[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_139":-5,"_140":-5,"_141":142,"_143":144,"_145":146},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3172/dont-overlook-humor-as-a-leadership-tool","id",3172,"title","Don’t overlook humor as a leadership tool","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.480\nhow important do you think it is to have humor in your leadership style?\n\n2\n00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:09.920\nI find it to be disarming for people and it's just part of being human, right?\n\n3\n00:00:09.920 --> 00:00:12.640\nI think people just\n\n4\n00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:20.050\nrealize you're you're just normal when you have when you and and actually and\n\n5\n00:00:20.050 --> 00:00:20.800\nchurch is a good\n\n6\n00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:25.410\nexample of this although I hate to pay them a compliment. Real quick wit I\n\n7\n00:00:25.410 --> 00:00:26.080\nthink and my wife\n\n8\n00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:34.800\nsays this is is reflective of intellect and and I think that I just think our\n\n9\n00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:35.600\nteams and our people\n\n10\n00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:40.640\nthey they feel like I'm just one of them I mean we we we spend time together I\n\n11\n00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:41.840\nI make jokes I crack\n\n12\n00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:47.490\njokes I tell my I tell some of my folks that you know back to this leadership\n\n13\n00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:48.560\nstyle thing\n\n14\n00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:52.430\nsometimes you're being human and they want humility and they they want you to\n\n15\n00:00:52.430 --> 00:00:53.680\nbe the human being\n\n16\n00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:58.800\nand then sometimes you're in such a mess that they want they need Superman and\n\n17\n00:00:58.800 --> 00:00:59.200\nyou need to\n\n18\n00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:02.340\nyou need to know the difference and I was talking to one of my leaders one day\n\n19\n00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:02.800\nI'm like\n\n20\n00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:08.240\nyou know your humility is great and but you have to know the difference so my\n\n21\n00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:09.440\nexample was\n\n22\n00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:13.680\nin the early days of the pandemic they wanted human but they wanted Superman\n\n23\n00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:16.890\nthey wanted somebody to tell us this is going to be okay here's what we're\n\n24\n00:01:16.890 --> 00:01:17.360\ngoing to do\n\n25\n00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:21.040\nhere's our plan we're good you're going to be fine we're going to make all the\n\n26\n00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:21.680\nthings happen\n\n27\n00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:25.600\nand I think that's really it's an example of how you have to tweak your style\n\n28\n00:01:25.600 --> 00:01:26.480\nbut I think humor is\n\n29\n00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:31.920\njust a big part of it and it really lowers the tension when people are stressed\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1436569,"end_time",1528569,"keywords","Humor, adapting, humanity, authenticity, tension, stress","slug","dont-overlook-humor-as-a-leadership-tool","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","vEOEiIbtE8g6ABynJY49avHav58IaJNLQsDFPjLM62I","mux_asset_id","myb9J2SZYHw5xMQLbxlt244lo8zOy4Pv00pxCp7dBY0100","leader_id",260,"episode_id",412,"updated_at","2026-01-15T14:56:32.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3172/dont-overlook-humor-as-a-leadership-tool","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_107":108,"_25":109,"_110":111,"_61":112,"_58":112,"_113":114,"_68":115,"_39":116,"_117":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_118":119,"_91":120,"_44":121,"_122":123,"_124":125,"_46":-5,"_126":127,"_128":129,"_95":130,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":76,"_43":-5,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":84,"_85":-5,"_86":-5,"_87":88,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_46":-5,"_92":93,"_94":-5,"_95":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Adapt your leadership style","adapt-your-leadership-style","Develop an awareness of what people need from you in any particular moment, and be ready to adapt your style to whatever the situation calls for.","summary","

Great leaders don’t cling to one leadership style.

They adapt as people and situations change. And they figure out how to do it without losing what makes them real.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins shares how he’s learned to lead through major transformation with honesty, vulnerability, and a clear understanding of what his people – all 90,000 of them – need from him.

If you're navigating change (or just trying to be a little more human as a leader!), then this one’s for you.

You’ll also learn:

How to scale your business through the right partnerships
The hidden opportunity in almost every customer crisis
3 ways to lead through big change
Why “chasing the competition” is a losing game

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.820\n- Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode\n\n2\n00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:05.060\nof How Leaders Lead with David Novak.\n\n3\n00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:06.860\nToday's guest is Chuck Robbins.\n\n4\n00:00:06.860 --> 00:00:08.980\nHe's the chairman and CEO of Cisco,\n\n5\n00:00:08.980 --> 00:00:11.700\nwhich is one of the most influential technology companies\n\n6\n00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:13.100\nin the world.\n\n7\n00:00:13.100 --> 00:00:15.540\nChuck's been with the company since 1997,\n\n8\n00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:18.220\nand though the magnitude of his leadership role\n\n9\n00:00:18.220 --> 00:00:22.540\nis now gigantic, he's a leader who knows how to stay grounded\n\n10\n00:00:22.540 --> 00:00:25.220\nand really connect with the people he leads.\n\n11\n00:00:25.220 --> 00:00:26.500\nYou're gonna love this conversation\n\n12\n00:00:26.500 --> 00:00:28.740\nbetween David and Chuck, enjoy it,\n\n13\n00:00:28.740 --> 00:00:31.040\nand I'll see you at the very end of the episode\n\n14\n00:00:31.040 --> 00:00:32.080\nfor the debrief.\n\n15\n00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:38.040\n- I always believed my job every day was an interview,\n\n16\n00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:40.440\nand what I did in my role every day\n\n17\n00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:42.600\nwas showing them that I was the right candidate\n\n18\n00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:43.500\nfor the next job.\n\n19\n00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:52.680\n- We might have to cut this out from the actual episode,\n\n20\n00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:56.900\nbut I gotta hear the story of Pants Patterson.\n\n21\n00:00:56.900 --> 00:01:00.600\n- You've been talking to Eric Church too much now.\n\n22\n00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:01.440\n- Yes, I am.\n\n23\n00:01:01.440 --> 00:01:04.820\n- So if you really wanna hear it,\n\n24\n00:01:04.820 --> 00:01:07.340\nmy CFO is a guy named Mark Patterson,\n\n25\n00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:09.740\nwho he and Eric have become friends as well,\n\n26\n00:01:09.740 --> 00:01:12.200\nand we play golf occasionally together.\n\n27\n00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:16.260\nThere's an outside chance we're playing very soon,\n\n28\n00:01:16.260 --> 00:01:21.260\nand this Mark actually had a pair of pants\n\n29\n00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:24.940\nthat someone else had bought for him to wear,\n\n30\n00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:27.740\nand he was playing very poorly on the front nine,\n\n31\n00:01:27.740 --> 00:01:30.900\nand he was convinced that it was the pants\n\n32\n00:01:30.900 --> 00:01:31.840\nthat were causing the problems,\n\n33\n00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:34.500\n'cause they were baggy, they looked like grandpa pants,\n\n34\n00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:37.820\nand so after nine, he went into the pro shop,\n\n35\n00:01:37.820 --> 00:01:39.700\nbought a pair of pants, put 'em on,\n\n36\n00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:41.820\nwent to the 10th tee and proceeded to play great\n\n37\n00:01:41.820 --> 00:01:46.820\non the back nine, so Eric decided to call him Pants Patterson,\n\n38\n00:01:46.820 --> 00:01:51.220\nand he went off and on about how he started talking about,\n\n39\n00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:53.740\ncould you imagine like a defensive back in today's world\n\n40\n00:01:53.740 --> 00:01:57.660\nwith NIL and college, now starting for the Tar Heels,\n\n41\n00:01:57.660 --> 00:02:01.860\nPants Patterson, and Eric thought it was the funniest thing,\n\n42\n00:02:01.860 --> 00:02:06.500\nand he went, he just, he laughed, and it's stuck.\n\n43\n00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:08.260\nI texted Eric a few days ago and asked him\n\n44\n00:02:08.260 --> 00:02:10.340\nabout playing golf with us, and his first answer,\n\n45\n00:02:10.340 --> 00:02:12.660\nhis first question back was after he said yes,\n\n46\n00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:14.400\nwas, is pants coming?\n\n47\n00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:17.940\n- There you go, I love it.\n\n48\n00:02:17.940 --> 00:02:20.020\n- We call him that, and it's Cisco too now,\n\n49\n00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:23.220\nso it's something that's not going away.\n\n50\n00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:26.700\n- That's great, you know, and now there's the food company,\n\n51\n00:02:26.700 --> 00:02:31.700\nChuck, the R&B singer, and then there's,\n\n52\n00:02:31.700 --> 00:02:36.380\nthen there's your Cisco, tell us about what Cisco does.\n\n53\n00:02:36.380 --> 00:02:38.380\n- Well years ago, there was also an alcoholic drink\n\n54\n00:02:38.380 --> 00:02:41.100\ncalled Cisco, David, just to be clear.\n\n55\n00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:42.780\nFirst I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny story\n\n56\n00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:46.060\nabout the food company, mid-career, I'd be flying,\n\n57\n00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:48.700\nand I'd inevitably be sitting next to someone,\n\n58\n00:02:48.700 --> 00:02:51.540\nand they'd ask me who I work for, and I'd say Cisco,\n\n59\n00:02:51.540 --> 00:02:54.540\nand they would say, oh my Lord, you guys,\n\n60\n00:02:54.540 --> 00:02:56.100\nyou are so great to my parents\n\n61\n00:02:56.100 --> 00:02:57.340\nwhen they were running their restaurant,\n\n62\n00:02:57.340 --> 00:03:00.660\nand I was like, ah, that's not us, different differences.\n\n63\n00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:02.500\n(laughing)\n\n64\n00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:05.020\nSo what Cisco does is basically, we build a lot\n\n65\n00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:07.380\nof the technology that creates the plumbing\n\n66\n00:03:07.380 --> 00:03:09.020\nfor the internet, and for all the networks\n\n67\n00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:09.940\nthat connect to the internet,\n\n68\n00:03:09.940 --> 00:03:12.300\nand we provide cybersecurity for it,\n\n69\n00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:15.700\nbut think about like a traffic system for the internet,\n\n70\n00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:18.140\nwe build all that equipment, and we sell it\n\n71\n00:03:18.140 --> 00:03:20.980\nto enterprises or service providers or cloud providers,\n\n72\n00:03:20.980 --> 00:03:23.700\nand they use our technology to deliver their services\n\n73\n00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:26.220\nto end users, that's about as simple as I can make it,\n\n74\n00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:28.540\nbut there's a whole lot more to it than that,\n\n75\n00:03:28.540 --> 00:03:29.980\nbut that's a...\n\n76\n00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:34.980\n- Oh, I'm sure there is, and you've been at Cisco since 1997,\n\n77\n00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:37.020\nyou know, what led you there?\n\n78\n00:03:37.020 --> 00:03:39.260\n- Oh, that's a good story.\n\n79\n00:03:39.260 --> 00:03:42.420\nSo I was selling for a company called\n\n80\n00:03:42.420 --> 00:03:45.780\nto send communications, A-C-E-N-D back then,\n\n81\n00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:48.740\nand I was covering like four or five states,\n\n82\n00:03:48.740 --> 00:03:52.300\nand we had young kids, and my wife was...\n\n83\n00:03:52.300 --> 00:03:54.900\nThere was a territory that came up for Cisco.\n\n84\n00:03:54.900 --> 00:03:58.860\nNow remember, I started with Cisco's biggest competitors,\n\n85\n00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:01.420\nso in those days, it was like Coke versus Pepsi,\n\n86\n00:04:01.420 --> 00:04:03.900\nwe hated each other, and I hated Cisco.\n\n87\n00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:06.620\nThe thought of working for them made me sick,\n\n88\n00:04:06.620 --> 00:04:10.340\nand I actually met with them and talked to them in '95,\n\n89\n00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:11.980\nand chose not to go to work for them,\n\n90\n00:04:11.980 --> 00:04:14.660\nwhich you could argue says something about my intellect,\n\n91\n00:04:14.660 --> 00:04:19.660\nbut then in '97, a territory came available\n\n92\n00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:23.980\nthat had me, I could drive it and be home every night,\n\n93\n00:04:23.980 --> 00:04:26.020\nand we had young kids and had another kid on the way,\n\n94\n00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:28.980\nand my wife's like, how many opportunities\n\n95\n00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:31.740\nare gonna come about where you can have, you know,\n\n96\n00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:33.020\nthere's someone moving out of a role,\n\n97\n00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:36.100\nthere's existing customers, it was a good patch,\n\n98\n00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:41.100\nand so the whole theory behind it was to be home every night,\n\n99\n00:04:42.100 --> 00:04:44.860\nand 11 months later, I was doing something else,\n\n100\n00:04:44.860 --> 00:04:47.020\nand 11 months after that, something else,\n\n101\n00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:49.580\nbut you should have seen, when I had the offer letter\n\n102\n00:04:49.580 --> 00:04:52.500\nand I had to sign it, my wife's like,\n\n103\n00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:54.900\nit was just like a couple weeks before Christmas,\n\n104\n00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:58.420\nmy 28th anniversary was last week.