Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Tiger Tyagarajan is the CEO of Genpact, a global professional services firm with 100,000 employees that drives digital-led innovation and digitally-enabled intelligent operations for organizations around the world. Prior to Genpact, Tiger worked for several well-known companies such as Unilever, Citibank, and GE. He was actually one of the industry leaders who pioneered a new global business model and transformed a division of GE into Genpact back in 2005. Tiger serves on the Board of Catalyst, a global non-profit organization working with some of the world's most powerful CEOs to help build workplaces that work for women. He also was one of the founding supporters of the U.S. chapter of the 30% Club, which is committed to gender balance on boards of directors and in senior management. He is an active member of the Fortune CEO Initiative, a forum for corporate leaders committed to addressing major social problems as part of their core business strategies. Just like organizations all over the world, Genpact has had to adjust to the new normal that we are facing with Covid-19. And with a team of 100,000 people all around the world, it is not a simple thing to do. As Tiger shares, when they first learned of Covid-19 there wasn't a playbook that they could just look at and act on. Tiger and his team knew they had to do something and that time was of the essence, so perfection was not what they were aiming for. They knew they had to build something quickly, start using it, and then allow the team to improve it over time. While the experience was stressful, there are a couple things that Tiger shares, that made a difference in the way Genpact reacted. Leaders need to have North Stars A practice that Tiger has put in place for himself, and one that he highly suggests for all leaders, is having a few North Stars in place that help guide you as a leader when making tough decisions. These are the values and the culture of your organization that you need to base all decisions on. And it is important for everyone in the organization to know what those values are, know what those North Stars are, so that everyone is on the same page. Tiger says, "As long as you are clear about that, as long as everyone is clear about that, you have first of all an alignment, where everyone says-- that's the North Star, those are our values, that's our culture. And that therefore makes decision making easier and with speed. And second, you do your best to deliver whatever North Star you defined. So for us, the North Star for us was, we always pride ourselves on incredibly great service to our customers. And we think that's what makes us different. And that's what gets us new business and growth. And we also pride ourselves on being a great place to work for our employees. So therefore, right out of the gate, we said, we want to achieve two design principles in every decision. Number one, do the right thing for our employees-- protect their safety, and wellness-- and two make sure that we continue to find a way to deliver service to our clients because we quickly realized that a lot of the services we deliver, if you stopped delivering, our clients would suffer significantly, and the economy would suffer significantly. Whichever economy it serves. So we had to balance, in every decision, these two things, but it allowed us to take decisions that basically said, these are the two important things, everything else doesn't matter." So what are your North Stars? What are the values inside your organization, what is the purpose or the mission of your company, and what culture are you trying to create? Figure these out and making decisions will be a lot easier. What will work look like post Covid-19? Right now the way we work looks a lot different than it did even just 6 months ago. The question is, once we get past this, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, but once we get past Covid-19 what will work look like? Will it be changed forever or will some things go back to normal. One thing that a lot of people are speculating about is that the office will be a thing of the past and that everyone will be working from home. Tiger doesn't agree. While he does agree that some things will never go back to what it was before, he believes that offices will come back, at least in some form. Tiger says that assuming that 50% or more of the work going forward will be done from home is too simple, it is more nuanced than that. There may be some roles that make more sense to do from home, for example inside of Genpact there are some employees who at certain times of the year have to work for five days straight without a break, sometimes into the midnight hours. For that type of work it would make sense to be in the comfort of your own home while working long hours. But there are a lot of roles where it would not make sense to work from home long term and there are a lot of people who are excited and just itching to go back into the office. Some people thrive on that person to person interaction and collaboration, which is missing right now. Tiger believes that post Covid there will be more flexibility in the way we work, maybe at certain times of the year or certain days of the week people will be able to work from home, but there will be times when the office is necessary. He also suggested the idea of companies possibly acquiring more office space than they have now. Instead of having one office building with 10,000 people, maybe it makes more sense to have 10 offices with 1,000 people in each one. This could bring offices closer to people, bring down commute times, and potentially cut down on air pollution. The current situation is also impacting the speed at which organizations go through digital transformation. Some companies who have just talked about digital transformation for years, have been forced into acting on it quickly. Companies who were resisting change in the past, can no longer wait, even if they wanted