#104 The Leadership These Times Demand – with Vik Malhotra, McKinsey’s Chairman of the Americas

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: CEO Excellence, JP Morgan, Lynn Tomman, Michael Fischer
2. 20:00 – 25:00: Adam Grant, Robert Greenleaf

Notable quotes from "#104 The Leadership These Times Demand – with Vik Malhotra, McKinsey’s Chairman of the Americas"

• Careers and now your host and board member of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lyn toen welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be…

  about Lynn Tomman · at 0:16

• To what I needed to do and so that is where the to be list was brought to life by Michael Fischer in our interviews but many of the CEOs we interviewed actually live their…

  about Michael Fischer · at 2:41

• Love to share with the audience are the following the first is I am a great fan of Robert Greenleaf in 1975 wrote the seminal essay in my mind entitled The servant as a leader…

  about Robert Greenleaf · at 23:11

• The second writings that I've been taken with is a professor at Wharton by the name of Adam Grant and Adam writes about this notion of givers takers and matchers and he would…

  about Adam Grant · at 24:21

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Lynn Tomman — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:21
• Vic Motra — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:29
  Tomman hi everyone it's Lyn toen welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be with Vic motra Vic is Chairman of McKenzie Americas that's McKenzie North and South America…
• Michael Fischer — Person · 1 mention · first at 2:46
• Robert Greenleaf — Person · 1 mention · first at 23:16
• Adam Grant — Person · 1 mention · first at 24:26

Books & papers

• CEO Excellence — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:40
  Of the Wharton School he is co-author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller CEO Excellence which is based on his interviews with the most successful CEOs…

Companies & orgs

• JP Morgan — Company · 1 mention · first at 0:45
  Journal bestseller CEO Excellence which is based on his interviews with the most successful CEOs like Chiefs at JP Morgan Sony Netflix and Microsoft but the book is not so much…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 welcome to the three takeaways podcast which features short memorable conversations with the world's best thinkers Business Leaders writers politicians scientists and other newsmakers each episode ends with the three key takeaways that person has learned over their lives and their careers and now your host and board member of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lyn toen welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be with Vic motra Vic is Chairman of McKenzie Americas that's McKenzie North and South America and chair of the board of the Wharton School he is co-author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller CEO Excellence which is based on his interviews with the most successful CEOs like Chiefs at JP Morgan Sony Netflix and Microsoft but the book is not so much about the best CEOs but what Vic and his two co-authors learned about leadership one of my favorite

1:01 ideas is to create a Tob list I'm excited to learn more welcome Vic and thanks so much for our conversation today thank you for having me Lynn it's a pleasure to be here it is my pleasure Vic let's start with a to be list what does it mean the to be list was an idea that was introduced to us as we were doing our interviews by a wonderful gentleman by the name of Michael fiser who was the CEO of Cincinnati children's hospital and Michael's point of view which we found echoed Time and Time and Time Again by other CEOs other great CEOs just using different words but really echoing the same sentiment was they all wanted in addition to their to-do list they wanted a Tob list the difference between the to-do list is the to-do list is a list of things you just do every day you know you've got a set of tasks you've got to undertake they need to be done but the to be list is what do you want to be as a leader as a

2:04 human being as a a contributor to society and Michael would say that my to be list includes things like I want to be authentic I want to be thoughtful I want to be inspirational I want to be ambitious it doesn't always have to be elements where you're giving it could be the kinds of things you want to be and his very simple principle was that at the start of every day I look down my to-do list and I would look to see where could I execute some of the elements of what I wanted to be as well in addition to what I needed to do and so that is where the to be list was brought to life by Michael Fischer in our interviews but many many of the CEOs we interviewed actually live their version of to be in their daily lives and they kind of try and make sure that they bring it into their daily lives in the leadership sense day in and day out the to be list is my very favorite idea in your book what are some of your favorite ideas I