\n\n105\n00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:00.100\n- Congratulations.\n\n106\n00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:03.540\n- Thank you, and she's like, sign the papers.\n\n107\n00:05:03.540 --> 00:05:05.740\n(laughing)\n\n108\n00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:07.780\nShe had vision and foresight that I didn't have.\n\n109\n00:05:07.780 --> 00:05:11.620\n- And your Cisco equipment routes,\n\n110\n00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:16.300\nas I understand it, about 85% of the world's internet traffic,\n\n111\n00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:17.700\nhow do you lead Chuck,\n\n112\n00:05:17.700 --> 00:05:20.960\nwhen you have such a dominant share of market like that?\n\n113\n00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:26.220\n- Well, it's, 85% of the internet traffic\n\n114\n00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:27.900\nflows through some product we have,\n\n115\n00:05:27.900 --> 00:05:31.340\nand a lot of it'll flow through other companies' products\n\n116\n00:05:31.340 --> 00:05:32.680\nas well, just to be clear.\n\n117\n00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:36.220\nLook, I think that we've had to change over the years,\n\n118\n00:05:36.220 --> 00:05:40.780\nthere was a time where we were the de facto standard,\n\n119\n00:05:40.780 --> 00:05:44.860\nbut we live in a world today that has incredible competition.\n\n120\n00:05:44.860 --> 00:05:47.020\nFrankly, during the pandemic and the subsequent\n\n121\n00:05:47.020 --> 00:05:49.940\nsupply chain crisis, a lot of our customers came\n\n122\n00:05:49.940 --> 00:05:51.940\nto the conclusion they needed dual vendor strategies,\n\n123\n00:05:51.940 --> 00:05:53.900\nbecause if you had supply chain issues back then,\n\n124\n00:05:53.900 --> 00:05:55.580\nthey couldn't get equipment.\n\n125\n00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:57.620\nSo we have a lot of robust competition.\n\n126\n00:05:57.620 --> 00:06:02.620\nSo we went from having a team 20 years ago,\n\n127\n00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:05.220\nwho thought that because we had such high market share,\n\n128\n00:06:05.220 --> 00:06:06.940\nwe could control market transitions,\n\n129\n00:06:06.940 --> 00:06:08.820\nwe could determine when these products shifted,\n\n130\n00:06:08.820 --> 00:06:11.180\nand now we have great competitors\n\n131\n00:06:11.180 --> 00:06:12.340\nwho make us better every day,\n\n132\n00:06:12.340 --> 00:06:15.540\nand so we have to stay on our toes and continue to innovate,\n\n133\n00:06:15.540 --> 00:06:18.260\nand it's a very competitive market for us.\n\n134\n00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:21.820\n- And your company operates for your customers,\n\n135\n00:06:21.820 --> 00:06:23.860\nmostly behind the scenes.\n\n136\n00:06:23.860 --> 00:06:27.820\nWhen everything works, nobody really notices it.\n\n137\n00:06:27.820 --> 00:06:31.140\nWhat's the leadership lesson that that's taught you?\n\n138\n00:06:31.140 --> 00:06:33.300\n- Well, I think that you're exactly right.\n\n139\n00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:35.500\nNobody knows that it's working,\n\n140\n00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:39.180\nand I joke with like these early in career,\n\n141\n00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:41.780\nrecent college grads, when they say like Cisco,\n\n142\n00:06:41.780 --> 00:06:43.340\nwhat do you guys do?\n\n143\n00:06:43.340 --> 00:06:45.380\nI always say, if we didn't do what we do,\n\n144\n00:06:45.380 --> 00:06:47.340\nthis wouldn't work, so does that help you?\n\n145\n00:06:47.340 --> 00:06:52.180\nAnd so, but the reality is is that you're gonna have,\n\n146\n00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:53.740\nyou're gonna have crises, right?\n\n147\n00:06:53.740 --> 00:06:55.820\nWhen you're running critical infrastructure\n\n148\n00:06:55.820 --> 00:06:58.820\nat the government level, the telecom networks,\n\n149\n00:06:58.820 --> 00:07:01.660\nand the cloud providers, you're gonna have problems.\n\n150\n00:07:01.660 --> 00:07:03.780\nI mean, this technology is super complex,\n\n151\n00:07:03.780 --> 00:07:08.460\nand we've always believed that if you handle a crisis properly,\n\n152\n00:07:08.460 --> 00:07:10.860\nyou can have a stronger relationship with that customer\n\n153\n00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:13.020\nafter the crisis than you had going into the crisis.\n\n154\n00:07:13.020 --> 00:07:14.620\nIf you handle it properly,\n\n155\n00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:16.540\nand so that's the way we always approach it.\n\n156\n00:07:16.540 --> 00:07:20.660\nWe, when a customer has a problem, it's all hands on deck,\n\n157\n00:07:20.660 --> 00:07:22.100\nand any customer who has an outage,\n\n158\n00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:24.340\nI know about it within an hour,\n\n159\n00:07:24.340 --> 00:07:26.700\nand I get updates just repeatedly\n\n160\n00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:28.060\nuntil they're out of crisis mode.\n\n161\n00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:29.540\nAnd if it's bad enough or big enough,\n\n162\n00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:31.180\nor whatever, then I'm on the phone with them too.\n\n163\n00:07:31.180 --> 00:07:33.980\nAnd it's just, you just have to communicate,\n\n164\n00:07:33.980 --> 00:07:35.980\nand you've got to smother them when they have a problem,\n\n165\n00:07:35.980 --> 00:07:37.300\nand make sure that you're bringing them back,\n\n166\n00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:38.380\nand you're in the trenches with them,\n\n167\n00:07:38.380 --> 00:07:39.540\nand you're helping them recover.\n\n168\n00:07:39.540 --> 00:07:41.620\nAnd if you do that right,\n\n169\n00:07:41.620 --> 00:07:45.140\nyou will have a stronger relationship when it's over.\n\n170\n00:07:45.140 --> 00:07:46.980\n- Yeah, when times get tough and you hang in there\n\n171\n00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:48.500\nwith people and you get it done then,\n\n172\n00:07:48.500 --> 00:07:50.340\nthat really shows your metal.\n\n173\n00:07:50.340 --> 00:07:53.820\n- Yeah, when I was early in my sales career,\n\n174\n00:07:53.820 --> 00:07:57.100\nyou know, we'd have a customer doing a big upgrade\n\n175\n00:07:57.100 --> 00:07:59.380\nin their infrastructure on a weekend,\n\n176\n00:07:59.380 --> 00:08:01.700\nand we would have engineers helping them,\n\n177\n00:08:01.700 --> 00:08:04.220\nbut I'd come in and just be with them and buy pizza,\n\n178\n00:08:04.220 --> 00:08:05.940\nyou know, and just be there.\n\n179\n00:08:05.940 --> 00:08:07.980\nAnd I think that means a ton of people\n\n180\n00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:09.460\nwhen you're with them when they,\n\n181\n00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:12.700\nwhen they either are in a challenging situation,\n\n182\n00:08:12.700 --> 00:08:15.100\na stressful situation, or an uncertain situation,\n\n183\n00:08:15.100 --> 00:08:17.540\nlike doing a major upgrade on a weekend,\n\n184\n00:08:17.540 --> 00:08:21.100\nit's just a big part of the relationship building.\n\n185\n00:08:21.100 --> 00:08:22.860\n- You know, Chuck, I really want to get into\n\n186\n00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:27.260\nyour leadership at Cisco, but before we dive deeper,\n\n187\n00:08:27.260 --> 00:08:29.660\nand I want to take you back and way back.\n\n188\n00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:33.460\nAnd can you share a story from your childhood\n\n189\n00:08:33.460 --> 00:08:36.380\nthat really shaped the kind of leader you are today?\n\n190\n00:08:36.380 --> 00:08:39.020\n- Well, you know, I grew up in rural Georgia.\n\n191\n00:08:39.020 --> 00:08:41.900\nEverybody thinks I am born and bred Tar Hill,\n\n192\n00:08:41.900 --> 00:08:46.420\nbut you know, there's a joke out of Texas\n\n193\n00:08:46.420 --> 00:08:48.340\nwhere somebody says you're either born there,\n\n194\n00:08:48.340 --> 00:08:49.740\nyou spend your whole life trying to get there,\n\n195\n00:08:49.740 --> 00:08:51.740\nand I think the truth of the matter is you either,\n\n196\n00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:53.940\nwe're born at Tar Hill or you're ultimately trying\n\n197\n00:08:53.940 --> 00:08:54.780\nto become one.\n\n198\n00:08:54.780 --> 00:08:59.380\n- And the sweater color duly noted.\n\n199\n00:08:59.380 --> 00:09:03.460\n- They're my bad, you already made a comment\n\n200\n00:09:03.460 --> 00:09:05.620\nabout my poor dress and I'll work on it, you know?\n\n201\n00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:07.220\n- Just in case, you know, you need something\n\n202\n00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:08.060\nout there at Tar Hill.\n\n203\n00:09:08.060 --> 00:09:09.620\n- There you go.\n\n204\n00:09:09.620 --> 00:09:11.820\n- But growing up in rural Georgia,\n\n205\n00:09:11.820 --> 00:09:15.620\nyou know, my grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher,\n\n206\n00:09:15.620 --> 00:09:18.620\nand he had eight kids, and it was a classic.\n\n207\n00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:21.220\nHe had a couple hundred acres farm,\n\n208\n00:09:21.220 --> 00:09:24.740\nbut the farm was simply existed to feed the families.\n\n209\n00:09:24.740 --> 00:09:26.860\nAnd you learn hard work, and you learn honesty,\n\n210\n00:09:26.860 --> 00:09:31.860\nand you learn to take care of your fellow, you know,\n\n211\n00:09:31.860 --> 00:09:35.820\ncitizens, and I think, I wouldn't say there was a moment,\n\n212\n00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:39.100\nthere were lots of moments, but I also had a father\n\n213\n00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:43.420\nwho unfortunately passed away about five years ago,\n\n214\n00:09:43.420 --> 00:09:47.100\nbut he had a military background,\n\n215\n00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.100\nand he didn't suffer fools.\n\n216\n00:09:49.100 --> 00:09:52.900\nAnd, you know, if you made a 96 on an exam,\n\n217\n00:09:52.900 --> 00:09:55.220\nyou wanted to know why it wasn't a 98 or a 100.\n\n218\n00:09:55.220 --> 00:09:57.140\nAnd so, you know, those are the kinds of things\n\n219\n00:09:57.140 --> 00:09:59.860\nthat shape how you think about things.\n\n220\n00:09:59.860 --> 00:10:03.460\nSo, it had the rural life that really shaped sort of\n\n221\n00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:05.340\nhow I think about helping people and doing the things\n\n222\n00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:07.820\nand leading people, and then I had a very,\n\n223\n00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:10.140\na father with very high expectations.\n\n224\n00:10:10.140 --> 00:10:11.420\n- You know, I think about that, you know,\n\n225\n00:10:11.420 --> 00:10:13.860\ngetting the 96 on an exam and your dad's saying,\n\n226\n00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:16.180\n\"Hey, take it a little bit further,\" you know?\n\n227\n00:10:16.180 --> 00:10:17.820\nAnd that's raising the bar.\n\n228\n00:10:17.820 --> 00:10:19.780\nYou work with all these high talent people.\n\n229\n00:10:19.780 --> 00:10:21.620\nI mean, you work with extremely smart people\n\n230\n00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:25.180\nin your company, and, you know, so what have you learned\n\n231\n00:10:25.180 --> 00:10:27.860\nabout how to raise the bar with people\n\n232\n00:10:27.860 --> 00:10:31.300\nwho already have such a high standard like yourself?\n\n233\n00:10:31.300 --> 00:10:34.660\n- You have to just, everybody's got an area\n\n234\n00:10:34.660 --> 00:10:36.300\nthat they can get better at, including you\n\n235\n00:10:36.300 --> 00:10:37.740\nand including me, right, all the time.\n\n236\n00:10:37.740 --> 00:10:39.460\nWe can always get better.\n\n237\n00:10:39.460 --> 00:10:44.460\nAnd I think helping people understand sometimes,\n\n238\n00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:48.380\nlike as an example, I have one of my leaders\n\n239\n00:10:48.380 --> 00:10:52.740\nwho has just worked 16 hours a day, high charging,\n\n240\n00:10:52.740 --> 00:10:55.820\nfast moving, and he expects out of his team\n\n241\n00:10:55.820 --> 00:10:57.740\nand he wants to be super critical\n\n242\n00:10:57.740 --> 00:10:59.420\nwhen they're not doing stuff well as a team,\n\n243\n00:10:59.420 --> 00:11:01.060\nhimself included.\n\n244\n00:11:01.060 --> 00:11:02.260\nAnd sometimes you have to say,\n\n245\n00:11:02.260 --> 00:11:06.300\n\"Hey, it's time to stop being critical to the team\n\n246\n00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:08.340\nand appreciate how hard they're working\n\n247\n00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:09.780\nand shift into supportive mode.\"\n\n248\n00:11:09.780 --> 00:11:11.540\nAnd so, you know, just trying to help people,\n\n249\n00:11:11.540 --> 00:11:14.740\nbecause people who are driven tend to want to move fast\n\n250\n00:11:14.740 --> 00:11:17.180\nand they want people around them that move in the same way.\n\n251\n00:11:17.180 --> 00:11:18.780\nAnd I think you have to adapt your style,\n\n252\n00:11:18.780 --> 00:11:20.460\ndepending on the situation and candidly,\n\n253\n00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:22.660\ndepending on the human that you're trying to motivate.\n\n254\n00:11:22.660 --> 00:11:24.300\nOne method doesn't work for everybody\n\n255\n00:11:24.300 --> 00:11:25.780\nand it doesn't work in every situation.\n\n256\n00:11:25.780 --> 00:11:26.780\nAnd I think that's a big thing\n\n257\n00:11:26.780 --> 00:11:29.340\nthat we spend a lot of time on with my team.\n\n258\n00:11:29.340 --> 00:11:32.380\n- And Chuck, you know, as you grew in your career,\n\n259\n00:11:32.380 --> 00:11:35.660\nyou know, you had to have built a lot of self-awareness\n\n260\n00:11:35.660 --> 00:11:37.180\nand take a look at your own skills\n\n261\n00:11:37.180 --> 00:11:39.220\nand figure out what you needed to get better at.\n\n262\n00:11:39.220 --> 00:11:42.380\nNext, did you have a particular process that you used\n\n263\n00:11:42.380 --> 00:11:44.580\nto do that or it was just something\n\n264\n00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:46.620\nthat happened naturally day to day?\n\n265\n00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:49.580\n- I think you, we have a lot of discussions about this now\n\n266\n00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:53.500\nbecause like, our portfolio is so complicated\n\n267\n00:11:53.500 --> 00:11:56.100\nand we think about our sales organization\n\n268\n00:11:56.100 --> 00:11:57.980\nand there's this whole discussion around\n\n269\n00:11:57.980 --> 00:11:59.300\nhow much training do we provide\n\n270\n00:11:59.300 --> 00:12:01.780\nand how much should they just be taking it upon themselves\n\n271\n00:12:01.780 --> 00:12:03.220\nto go learn.\n\n272\n00:12:03.220 --> 00:12:06.300\nAnd I was fortunate that I have a mathematical science\n\n273\n00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:07.700\nand computer science background.