to. Tiger says, "What COVID-19 has done is created a couple of constraints that have forced innovation and experimentation. It's the single biggest experiment, people are calling it as the biggest experiment that humans have done considering the time frame. And, and I wonder whether other intractable problems in the world are actually solvable, by actually deliberately putting constraints on." Could problems like climate change be solved if we put our own constraints on it and forced ourselves to solve the problem now? Tiger thinks it is possible, but just like Covid is affecting everyone in the world, in order to solve climate change it would require everyone coming together. It couldn't just be a small group of people. Two things leaders must focus on in the new normal Our current events have shaped the way our leaders need to lead. Not only have they had to make tough decisions about layoffs, closing offices, and trying to figure out how to keep business coming in, they also have had to assist employees in moving from working in the office to working from home in a very short period of time. There are two things that Tiger and his team have pinpointed as changes they had to make to adjust to these times. One was the frequency of communication with employees. In the past, during normal times, Genpact leaders held town hall meetings once a quarter. Now they are holding town hall meetings once a month and they are sending out video blogs once a week. When they would hold town hall meetings once a quarter around 5,000 to 7,000 people would show up, but now that they are virtual and held more frequently there are around 20,000 people joining. The other important aspect that Tiger and his team have focused on is empathy, which is important in all times, but it is much harder when everything is virtual. Leaders have to understand the difference in leading an in-person meeting and leading a virtual one. With virtual, you can't read body language as well. It also is easier in a virtual meeting to have everyone sign in and just start the meeting, skipping the usual banter and check-ins that happen when you meet in person. This is something that Tiger is really focused on fixing, because it is important to keep that casual conversation, to let employees know that you care about their well being and to judge how people are feeling. Are they stressed, are they depressed, are they excited? These are important things for leaders to know about their people. In our new virtual world leaders have to go above and beyond the old ways to make sure they stay in touch with employees and empathize with them. How Genpact is addressing diversity and inclusion More than 15 years ago Tiger and his team at Genpact set out to address gender diversity inside of their organization. They realized not enough women were represented in leadership, and they knew that had to change. Over the past 15 years they have made significant progress, going from one woman on the leadership team to five and from zero women on the board to four women on the board now. He admits there is still a long way to go, but in a short amount of time they have made good strides forward. In light of the current events around the world that are shedding light on racial inequality, Tiger and his team knew they again had to make some changes. But they knew time was of the essence and they didn't want to talk about actions to take for months and months. They wanted to act immediately. They had a meeting on a Monday morning at 9am and by 10am a decision was taken and by that evening they announced their decision publicly. They added racial equality as a pillar of their D&I strategy. And they announced that they were putting Hope Cooper, one of the rising African American leaders in the company, in charge of the initiative. Tiger released an open letter addressing the situation and how the company would react. The company also hosted six open listening sessions across the US so people in the African American, Black American population could share their experiences, their fears, and their ideas. Tiger and Genpact took those thoughts and created an agenda with defined metrics and initiatives with impact. Since then Genpact has also partnered with organizations such as the NAACP to start a dialogue on how the company can bring its unique skills and support to the table to form a meaningful and mutually beneficial relationship. Tiger and his team are definitely not just about talking about change, when they see a problem that needs to be addressed, they are all in. They take the steps needed to immediately start the process of change. And that is so important for leaders to remember. You can't just talk about changing for the better or impacting your community, you have to take action. That is the only way our organizations and our leaders are going to positively impact employees, communities, and the world.

One of the aspects of being a servant leader is practicing self-care. During times of crisis, we often forget to look after ourselves, which is a mistake. If you want to show up and be your best self for your family and employees, then you need to remember to take care of your emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical health. Even with coronavirus, I still make time to exercise each day, eat healthy, and spend time working on chess because these things make me happy! What are you doing to look after yourself during these tough times?

In this conversation, Alex Osterwalder, a leading author and entrepreneur known for his work on the Business Model Canvas, shares insights on building resilient organizations. He discusses how COVID-19 highlighted strengths and flaws in company leadership, using examples like Airbnb and Disney for humane versus aggressive layoffs. Alex emphasizes the importance of fostering innovation through supportive leadership and resource reallocation. He also cautions against common innovation mistakes and advocates for cultivating 'paid entrepreneurs' within companies.