3:09 think the notion of boldness particularly when it comes to strategy and Direction and vision for a company to me really resonated it seems so simple and it seems so obvious but too often leaders take on roles and the institution of the company is doing just fine and it's very easy to go down the path of steady as it goes or frankly even worse be incremental and I was just struck about how great leaders are really really really bold they're really bold and they're particularly bold in the vision that they set for themselves the ambition that they set for themselves they're almost audacious in the ambition that they set for the company and the direction that they want to take the company and I think that boldness really plays out with our most successful leaders in the business world but I would actually argue that it would be true elsewhere as well so that was one that particularly resonated with me

4:11 the other idea that I'd love to share is I can't impress upon you the number of great CEOs that talked about the importance of having great talent yes incredible Talent you want a lot of people who are truly stars in many ways in terms of how they operate but but they also emphasize just the important difference between having a team of stars who may or may not collaborate well together versus having a star team so this notion of it is not about a team of stars it is about having a star team and really getting a team that comes together well to deliver what the institution needs that notion particularly resonated with me what surprised you most in your interviews with the top CEOs one of the elements that really surprised me was how the very best CEOs spend their time I have encountered a lot of CEOs during my 36 years working at McKenzie and many of them are very operational very Hands-On get their

5:15 hands dirty dive deep into the businesses and that's the way that they operate what I took away from the way that the greatest CEOs spend their times is they really focus on the things that only they can do this notion and this mindset of what is it that only I as the leader as the CEO can do and what it then translates into is that they typically spend a third of their time on vision and strategy and setting the direction of the company including by the way a lot of operational energy on resource allocation in terms of where capital expenditure expense expenditure Talent gets allocated so a third of their time on setting the direction another third or 40% of their time on culture and talent and aligning the team getting that right and then increasingly close to a third of their time on connecting with stakeholders particularly external stakeholders given everything that's going on in the world

6:16 given all the demands of the external world but what it means is they've got to trust their teams to really go and get the work done they've got to know enough to be dangerous enough to know when to intervene when to jump in to engage but they also recognize it is not their job to run the company day in and day out it is not their job to be in the weeds of the daily crises the daily issues others need to do that and I found that to be a very refreshing change from the way many leaders that I've observed end up spending their time how do you think about personal Effectiveness what is it how do you get better at it I would say that there are three elements to it element number one is you think about really managing both your time and your energy so again I found the very best leaders end up they learn this they're not always good at it on day one but over time they very much learn the fact that you've got to be

7:16 ruthless on calendar management so surround yourself with the executive assistant the chief of staff whoever it is that can help you really prioritize how and where you spend your time but they also just as importantly work hard on managing their energy they recognize this is a multi-year journey you can pour yourself into this 247 but if you do that all the time you're not going to be managing your energy well and if you don't manage your energy well you end up being a less effective leader they manage their personal Effectiveness by both managing how they spend their time and how they manage their energy and keep their energy levels High that's bucket number one bucket number two is they're really good at compartmentalizing the reality is we are all hit as Leaders with issues on a monthly basis on a weekly basis often on a daily basis and your ability to set aside an issue and come back to it

8:11 rather than let it affect your next meeting your next interaction God forbid there's been a crisis and then you walk into a 3,000 person town hall and have to inspire those 3,000 people you've got to be able to compartmentalize and they're very good at compartmentalizing and then the final piece I would just emphasize is they are incredible servant leaders the people with the best personal Effectiveness tend to have those wonderful traits of servant leadership around being Visionary yes having perspective yes but they're also authentic they're humble they realize that this is not about them it's about the institution it's about working through others and with others and making others successful all of those traits help with personal Effectiveness and really making sure that you bring bring the best of yourself to work every day as a leader I love your example about servant leadership I think it's