\n\n274\n00:12:07.700 --> 00:12:10.140\nSo I was technical early on.\n\n275\n00:12:10.140 --> 00:12:13.740\nSo, and I've been in the industry since it was conceived,\n\n276\n00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:15.140\nunfortunately, which means I'm old.\n\n277\n00:12:15.140 --> 00:12:16.740\nSo I had the advantage of that,\n\n278\n00:12:16.740 --> 00:12:18.900\nbut I think that, you know,\n\n279\n00:12:18.900 --> 00:12:23.220\nI like to say that the person who's gonna benefit most\n\n280\n00:12:23.220 --> 00:12:27.860\nfrom learning and development is the person.\n\n281\n00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:31.860\nSo who should be most responsible for making yourself better\n\n282\n00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:35.780\nis you, if you, you know, and so I think that,\n\n283\n00:12:35.780 --> 00:12:37.420\nand surely people who are listening to this\n\n284\n00:12:37.420 --> 00:12:38.500\nare trying to make themselves better\n\n285\n00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:41.220\nbecause they're trying to learn from old guys like us.\n\n286\n00:12:41.220 --> 00:12:45.620\nAnd so I think it was just something that I was just,\n\n287\n00:12:45.620 --> 00:12:48.020\nI was always curious and I always watched.\n\n288\n00:12:48.020 --> 00:12:48.860\nThat's the other thing.\n\n289\n00:12:48.860 --> 00:12:51.580\nI think people learn by watching you do,\n\n290\n00:12:51.580 --> 00:12:52.700\nwatching people do something,\n\n291\n00:12:52.700 --> 00:12:54.940\nnot having people tell you how to do it.\n\n292\n00:12:54.940 --> 00:12:56.060\nSo we would always like,\n\n293\n00:12:56.060 --> 00:12:57.580\nI would always pick up on,\n\n294\n00:12:57.580 --> 00:12:59.500\nwhen I saw someone do a great presentation,\n\n295\n00:12:59.500 --> 00:13:00.700\nI'd pick up two or three things.\n\n296\n00:13:00.700 --> 00:13:02.020\nI was like, wow, that was really good\n\n297\n00:13:02.020 --> 00:13:02.860\nthe way they did that.\n\n298\n00:13:02.860 --> 00:13:04.540\nOr in some cases, it was like, wow,\n\n299\n00:13:04.540 --> 00:13:07.060\nI don't think that works for me.\n\n300\n00:13:07.060 --> 00:13:09.860\nAnd so there was a lot of situational stuff\n\n301\n00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:11.020\nthat you pick up along the way\n\n302\n00:13:11.020 --> 00:13:12.820\nand you just kind of become molded\n\n303\n00:13:12.820 --> 00:13:15.660\nin whatever you're gonna become as a result of all that.\n\n304\n00:13:15.660 --> 00:13:17.700\n- Well, you constantly sharpen the axe\n\n305\n00:13:17.700 --> 00:13:21.500\nand you know, you become CEO of this incredibly huge company.\n\n306\n00:13:21.500 --> 00:13:25.300\nAnd your leadership role is humongous, to say the least.\n\n307\n00:13:25.300 --> 00:13:28.100\nHow do you stay grounded?\n\n308\n00:13:28.100 --> 00:13:30.820\nI mean, it has to be hard.\n\n309\n00:13:30.820 --> 00:13:32.740\n- If you don't have humility,\n\n310\n00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:36.580\nI assure you that the market, the conditions,\n\n311\n00:13:36.580 --> 00:13:40.940\nyour spouse, someone will deliver that humility for you.\n\n312\n00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:43.620\nAnd look, I think we moved into a different phase\n\n313\n00:13:43.620 --> 00:13:45.780\nof leadership probably in the last 20 years\n\n314\n00:13:45.780 --> 00:13:48.500\nwhere people wanna work for humans.\n\n315\n00:13:48.500 --> 00:13:50.940\nYou know, I used to joke that my dad would get up\n\n316\n00:13:50.940 --> 00:13:53.420\nin the morning, he'd put on a suit and he'd become work dad.\n\n317\n00:13:53.420 --> 00:13:54.980\nAnd then he'd come home and he'd change clothes\n\n318\n00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:56.860\nand he'd become home dad.\n\n319\n00:13:56.860 --> 00:13:59.380\nAnd you know, especially during the pandemic,\n\n320\n00:13:59.380 --> 00:14:01.580\nevery employee was coming into our homes\n\n321\n00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:03.260\nand you know, there was discussion around\n\n322\n00:14:03.260 --> 00:14:05.740\nwhat was behind you, what books are you reading,\n\n323\n00:14:05.740 --> 00:14:09.540\nwhat pictures of your, my granddaughter walked in one day\n\n324\n00:14:09.540 --> 00:14:11.940\nwhen we were on an all hands during the early days\n\n325\n00:14:11.940 --> 00:14:13.780\nof the pandemic, I grabbed her and pulled her in\n\n326\n00:14:13.780 --> 00:14:16.340\njust to show people that, hey, I have the same issues you have.\n\n327\n00:14:16.340 --> 00:14:18.860\nWe have kids running around here.\n\n328\n00:14:18.860 --> 00:14:23.860\nAnd I don't know, I just think you can always be knocked down.\n\n329\n00:14:23.860 --> 00:14:26.620\nAnd at the end of the day, we're all humans.\n\n330\n00:14:26.620 --> 00:14:30.740\nAnd I just don't, I don't find any value\n\n331\n00:14:30.740 --> 00:14:34.380\nin being anything other than who I was and who I am.\n\n332\n00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:37.100\nI think most really good leaders are that way.\n\n333\n00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:39.420\n- You know, I may have this wrong with,\n\n334\n00:14:39.420 --> 00:14:41.900\nas I understand it, you started your career out\n\n335\n00:14:41.900 --> 00:14:44.260\nactually writing code and you're like, you know,\n\n336\n00:14:44.260 --> 00:14:46.500\nyou're such a gregarious people person\n\n337\n00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:48.300\njust talked about the people, you know,\n\n338\n00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:50.660\nhow much did you like writing code?\n\n339\n00:14:50.660 --> 00:14:53.540\n- I loved it, but apparently I wasn't very good at it.\n\n340\n00:14:53.540 --> 00:14:54.540\n(laughing)\n\n341\n00:14:54.540 --> 00:14:55.940\nNo, I actually loved it.\n\n342\n00:14:55.940 --> 00:14:59.300\nAnd it's ironic, my youngest son actually\n\n343\n00:14:59.300 --> 00:15:01.220\ntaught himself the code when he was like 10 years old.\n\n344\n00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:03.060\nSo he had the same bug.\n\n345\n00:15:03.060 --> 00:15:05.900\nLook, I was one of those guys that I was an athlete\n\n346\n00:15:05.900 --> 00:15:08.060\nand a basketball player and I was also a nerd.\n\n347\n00:15:08.060 --> 00:15:10.140\nI have, I have these two pictures from high school\n\n348\n00:15:10.140 --> 00:15:12.060\nfrom the same year, I'm not kidding you.\n\n349\n00:15:12.060 --> 00:15:15.620\nOne is me dunking on someone in a basketball game.\n\n350\n00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:18.100\nAnd I show people that and I say, this is the same guy.\n\n351\n00:15:18.100 --> 00:15:20.020\nAnd then there's this nerdy looking guy\n\n352\n00:15:20.020 --> 00:15:22.220\nwith five other people in the picture\n\n353\n00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:23.880\nthat was the math club.\n\n354\n00:15:23.880 --> 00:15:26.140\n(laughing)\n\n355\n00:15:26.140 --> 00:15:28.860\nSo I've always been a little bit of both.\n\n356\n00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:33.060\nAnd, but I loved coding, I was coding in high school college.\n\n357\n00:15:33.060 --> 00:15:36.900\nI was writing code back then and to the extent, you know,\n\n358\n00:15:36.900 --> 00:15:40.660\nI could and it was something I loved, but it wasn't,\n\n359\n00:15:40.660 --> 00:15:42.740\nI could not, like you get up in the morning,\n\n360\n00:15:42.740 --> 00:15:44.420\nyou put on a suit and you go sit in a cubicle\n\n361\n00:15:44.420 --> 00:15:46.500\nand you're in your right code for eight hours,\n\n362\n00:15:46.500 --> 00:15:47.420\nthen you go home.\n\n363\n00:15:47.420 --> 00:15:51.220\nI was like, that's not gonna be, I can't do this.\n\n364\n00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:55.660\nAnd so, the good news is it fixed itself\n\n365\n00:15:55.660 --> 00:15:57.540\nbecause an opportunity arose and they asked me\n\n366\n00:15:57.540 --> 00:15:59.980\nif I'd be willing to go step across\n\n367\n00:15:59.980 --> 00:16:01.620\ninto the area that I am in now,\n\n368\n00:16:01.620 --> 00:16:04.380\nwhich was a fortuitous opportunity\n\n369\n00:16:04.380 --> 00:16:06.060\nthat came about at the time.\n\n370\n00:16:06.060 --> 00:16:09.500\n- I didn't necessarily see you as a code writer forever.\n\n371\n00:16:09.500 --> 00:16:11.620\nAnd, you know, you're obvious to leader\n\n372\n00:16:11.620 --> 00:16:14.380\nand you have to deal with all kinds of people issues.\n\n373\n00:16:14.380 --> 00:16:17.060\nAs you moved into management, leadership, coaching,\n\n374\n00:16:17.060 --> 00:16:19.340\nyou know, what was the biggest skill you had to pick up\n\n375\n00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:21.500\nthat maybe was the hardest for you?\n\n376\n00:16:21.500 --> 00:16:24.780\n- The higher you go, the more comfortable\n\n377\n00:16:24.780 --> 00:16:26.580\nyou have to be letting go of stuff.\n\n378\n00:16:26.580 --> 00:16:28.780\nIt's ironically, you know, I joke with people\n\n379\n00:16:28.780 --> 00:16:31.340\nthat I got to the ultimate level of my career\n\n380\n00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:32.780\nand I don't have a budget, you know,\n\n381\n00:16:32.780 --> 00:16:34.380\nwhat some people argue, like, oh yeah, you do,\n\n382\n00:16:34.380 --> 00:16:37.900\nbut I mean, you know, and I don't make a lot of decisions\n\n383\n00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:40.020\nand the ones that I get to make aren't necessarily fun\n\n384\n00:16:40.020 --> 00:16:42.180\nusually, you know how that goes.\n\n385\n00:16:42.180 --> 00:16:44.820\nI think that trusting people, coaching people,\n\n386\n00:16:44.820 --> 00:16:47.940\nletting them go and then you have to learn\n\n387\n00:16:47.940 --> 00:16:50.260\nhow to adapt to my earlier point.\n\n388\n00:16:50.260 --> 00:16:51.700\nI think one of the big things you have to do\n\n389\n00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:54.580\nis learn how to adapt your leadership style\n\n390\n00:16:54.580 --> 00:16:56.580\nto both the situation and the person.\n\n391\n00:16:56.580 --> 00:16:58.500\nIt's an innate skill that you have to be able\n\n392\n00:16:58.500 --> 00:17:00.060\nthat you're blessed with sometimes,\n\n393\n00:17:00.060 --> 00:17:01.340\nbut you have to think about it.\n\n394\n00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:03.300\nYou have to be at least be thoughtful about trying\n\n395\n00:17:03.300 --> 00:17:04.940\nto meet people where they are\n\n396\n00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:08.500\nand to recognize what kind of leader they need\n\n397\n00:17:08.500 --> 00:17:11.220\nme to be right now given the situation.\n\n398\n00:17:11.220 --> 00:17:14.820\nDo they need me to push them or do they need empathy?\n\n399\n00:17:14.820 --> 00:17:15.780\nDo they need a partner?\n\n400\n00:17:15.780 --> 00:17:18.460\nDo they need me to sit down and write code with them?\n\n401\n00:17:18.460 --> 00:17:21.020\nI mean, what is it they need at that moment in time?\n\n402\n00:17:21.020 --> 00:17:22.900\nAnd that's something that I think is really important\n\n403\n00:17:22.900 --> 00:17:25.460\nbecause you get so many people that lead one way\n\n404\n00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:27.820\nand that can work, but that'll work\n\n405\n00:17:27.820 --> 00:17:30.260\nin the situations where it works\n\n406\n00:17:30.260 --> 00:17:33.220\nand it'll work with people that like it\n\n407\n00:17:33.220 --> 00:17:35.260\nand the people that don't like you leading that way\n\n408\n00:17:35.260 --> 00:17:37.100\nare just gonna find other places to work.\n\n409\n00:17:37.100 --> 00:17:40.260\nSo I think adapting your style is really important.\n\n410\n00:17:40.260 --> 00:17:43.060\n- You know, and you've been at Cisco since '97\n\n411\n00:17:43.060 --> 00:17:46.140\nas we just mentioned and how have you\n\n412\n00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:48.140\nstrived to differentiate yourself\n\n413\n00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:49.740\nas you moved up the ladder?\n\n414\n00:17:49.740 --> 00:17:51.700\n- I worked as hard as I could.\n\n415\n00:17:51.700 --> 00:17:52.900\nI try to deliver results.\n\n416\n00:17:52.900 --> 00:17:54.420\nI try to help everybody around me.\n\n417\n00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:58.300\nI always believe and I've told people this through my career,\n\n418\n00:17:58.300 --> 00:18:01.260\nyou have to be a leader before the org chart\n\n419\n00:18:01.260 --> 00:18:03.660\ngives you a right to be a leader.\n\n420\n00:18:03.660 --> 00:18:07.740\nAnd if you're viewed as a leader amongst your peers,\n\n421\n00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:09.540\nthen when you get promoted,\n\n422\n00:18:09.540 --> 00:18:11.100\nit's gonna be obvious that you were the person\n\n423\n00:18:11.100 --> 00:18:11.980\nthat should have gotten promoted\n\n424\n00:18:11.980 --> 00:18:14.060\nbecause you were already a leader.\n\n425\n00:18:14.060 --> 00:18:16.460\nAnd I think that's one of the things\n\n426\n00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:19.180\nthat I always try to do, I always try to help people\n\n427\n00:18:19.180 --> 00:18:22.100\nand try to give, make sure that people around me\n\n428\n00:18:22.100 --> 00:18:23.420\nwere being successful.\n\n429\n00:18:23.420 --> 00:18:26.980\nAnd the other thing that I, one of my big mantras\n\n430\n00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:29.460\nall through my career was, I think it's silly\n\n431\n00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:30.980\nwhen we have three internal candidates\n\n432\n00:18:30.980 --> 00:18:33.540\nthat have been working for us for 15 years,\n\n433\n00:18:33.540 --> 00:18:35.220\nthat we go through an interview process\n\n434\n00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:37.780\nto determine who we're gonna promote.\n\n435\n00:18:37.780 --> 00:18:41.220\nBecause I'm like, you watched 'em work for 15 years.\n\n436\n00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:43.740\nWhy do we, what are we gonna learn in an interview\n\n437\n00:18:43.740 --> 00:18:46.700\nthat we don't know after watching 'em work for 15 years?\n\n438\n00:18:46.700 --> 00:18:50.940\nAnd I say that because I always believed my job\n\n439\n00:18:50.940 --> 00:18:53.080\nevery day was an interview.\n\n440\n00:18:53.080 --> 00:18:56.500\nAnd what I did in my role every day\n\n441\n00:18:56.500 --> 00:19:00.380\nwas showing them that I was the right candidate\n\n442\n00:19:00.380 --> 00:19:01.580\nfor the next job.\n\n443\n00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:05.980\nAnd because I was raised by my dad the way I was,\n\n444\n00:19:05.980 --> 00:19:08.940\nI actually operated from a premise that if they don't\n\n445\n00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:11.340\nobviously believe I'm the person for that job,\n\n446\n00:19:11.340 --> 00:19:14.020\nI haven't done my current job well enough.\n\n447\n00:19:14.900 --> 00:19:16.980\nAnd so some people don't like to hear me say this,\n\n448\n00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:20.860\nbut I never asked to be promoted in my life.