During this COVID-19 pandemic, we hear a lot of stories about all the good things that companies are doing for their people. But why does it take a pandemic for companies to start being more human? We should be human all the time and shouldn't wait for a tragedy to start doing the right thing. During these hard times, we're seeing more conversations around the importance of being more human; connections, relationships, and how to stay together. To beat this pandemic, people have to help each other. Humanity is, and will always be, the most important skill that leaders and organizations need to have in order to succeed.

Gary Hamel is the author of five books including bestsellers What Matters Now and The Future of Management. His upcoming book is called Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, which comes out in August. Gary has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and he is the director of the Management Lab. He has been named "The World's leading expert on business strategy" by Fortune magazine, "the management innovator without peer" by the Financial Times, and he has been ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world's most influential business thinker. He is also a fellow of The Strategic Management Society and the World Economic Forum. This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Check out their new page devoted to the future of work to learn more and check out their resources including articles, videos, and a workplace maturity assessment. There are some companies that seem to dominate at strategy and innovation--like Google, Airbnb, and YouTube. These companies found a way to create rule breaking strategies that have pushed them into the forefront in their industries. But why is it that some companies can figure out how to do that, while others (the majority) have such a difficult time innovating? That is what Gary has been trying to figure out over his career and what he found was that most organizations are alike--they are all using the same bureaucratic model that stifles creativity, innovation, and adaptability. As organizations we need to move away from this old way of leading, but how? Why we haven't moved away from bureaucracy One of the major reasons why organizations have not been able to move away from this outdated model is because leaders do not trust their people. But because of that lack of trust, it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. If leaders feel that they have to treat their people like children because they can't be trusted, the people will feel that and they will stop making decisions on their own. If leaders try to control every aspect of the work, then what motivation does the employee have to do something new and innovative? Gary says, "I make the point in the book that there's a great irony in the fact that most of us, you know, at some point in our life, we're going to buy a car or two or three as we go through life, many of us will ultimately buy a dwelling of some sort. And yet those same human beings go to work and can't requisition a $300 office chair without somebody's permission. And we know from a kind of academic research that when you shrink somebody's autonomy, you also shrink their creativity, you shrink their courage and people just kind of give up. And so, where they may be very engaged in other parts of their life, they're not very engaged at work." The reason why Gary wrote his book was because he became frustrated looking around at a majority of companies that aren't focusing on innovation. They are only changing when they face a crisis and have to change. And while 87% of CEOs think innovation is the top three priority, 94% will tell you their organizations are not very good at it. So Gary wanted to help organizations to see that you cannot become more capable of innovation if you don't change the structures and principles that have kept organizations in a stand still up until now. He also saw that organizations are not utilizing their people to the fullest. Not only that, they are actually holding the people back. We have been using the wrong definition of leadership There are many definitions of leadership, if you ask a room full of 20 people to define the word you will probably get 20 different answers. But Gary says we have been defining it all wrong. Over the last few decades the words leader and manager have been used interchangeably. And usually when we think of leaders we think of the top 20 people inside a company who make all the decisions. How does Gary think we should define leadership? He says "Ask yourself, if you had no budget at work, if you had no title after your name, what can you get done? And so people who need the stick of bureaucratic authority to get something done, I don't think most of those people are leaders, maybe very good administrators, they're not leaders. Leaders are people who know how to mobilize the people around them, know how to get folks to move forward together, and can be catalysts in making that happen. But they're not necessarily defined by a particular place in the organization. So probably, since Drucker was writing, we really know how to train managers, I don't think then or now we really know how to train leaders. But we kind of gave everybody a battlefield promotion when we started referring to managers and leaders. My argument is there are not a lot of managers who are leaders, anybody can be a leader. It has nothing to do with credentials. It has nothing to do with hierarchy, whether you have the courage, the compassion, the sense of community to step up and make something happen, even when you lack that positional authority." So should we get rid of the concept of management altogether? Gary says, we may need to change our language when it comes to management, as it does not refer to a layer of the company or a certain elite group of people. Management is really anything that helps us combine our efforts, do something consistently with purpose effectively multiplying