9:06 Reed Hastings can you tell that story Reed Hastings and talking about how he operates as a leader recalled an incident when he was a young software engineer working at another company Netflix had not been founded at the time and like many young software Engineers he worked late into the night often till midnight one or two there'd be coffee cups strewn all over his desk and he'd go away and come back seven or eight hours later and all the coffee CBS would have been cleared and washed and put away in the little kitchen pantry and then he'd start helping himself to more and more cups of coffee one day he happened to leave at midnight and his mind was alert and he was said I got to go back in and solve this problem so he goes back in at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and he hears a lot of clanking in the pantry he walks in there and much surprise he a CEO of that company actually cleaning all the cups and

10:03 assembling everything to have the cups ready for people as they walk in the next morning and Reed said to the CEO what are you doing why are you doing this and he said you and many of the engineers do so much for me and for this company this is the least I can do for you and so Reed always recalls that story in terms of how he needs to in his own way be a servant leader with his people at Netflix and in other institutions that he plays leadership roles in so that's a story that always stuck with him and he recounted that to us for our book it is such a wonderful story many of your ideas are counterintuitive such as don't put Talent first what did you learn about talent and what do you mean by don't put Talent first of course Lyn we did make that little statement just to be provocative and we all recognize and realize the importance of talent so I should say before I get into explaining that statement it should be clear that

11:00 if there was one thing that stood out with the leaders that we interviewed Talent is all important without great talent in your organization you cannot be a great leader you cannot be a great CEO Talent is all important in fact I asked all of these CEOs a open-ended question somewhere in the context of the interview trying to not bias the answer which is what is your one single biggest regret and nine out of 10 of them gave some version of I didn't move fast enough on Talent whatever that might have meant for them in their individual situation so talent's critical they all recognize the importance of talent but this notion of don't put people first is the idea that many of them actually live and work with which is it doesn't start with the talent it starts with the key critical roles many of these CEOs recognize that in any institution of scale let's call it 20,000 30,000 50 50,000 employees there happen to be 200

12:03 150 250 roles that disproportionately impact the performance of the institution and its share price so you might take a manufacturing company and in a manufacturing company that has 20 plants it might be two plant managers out of the 20 neither of these report to the SE of course it could be the head of supply chain who also doesn't Report with the CEO it could be the new head of digital that's going to change the way the company thinks about about the digital environment again reporting likely to the chief technology officer not the CEO and they understand and know what these 200 roles are and then they drive their very best talent internally and if needed go out recruit externally into these roles and they pay a lot of attention to these roles and yes of course they pay attention to the people in those roles but they start with the roles they don't start with the people what are some of your other ideas that

12:58 go against conventional wisdom I thought on the whole topic of aligning the organization the mentality that all lot of these CEOs brought to the notion of you've got to treat the Soft Stuff culture Talent Etc you got to treat the soft stuff as the hard stuff in other words on culture on Talent on things like that you can absolutely Define where you want to go put metrics around it role model model it build capabilities on it measure it pay people on it this whole notion of don't think about culture and talent and teamwork as Soft Stuff these are yes of course you've got to bring human interaction and human touch to it but there's no reason why it's not as manageable as a budget or resource allocation is I thought that was a little counterintuitive at least for me and another one that within that bucket on culture was counterintuitive to me was a very strong message from these great cosos was in big institutions moving

14:06 culture completely is very difficult to do so your best bet is to look at where you're going with your vision and your direction and pick the one maximum two elements of culture that you can shift and really kind of push hard on that over a multi-year period so don't try and move 10 dimensions of culture pick one or two that are going to fundamentally change the direction of the institution and really talk about that communicate it role model it measure it and live it day in and day out and so many of the great cosos we talked to would pick on a one cultural attribute and talk about nothing else for three years literally till it became part of the fabric and acting is always more important than words what are the one or two actions that you've seen CEOs take to change culture that you found truly extraordinary I would say that you're exactly right Lyn which is action speak louder than words I might respond to