\n\n449\n00:19:20.860 --> 00:19:23.980\nNot one time did I asked to be considered for a job\n\n450\n00:19:23.980 --> 00:19:26.780\nthat every time they came to me and said,\n\n451\n00:19:26.780 --> 00:19:29.860\nand I think it was because my approach was\n\n452\n00:19:29.860 --> 00:19:32.460\nevery day's an interview.\n\n453\n00:19:32.460 --> 00:19:34.060\n- You know, that's really great because, you know,\n\n454\n00:19:34.060 --> 00:19:38.180\nI think I asked for only one job my entire life.\n\n455\n00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:39.740\nAnd I wasn't ready for it.\n\n456\n00:19:39.740 --> 00:19:41.180\n- Was that retirement?\n\n457\n00:19:41.180 --> 00:19:44.100\n- No, that was to be the CEO of young brands.\n\n458\n00:19:44.100 --> 00:19:47.740\nSo I had a little bit of an interim plan there\n\n459\n00:19:47.740 --> 00:19:49.180\nthat helped me get ready.\n\n460\n00:19:49.180 --> 00:19:50.540\nI don't know if I ever did.\n\n461\n00:19:50.540 --> 00:19:52.900\n(laughing)\n\n462\n00:19:52.900 --> 00:19:57.380\nYou played a major role in what is called Cisco's\n\n463\n00:19:57.380 --> 00:19:59.540\nthe Cisco Partner Ecosystem.\n\n464\n00:19:59.540 --> 00:20:03.820\nWhat does that mean and how did you grow that?\n\n465\n00:20:03.820 --> 00:20:05.020\n- Oh, there's a story there.\n\n466\n00:20:05.020 --> 00:20:09.660\nIt was back in the 90s, we were a very direct organization.\n\n467\n00:20:09.660 --> 00:20:14.380\nSo we were a sales machine, I mean,\n\n468\n00:20:14.380 --> 00:20:16.660\nwe had good products, but we were a sales machine.\n\n469\n00:20:16.660 --> 00:20:21.340\nAnd so the sales force, the best sales people\n\n470\n00:20:21.340 --> 00:20:24.540\nin the sales force probably had the most respect\n\n471\n00:20:24.540 --> 00:20:25.380\nin the company.\n\n472\n00:20:25.380 --> 00:20:27.700\nThe engineers won't like that I said that,\n\n473\n00:20:27.700 --> 00:20:29.820\nbut that's probably the truth.\n\n474\n00:20:29.820 --> 00:20:34.860\nAnd after I'd been in sales, direct sales,\n\n475\n00:20:34.860 --> 00:20:38.420\nfor a couple of years, they asked me to go run this partner\n\n476\n00:20:39.580 --> 00:20:42.180\nor part of the partner organization.\n\n477\n00:20:42.180 --> 00:20:44.940\nAnd all my peers are like, what'd you do wrong?\n\n478\n00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:46.500\n(laughing)\n\n479\n00:20:46.500 --> 00:20:48.900\nWho'd you make mad? (laughing)\n\n480\n00:20:48.900 --> 00:20:53.100\nAnd we were growing so fast that we needed incremental\n\n481\n00:20:53.100 --> 00:20:57.500\nresources to help us deliver the technology\n\n482\n00:20:57.500 --> 00:20:59.580\nto all the customers that wanted it to be honest.\n\n483\n00:20:59.580 --> 00:21:01.340\nThat's really what drove the initial thing.\n\n484\n00:21:01.340 --> 00:21:02.820\nWe needed more feed on the street\n\n485\n00:21:02.820 --> 00:21:04.780\nto help our customers install this stuff\n\n486\n00:21:04.780 --> 00:21:07.380\nso they could get it installed and buy more.\n\n487\n00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:09.820\nSo we wanted to build this ecosystem that would help.\n\n488\n00:21:09.820 --> 00:21:11.380\nThat was the original intent\n\n489\n00:21:11.380 --> 00:21:15.100\nor the original driver of the program.\n\n490\n00:21:15.100 --> 00:21:18.220\nWhat we did was we went over and we actually\n\n491\n00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:22.180\narchitected this program that has stood\n\n492\n00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:27.180\nfor 20 plus years now that gives us sales capacity\n\n493\n00:21:27.180 --> 00:21:30.060\nall around the world.\n\n494\n00:21:30.060 --> 00:21:33.220\nI mean, I think there's 150 or 180,000 people\n\n495\n00:21:33.220 --> 00:21:35.860\nthat wake up every day that are dedicated\n\n496\n00:21:35.860 --> 00:21:37.960\nto selling our portfolio that don't work for us.\n\n497\n00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:41.120\nAnd so it gives us great scale around the world\n\n498\n00:21:41.120 --> 00:21:45.140\nand it gives our customers more resources.\n\n499\n00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:49.340\nAnd it's a great thing because our business now\n\n500\n00:21:49.340 --> 00:21:53.140\nhas economic impact much broader than what we,\n\n501\n00:21:53.140 --> 00:21:54.260\njust for Cisco.\n\n502\n00:21:54.260 --> 00:21:56.700\nAnd so when we look at the impact we have in a country\n\n503\n00:21:56.700 --> 00:21:59.820\nas an example, if we go into a European country\n\n504\n00:21:59.820 --> 00:22:02.660\nand we have 5,000 partners that are doing business with us,\n\n505\n00:22:02.660 --> 00:22:05.540\nthe economic impact on the country is much greater\n\n506\n00:22:05.540 --> 00:22:06.940\nthan if we were just doing business there.\n\n507\n00:22:06.940 --> 00:22:10.540\nSo, and it's given us scale and given our customers\n\n508\n00:22:10.540 --> 00:22:12.420\na lot more expertise that can help them\n\n509\n00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:14.100\ndeploy the solutions.\n\n510\n00:22:14.100 --> 00:22:17.260\n- Do you have a particular story that you tell\n\n511\n00:22:17.260 --> 00:22:21.500\nabout one of your partners that really demonstrates that?\n\n512\n00:22:21.500 --> 00:22:23.260\n- I hate to give them any airtime,\n\n513\n00:22:23.260 --> 00:22:26.700\nbut we have a partner in St. Louis name,\n\n514\n00:22:26.700 --> 00:22:27.700\nworldwide technology.\n\n515\n00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:30.180\nThey're CEO and I've been friends for about 25 years.\n\n516\n00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:31.500\nThey're our largest partner.\n\n517\n00:22:31.500 --> 00:22:33.380\nThey do a phenomenal job for us.\n\n518\n00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:37.340\nAnd it's funny because there's an assumption,\n\n519\n00:22:37.340 --> 00:22:39.940\nand by the way, there's 50 other partners\n\n520\n00:22:39.940 --> 00:22:42.660\nthat do the same great job they do.\n\n521\n00:22:42.660 --> 00:22:48.260\nBut there's this assumption that we're always leading\n\n522\n00:22:48.260 --> 00:22:49.580\nand that we're teaching the partners\n\n523\n00:22:49.580 --> 00:22:50.780\nhow to do what they wanna do.\n\n524\n00:22:50.780 --> 00:22:54.820\nAnd that's true a lot of times, but it's not true all the time.\n\n525\n00:22:54.820 --> 00:22:59.820\nAnd so I would say relative to how we've accelerated\n\n526\n00:23:00.820 --> 00:23:05.060\nthat our approach in the AI era right now,\n\n527\n00:23:05.060 --> 00:23:06.660\nworldwide was actually ahead of us.\n\n528\n00:23:06.660 --> 00:23:09.300\nAnd we went to St. Louis and sat down with those guys.\n\n529\n00:23:09.300 --> 00:23:11.540\nYou wouldn't think they'd be in St. Louis, you know?\n\n530\n00:23:11.540 --> 00:23:15.780\nBut they, and they do a great job\n\n531\n00:23:15.780 --> 00:23:19.940\nof really getting ahead of these trends,\n\n532\n00:23:19.940 --> 00:23:23.100\ngetting ahead out ahead of these market transitions\n\n533\n00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:24.220\nthat are happening.\n\n534\n00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:26.980\nAnd so they have, they pushed us.\n\n535\n00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:28.220\nAnd other partners push us.\n\n536\n00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:31.420\nThere's, again, there's a ton of them that are just like that.\n\n537\n00:23:31.420 --> 00:23:35.740\nBut it's interesting because if you go back 20 years,\n\n538\n00:23:35.740 --> 00:23:37.580\nwe were dragging the partners along.\n\n539\n00:23:37.580 --> 00:23:40.140\nAnd now we have our partners that are actually really pulling us.\n\n540\n00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:42.180\nAnd the only thing I'd say is they're CEOs\n\n541\n00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:43.980\na guy named Jim Kavanaugh.\n\n542\n00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:45.780\nHe's the slowest golfer you'll ever play with in your life.\n\n543\n00:23:45.780 --> 00:23:48.540\nSo if you ever get asked to play golf with him,\n\n544\n00:23:48.540 --> 00:23:51.140\njust tell him you gotta put him on the clock.\n\n545\n00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:52.860\nI hope he sees this.\n\n546\n00:23:52.860 --> 00:23:55.060\n- You obviously like to give the little needle\n\n547\n00:23:55.060 --> 00:23:56.660\nand have a little fun.\n\n548\n00:23:56.660 --> 00:23:59.460\nHow important do you think it is to have humor\n\n549\n00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:01.140\nin your leadership style?\n\n550\n00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:04.660\n- I find it to be disarming for people.\n\n551\n00:24:04.660 --> 00:24:06.580\nAnd it's just part of being human, right?\n\n552\n00:24:06.580 --> 00:24:11.580\nI think people just realize you're just normal when you have,\n\n553\n00:24:11.580 --> 00:24:18.020\nand actually, and church is a good example of this,\n\n554\n00:24:18.020 --> 00:24:20.060\nalthough I hate to pay him a compliment.\n\n555\n00:24:20.060 --> 00:24:23.220\nReal quick wit, I think, and my wife says this\n\n556\n00:24:23.220 --> 00:24:26.140\nis reflective of intellect.\n\n557\n00:24:26.140 --> 00:24:32.580\nAnd I think that I just think our teams and our people,\n\n558\n00:24:32.580 --> 00:24:35.060\nthey feel like I'm just one of them.\n\n559\n00:24:35.060 --> 00:24:38.020\nI mean, we spend time together, I make jokes,\n\n560\n00:24:38.020 --> 00:24:39.460\nI crack jokes.\n\n561\n00:24:39.460 --> 00:24:43.140\nI tell some of my folks that,\n\n562\n00:24:43.140 --> 00:24:45.260\nback to this leadership style thing,\n\n563\n00:24:45.260 --> 00:24:48.060\nsometimes you're being human and they want humility,\n\n564\n00:24:48.060 --> 00:24:50.380\nand they want you to be the human being.\n\n565\n00:24:50.380 --> 00:24:52.980\nAnd then sometimes you're in such a mess\n\n566\n00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:55.300\nthat they want, they need Superman.\n\n567\n00:24:55.300 --> 00:24:57.020\nAnd you need to know the difference.\n\n568\n00:24:57.020 --> 00:24:59.140\nAnd I was talking to one of my leaders one day,\n\n569\n00:24:59.140 --> 00:25:02.660\nI'm like, you know, your humility's great,\n\n570\n00:25:02.660 --> 00:25:04.540\nand but you have to know the difference.\n\n571\n00:25:04.540 --> 00:25:08.380\nSo my example was in the early days of the pandemic,\n\n572\n00:25:08.380 --> 00:25:10.340\nthey wanted human, but they wanted Superman.\n\n573\n00:25:10.340 --> 00:25:12.780\nThey wanted somebody to tell us, this is gonna be okay.\n\n574\n00:25:12.780 --> 00:25:15.140\nHere's what we're gonna do, here's our plan.\n\n575\n00:25:15.140 --> 00:25:16.980\nWe're good, you're gonna be fine,\n\n576\n00:25:16.980 --> 00:25:19.020\nwe're gonna make all the things happen.\n\n577\n00:25:19.020 --> 00:25:20.740\nAnd I think that's really, it's an example\n\n578\n00:25:20.740 --> 00:25:22.260\nof how you have to tweak your style,\n\n579\n00:25:22.260 --> 00:25:24.660\nbut I think humor's just a big part of it.\n\n580\n00:25:24.660 --> 00:25:29.140\nAnd it really lowers the tension when people are stressed.\n\n581\n00:25:29.140 --> 00:25:32.140\n- You know, I also love how you, you know,\n\n582\n00:25:32.140 --> 00:25:34.500\ndo best practice visits, and you learn from the company\n\n583\n00:25:34.500 --> 00:25:37.900\nin St. Louis, and you know, helped you up your game.\n\n584\n00:25:37.900 --> 00:25:40.340\nAnd I used to love to do best practices.\n\n585\n00:25:40.340 --> 00:25:43.020\nAnd one of the companies I visit was Cisco,\n\n586\n00:25:43.020 --> 00:25:45.140\nand I'll never forget this.\n\n587\n00:25:45.140 --> 00:25:46.780\n- The food company for us.\n\n588\n00:25:46.780 --> 00:25:49.620\n- I'm talking about you, your company,\n\n589\n00:25:49.620 --> 00:25:51.780\nI went out to your corporate headquarters,\n\n590\n00:25:51.780 --> 00:25:55.540\nand I met, took my team, we met with John Chambers,\n\n591\n00:25:55.540 --> 00:25:59.340\nwho was the CEO then, and he, when he walked in,\n\n592\n00:25:59.340 --> 00:26:02.940\nhe had six, at least six people, an entourage,\n\n593\n00:26:02.940 --> 00:26:06.500\nbasically taking him from meeting to meeting.\n\n594\n00:26:06.500 --> 00:26:10.060\nAnd you know, when you're a huge company\n\n595\n00:26:10.060 --> 00:26:11.900\nin a successful company like that,\n\n596\n00:26:11.900 --> 00:26:15.980\nhow do you get rid of that kind of hierarchy and bureaucracy?\n\n597\n00:26:17.420 --> 00:26:20.700\n- Yeah, it's-- - Or am I stating it too far,\n\n598\n00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:22.140\nmaybe I'm drawing the wrong conclusion,\n\n599\n00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:23.820\nbut that was my impression.\n\n600\n00:26:23.820 --> 00:26:25.260\n- No, 'cause we do, here's an example,\n\n601\n00:26:25.260 --> 00:26:28.020\nwe do big events, when we do big events,\n\n602\n00:26:28.020 --> 00:26:32.180\nwe'll have 30, 40,000 customers at an event in Vegas.\n\n603\n00:26:32.180 --> 00:26:33.580\nWe have a lot of people there,\n\n604\n00:26:33.580 --> 00:26:35.140\nwe have a lot of people that are staff\n\n605\n00:26:35.140 --> 00:26:35.980\nthat are building a thing.\n\n606\n00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:38.980\nAnd if we let it, I could walk around that whole place\n\n607\n00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:41.140\nwith eight or 10 people around me all the time,\n\n608\n00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:42.420\n'cause you got communications people,\n\n609\n00:26:42.420 --> 00:26:43.620\nyou got assistants that are helping you,\n\n610\n00:26:43.620 --> 00:26:45.420\nyou've got, you know, maybe my head of product\n\n611\n00:26:45.420 --> 00:26:46.780\nis going with me on something.\n\n612\n00:26:46.780 --> 00:26:48.780\nWe deliberately like break the group up\n\n613\n00:26:48.780 --> 00:26:50.820\nso we don't come off looking that way.\n\n614\n00:26:50.820 --> 00:26:52.980\nThe reality is, there's a lot of this stuff's complicated\n\n615\n00:26:52.980 --> 00:26:54.340\nand there's a lot of people around it.\n\n616\n00:26:54.340 --> 00:26:57.580\nI think that optics matter a lot, in my opinion.\n\n617\n00:26:57.580 --> 00:27:01.220\nBut there's a lot of people doing really good work,\n\n618\n00:27:01.220 --> 00:27:05.020\nbut everybody doesn't need to know that, you know?\n\n619\n00:27:05.020 --> 00:27:07.500\n(laughing)\n\n620\n00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:10.340\n- And you followed chambers who led Cisco\n\n621\n00:27:10.340 --> 00:27:13.140\nfor more than 20 years, what was that like?\n\n622\n00:27:13.140 --> 00:27:14.540\n- Well, first of all, John was great.\n\n623\n00:27:14.540 --> 00:27:17.340\nHe, I don't know if it's, you know,\n\n624\n00:27:17.340 --> 00:27:19.220\nabout three years before the transition,\n\n625\n00:27:19.220 --> 00:27:21.060\nhe started taking me on trips around the world\n\n626\n00:27:21.060 --> 00:27:23.540\nand I learned a ton, engaging with government leaders\n\n627\n00:27:23.540 --> 00:27:25.380\nand doing those kinds of things.\n\n628\n00:27:25.380 --> 00:27:28.740\nHe obviously had, it was a bit of a legend in Silicon Valley.\n\n629\n00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:32.020\nAnd so it was great.\n\n630\n00:27:32.020 --> 00:27:37.340\nHe, you know, sometimes it's difficult.\n\n631\n00:27:37.340 --> 00:27:39.940\nHe was exact chair for two and a half years.