our individual work. Gary believes most people and most teams today are capable of managing themselves. So we need systems and processes of managing together, but we don't need multiple ranks of managers who see their primary role as control and oversight. How Adidas got rid of bureaucracy Gary worked with Adidas and they brought him in to help them get rid of bureaucracy and to build a more innovative culture. They were lagging behind Nike and Under Armour in North America and they wanted to fix that. Gary says that in this instance he was able to train a couple thousand employees on how to think like business innovators. These employees were frontline, retail people who were now trained in innovating and then the company opened up the conversation to get ideas from these employees. Thousands of ideas were created in these open meetings and it got the employees excited and inspired for the first time in their careers. This was so successful they had a second round, but this time they focused on their manager model. They opened up the conversation about the business and the manager model to thousands of employees, which took a lot of courage on the part of the CEO. But that courage paid off big time. A lot of times it is the CEO standing in front of the organization giving their perspective on problems and issues. They are the ones giving the roadmap for how to move forward. But what if any individual inside the company could give an opinion, could have their voice heard, could help solve problems. Gary says, " If you look back at all the people who changed our world, that's what they do, they're not waiting to be asked. They do not assume they're helpless because they don't have a title after their name. They see a problem. They build a community. They go, they build. They try something and they go from there. So these are the hackers. These are the activists who've changed things. And it's kind of amazing to me that, you know, I hear all these CEOs that say, "Gary, our organization needs to change faster". So I ask them a question, "have you trained every employee to think like an activist? Do they know how to build a prototype? They know how to build a community around them to go try something." "No,we've never done that." So how can you complain that your organization can't change fast enough? Well, you haven't taught every single person how to be an agent of change in your organization." The 7 Principles of Humanocracy In his book, Gary shares seven principles of humanocracy that define the DNA of a Human-Centric organization. They are: The Power of Ownership--Companies have a wealth of talented employees, but they aren't given ownership of their work. Which means their ideas never see the light of day. Employees want to be passionate, engaged, and inspired. So give them the power to do so. The Power of Markets--While markets can't function in the absence of appropriate regulatory structures, they are unmatched in their capacity to harness human wisdom and initiative. The Power of Meritocracy--If you want a human-centric organization you can't have rigid hierarchies that make executives king-like and employees like underlings. Hierarchies should be natural and dynamic, based on an individual's performance, not title or tenure. The Power of Community--As human beings we are programmed for community. We need to feel like we belong and that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Leaders need to strengthen the bonds of community within the organization. The Power of Openness--It is important for everyone in the organization to feel that they can voice their opinions. And people should be encouraged to voice different opinions and not feel they have to agree with the boss. Diversity of thought, background, culture, etc…is extremely important to the success of an organization. The Power of Experimentation--The pace at which any organization evolves is determined in large part by how many experiments it runs. You shouldn't let your organization sit still and wait for a crisis to change. In good times and in bad, you must go try something new. The Power of Paradox--Conundrums are what make life interesting. You have to help your organization become a master of paradox. When you can master it, work will become more interesting and the organization will be more capable If we want to see change inside our organizations, we can't keep defaulting to the old way of work. As Gary shares in his book, "We need to embed new human-centric principles in every structure, system, process, and practice. If we're serious about creating organizations that are fit for human beings and fit for the future, nothing less will do"

It's SO important for you to stay #positive and #optimistic during these crazy times with the #coronavirus. Here are 10 things you can do to stay positive and optimistic during tough times: 1. Understand that you control your actions and emotions 2. Avoid staring at your bank/retirement accounts 3. Don't keep the news on 24/7, set specific times to watch and focus on reputable sources 4. Stay away from negative and pessimistic people 5. Make sure you have a good POSITIVE support network 6. Remember that this is temporary, just like airplane turbulence 7. Take time for yourself and practice self-care 8. Remind yourself each day of what you have to be grateful for. 9. Focus your time and energy on something constructive whether it be work, starting a new business, playing chess, writing a screenplay, etc. 10. Use technology to your benefit to stay connected with friends and family