15:07 your question in two buckets one is they will pick on a particular cultural attribute and they as I said they will just talk about it for three years in a row Satya nadela and Microsoft wanted to deliver the notion of the growth mindset and for three years that is all he did and he had a lot of tricks and tips that allowed Microsoft to move on that Dimension Kay at Sony wanted to introduce the notion of condo which Loosely translated is the wow factor and that's all he did and talked about for three years was condo condo condo let's deliver the wow factor to our customers no matter whether they're in the entertainment world or the electronics world or the financial services world so there's that one aspect which is the Practical actions is the way that they literally personally role model it and talk about about it day in and day out the other way that actions speak louder than words is what I'll call cultural

16:04 signals that some of the very best CEOs deliver it's the actions that they take the signals that they take just in terms of doing one or two things that sends a very loud message through the organization so to give you a couple of examples peush Gupta who was the CEO of DBS or is the CE of DBS and has done a wonderful job there he wanted to push the whole nation of technology and innov ation in the company one of the software Engineers to try and improve the customer experience actually made a change in the way that their whole ATM process worked and it ended up being a failure it ended up costing the company money because it ended up enabling some fraud and some other actions that didn't work peush didn't sanction this he celebrated it he said yes this didn't work but this is what I want to see more of I want to see more Innovation I want to see more energy broad I want to see more people taking risks and so he kind

17:02 of found it a celebratory moment and that allowed for a real cultural signal into the organization another CEO was on a plant tour and saw that the plant facility was really not in great shape there was bricks out of order in the wall and the like and they actually went down and this is in the book they actually had the Wall taken down and rebuilt as a signal that Perfection was important even when it came to walls and factories that their customers couldn't see so these cultural signals and actions that you take are important because they absolutely run through the organization in terms of messaging a couple of other examples on changing culture really stood out to me one is Jack Kennedy and NASA and the second is Toby crove the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic can you talk about those yes I'm going to be less fasile on talking about the Jack Kennedy and the NASA one which was of course a big dream and well

18:05 documented but I will anchor in on the Toby cosgro one the Toby cosgro one was where he came into the Cleveland Clinic which today we all recognize is one of our preeminent healthc care institutions it wasn't always that way and when Toby took it over one of the things he noted early on was that the patient experience was particularly poor and that they needed to very much up their game on the patient experience to do so one of the things that he did was he gave everyone in the organization at the time I forget whether it was 20 25,000 people in the organization he gave everyone a button one of those big buttons you stick on your lapel and the button read I am a caregiver I am a caregiver interestingly the people who actually pushed back on it with the doctors and nurses who said no no no we're the caregivers we can wear this button but why are you giving it to the technician or the person in

19:01 finance or the person who's in the cafeteria and Toby was adamant he said if you want to deliver an exceptional patient experience it's got to be from everyone yes it's the doctors and nurses giving the primary care but everybody has a role to play when it comes to the patient experience and as a result everyone at the Cleveland Clinic after he got over the initial skepticism wore this button and it sent a very very powerful message and I I think from everything I can read and everything we see out there the Cleveland clinic today is one of our Primary Healthcare facilities yes it's got the quality and it's got the talent but it also always wins highly on patient experience that is such a great story so culture is really important what you call the soft stuff is more important than the hard stuff what do you think the most important soft skills are I would say that this notion of solving for your

20:00 team psychology as a leader as a leader you have a team could be small it could be large being able to solve for the team psychology so that you can really bring them together as a team to me that's the hardest thing to do and too many of us just take bringing a team together as a natural thing that happens and you come together and you have your daily meetings or your huddles or your conversations and it all works out no it doesn't it requires real hard work it requires real hard work from starting with thinking through the composition of your team who's going to be on it thinking hard about how the team works and interacts well with each other thinking about how you build camaraderie through real work what is your agenda so that everybody feels involved in the agenda and the conversations and the dialogue and the discussions what are some of the other things you're doing to make sure that the team team is bonding

20:59 whether it's offsites whether it's social events these are all simple things at one level but really thinking through the team its composition who's on it and how it's really bonding and come together and the psychology of the team to me is absolutely critical you get that right and you can conquer anything but that's hard work it's hard work to really create a truly Dynamic winning team Vic before I ask you for the three takeaway that you'd like to leave the audience with is there anything else you would like to mention that you haven't already touched upon or what should I have asked you that I didn't ask there are two challenges for today's CEO that are different from history or at least two that really kind of caught my attention one is the pace of change is so much faster and CEOs and leaders in general are having to make decisions with less perfect information and often take bigger bets than they