\n\n632\n00:27:39.940 --> 00:27:43.180\nAnd so, you know, we had a lot of,\n\n633\n00:27:43.180 --> 00:27:44.500\nwe had a lot of ongoing discussions.\n\n634\n00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:45.740\nHe was in the office every day.\n\n635\n00:27:45.740 --> 00:27:47.700\nPeople still, you know, people would go talk to him\n\n636\n00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.340\nand sometimes it was, that part was a little tricky,\n\n637\n00:27:50.340 --> 00:27:51.740\nbut we worked through it.\n\n638\n00:27:51.740 --> 00:27:52.620\nBut he was great.\n\n639\n00:27:52.620 --> 00:27:55.620\nHe was such a, he was such a mentor to me.\n\n640\n00:27:55.620 --> 00:27:57.740\nHe taught me a lot, he taught me a ton.\n\n641\n00:27:57.740 --> 00:28:01.300\nHe exposed me to areas of the world I otherwise wouldn't have.\n\n642\n00:28:01.300 --> 00:28:05.020\nHe basically brought me into China and taught me\n\n643\n00:28:05.020 --> 00:28:10.020\nand set me up to be successful in China after he was gone.\n\n644\n00:28:10.020 --> 00:28:11.820\nI remember a little nugget city would tell me,\n\n645\n00:28:11.820 --> 00:28:15.460\nhe told me like, he said, block, block Fridays,\n\n646\n00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:18.380\nblock a bunch of Fridays on your calendar.\n\n647\n00:28:18.380 --> 00:28:20.140\n'Cause you can all, he said, you know,\n\n648\n00:28:20.140 --> 00:28:22.460\nhe said you'd be amazed at the power of a long weekend\n\n649\n00:28:22.460 --> 00:28:26.020\nif you can get one with the schedule that you keep.\n\n650\n00:28:26.020 --> 00:28:27.220\nHe said, you can always give them back,\n\n651\n00:28:27.220 --> 00:28:28.900\nbut it's hard to take them.\n\n652\n00:28:28.900 --> 00:28:31.700\nAnd so that's just a practice that we've tried\n\n653\n00:28:31.700 --> 00:28:33.380\nand very rarely do they stick.\n\n654\n00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:36.780\nThey usually get given back, but that's true.\n\n655\n00:28:36.780 --> 00:28:38.260\nIt was, it was great.\n\n656\n00:28:38.260 --> 00:28:40.220\nI was shocked, honestly.\n\n657\n00:28:40.220 --> 00:28:42.620\nWhen they told me they wanted me to be in the process\n\n658\n00:28:42.620 --> 00:28:43.900\nto replace chambers.\n\n659\n00:28:43.900 --> 00:28:47.500\nI mean, I was like, it was just, it was surreal.\n\n660\n00:28:47.500 --> 00:28:49.540\n'Cause I remember the first time I went to a sales meeting\n\n661\n00:28:49.540 --> 00:28:52.780\nand John's on the big stage and I'm sitting in the rafters.\n\n662\n00:28:52.780 --> 00:28:54.780\nYou know, and then here I am.\n\n663\n00:28:54.780 --> 00:28:58.060\nSo it was, it was fun.\n\n664\n00:28:58.060 --> 00:29:00.060\n- You know, when you became the CEO,\n\n665\n00:29:00.060 --> 00:29:04.260\nwhat was the biggest change that you had to navigate?\n\n666\n00:29:04.260 --> 00:29:07.100\nWell, even if you just look over your career,\n\n667\n00:29:07.100 --> 00:29:09.420\nwhat's been the biggest, biggest change\n\n668\n00:29:09.420 --> 00:29:12.020\nthat we've really had to take people through?\n\n669\n00:29:12.020 --> 00:29:16.860\n- Well, we had a meaningful shift to our portfolio mix,\n\n670\n00:29:16.860 --> 00:29:21.860\nnot to get too technical, but we now have over half\n\n671\n00:29:21.860 --> 00:29:24.420\nof our revenues that are coming from software and services.\n\n672\n00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:26.340\nSo they're subscription oriented.\n\n673\n00:29:26.340 --> 00:29:29.540\nWhereas before we were a, we were a kill something\n\n674\n00:29:29.540 --> 00:29:31.580\nand eat it, you know, every 90 days,\n\n675\n00:29:31.580 --> 00:29:35.620\nI think every quarter about 85% of our revenue,\n\n676\n00:29:35.620 --> 00:29:37.620\nwe had, we sold it, we took the order\n\n677\n00:29:37.620 --> 00:29:39.620\nin the quarter and shipped it in the quarter.\n\n678\n00:29:39.620 --> 00:29:42.020\nAnd that's a, that's a hamster on a wheel business model.\n\n679\n00:29:42.020 --> 00:29:45.400\nIt's, that's a, it's, it's just exhausting.\n\n680\n00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:49.460\nSo we went through this shift to add more software assets\n\n681\n00:29:49.460 --> 00:29:53.180\nto our portfolio and that was, that was complicated.\n\n682\n00:29:53.180 --> 00:29:55.340\nI learned a lot and I learned,\n\n683\n00:29:55.340 --> 00:29:59.220\nI learned all about the underlying operational needs\n\n684\n00:29:59.220 --> 00:30:00.660\nof big business model shifts.\n\n685\n00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:03.460\n'Cause I didn't think about it enough on the front end.\n\n686\n00:30:03.460 --> 00:30:05.300\nThat was a big learning experience.\n\n687\n00:30:05.300 --> 00:30:07.460\nAll of a sudden, we got our, our product teams\n\n688\n00:30:07.460 --> 00:30:10.660\nthat built all these great subscription based services.\n\n689\n00:30:10.660 --> 00:30:13.740\nAnd I came to realize that we didn't have systems\n\n690\n00:30:13.740 --> 00:30:16.660\nthat could actually do business with customers\n\n691\n00:30:16.660 --> 00:30:17.660\nin a subscription model.\n\n692\n00:30:17.660 --> 00:30:19.500\nSo that was a little bit of a problem.\n\n693\n00:30:19.500 --> 00:30:22.580\nSo, but that was a hard transition.\n\n694\n00:30:22.580 --> 00:30:24.700\nBut the other thing is I've had a couple of shifts\n\n695\n00:30:24.700 --> 00:30:26.100\nthrough the leadership team.\n\n696\n00:30:26.100 --> 00:30:28.580\nAnd that's always hard, but it's, it's necessary.\n\n697\n00:30:28.580 --> 00:30:30.300\nI think most, most leaders will tell you\n\n698\n00:30:30.300 --> 00:30:31.860\nthat one of the biggest mistakes they make\n\n699\n00:30:31.860 --> 00:30:34.060\nis when they realize they got the wrong person\n\n700\n00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:36.060\nand the job is they don't move fast enough.\n\n701\n00:30:36.060 --> 00:30:38.980\nAnd, and that's something that I've learned over the years.\n\n702\n00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:41.340\nYou just have to suck it up and get it done.\n\n703\n00:30:41.340 --> 00:30:42.260\nYou will make mistakes.\n\n704\n00:30:42.260 --> 00:30:43.620\nYou will hire someone that you,\n\n705\n00:30:43.620 --> 00:30:45.940\nyou'll put somebody in a job that you shouldn't.\n\n706\n00:30:45.940 --> 00:30:47.900\nAnd I put people in job that have been,\n\n707\n00:30:47.900 --> 00:30:50.580\nthat I've known for 17, 18 years and you just,\n\n708\n00:30:50.580 --> 00:30:52.960\nit just, it was, it was one step too far.\n\n709\n00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:55.620\nOr I brought people in from the outside\n\n710\n00:30:55.620 --> 00:30:58.500\nand, and realized it was, you know,\n\n711\n00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:02.460\nit wasn't going to work and inevitably you wait too long.\n\n712\n00:31:02.460 --> 00:31:03.260\n- Hello everyone.\n\n713\n00:31:03.260 --> 00:31:05.220\nI hope you are loving this conversation\n\n714\n00:31:05.220 --> 00:31:06.980\nbetween David and Chuck.\n\n715\n00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:09.540\nAs always, be sure to stay tuned to the very end\n\n716\n00:31:09.540 --> 00:31:10.380\nof the episode.\n\n717\n00:31:10.380 --> 00:31:11.620\nDavid and I are going to break down\n\n718\n00:31:11.620 --> 00:31:13.780\nsome of the key learnings from this conversation\n\n719\n00:31:13.780 --> 00:31:15.580\nso that you leave this episode\n\n720\n00:31:15.580 --> 00:31:16.820\nwith something really tangible\n\n721\n00:31:16.820 --> 00:31:18.700\nthat you can apply to your own leadership\n\n722\n00:31:18.700 --> 00:31:19.780\nand your own life.\n\n723\n00:31:19.780 --> 00:31:20.940\nChuck is full of insights\n\n724\n00:31:20.940 --> 00:31:22.580\nand David and I break all of them down\n\n725\n00:31:22.580 --> 00:31:24.340\nso that you have something really helpful\n\n726\n00:31:24.340 --> 00:31:25.900\nthat you can apply today\n\n727\n00:31:25.900 --> 00:31:27.660\nto your life and to your leadership.\n\n728\n00:31:27.660 --> 00:31:29.660\nSo be sure to stay tuned to the debrief\n\n729\n00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:30.900\nand I will see you soon.\n\n730\n00:31:32.020 --> 00:31:35.940\n- You know, you've worked through many business transformations\n\n731\n00:31:35.940 --> 00:31:37.500\nand you've had to take people with you\n\n732\n00:31:37.500 --> 00:31:39.620\nto navigate that change, you know.\n\n733\n00:31:39.620 --> 00:31:42.220\nHow do you, how do you keep people confident\n\n734\n00:31:42.220 --> 00:31:45.700\nwhen that sand shifting, you know, in your feet\n\n735\n00:31:45.700 --> 00:31:46.540\nand you don't really know\n\n736\n00:31:46.540 --> 00:31:48.020\nhow things are going to turn out?\n\n737\n00:31:48.020 --> 00:31:49.780\nI mean, how do you build confidence\n\n738\n00:31:49.780 --> 00:31:53.780\nwhen you don't necessarily have that answer yet?\n\n739\n00:31:53.780 --> 00:31:57.140\n- Well, there's a few things that come to mind.\n\n740\n00:31:57.140 --> 00:32:00.380\nFirst of all, if you want people to go with you\n\n741\n00:32:00.380 --> 00:32:03.500\nand want a journey towards a vision that you have,\n\n742\n00:32:03.500 --> 00:32:05.820\nthey have to believe you're grounded\n\n743\n00:32:05.820 --> 00:32:08.140\nin the reality of where you are today.\n\n744\n00:32:08.140 --> 00:32:12.380\nAnd what I mean by that is a lot of times executives\n\n745\n00:32:12.380 --> 00:32:14.340\nand leaders want to paint a rosy picture\n\n746\n00:32:14.340 --> 00:32:15.700\nof how everything is wonderful\n\n747\n00:32:15.700 --> 00:32:18.540\nand now we're going to go capture this hill over here.\n\n748\n00:32:18.540 --> 00:32:20.820\nAnd sometimes you're making a big shift\n\n749\n00:32:20.820 --> 00:32:22.500\nbecause everything's not wonderful.\n\n750\n00:32:22.500 --> 00:32:24.620\nAnd if you want your best people to go with you\n\n751\n00:32:24.620 --> 00:32:27.060\non the journey, you have to acknowledge,\n\n752\n00:32:27.060 --> 00:32:30.340\n\"Hey, you know what, this isn't good right now.\n\n753\n00:32:30.340 --> 00:32:31.980\n\"We're not where we need to be,\n\n754\n00:32:31.980 --> 00:32:33.620\n\"but let me tell you where we're going to go.\n\n755\n00:32:33.620 --> 00:32:36.060\n\"Let me tell you what we're going to do to go\n\n756\n00:32:36.060 --> 00:32:37.860\n\"get to where we need to be.\"\n\n757\n00:32:37.860 --> 00:32:39.740\nAnd your very best people are going to want to know\n\n758\n00:32:39.740 --> 00:32:41.460\nyou're grounded in reality of where you are\n\n759\n00:32:41.460 --> 00:32:43.620\nbefore they're going to buy in to go on a journey with you.\n\n760\n00:32:43.620 --> 00:32:45.500\nSo that's one piece.\n\n761\n00:32:45.500 --> 00:32:47.920\nSecond piece is in times of change,\n\n762\n00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:53.060\nfrequent, honest, transparent communication is so important.\n\n763\n00:32:53.060 --> 00:32:58.060\nAnd I'm a believer that hierarchical hope doesn't work\n\n764\n00:32:58.060 --> 00:33:01.100\nwhen you're trying to get an entire organization\n\n765\n00:33:01.100 --> 00:33:02.340\nto move in a certain direction.\n\n766\n00:33:02.340 --> 00:33:04.300\nYou've got to talk to everybody.\n\n767\n00:33:04.300 --> 00:33:07.460\nSo we do full company meetings every 30 days.\n\n768\n00:33:07.460 --> 00:33:08.340\nWe just do it.\n\n769\n00:33:08.340 --> 00:33:10.700\nAnd I talk to everybody in the company.\n\n770\n00:33:10.700 --> 00:33:13.460\nAnd so that's a second frequent, honest,\n\n771\n00:33:13.460 --> 00:33:15.740\nauthentic communication is so important.\n\n772\n00:33:15.740 --> 00:33:18.580\nThose are just some of the things that I learned along the way\n\n773\n00:33:18.580 --> 00:33:20.540\nin trying to get through these big transitions.\n\n774\n00:33:20.540 --> 00:33:25.540\nAnd we hit a, I want to say in 2000,\n\n775\n00:33:25.540 --> 00:33:30.580\nour stock hit a high of $79 in some change.\n\n776\n00:33:30.580 --> 00:33:34.660\nAnd we recently actually set a new all time high\n\n777\n00:33:34.660 --> 00:33:37.260\nand it was a lot of that learning and resetting\n\n778\n00:33:37.260 --> 00:33:39.220\nand moving forward and going.\n\n779\n00:33:39.220 --> 00:33:43.460\nAnd it's been a long hard track to get there.\n\n780\n00:33:43.460 --> 00:33:45.620\n- You know, Chuck, you're a huge advocate\n\n781\n00:33:45.620 --> 00:33:48.780\nfor trusting your employees.\n\n782\n00:33:48.780 --> 00:33:50.660\nWe've talked about that at dinner once, you know.\n\n783\n00:33:50.660 --> 00:33:54.260\nAnd tell me a story where that really showed up\n\n784\n00:33:54.260 --> 00:33:55.700\nand how you lead.\n\n785\n00:33:55.700 --> 00:33:58.140\n- A lot of times it shows up in some of the M and A\n\n786\n00:33:58.140 --> 00:34:00.260\nthat we do, you know.\n\n787\n00:34:00.260 --> 00:34:03.380\nAnd, you know, my team,\n\n788\n00:34:03.380 --> 00:34:05.540\nyou'll have a sponsor of an acquisition\n\n789\n00:34:05.540 --> 00:34:07.780\nand you're going to spend billions of dollars.\n\n790\n00:34:07.780 --> 00:34:10.260\nAnd I'm not a deep expert in some of these technologies.\n\n791\n00:34:10.260 --> 00:34:12.020\nAnd so that's the ultimate trust.\n\n792\n00:34:12.020 --> 00:34:14.420\nI trust you so much that you tell me we need to go spend\n\n793\n00:34:14.420 --> 00:34:17.540\n$5 billion on this asset so that you can get that.\n\n794\n00:34:17.540 --> 00:34:19.700\nAnd you know what, they don't always work out.\n\n795\n00:34:19.700 --> 00:34:22.940\nBut that's sort of a high level example.\n\n796\n00:34:22.940 --> 00:34:28.260\nBut I think the reality is is, you know,\n\n797\n00:34:28.260 --> 00:34:29.860\nwe have 90,000 people.\n\n798\n00:34:29.860 --> 00:34:31.740\nEarly in my tenure in this job,\n\n799\n00:34:31.740 --> 00:34:35.060\nI was deeply in the product stuff a lot.\n\n800\n00:34:35.060 --> 00:34:39.620\nAnd I'm still like having affinity for the products\n\n801\n00:34:39.620 --> 00:34:41.620\nbecause I've been here so long.\n\n802\n00:34:41.620 --> 00:34:43.980\nBut we have such a great team\n\n803\n00:34:45.060 --> 00:34:47.260\nthat I don't feel as compelled.\n\n804\n00:34:47.260 --> 00:34:51.340\nAnd we literally, this was a weird feeling for me.\n\n805\n00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:52.860\nThis past July, we had our biggest,\n\n806\n00:34:52.860 --> 00:34:54.820\nwe have our biggest customer of end of the year.\n\n807\n00:34:54.820 --> 00:34:59.660\nIt was June and it's like 30,000 people in person\n\n808\n00:34:59.660 --> 00:35:03.300\nand 150,000 people watching it streaming.\n\n809\n00:35:03.300 --> 00:35:06.420\nWe made like 22 product announcements.\n\n810\n00:35:06.420 --> 00:35:09.540\nAnd before I got there, I only knew about four of them.\n\n811\n00:35:09.540 --> 00:35:14.540\nSo me, that's like a huge shift in the trust of that team\n\n812\n00:35:14.540 --> 00:35:18.340\nthat's building these products because they're so good.\n\n813\n00:35:18.340 --> 00:35:20.740\nAnd that's just a big shift, which is good for me\n\n814\n00:35:20.740 --> 00:35:22.700\nbecause it lets me go do some of the things\n\n815\n00:35:22.700 --> 00:35:24.380\nthat are really needing my focus right now.\n\n816\n00:35:24.380 --> 00:35:27.660\nLike the geopolitical dynamics that we're all dealing with,\n\n817\n00:35:27.660 --> 00:35:31.900\nyou know, around the world, a lot of the shifts\n\n818\n00:35:31.900 --> 00:35:34.580\nthat are happening in, you know, the de-globalization\n\n819\n00:35:34.580 --> 00:35:36.660\nor re-globalization or however you want to phrase it.