Martin Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books including Buyology, Small Data, and his upcoming book--The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS (Jan 2021). Martin is the founder and Chairman of Lindstrom Company, a global branding and culture transformation firm working with Fortune 100 companies in more than 30 countries. He has advised companies such as Mattel, Pepsi, Burger King and Google. Martin has been ranked on the Thinkers50 list for 3 years in a row and TIME Magazine named him one of the "World's 100 Most Influential people". This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://bit.ly/webexfow to learn more. Have you ever had to deal with rules or guidelines at work that don't really make sense? Have you ever had a great idea for your organization that would save time or money only to have the idea killed as it went up the corporate command chain? I'm sure we've all experienced this bureaucratic red tape in our careers and this is exactly what Martin is trying to combat. He is trying to bring common sense back into the workplace. How innovation is killed For the past 20 years, Martin has been working with companies to transform their brand and corporate culture. And what he found was that every company has an immune system that works as a defense mechanism for change. He says, "Companies have it (the immune system) because as soon as they migrate from being a small startup company to become a real serious bureaucracy, what happens is that people are protecting what they already have. And through that, they create processes and compliance and rules and guidelines. And all that becomes almost an invisible straight jacket, which is almost sucking the oxygen out of the room in terms of innovation and transformation." He gave an example of something he experienced while working with McDonald's many years ago. The company had come to Martin to help reinvent the happy meal. Martin and his team came up with a great concept of redesigning the meal to be healthy, but fun. They realized that in order for kids to eat healthy there had to be a narrative that made the food cool, fun and exciting. They came up with a story where the broccoli was the bushes in the forest, and the tomatoes and the cucumbers were tools and weapons in the story along with all of the other food. They tested this on kids and they loved it. Parents loved it. The McDonald's franchisees loved it. So McDonald's gave the green light to pilot the idea across Europe. After two years the company went to launch the new happy meal and guess what it was? The old happy meal food with an apple added. After that experience Martin realized he needed to understand the "immune system" and actually address the lack of common sense that happens with bureaucratic red tape and corporate command chains. Since then they have actually hired psychologists to join the team at the Lindstrom Company. Why companies need to think like entrepreneurs So what can companies do to start removing the red tape and stop killing innovation? Martin says they need to go back to the concept of entrepreneurship. One key trait entrepreneurs have is they see the world through the eyes of a customer or a consumer, they don't see things through the eyes of a business person. Usually the reason an entrepreneur is starting a new business or service is to fill a gap they experienced so they are the consumer. They have felt the pain or frustration on the consumer side, so they know how to make the experience great for others. But what happens over time is the company grows and the entrepreneur starts getting nervous about others stealing their idea or that some of their 3000+ employees will mess up the company brand or philosophy. That's when the safety net comes in, in the form of rules, regulations, policies, etc...And slowly the company starts seeing the world from the inside out instead of the outside in. This is when the common sense starts fading away. As Martin shares, "When you lose a sense of common sense it is quite often because you lose contact with the consumer, the customer. Really the people who are paying your salary, and you need to reconnect with the real world. And most companies today believe that they're doing that through data, they believe that the spreadsheets and all these statistics and research studies are telling them the truth. But the reality is, there's one little thing missing. And that thing is empathy. The ability to put yourself in the shoes of another person and feel what that person is feeling. And as soon as that happens, it's almost like you're resetting the whole mindset. And that's where common sense is coming back." The six roadblocks to common sense In Martin's new book he lays out six of the most common roadblocks to common sense. They are: Bad customer experience--The company is not feeling the pain the customer feels so no one inside the company acts on behalf of customers to fix problems. The way to fix this is through empathy--finding ways to put yourself in your customer's shoes. Politics--There are two issues in this roadblock. First not knowing what other people in other departments or divisions are feeling and not caring. And the second issue is the KPIs that are not aligned. Technology--Technology is a wonderful thing, but there are always multiple issues with it throughout the day that can be a time waster and it can build frustration. We spend around 15% of our day fixing tech issues. It can be a tool or a weapon Meetings and PowerPoints--Not only do we have too many meetings, but almost everyone is multitasking in them and the culture most companies have created around meetings is toxic. They run over, everyone has their own agenda, people are trying to show off instead of be productive. We cannot be productive if we spend all our time responding to emails and sitting in meetings. Rules, regulations, and policies--There are a lot of rules, regulations and policies inside of organizations that just don't make sense. We have to be able to question rules and eliminate them if they are not reasonable. Compliance and Legal--A lot of times people in this function of the company say no just for the sake of saying no. When this function has too much power, it can destroy your company and how it evolves. You have to have the right balance between keeping the company safe and secure, but also they have to be service minded and remember that any rules put in place should be sensible