lot of time. I spent two and a half, three hours a day when I was teaching MBAs, trying to give counsel to them. You're on this mission to help people fulfill their potential. What's the biggest challenge you see when you look at what's going on in the companies that you study? Being captive of the shareholder of the last five minutes. In other words, the short term shareholder and falling prey to that and capit ulating to it. The biggest problem, you lose sight of your mission and your strategy and the bigger picture. How do you stay focused on that big picture, Bill? It's raining outside, your sales are down that quarter. You had a tremendous run and deservedly so. But when you had those seasons in your life when it was rough, how did you stay focused on the big picture? Well, you have bad times and just admit it and say, guys, we're having a bad quarter or having a bad time. Let's, we're all got to pull together and we're going to pull it out. It can be better in the months ahead, the year ahead. We got to pull everyone together to do that. But admit you got a problem. You can't solve any problem until you admit it and then you got to look yourself in the mirror and realize that maybe I'm the source of the problem. Maybe I over promised and under delivered. So you got to make sure that you're honest with yourself first. All right. Last question. What piece of advice you've given to someone who wants to be a better leader? Well, that's easy. Be yourself because everyone else is taken. There you go. So don't try to emulate your predecessor. Don't try to act like you're a CEO. Just be yourself. Be who you are. And if you can do that, you'll be very successful. Absolutely. Bill, thank you so much. This has been really fun and really vibrant interview. I appreciate it very much. Well, David, you're a fabulous interviewer and it's from my privilege to be with you. And let's stay on this course of helping people become better leaders. I love leaders like Bill who just don't mince words. He says exactly what he means. And boy, he means what he says. And it's funny. As Bill was talking, I found myself just nodding my head over and over again in agreement. Every time he talked about the importance of your people on the front lines, I thought about all the time I spent in KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants all around the world. And I got to tell you, for me, that was where the magic happened. Talking to customers, listening to team members, it was such a powerful way to understand the true needs and pain points of our restaurants. And by staying connected to the front line, I was able to make better decisions and hear breakthrough ideas. When you let layers pile up between you and the people who really do the day-to -day work, it's easy to lose perspective on the heart of your business. What makes your business really tick? This week, I want you to ask yourself, how many layers are standing between you and your front line? How often do you get truly connected with the people who make your product and serve your customers, who really keep things moving day-to-day? Come up with three ways you could cut through some of those layers. When you prioritize your connection to the front line of your business, it's going to help you make better decisions, discover new ideas, and build the kind of culture where big things happen. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders stay connected to the front lines. Coming up next on How Leaders Lead is Michael Bungay-Stannier, best-selling author of The Coaching Habit and founder of Box of Crayons, a leadership development company that helps leaders tap into the power of curiosity. It really pays dividends to stay curious longer to figure out what the real challenge is. And in fact, if you're looking to be an aspiring leader, if you can become known as the person who figures out what the real problem is, rather than the person who has fast advice, that is a far rarer and a far more valuable resource within an organization. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I may get 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. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]