\n\n820\n00:35:36.660 --> 00:35:38.900\nI mean, there's a lot of things that I need to be spending\n\n821\n00:35:38.900 --> 00:35:42.420\nmy time on right now that I'm allowed to do\n\n822\n00:35:42.420 --> 00:35:44.380\nbecause of the trust I have in the team.\n\n823\n00:35:44.380 --> 00:35:46.620\n- You know, Cisco has been named one of the best places\n\n824\n00:35:46.620 --> 00:35:48.580\nto work year after year.\n\n825\n00:35:48.580 --> 00:35:50.620\nCulture has to be a big deal for you.\n\n826\n00:35:50.620 --> 00:35:52.500\nYou have to be driving that.\n\n827\n00:35:52.500 --> 00:35:56.060\nWhat's the number one behavior in your work environment\n\n828\n00:35:56.060 --> 00:35:58.860\nthat you try to drive deep throughout the organization?\n\n829\n00:35:58.860 --> 00:36:00.100\nIf you just could pick one.\n\n830\n00:36:00.100 --> 00:36:04.740\n- First of all, I think if you give people the ability\n\n831\n00:36:04.740 --> 00:36:08.060\nand the support for them to engage in their communities,\n\n832\n00:36:08.060 --> 00:36:11.700\nthey actually feel an affinity for the company\n\n833\n00:36:11.700 --> 00:36:13.580\nbecause people love giving back and jump.\n\n834\n00:36:13.580 --> 00:36:15.020\nIf you have the right people working for you,\n\n835\n00:36:15.020 --> 00:36:16.820\nthey're going to love to give back\n\n836\n00:36:16.820 --> 00:36:18.740\nin addition to competing every day.\n\n837\n00:36:18.740 --> 00:36:22.900\nSo we have this deal where we want super competitive people\n\n838\n00:36:22.900 --> 00:36:25.700\nthat want to win every day, but with big hearts\n\n839\n00:36:25.700 --> 00:36:28.100\nthat want to give back to their communities\n\n840\n00:36:28.100 --> 00:36:29.300\nand do the things that they need to do.\n\n841\n00:36:29.300 --> 00:36:32.380\nAnd I think that combination actually does.\n\n842\n00:36:32.380 --> 00:36:34.740\nBut the other thing I think that is so important\n\n843\n00:36:34.740 --> 00:36:36.940\nis just the human element.\n\n844\n00:36:36.940 --> 00:36:40.940\nWe care deeply, you know, when we have an employee who's sick,\n\n845\n00:36:40.940 --> 00:36:42.940\nwe jump through hoops to get them to the right place.\n\n846\n00:36:42.940 --> 00:36:46.180\nWe jump, you know, if it's an employee's friend,\n\n847\n00:36:46.180 --> 00:36:48.020\nwe jump through hoops to get them to the right place.\n\n848\n00:36:48.020 --> 00:36:51.140\nWe just, it's the human aspect of the company\n\n849\n00:36:51.140 --> 00:36:52.900\nin addition to the competitive nature.\n\n850\n00:36:52.900 --> 00:36:54.900\nAnd that's not one nor two, that's a whole bunch,\n\n851\n00:36:54.900 --> 00:36:57.260\nbut it's never one thing, you know?\n\n852\n00:36:57.260 --> 00:36:58.100\n- It never is.\n\n853\n00:36:58.100 --> 00:37:01.780\nYou mentioned earlier that sometimes you miss the mark.\n\n854\n00:37:01.780 --> 00:37:04.740\nAnd, you know, when you miss the mark,\n\n855\n00:37:04.740 --> 00:37:07.660\nand I think, publicly, you've been pretty candid\n\n856\n00:37:07.660 --> 00:37:10.380\nabout the fact that Cisco missed the transformation\n\n857\n00:37:10.380 --> 00:37:12.100\nof everything moving to the cloud.\n\n858\n00:37:12.100 --> 00:37:15.580\nHow do you learn from that experience?\n\n859\n00:37:15.580 --> 00:37:19.220\nAnd what do you tell others when,\n\n860\n00:37:19.220 --> 00:37:23.140\nhey, this hits a fan or you miss the mark?\n\n861\n00:37:23.140 --> 00:37:25.340\n- We just had a board meeting and we were talking about\n\n862\n00:37:25.340 --> 00:37:28.180\nsomething that we didn't, we didn't get quite right\n\n863\n00:37:28.180 --> 00:37:29.620\nthat we have to go back and redo.\n\n864\n00:37:29.620 --> 00:37:32.420\nYou just got to be honest and you have to admit it.\n\n865\n00:37:32.420 --> 00:37:36.340\nAnd I think the worst thing you can do is try to convince\n\n866\n00:37:36.340 --> 00:37:40.060\nthe market that something is not gonna happen\n\n867\n00:37:40.060 --> 00:37:41.340\nor it's not the right thing.\n\n868\n00:37:41.340 --> 00:37:42.940\nWhen the market is sitting there telling you\n\n869\n00:37:42.940 --> 00:37:45.300\nthat it is going to happen or it is the right thing.\n\n870\n00:37:45.300 --> 00:37:47.380\nAnd just because you haven't been able\n\n871\n00:37:47.380 --> 00:37:49.500\nto define your role in it.\n\n872\n00:37:49.500 --> 00:37:51.740\nAnd that's a little bit of what we did with cloud.\n\n873\n00:37:51.740 --> 00:37:56.300\nAnd that was obviously before my tenure in this job,\n\n874\n00:37:56.300 --> 00:37:59.500\nbut like as an example, this artificial intelligence\n\n875\n00:37:59.500 --> 00:38:00.940\nshift is happening right now.\n\n876\n00:38:00.940 --> 00:38:05.580\nWe made some decisions back almost a decade ago\n\n877\n00:38:05.580 --> 00:38:09.020\nthat I'd love to tell you I was an AI visionary,\n\n878\n00:38:09.020 --> 00:38:11.100\nbut there's a lot of luck involved.\n\n879\n00:38:11.100 --> 00:38:14.820\nWe made the decisions for good reasons,\n\n880\n00:38:14.820 --> 00:38:16.460\nbut it turns out that those decisions\n\n881\n00:38:16.460 --> 00:38:18.340\nare the only reason we're being successful today.\n\n882\n00:38:18.340 --> 00:38:21.260\nSo there's an aspect of what is a preparation\n\n883\n00:38:21.260 --> 00:38:22.300\nmeets opportunity.\n\n884\n00:38:22.300 --> 00:38:23.700\n- Yeah.\n\n885\n00:38:23.700 --> 00:38:25.940\n- But you just have, I think you just have to be honest,\n\n886\n00:38:25.940 --> 00:38:27.540\ndenial is not a strategy.\n\n887\n00:38:27.540 --> 00:38:30.300\nAnd if you wanna just tell everybody\n\n888\n00:38:30.300 --> 00:38:32.700\nthat things are beautiful when they're not,\n\n889\n00:38:32.700 --> 00:38:34.780\nwhat happens when you do that is your best people leave\n\n890\n00:38:34.780 --> 00:38:37.180\nbecause they no longer believe you're credible.\n\n891\n00:38:37.180 --> 00:38:41.060\nAnd so you have to be honest, we missed this,\n\n892\n00:38:41.060 --> 00:38:43.100\nwe didn't get it right.\n\n893\n00:38:43.100 --> 00:38:46.020\nAnd there's a certain part of our portfolio\n\n894\n00:38:46.020 --> 00:38:48.180\nwhere we've been working hard over the last couple years\n\n895\n00:38:48.180 --> 00:38:50.420\nto get it to a better place.\n\n896\n00:38:50.420 --> 00:38:54.060\nAnd my product leader is he'll get on a public forum\n\n897\n00:38:54.060 --> 00:38:55.220\nand he'll have his team on there\n\n898\n00:38:55.220 --> 00:38:56.460\nthat's working on trying to fix it.\n\n899\n00:38:56.460 --> 00:38:57.540\nThese are new people by the way,\n\n900\n00:38:57.540 --> 00:38:59.420\nthey didn't create the problem.\n\n901\n00:38:59.420 --> 00:39:01.660\nAnd he's like, we didn't do well here,\n\n902\n00:39:01.660 --> 00:39:03.580\nwe have not done well, we're not getting it done,\n\n903\n00:39:03.580 --> 00:39:05.860\nwe're working, you know, and I finally had to tell him,\n\n904\n00:39:05.860 --> 00:39:07.260\nI said, look, you're beating up these people\n\n905\n00:39:07.260 --> 00:39:08.980\nthat are trying to solve the problem.\n\n906\n00:39:08.980 --> 00:39:11.420\nYou need to shift into a supportive mode now.\n\n907\n00:39:11.420 --> 00:39:15.540\nAnd, but it is important to just acknowledge\n\n908\n00:39:15.540 --> 00:39:17.540\nand then what are we gonna do?\n\n909\n00:39:17.540 --> 00:39:19.820\nWhat are we gonna do?\n\n910\n00:39:19.820 --> 00:39:24.300\nAnd what a lot of people do though,\n\n911\n00:39:24.300 --> 00:39:26.020\nespecially, let's say you have a competitor\n\n912\n00:39:26.020 --> 00:39:29.060\nthat's ahead of you, what a lot of people do,\n\n913\n00:39:29.060 --> 00:39:30.860\nI would sit into these meetings\n\n914\n00:39:30.860 --> 00:39:33.900\nand I'd have people say, in 12 months,\n\n915\n00:39:33.900 --> 00:39:36.500\nwe're gonna be at par with that competitor.\n\n916\n00:39:36.500 --> 00:39:40.620\nAnd I ask him, I'm like, is that because that competitor\n\n917\n00:39:40.620 --> 00:39:42.260\nis gonna stop innovating for 12 months\n\n918\n00:39:42.260 --> 00:39:43.100\nto let you catch up?\n\n919\n00:39:43.100 --> 00:39:44.060\nBecause you're out of your mind,\n\n920\n00:39:44.060 --> 00:39:45.100\nif you think 12 months from now,\n\n921\n00:39:45.100 --> 00:39:46.260\nthey're gonna be 12 months ahead of you\n\n922\n00:39:46.260 --> 00:39:48.820\nbecause they're gonna keep working right now too.\n\n923\n00:39:48.820 --> 00:39:50.860\nSo what you have to do is you have to figure out\n\n924\n00:39:50.860 --> 00:39:54.780\nhow do I change the game if you're behind?\n\n925\n00:39:54.780 --> 00:39:57.020\nHow do I come at it asymmetrically?\n\n926\n00:39:57.020 --> 00:39:59.780\nBecause chasing a competitor who's ahead of you,\n\n927\n00:39:59.780 --> 00:40:02.220\ntrying to just catch up, you never will.\n\n928\n00:40:02.220 --> 00:40:03.420\nYou just won't.\n\n929\n00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:06.420\n- You know, you mentioned your board a little bit earlier\n\n930\n00:40:06.420 --> 00:40:09.420\nand you also mentioned AI, you know, how you, you know,\n\n931\n00:40:09.420 --> 00:40:12.100\n10 years ago, you started that preparation,\n\n932\n00:40:12.100 --> 00:40:14.420\neven though you really didn't know it was gonna pay off\n\n933\n00:40:14.420 --> 00:40:17.220\nlike it has, but I understand you actually put your board\n\n934\n00:40:17.220 --> 00:40:19.480\nthrough an AI bootcamp.\n\n935\n00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:23.140\nWhat were the two or three things you wanted them\n\n936\n00:40:23.140 --> 00:40:26.420\nto understand so that they could provide better guidance\n\n937\n00:40:26.420 --> 00:40:27.540\nto you as a board?\n\n938\n00:40:27.540 --> 00:40:31.180\n- Well, first of all, we were talking to them early in this,\n\n939\n00:40:31.180 --> 00:40:34.940\nyou know, probably two years ago about AI\n\n940\n00:40:34.940 --> 00:40:36.940\nand what we were doing and they have, you know,\n\n941\n00:40:36.940 --> 00:40:38.780\nthis is when everybody's frantic and they're like,\n\n942\n00:40:38.780 --> 00:40:39.860\nwhat are we gonna, what are we doing?\n\n943\n00:40:39.860 --> 00:40:40.700\nWhat's our role?\n\n944\n00:40:40.700 --> 00:40:41.540\nWhere are we playing?\n\n945\n00:40:41.540 --> 00:40:42.380\nWhat are you doing?\n\n946\n00:40:42.380 --> 00:40:43.500\nWhat kind of skills do we have?\n\n947\n00:40:43.500 --> 00:40:45.060\nDo we have the right talent?\n\n948\n00:40:45.060 --> 00:40:47.740\nAnd during that conversation, we were just talking about,\n\n949\n00:40:47.740 --> 00:40:50.660\nthere's not, there's not a ton of talent in the marketplace\n\n950\n00:40:50.660 --> 00:40:52.140\nbecause it's being developed right now.\n\n951\n00:40:52.140 --> 00:40:54.820\nSo we needed to run some internal development activities\n\n952\n00:40:54.820 --> 00:40:56.740\nand boot caps for people to teach them.\n\n953\n00:40:56.740 --> 00:41:00.740\nAnd my board is so great.\n\n954\n00:41:00.740 --> 00:41:03.220\nThey actually said, we wanna go through it.\n\n955\n00:41:03.220 --> 00:41:08.060\nAnd so it was really a request from them\n\n956\n00:41:08.060 --> 00:41:12.420\nbecause a couple of my board members are deep technologists.\n\n957\n00:41:12.420 --> 00:41:15.460\nSo that's, it's not, it's not, they'll go learn it.\n\n958\n00:41:15.460 --> 00:41:20.300\nBut when you have people that came from the airline industry\n\n959\n00:41:20.300 --> 00:41:23.140\nor from education, higher ed, you know,\n\n960\n00:41:23.140 --> 00:41:26.580\nor they need us to help them.\n\n961\n00:41:26.580 --> 00:41:29.140\nIf you're a CEO, how you work with your board\n\n962\n00:41:29.140 --> 00:41:30.420\nis a whole nother conversation.\n\n963\n00:41:30.420 --> 00:41:32.940\nBut I am, what you see right now\n\n964\n00:41:32.940 --> 00:41:34.660\nis exactly how I work with my board.\n\n965\n00:41:34.660 --> 00:41:36.020\nI'm honest, I'm transparent.\n\n966\n00:41:36.020 --> 00:41:37.180\nMy team can tell them anything.\n\n967\n00:41:37.180 --> 00:41:39.460\nThey want any question they ask them they can answer.\n\n968\n00:41:39.460 --> 00:41:41.580\nI got nothing to hide.\n\n969\n00:41:41.580 --> 00:41:43.180\nAnd that's not always the case.\n\n970\n00:41:43.180 --> 00:41:46.740\nAnd in this case, the more educated they were,\n\n971\n00:41:46.740 --> 00:41:48.140\nthe better they could help us,\n\n972\n00:41:48.140 --> 00:41:49.780\nthe better questions they could ask us,\n\n973\n00:41:49.780 --> 00:41:52.380\nthe more better challenges they could throw at us\n\n974\n00:41:52.380 --> 00:41:53.220\nduring the meeting.\n\n975\n00:41:53.220 --> 00:41:55.300\nAnd so that's true of everything.\n\n976\n00:41:55.300 --> 00:41:58.620\nBut, but it was, it was really cool on the AI front\n\n977\n00:41:58.620 --> 00:42:00.820\nthat they wanted to, they wanted to learn.\n\n978\n00:42:00.820 --> 00:42:04.140\n- And I've heard you talk Chuck about AI displacement\n\n979\n00:42:04.140 --> 00:42:05.460\nas a human issue.\n\n980\n00:42:05.460 --> 00:42:07.580\nAnd after this conversation that I can,\n\n981\n00:42:07.580 --> 00:42:09.620\nI can understand that even more now.\n\n982\n00:42:09.620 --> 00:42:13.060\nBut it's a human issue, not just a business one.\n\n983\n00:42:13.060 --> 00:42:15.460\nSay more about how you're thinking about it.\n\n984\n00:42:15.460 --> 00:42:18.340\n- I think that technology transitions\n\n985\n00:42:18.340 --> 00:42:21.700\nan industrial evolution over the last 100 years\n\n986\n00:42:21.700 --> 00:42:26.700\nas always resulted in job dislocation, relocation.\n\n987\n00:42:26.700 --> 00:42:31.380\nThe difference is it's happened at a slower pace.\n\n988\n00:42:31.380 --> 00:42:37.260\nAnd this feels like, when I talk to a lot of my peers,\n\n989\n00:42:37.260 --> 00:42:41.980\nwe're all kind of like in the mode where it's not this year\n\n990\n00:42:41.980 --> 00:42:43.060\nand it may not be next year,\n\n991\n00:42:43.060 --> 00:42:45.260\nbut it might be the year after or the year after that.\n\n992\n00:42:45.260 --> 00:42:48.500\nAnd we, and what we have to do\n\n993\n00:42:50.140 --> 00:42:54.780\nas a business community and as citizens of the country,\n\n994\n00:42:54.780 --> 00:42:58.460\nwe need a plan for what are we going to do\n\n995\n00:42:58.460 --> 00:43:02.420\nfor these people that are displaced by AI?\n\n996\n00:43:02.420 --> 00:43:03.900\nHow are we going to help them get the next job?\n\n997\n00:43:03.900 --> 00:43:05.500\nHow are we going to help them think about what they do?\n\n998\n00:43:05.500 --> 00:43:08.340\nAnd so I think that's the human aspect.\n\n999\n00:43:08.340 --> 00:43:11.660\nAnd I think that's our responsibility to work together\n\n1000\n00:43:11.660 --> 00:43:14.860\nto create opportunities, some new opportunities.\n\n1001\n00:43:14.860 --> 00:43:17.300\nCause you know, if you look at where we are as a country,\n\n1002\n00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:18.780\nwe need people working.\n\n1003\n00:43:18.780 --> 00:43:20.860\nAnd I don't think AI is going to eliminate that.\n\n1004\n00:43:20.860 --> 00:43:23.260\nI just think it's going to shift what people end up doing\n\n1005\n00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:25.260\nfor a living and we should facilitate that\n\n1006\n00:43:25.260 --> 00:43:27.900\nas opposed to just good luck.\n\n1007\n00:43:27.900 --> 00:43:28.980\n- Are you doing anything, Chuck,\n\n1008\n00:43:28.980 --> 00:43:31.180\nthat with AI, yourself personally,\n\n1009\n00:43:31.180 --> 00:43:33.140\nthat's making you a better leader?