and be for the best of everyone involved. How do we get back to common sense? We have all probably experienced at least one of the six roadblocks, if not all six. So how do we start moving our organizations back to common sense? Martin's advice is, "First of all, acknowledge there is an issue. Number two, map down what the issues are. And the best way you can do that is to look around in your office everyday, take photos and map this down. Then the third thing is then to categorize it. The fourth thing is to create a whole new business model around it. So you actually are both earning money while you're fixing the problem at the same time. And the fifth issue I would suggest, is really to celebrate this whole thing internally." Why should we celebrate internally? A lot of times we want to change, but we don't dare to. He gives an example of a group of chickens he had that were kept in individual cages for 6 months and then the cage doors were opened for them one day. They all went out the door of their cage for 30 seconds and then went straight back to the cages. So in order to get them to come out he had to put corn in front of their individual cages and each time he would put the corn further and further outside the cage. Martin says, "That little piece of corn just outside the chicken case, I call a 90 day intervention. These are short lived, very quick changes you make in the organization. And what you do is whenever you succeed, you're celebrating that throughout the organization. And the celebration is really important, because if you celebrate when picking up the first corn, all the other chickens are looking around, and they feel Wow, I want to feel that too. And it kind of justifies or verifies, or at least it somehow tells the world this is the right thing. And it changes the culture as a consequence of that. And if you continue having these small wins, time after time, certainly it's solidified the fact that we are on the right path. And that's where you have a transformation of a culture happening. So really what I'm saying here is it's super important for you not to just have these long term goals and talk about what's happening five years from now is the goal still fine. But you have to break it down to small bite sized things and celebrate it every time. And I think the key problem in organizations today is that companies are setting those small goals sometimes, but they're not celebrating the success of them, the victories, and that's just as important as fulfilling them."

Money is no longer the number one tool organizations have to retain and attract top talent. Just because you created a sustainable company doesn't mean that every employee wants to work with you and customers want to transact with you. Employees and customers around the world want to be part of an organization that positively impacts the environment, society, and communities around the world. What you need to be asking yourself is what can you do to create an environment where your employees actually want to show up to work? What can you do to create an environment where customers genuinely want to transact with you?

Chris McCann is the CEO of 1-800-Flowers, a floral and gourmet food gift retailer and distribution company with over 3000 employees. The company was started back in 1976 when Chris' older brother opened his first flower shop. In the 1980s Chris joined his brother in the business and they have been working together ever since. Chris was named to the National Retail Federation's "The List of People Shaping Retail's Future 2018." And under his leadership, 1-800-Flowers was named one of 2017's most innovative e-retailers on the Internet Retailer 'Hot 100' list. This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://futureofwork.webex.com/ to learn more. Chris actually studied political science in college with the hopes of being a lawyer. When he was back home for holidays and weekends he helped out with the family businesses which included his father's painting business and his brother's floral business. When the time came for him to decide whether or not to continue on to law school, his brother convinced him that there was great opportunity in the floral business, but no other company was filling that role at the moment. No one had taken the opportunity to become what Jim described as the McDonald's or the Holiday Inn of the florist world. When Chris realized there could be a great future in his brother's business, he decided to jump in and try it. The brothers agreed to a six month contract and they have been renewing that contract 6 months at a time to this day. Chris is currently on his 72nd six month contract right now. Learning to lead Chris had worked other roles inside his brother's business throughout the years, including delivering flowers to customers, but once he decided to go full time with his brother he soon took on a leadership role. He talks about the process and how he really learned along the way. Later on he did take some leadership courses at Cornell University, but in the early part of his career he had no formal training. Mostly he learned from other leaders he came to know, including the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon and the former CEO of AXA Financial, Ed Miller. Chris gave an example of a time when he had turned to Ed for advice when having to let a person go. "As we were growing our company, we had people that were with us for a long time. And sometimes you run into a situation where the job outgrows the person, but yet the person was very loyal to you and very important in growing the business early on. And letting that person go would be very, very difficult to do. And I remember having conversations with Ed about this. He said, "You're not being loyal to that person". I said, "Well, I sure am, I'm keeping them in a job". He said "no loyalty is making sure that every person on your team is in a position to succeed, whether inside your company or outside your company. So if the job has