22:01 would have done historically historically at all the Time in the World to kind of assess and analyze and then make your decision and that is just no longer the case so the pace of change and the intensity with which leaders have to deal with it certainly struck me the second thing that struck me was how much more time these great leaders are having to spend in the external World some of it is planned unions Regulators investors analysts all of that external Forum some of it's unplanned war in Ukraine Death of George Floyd these pressures come at you as a leader and you've got to deal with it how do you react how do you Norm for it that's just taking up a lot more of their time than many of them would have anticipated and the very best are learning how to adapt to it and really kind of thinking about how do I think about what's best for the company how do I think about the values of the company how do I think about the

22:53 purpose of the company and how does that really factor into how I react to a lot of what I need to do externally both planned and unplanned Vic what are the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today three takeaways for me out of my life experiences that I'd love to share with the audience are the following the first is I am a great fan of Robert Greenleaf Robert Greenleaf in 1975 wrote the seminal essay in my mind entitled The servant as a leader and in this he documented a approach to leadership that didn't exist at the time really didn't exist at the time in the mid '70s you had a lot of hierarchical leaders a lot of top- down leadership that was the norm and I believe in his own subtle way he's influenced generational leaders he certainly influenced people like me around the mentality around leadership and in this essay he talks a lot about the importance of a leader to have vision

23:54 and to have perspectives but he also talks a lot about authenticity and being humble and all of that and working through others and listening to others and making others successful and to me that is the way leaders should be they should follow the principles of Robert Green Leaf and for those of your listeners who've never read him you may not want to go read the whole detailed essay but there's certainly the cliffnotes version available and I swear by it and I certainly try and live by it the second writings that I've been taken with is a professor at Wharton by the name of Adam Grant and Adam writes about this notion of givers takers and matchers and he would argue that 50% of all people are takers they like to take from others 40% are matchers they give as much as they take but that's where it Nets out and only 10% of us are givers and that's his analysis my own extrapolation of that is you want to be

24:56 in the 10% you want to be in the 10% because while you may never in the moment be able to measure the value of what you're giving over time you will receive much more back if you are a giver in general whether it's a giver of advice giver of help Giver of donations whatever it might be if you are more of a giver than a taker you will find greater reward in many many different ways in life if you go down that path that would be my second takeaway as in life be a giver not a taker and my third takeaway would anchor back in on the book that we've been talking about which is just this whole notion of a mindset of be bold just this notion of a mindset of be bold I think beyond the business world if one can live life with a sense of boldness a sense of really try and push the envelope in all you are trying to do I think we will individually be more successful and I think as a society will be more successful of course within

26:00 purpose within values within all of that but boldness collectively I think will help us all go a long way VI this has been great it's been a pleasure thank you so much thank you Lyn I appreciate it thank you for having me if you enjoy today's episode and would like to receive the show notes or get new Fresh weekly episodes be sure to sign up for our newsletter at 3 takeaway.com or follow us on Instagram Twitter and Facebook that 3 takeaway.com is with the number three three is not spelled out see you soon at 3 takeaways

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "#104 The Leadership These Times Demand – with Vik Malhotra, McKinsey’s Chairman of the Americas"?

In order: 0:00 CEO Excellence, JP Morgan, Lynn Tomman, Michael Fischer; 20:00 Adam Grant, Robert Greenleaf.

What is mentioned in this 3 Takeaways episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Lynn Tomman, Vic Motra, CEO Excellence, JP Morgan, Michael Fischer, Robert Greenleaf. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#104 The Leadership These Times Demand – with Vik Malhotra, McKinsey’s Chairman of the Americas"?

The episode runs 27 min; the transcript is about 4,622 words in 27 timestamped sections.

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