\n\n1010\n00:43:33.140 --> 00:43:34.060\n- Trying to learn it.\n\n1011\n00:43:34.060 --> 00:43:39.860\nYou know, trying to just stay up with it is pretty impressive.\n\n1012\n00:43:39.860 --> 00:43:44.700\nI haven't gotten into like having these personal coaches,\n\n1013\n00:43:44.700 --> 00:43:47.220\nthese AI coaches, some of the folks in our company\n\n1014\n00:43:47.220 --> 00:43:48.060\nare using those now.\n\n1015\n00:43:48.060 --> 00:43:49.500\nAnd they say they're pretty good actually.\n\n1016\n00:43:49.500 --> 00:43:51.980\nI haven't gotten there yet.\n\n1017\n00:43:51.980 --> 00:43:56.100\nI use AI, I'm educating myself on AI.\n\n1018\n00:43:56.100 --> 00:43:57.900\nSo I guess from that perspective,\n\n1019\n00:43:57.900 --> 00:44:01.660\nstaying up to speed allows me to lead\n\n1020\n00:44:01.660 --> 00:44:04.020\nand to have conversations and challenge my team,\n\n1021\n00:44:04.020 --> 00:44:05.700\njust like the board conversation I was having.\n\n1022\n00:44:05.700 --> 00:44:07.340\nThat's probably the biggest thing that I'm trying to do\n\n1023\n00:44:07.340 --> 00:44:08.740\nis just stay educated.\n\n1024\n00:44:08.740 --> 00:44:13.340\nAnd honestly, one of the most educational ways\n\n1025\n00:44:13.340 --> 00:44:17.300\nthat is most educational are actually AI podcasts, right?\n\n1026\n00:44:17.300 --> 00:44:19.340\nThere's lots of podcasts where people are educating\n\n1027\n00:44:19.340 --> 00:44:22.540\nand bringing up speed and it's moving so fast.\n\n1028\n00:44:22.540 --> 00:44:24.980\nI mean, you look like, we're not talking about a year,\n\n1029\n00:44:24.980 --> 00:44:27.940\nwe're talking about a week, things can change.\n\n1030\n00:44:27.940 --> 00:44:30.780\nAnd you talk to some of these companies about,\n\n1031\n00:44:30.780 --> 00:44:32.220\nthey build a 90-day plan.\n\n1032\n00:44:32.220 --> 00:44:35.900\nAnd then 30 days in, they throw out the 90-day plan\n\n1033\n00:44:35.900 --> 00:44:37.380\nbecause everything's changed already.\n\n1034\n00:44:37.380 --> 00:44:40.540\nAnd I mean, you've got to really stay up to speed.\n\n1035\n00:44:40.540 --> 00:44:43.580\n- You know, I was in North Carolina recently\n\n1036\n00:44:43.580 --> 00:44:44.700\nwith our mutual friend.\n\n1037\n00:44:44.700 --> 00:44:47.700\nWe talked a little bit about Eric Church a little earlier,\n\n1038\n00:44:47.700 --> 00:44:50.500\nseeing what happened there with Hurricane Helene.\n\n1039\n00:44:50.500 --> 00:44:54.620\nAnd I know that Cisco committed millions of dollars\n\n1040\n00:44:54.620 --> 00:44:58.380\nto building houses to contribute to that effort.\n\n1041\n00:44:58.380 --> 00:45:01.660\nWhat drives you to step in at moments like that?\n\n1042\n00:45:01.660 --> 00:45:05.540\nAnd how do you decide where Cisco\n\n1043\n00:45:05.540 --> 00:45:06.780\ncan make the biggest difference?\n\n1044\n00:45:06.780 --> 00:45:09.900\nBecause there's so much need all around the world.\n\n1045\n00:45:09.900 --> 00:45:11.460\nHow do you prioritize?\n\n1046\n00:45:11.460 --> 00:45:14.820\n- Yeah, well, first of all, I have a great team\n\n1047\n00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:16.460\nthat actually does this.\n\n1048\n00:45:16.460 --> 00:45:21.460\nAnd what we set out to do was around our 40th anniversary\n\n1049\n00:45:21.460 --> 00:45:26.500\nas a company, which was about in 2024,\n\n1050\n00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:29.300\nwe decided to take 40 communities around the world\n\n1051\n00:45:29.300 --> 00:45:30.620\nand try to make a big difference.\n\n1052\n00:45:30.620 --> 00:45:33.700\nAnd it was sort of mirrored after some of our work\n\n1053\n00:45:33.700 --> 00:45:35.260\non homelessness in Silicon Valley.\n\n1054\n00:45:35.260 --> 00:45:38.140\nAnd I just fundamentally believe that companies,\n\n1055\n00:45:38.140 --> 00:45:39.860\nyou need to have healthy communities\n\n1056\n00:45:39.860 --> 00:45:41.900\nin which your employees live and operate.\n\n1057\n00:45:41.900 --> 00:45:45.460\nAnd so out there, we had a big housing crisis.\n\n1058\n00:45:45.460 --> 00:45:49.620\nAnd people would say, well, why is that your responsibility?\n\n1059\n00:45:49.620 --> 00:45:52.540\nWell, the reality is that if we don't have firefighters\n\n1060\n00:45:52.540 --> 00:45:54.340\nor school teachers or people that,\n\n1061\n00:45:54.340 --> 00:45:55.940\nif they can't afford to live in the area,\n\n1062\n00:45:55.940 --> 00:45:57.460\nthen you won't have people teaching your kids\n\n1063\n00:45:57.460 --> 00:45:58.500\nand when your house catches on fire,\n\n1064\n00:45:58.500 --> 00:46:00.140\nnobody's gonna come help you.\n\n1065\n00:46:00.140 --> 00:46:01.660\nI mean, these are just simple examples\n\n1066\n00:46:01.660 --> 00:46:04.220\nwhere we need to make sure we have a healthy community.\n\n1067\n00:46:04.220 --> 00:46:07.100\nAnd so what we decided to do was do 40 of these\n\n1068\n00:46:07.100 --> 00:46:09.780\nin recognition of our 40 years.\n\n1069\n00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:12.860\nAnd my team has done a lot of work\n\n1070\n00:46:12.860 --> 00:46:16.340\nto go identify where those were.\n\n1071\n00:46:16.340 --> 00:46:19.780\nSort of, we launched it right after this thing happened\n\n1072\n00:46:19.780 --> 00:46:21.420\nand Eric and I were talking.\n\n1073\n00:46:21.420 --> 00:46:24.540\nAnd we were talking about how we could scale\n\n1074\n00:46:24.540 --> 00:46:26.620\nwhat he wanted to do through business,\n\n1075\n00:46:26.620 --> 00:46:30.860\nbecause ultimately he's gonna need the business community.\n\n1076\n00:46:30.860 --> 00:46:33.980\nAnd I said, instead of us trying to go paint a vision\n\n1077\n00:46:33.980 --> 00:46:36.940\nand convince people to convince companies to give money\n\n1078\n00:46:36.940 --> 00:46:38.980\nto something that they haven't seen be successful.\n\n1079\n00:46:38.980 --> 00:46:42.100\nI said, let us throw some money at it with you.\n\n1080\n00:46:42.100 --> 00:46:44.620\nLet's go build some houses.\n\n1081\n00:46:44.620 --> 00:46:46.380\nLet's get some people living in those houses.\n\n1082\n00:46:46.380 --> 00:46:47.940\nAnd then we don't have to go sell a vision.\n\n1083\n00:46:47.940 --> 00:46:50.820\nWe can go sell the reality that needs to be scaled.\n\n1084\n00:46:50.820 --> 00:46:53.140\nSo that was just sort of a timing issue\n\n1085\n00:46:53.140 --> 00:46:55.220\nthat had occurred and I have a heart for North Carolina\n\n1086\n00:46:55.220 --> 00:46:59.260\nbecause I obviously lived there for 24 years.\n\n1087\n00:46:59.260 --> 00:47:01.180\nWe have a team of people that do a lot of analysis\n\n1088\n00:47:01.180 --> 00:47:03.220\nto figure out where we wanna go invest and help.\n\n1089\n00:47:03.220 --> 00:47:07.180\nBut the first thing that's a given is we are gonna do it.\n\n1090\n00:47:07.180 --> 00:47:10.060\nThe question of where is up to the team to figure that out.\n\n1091\n00:47:10.060 --> 00:47:12.820\n- And I love the fact that you encourage your team members\n\n1092\n00:47:12.820 --> 00:47:14.540\nto get out there and serve in the community\n\n1093\n00:47:14.540 --> 00:47:17.420\nbecause they feel better and you've enabled that.\n\n1094\n00:47:17.420 --> 00:47:18.900\nI think that's awesome stuff.\n\n1095\n00:47:18.900 --> 00:47:21.620\nSo thank you for all you're doing around the world on that.\n\n1096\n00:47:21.620 --> 00:47:22.940\nThat's great.\n\n1097\n00:47:22.940 --> 00:47:24.660\nThere's been a lot of fun checking.\n\n1098\n00:47:24.660 --> 00:47:27.500\nI wanna have some more with my lightning rounded questions.\n\n1099\n00:47:27.500 --> 00:47:28.820\nAre you ready for this?\n\n1100\n00:47:28.820 --> 00:47:30.820\n- Uh oh, that scares me.\n\n1101\n00:47:30.820 --> 00:47:33.740\n- All right, the three words that best describe you.\n\n1102\n00:47:33.740 --> 00:47:36.580\n- Funny, caring, adventurous.\n\n1103\n00:47:36.580 --> 00:47:39.340\n- If you could be one person for a day beside yourself,\n\n1104\n00:47:39.340 --> 00:47:40.340\nwho would it be?\n\n1105\n00:47:40.340 --> 00:47:41.420\n- Eric Church.\n\n1106\n00:47:41.420 --> 00:47:42.820\n- Your biggest pet peeve.\n\n1107\n00:47:42.820 --> 00:47:44.060\n- Mouth noises.\n\n1108\n00:47:44.060 --> 00:47:45.780\n- Who would play you in a movie?\n\n1109\n00:47:45.780 --> 00:47:47.540\n- Oh Lord, no one.\n\n1110\n00:47:47.540 --> 00:47:49.060\n(laughs)\n\n1111\n00:47:49.060 --> 00:47:51.060\n- Your favorite childhood job.\n\n1112\n00:47:51.060 --> 00:47:54.860\n- My first job, I was 10 years old\n\n1113\n00:47:54.860 --> 00:47:57.940\nand this gentleman hired me to help him repair lawnmores,\n\n1114\n00:47:57.940 --> 00:47:59.940\nwhich you can imagine how effective I was at it.\n\n1115\n00:47:59.940 --> 00:48:02.620\nBut I loved it because he let me do it.\n\n1116\n00:48:02.620 --> 00:48:04.940\n- As a North Carolina fan and alum,\n\n1117\n00:48:04.940 --> 00:48:08.340\nwhat's one thing that Duke does really well,\n\n1118\n00:48:08.340 --> 00:48:10.260\neven if it pains you to admit it?\n\n1119\n00:48:10.260 --> 00:48:11.100\n- Medical care.\n\n1120\n00:48:11.100 --> 00:48:13.220\n- What's something you've been curious about lately\n\n1121\n00:48:13.220 --> 00:48:15.220\nthat has nothing to do with work?\n\n1122\n00:48:15.220 --> 00:48:16.860\n- I've always been a fisherman\n\n1123\n00:48:16.860 --> 00:48:19.500\nand I'm trying to get into more of the science behind it,\n\n1124\n00:48:19.500 --> 00:48:23.380\nlearning more about everything from tie-in-flies\n\n1125\n00:48:23.380 --> 00:48:27.980\nto weather patterns to, you know,\n\n1126\n00:48:27.980 --> 00:48:29.980\ninstead of going with a guide or going with someone\n\n1127\n00:48:29.980 --> 00:48:31.420\nwho's telling you where to throw it,\n\n1128\n00:48:31.420 --> 00:48:32.740\nI'm trying to understand more\n\n1129\n00:48:32.740 --> 00:48:37.100\nand get a little smarter about the science of fishing.\n\n1130\n00:48:37.100 --> 00:48:38.180\nHow's that?\n\n1131\n00:48:38.180 --> 00:48:39.020\n- Good.\n\n1132\n00:48:39.020 --> 00:48:40.860\nWhat's the one thing you do just for you?\n\n1133\n00:48:40.860 --> 00:48:43.220\n- Watch Carolina basketball religiously.\n\n1134\n00:48:43.220 --> 00:48:45.300\n(laughs)\n\n1135\n00:48:45.300 --> 00:48:47.020\n- Besides your family and friends,\n\n1136\n00:48:47.020 --> 00:48:48.940\nwhat's your most prized possession?\n\n1137\n00:48:48.940 --> 00:48:50.140\n- Probably my fishing boat.\n\n1138\n00:48:50.140 --> 00:48:53.100\n- If I turned on the radio in the car, what would I hear?\n\n1139\n00:48:53.100 --> 00:48:54.740\n- Eric Church, you're touching music.\n\n1140\n00:48:54.740 --> 00:48:57.740\n- God, he's gonna take this way too seriously.\n\n1141\n00:48:57.740 --> 00:48:58.580\n- What's that?\n\n1142\n00:48:58.580 --> 00:49:02.100\n- Is album got nominated for a Grammy, you know?\n\n1143\n00:49:02.100 --> 00:49:05.780\n- You know, he's never won a Grammy for an album or a song.\n\n1144\n00:49:05.780 --> 00:49:07.820\n- Yeah, and Billboard's app pics recently\n\n1145\n00:49:07.820 --> 00:49:09.660\nhad his number one of 2025.\n\n1146\n00:49:09.660 --> 00:49:11.820\nHe sent it to me, just make sure I knew that.\n\n1147\n00:49:11.820 --> 00:49:14.060\n(laughs)\n\n1148\n00:49:14.060 --> 00:49:17.380\n- What's something about you that few people would know?\n\n1149\n00:49:17.380 --> 00:49:18.700\n- I'm a crier.\n\n1150\n00:49:18.700 --> 00:49:21.660\n- That's something you and I have in common for sure.\n\n1151\n00:49:21.660 --> 00:49:23.420\nWhat's one of your daily rituals?\n\n1152\n00:49:23.420 --> 00:49:25.300\nSomething that you never miss?\n\n1153\n00:49:25.300 --> 00:49:27.980\n- First thing in the morning, it's just news, news, news,\n\n1154\n00:49:27.980 --> 00:49:29.580\nnews, and that's a terrible thing to say,\n\n1155\n00:49:29.580 --> 00:49:30.420\nbut that's what I do.\n\n1156\n00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:31.820\nI'm a junkie in the morning.\n\n1157\n00:49:31.820 --> 00:49:34.580\n'Cause the world is so complex that I just get up in the morning\n\n1158\n00:49:34.580 --> 00:49:37.380\nand I gotta figure out what happened overnight\n\n1159\n00:49:37.380 --> 00:49:39.980\nthat's gonna affect something that I have to deal with today.\n\n1160\n00:49:39.980 --> 00:49:41.820\n- All right, we're out of the lightning round.\n\n1161\n00:49:41.820 --> 00:49:42.660\nGreat job.\n\n1162\n00:49:42.660 --> 00:49:45.340\nAnd I got just a few more questions, I'll let you go.\n\n1163\n00:49:45.340 --> 00:49:47.460\nYou're married with four kids.\n\n1164\n00:49:47.460 --> 00:49:49.780\nHow do you think about leadership at home?\n\n1165\n00:49:49.780 --> 00:49:51.340\n- Whatever my wife tells me.\n\n1166\n00:49:51.340 --> 00:49:53.900\n(laughs)\n\n1167\n00:49:53.900 --> 00:49:55.740\n- People, people find it hard to believe\n\n1168\n00:49:55.740 --> 00:49:58.460\nthat she's a stronger personality at home.\n\n1169\n00:49:58.460 --> 00:50:01.180\n- How do you get her involved in decisions or Dave?\n\n1170\n00:50:01.180 --> 00:50:04.620\n- I do, she is my number one sounding board period.\n\n1171\n00:50:04.620 --> 00:50:07.540\nYou know, I've always said she has this uncanny ability\n\n1172\n00:50:07.540 --> 00:50:12.140\nbecause she's not in the emotional day-to-day of everything.\n\n1173\n00:50:12.140 --> 00:50:15.300\nSo she can look at things very pragmatically,\n\n1174\n00:50:15.300 --> 00:50:16.700\nbut she knows enough about our business,\n\n1175\n00:50:16.700 --> 00:50:19.620\nenough about me, enough about my team, enough about everything.\n\n1176\n00:50:19.620 --> 00:50:21.020\nAnd when I lay it out there, I'll say,\n\n1177\n00:50:21.020 --> 00:50:22.260\nshe's like, what's going on?\n\n1178\n00:50:22.260 --> 00:50:24.820\nThat's complicated. What's going on? It's complicated.\n\n1179\n00:50:24.820 --> 00:50:25.900\nShe's like, well, tell me.\n\n1180\n00:50:25.900 --> 00:50:27.300\nAnd I'll tell her and she'll go,\n\n1181\n00:50:27.300 --> 00:50:28.820\ndoesn't sound like complicated to me.\n\n1182\n00:50:28.820 --> 00:50:30.300\n(laughs)\n\n1183\n00:50:30.300 --> 00:50:31.660\nAnd she's always right.\n\n1184\n00:50:31.660 --> 00:50:33.180\n- And you have four kids.\n\n1185\n00:50:33.180 --> 00:50:35.260\nAnd, you know, I know this is a broad question,\n\n1186\n00:50:35.260 --> 00:50:37.500\nbut you know, when you think about having kids,\n\n1187\n00:50:37.500 --> 00:50:41.820\nwhat do you think the biggest thing having kids teaches?\n\n1188\n00:50:41.820 --> 00:50:43.460\n- Oh, humility for sure.\n\n1189\n00:50:43.460 --> 00:50:49.580\nAnd it teaches you how to deal with immense fear\n\n1190\n00:50:49.580 --> 00:50:52.140\nbecause you worry about them nonstop.\n\n1191\n00:50:52.140 --> 00:50:55.620\nAnd it's so out of your control,\n\n1192\n00:50:55.620 --> 00:50:58.180\nespecially as they get older and older and older and older.\n\n1193\n00:50:58.180 --> 00:51:00.860\nAnd my wife and I joke that, you know,\n\n1194\n00:51:00.860 --> 00:51:02.860\nbigger kids, bigger problems.\n\n1195\n00:51:02.860 --> 00:51:04.460\nYou know, when they have a problem,\n\n1196\n00:51:04.460 --> 00:51:05.780\nwhen a bigger kid has a problem,\n\n1197\n00:51:05.780 --> 00:51:08.340\nthey're just a bigger problem than what you're doing.\n\n1198\n00:51:08.340 --> 00:51:09.940\n- That's such a good point.\n\n1199\n00:51:09.940 --> 00:51:11.860\nIt does teach you how to have intense fear.