outgrown someone and you don't have a position in your company. It's your responsibility to do everything you can to get them the right job outside of your company". And that really transformed the way I thought about people." Chris also learned a lot from his brother, who not only started the floral company, but he also worked full time as a social worker who helped troubled boys. Jim brought a mantra into 1-800-Flowers that he learned from his time as a social worker. When working with kids in difficult situations, Jim said, in order to connect with them and be able to help them he realized he first needed to build a relationship with them. So he brought that mantra into the business, you build a relationship first, you do business second. And that really shaped Chris as a leader. How to lead in turbulent times Chris has had to lead his team through some very challenging times. He led the company during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, during the recession, and he is leading them now through the pandemic. When leading in times like this Chris says the most important things for leaders to focus on are communication and visibility. He says that as leaders we need to communicate a lot more than usual during tough times to let people in the company know that you are on top of things and that you are looking out for their best interest. As leaders you also need to make sure you are visible to people during these times too. Even in normal times you shouldn't be sitting in your office all day, but especially in times of turbulence people need to see you and they need to feel like you are accessible. People today are fearful and they have had their lives disrupted, they need to know that the mission of the company hasn't changed, that they are still impacting the lives of their customers, and that the leaders of the company acknowledge times are hard. As Chris shares, "There are some things that will not change, and that's our commitment to our vision, any company's commitment to their vision and their values is very important to be communicated to people. I think that at the same time, you have to be flexible, because you have to as a company respond to the changes being thrown at you. You don't have to change as a company, but you have to change the challenges being thrown out. And then also, I think, the most important thing that we've done in this situation, which is different than the financial crisis, it's certainly different than the 9/11 attacks. The fact that people needed to know that every decision we made would be made with the safety and health of our associates, our customers, our vendors, first and foremost." Dealing with tough decisions When it comes to making tough choices Chris has learned that the first thing leaders must do is make the decision very diligently, you can't just react. It is important to take a step back, look at whatever data you have, and analyze all the impacts of your decision. In almost every decision there are positive impacts and there are negative impacts. Know what the positive impacts are and figure out how to manage the negative impacts appropriately. "For example, if you close a facility, it may be the right decision for the business, it may be the right decision for the profitability of a company, but there's negative impacts on the people that are in that facility. What do you do for them? How do you help manage that process? It goes back to our earlier conversation about loyalty. So I think, as we look at this, you need to really understand the information, assess the possible outcomes. And then most importantly, I think, take responsibility. Once you make that decision, you can't pass that responsibility on to someone else. It's your responsibility to make sure it's successful." You may have to involve other people in your decision, but regardless as the leader, the responsibility always falls back on you. So it is important to think decisions through carefully. Dealing with imposter syndrome It is very common for leaders to struggle with self doubt or a lack of confidence, especially when they don't get formal training. Chris admits he feels imposter syndrome from time to time. When asked how he deals with it, Chris says it takes time and experience. Each time you face a tough decision or a problem within the company it will take you to the next level. And the more experience you have the more comfortable you will be to the point where you can feel like you know what you are doing and it doesn't matter what others are doing because you are measuring your success based on the inputs and successes of the people around you. Chris shares a few theories he and his brother used in their business. He says, "I remember as we were growing our business early on, we said there are two management theories that we will follow. One we call the Nike theory. And it was just do it because there's nobody else here to do it. So figure it out and get it done. And then the other was the Reebok management theory. And Reebok at the time was all about cross training. And we made sure we did that, made sure we'd rotate people throughout the company. And as you do that, and you get experience in each of these different areas, you really build your own self confidence."

A few years ago, I was asked to give a talk to a few thousand people. A week or so after the talk, the client sent me feedback from the attendees and it was...terrible! I scored below a 3 out of 5 and was shocked! I was confused and asked the client to send me the actual responses so I could see why I scored so low. As I read through the feedback it all made sense--context! For starters, from the thousands of people in attendance, only 60 filled out the form. As I read the comments I saw people complaining that there was no restroom break, they didn't like the food, it was too dark, it was too loud, etc. In other words, 95% of the feedback had absolutely nothing to do with me at all! Context matters a great deal in business and in life.