\n\n1200\n00:51:11.860 --> 00:51:15.260\nYou know, when people who've known you for a long time\n\n1201\n00:51:15.260 --> 00:51:18.700\nand they see you now, what do they say\n\n1202\n00:51:18.700 --> 00:51:20.100\nhasn't changed about you?\n\n1203\n00:51:22.500 --> 00:51:24.580\n- At my core, I'm the same person I always have been.\n\n1204\n00:51:24.580 --> 00:51:28.940\nAnd I'm gonna be, I'm as wide open.\n\n1205\n00:51:28.940 --> 00:51:30.780\nMy wife says, you don't have to tell them everything.\n\n1206\n00:51:30.780 --> 00:51:31.620\nShh.\n\n1207\n00:51:31.620 --> 00:51:34.900\nI don't worry at all.\n\n1208\n00:51:34.900 --> 00:51:39.660\nI tend not to worry, especially things I can't control.\n\n1209\n00:51:39.660 --> 00:51:40.580\nI just don't worry about them.\n\n1210\n00:51:40.580 --> 00:51:41.900\nAnd that's never changed.\n\n1211\n00:51:41.900 --> 00:51:42.740\n- What do you see?\n\n1212\n00:51:42.740 --> 00:51:43.580\nLast question here.\n\n1213\n00:51:43.580 --> 00:51:45.540\nNo, not second last question here.\n\n1214\n00:51:45.540 --> 00:51:49.580\nWhat do you see as your unfinished business, Chuck?\n\n1215\n00:51:49.580 --> 00:51:52.220\nBoth for Cisco and for you personally?\n\n1216\n00:51:52.220 --> 00:51:56.780\n- Well, for Cisco, I think getting us relevant in this AI era\n\n1217\n00:51:56.780 --> 00:51:58.580\nis a big, big deal.\n\n1218\n00:51:58.580 --> 00:51:59.940\nAnd we've made a lot of progress\n\n1219\n00:51:59.940 --> 00:52:01.300\nand we're having a lot of success right now.\n\n1220\n00:52:01.300 --> 00:52:02.780\nWe still have a lot of work to do,\n\n1221\n00:52:02.780 --> 00:52:07.780\nto really cement our place in the next decade of AI.\n\n1222\n00:52:07.780 --> 00:52:12.100\nFor me personally, I've got to get a better golf game.\n\n1223\n00:52:12.100 --> 00:52:14.860\n(laughing)\n\n1224\n00:52:14.860 --> 00:52:17.620\n- Some things aren't even in the car for a super bad,\n\n1225\n00:52:17.620 --> 00:52:18.460\nlike you.\n\n1226\n00:52:18.460 --> 00:52:19.940\nThere you go.\n\n1227\n00:52:19.940 --> 00:52:20.780\nLast question.\n\n1228\n00:52:20.780 --> 00:52:23.180\nWhat's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone\n\n1229\n00:52:23.180 --> 00:52:24.980\nwho wants to be a better leader?\n\n1230\n00:52:24.980 --> 00:52:26.100\n- Be a human first.\n\n1231\n00:52:26.100 --> 00:52:28.020\nBe a human first.\n\n1232\n00:52:28.020 --> 00:52:29.980\nPeople want to be led by human beings,\n\n1233\n00:52:29.980 --> 00:52:31.420\nnot by executives.\n\n1234\n00:52:31.420 --> 00:52:35.820\nYou know, not by robots, not by someone.\n\n1235\n00:52:35.820 --> 00:52:40.180\nYou know, they want an honest, authentic human to work for.\n\n1236\n00:52:40.180 --> 00:52:41.620\nThat's it.\n\n1237\n00:52:41.620 --> 00:52:44.060\n- Well, Chuck, I can't thank you enough\n\n1238\n00:52:44.060 --> 00:52:45.780\nfor taking the time to do this\n\n1239\n00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:47.140\nand have this conversation.\n\n1240\n00:52:47.140 --> 00:52:49.620\nAnd you are one hell of a human being.\n\n1241\n00:52:49.620 --> 00:52:52.020\nAnd the impact that you're making in this world\n\n1242\n00:52:52.020 --> 00:52:54.780\nand with this company and, you know,\n\n1243\n00:52:54.780 --> 00:52:56.860\nhow you lead and the example you set\n\n1244\n00:52:56.860 --> 00:52:59.860\nas an example, all leaders lead to follow.\n\n1245\n00:52:59.860 --> 00:53:00.860\nSo thank you very much.\n\n1246\n00:53:00.860 --> 00:53:02.020\nI appreciate you.\n\n1247\n00:53:02.020 --> 00:53:02.860\n- Well, thanks for doing this.\n\n1248\n00:53:02.860 --> 00:53:04.180\nI know it's helpful to a lot of people.\n\n1249\n00:53:04.180 --> 00:53:05.420\nSo, and thanks for having me.\n\n1250\n00:53:05.420 --> 00:53:06.540\nI was honored to be here.\n\n1251\n00:53:06.540 --> 00:53:14.460\n- David, Chuck Robbins just sounds like a great guy.\n\n1252\n00:53:14.460 --> 00:53:16.300\nI want to just hang out with him.\n\n1253\n00:53:16.300 --> 00:53:17.420\nMaybe play golf with him.\n\n1254\n00:53:17.420 --> 00:53:18.380\nI don't know.\n\n1255\n00:53:18.380 --> 00:53:21.220\nHe's just a good old boy who hadn't forgotten where he's from.\n\n1256\n00:53:21.220 --> 00:53:24.060\n- Yeah, I love the fact he's big North Carolina fan.\n\n1257\n00:53:24.060 --> 00:53:27.300\nHe wore, you know, that little baby blue\n\n1258\n00:53:27.300 --> 00:53:28.740\nthat they have at North Carolina.\n\n1259\n00:53:28.740 --> 00:53:30.420\nI don't really think much North Carolina\n\n1260\n00:53:30.420 --> 00:53:33.220\n'cause I'm more of a little of a Cardinal basketball fan.\n\n1261\n00:53:33.220 --> 00:53:38.220\nBut anyway, he loves the Carolina team\n\n1262\n00:53:38.220 --> 00:53:40.620\nand supports them aggressively.\n\n1263\n00:53:40.620 --> 00:53:43.620\nYou know, I heard about Chuck from Eric Church.\n\n1264\n00:53:43.620 --> 00:53:47.500\nAnd Eric Church, you know, obviously, you know,\n\n1265\n00:53:47.500 --> 00:53:50.620\nrenowned country songwriter, singer.\n\n1266\n00:53:50.620 --> 00:53:51.860\nSaid, you got to get to know Chuck.\n\n1267\n00:53:51.860 --> 00:53:52.980\nHe's just a great guy.\n\n1268\n00:53:52.980 --> 00:53:57.100\nAnd, you know, I ran into him at a dinner and we chatted\n\n1269\n00:53:57.100 --> 00:53:59.340\nand, you know, we really hit it off.\n\n1270\n00:53:59.340 --> 00:54:02.420\nBut I really appreciate the fact that he never really\n\n1271\n00:54:02.420 --> 00:54:04.260\nhas forgotten his roots.\n\n1272\n00:54:04.260 --> 00:54:07.020\nAnd I think he goes out of his way to be approachable\n\n1273\n00:54:07.020 --> 00:54:07.860\nwith his people.\n\n1274\n00:54:07.860 --> 00:54:09.780\nI mean, you know, Cisco is, you know,\n\n1275\n00:54:09.780 --> 00:54:12.460\nit's a huge, huge, huge company.\n\n1276\n00:54:12.460 --> 00:54:15.580\nAnd so he could take on a totally different air.\n\n1277\n00:54:15.580 --> 00:54:20.180\nBut his air is one that appears to be very, very grounded.\n\n1278\n00:54:20.180 --> 00:54:22.660\nAnd I'm sure his people relate well to that.\n\n1279\n00:54:22.660 --> 00:54:24.220\n- Absolutely. You can just tell that\n\n1280\n00:54:24.220 --> 00:54:26.980\nand the way that he talks and the way that he talks\n\n1281\n00:54:26.980 --> 00:54:29.060\nabout his people and how he cares about them\n\n1282\n00:54:29.060 --> 00:54:30.260\nand how he trusts them.\n\n1283\n00:54:30.260 --> 00:54:32.860\nAnd David, in this debrief of your conversation,\n\n1284\n00:54:32.860 --> 00:54:34.900\nI want to be sure that we give everybody listening\n\n1285\n00:54:34.900 --> 00:54:37.180\nsome real practical tools that they can take away\n\n1286\n00:54:37.180 --> 00:54:39.780\nand apply to their own leadership and their own life.\n\n1287\n00:54:39.780 --> 00:54:42.260\nSo I've pulled a couple of themes from your conversation\n\n1288\n00:54:42.260 --> 00:54:43.100\nwith Chuck.\n\n1289\n00:54:43.100 --> 00:54:44.940\nAnd I want you to just break them down for all of us\n\n1290\n00:54:44.940 --> 00:54:47.860\nso that everybody listening can really understand\n\n1291\n00:54:47.860 --> 00:54:50.100\nhow they can incorporate some of Chuck's magic\n\n1292\n00:54:50.100 --> 00:54:51.700\ninto their own leadership.\n\n1293\n00:54:51.700 --> 00:54:55.220\nThe first theme David is about adapting your leadership style.\n\n1294\n00:54:55.220 --> 00:54:58.180\nAnd Chuck stays true to who he is and how he leads.\n\n1295\n00:54:58.180 --> 00:55:01.660\nBut in the conversation, he says that based on the situation\n\n1296\n00:55:01.660 --> 00:55:04.500\nthat you're in, sometimes you need to shift\n\n1297\n00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:05.620\nyour leadership style.\n\n1298\n00:55:05.620 --> 00:55:09.380\nHe says, sometimes people need their leader to be a human.\n\n1299\n00:55:09.380 --> 00:55:12.300\nAnd sometimes people need their leader to be Superman.\n\n1300\n00:55:12.300 --> 00:55:16.020\nSo as a leader, how do you know when to switch gears\n\n1301\n00:55:16.020 --> 00:55:19.740\nand sort of customize your leadership style\n\n1302\n00:55:19.740 --> 00:55:20.980\nbased on where you are?\n\n1303\n00:55:20.980 --> 00:55:25.980\n- Yeah, you know, I always brought my marketing discipline\n\n1304\n00:55:25.980 --> 00:55:29.820\nto managing people, you know?\n\n1305\n00:55:29.820 --> 00:55:32.420\nAnd in marketing, I always ask this one question,\n\n1306\n00:55:32.420 --> 00:55:34.380\nwhat perceptions have it believed you have to change\n\n1307\n00:55:34.380 --> 00:55:36.700\nbuild or reinforce to grow the business?\n\n1308\n00:55:36.700 --> 00:55:39.980\nAnd then when I was thinking about how to take people with me,\n\n1309\n00:55:39.980 --> 00:55:43.020\nI always say to myself what perception have it believed\n\n1310\n00:55:43.020 --> 00:55:45.300\nthat people have that I need to either change,\n\n1311\n00:55:45.300 --> 00:55:48.260\nbuild or reinforce, to get them aligned,\n\n1312\n00:55:48.260 --> 00:55:50.860\nto get done what really needs to be done.\n\n1313\n00:55:50.860 --> 00:55:52.780\nAnd that means that you got to know your people\n\n1314\n00:55:52.780 --> 00:55:54.860\njust like you know your customers.\n\n1315\n00:55:54.860 --> 00:55:58.700\nAnd you know, you stay true to who you are\n\n1316\n00:55:58.700 --> 00:56:01.660\nas a brand, who you are as a person.\n\n1317\n00:56:01.660 --> 00:56:05.540\nBut you want to make sure that you're relevant\n\n1318\n00:56:05.540 --> 00:56:09.220\nto your customers and that they'll relate to you.\n\n1319\n00:56:09.220 --> 00:56:12.660\nAnd you know, sometimes, you know, you might be in a meeting\n\n1320\n00:56:12.660 --> 00:56:14.820\nand you know, you're working on an issue\n\n1321\n00:56:14.820 --> 00:56:17.660\nand it's really not that challenging of an issue,\n\n1322\n00:56:17.660 --> 00:56:19.940\nbut you can just kind of deal with it\n\n1323\n00:56:19.940 --> 00:56:22.500\nin a laid back, more low key fashion\n\n1324\n00:56:22.500 --> 00:56:24.740\nand really show your humanity.\n\n1325\n00:56:24.740 --> 00:56:26.740\nAnd other times there might be a crisis\n\n1326\n00:56:26.740 --> 00:56:29.980\nand everybody's looking for that leader to step up\n\n1327\n00:56:29.980 --> 00:56:33.980\nand take charge and do what that leader needs to do\n\n1328\n00:56:33.980 --> 00:56:35.740\nand only that person can do it.\n\n1329\n00:56:35.740 --> 00:56:38.380\nAnd that's when you got to take on that Superman quality.\n\n1330\n00:56:38.380 --> 00:56:41.860\nAnd you know, I think that's what Chuck was getting to.\n\n1331\n00:56:41.860 --> 00:56:44.180\nBut I think that the main thing as you point out\n\n1332\n00:56:44.180 --> 00:56:46.060\nis he knows who he is.\n\n1333\n00:56:46.060 --> 00:56:49.100\nSo he stays true to his core,\n\n1334\n00:56:49.100 --> 00:56:52.060\nbut he knows that, you know, anything he can do\n\n1335\n00:56:52.060 --> 00:56:54.700\nto make himself more approachable, more relatable\n\n1336\n00:56:54.700 --> 00:56:56.820\nto the people he has the privilege of leading,\n\n1337\n00:56:56.820 --> 00:56:58.900\nyou know, he wants to do it because he knows\n\n1338\n00:56:58.900 --> 00:57:01.260\nthat they're going to be much more linked\n\n1339\n00:57:01.260 --> 00:57:04.620\ninto who he is and view him as someone\n\n1340\n00:57:04.620 --> 00:57:06.300\nthat they want to follow.\n\n1341\n00:57:06.300 --> 00:57:08.340\n- I love that you just distinguish between, you know,\n\n1342\n00:57:08.340 --> 00:57:11.060\nsomething that's, and maybe a more laid back scenario,\n\n1343\n00:57:11.060 --> 00:57:13.180\nlike you're in a meeting, trying to come up with ideas\n\n1344\n00:57:13.180 --> 00:57:16.860\nversus when you're in a situation that is a crisis\n\n1345\n00:57:16.860 --> 00:57:19.500\nbecause the people that you are leading\n\n1346\n00:57:19.500 --> 00:57:22.340\nare looking for someone to say that it's going to be okay.\n\n1347\n00:57:22.340 --> 00:57:25.140\nAnd it's in that moment, I can see Clark Kent in my mind.\n\n1348\n00:57:25.140 --> 00:57:27.460\nWhen Superman needs to come in with his cape\n\n1349\n00:57:27.460 --> 00:57:29.180\nand say, hey, we're going to be okay.\n\n1350\n00:57:29.180 --> 00:57:32.060\nHere's where we're going, trust me and we'll get there.\n\n1351\n00:57:32.060 --> 00:57:35.300\n- Yeah, sometimes the leader really needs to save the day\n\n1352\n00:57:35.300 --> 00:57:38.220\nor give people the sense that they together can save the day,\n\n1353\n00:57:38.220 --> 00:57:39.460\nwhich is even better yet.\n\n1354\n00:57:39.460 --> 00:57:42.540\nAnd I think that's what he's getting to.\n\n1355\n00:57:42.540 --> 00:57:44.740\n- David, the second theme that came up quite a bit\n\n1356\n00:57:44.740 --> 00:57:46.620\nin your conversation with Chuck was this idea\n\n1357\n00:57:46.620 --> 00:57:48.500\nof trust versus control.\n\n1358\n00:57:48.500 --> 00:57:50.580\nAnd I was shocked in the interview and he said\n\n1359\n00:57:50.580 --> 00:57:53.220\nthat at a recent event that they had with their company,\n\n1360\n00:57:53.220 --> 00:57:57.980\nhe only knew four of the 22 product announcements\n\n1361\n00:57:57.980 --> 00:57:59.380\nthat his team made.\n\n1362\n00:57:59.380 --> 00:58:03.540\nAnd to me, that symbolizes that he has a tremendous amount\n\n1363\n00:58:03.540 --> 00:58:06.220\nof trust in his product team and in his people.\n\n1364\n00:58:06.220 --> 00:58:08.580\nAnd I'm curious from your point of view,\n\n1365\n00:58:08.580 --> 00:58:11.180\nwhat are some signs that a leader might be struggling\n\n1366\n00:58:11.180 --> 00:58:12.660\nto let go of control?\n\n1367\n00:58:12.660 --> 00:58:16.220\nOr how do you know how much of that trust to give away?\n\n1368\n00:58:16.220 --> 00:58:18.180\n- I thought that was very interesting too.\n\n1369\n00:58:18.180 --> 00:58:22.380\nAnd obviously, Chuck has been in the company for a long time.\n\n1370\n00:58:22.380 --> 00:58:24.140\nHe knows his product development team.\n\n1371\n00:58:24.140 --> 00:58:25.900\nHe knows their capability.\n\n1372\n00:58:25.900 --> 00:58:30.300\nAnd so he's able to turn over to the range\n\n1373\n00:58:30.300 --> 00:58:32.580\nto the product development leader,\n\n1374\n00:58:32.580 --> 00:58:36.220\nhold him accountable for developing the best products\n\n1375\n00:58:36.220 --> 00:58:40.340\nand go into a meeting where maybe he doesn't know\n\n1376\n00:58:40.340 --> 00:58:42.900\neverything to the intimate detail.\n\n1377\n00:58:42.900 --> 00:58:47.900\nBut I'm sure that he provided that kind of autonomy\n\n1378\n00:58:47.900 --> 00:58:51.540\nafter it was earned.\n\n1379\n00:58:51.540 --> 00:58:52.860\nIf he had a bunch of new people\n\n1380\n00:58:52.860 --> 00:58:54.260\nin their developing new products,\n\n1381\n00:58:54.260 --> 00:58:56.580\nI guarantee he'd spend a lot more time on it.\n\n1382\n00:58:56.580 --> 00:58:58.900\nAnd I think that's part of going back to the original point.\n\n1383\n00:58:58.900 --> 00:59:03.900\nHe adapts his style to understand the people that he's leading.\n\n1384\n00:59:03.900 --> 00:59:08.180\nAnd so I really believe in the notion that autonomy\n\n1385\n00:59:08.180 --> 00:59:10.220\nis an earned right.\n\n1386\n00:59:10.220 --> 00:59:12.900\nAnd in that particular case,\n\n1387\n00:59:12.900 --> 00:59:15.900\nthat team had demonstrated time and time again\n\n1388\n00:59:15.900 --> 00:59:18.860\nthat they could really develop great new products.\n\n1389\n00:59:18.860 --> 00:59:21.340\nAnd the company's been on a roll under Chuck's leadership.\n\n1390\n00:59:21.340 --> 00:59:24.020\nAnd so they seem to be doing well\n\n1391\n00:59:24.020 --> 00:59:27.180\nbecause he's developed the right kind of people capability\n\n1392\n00:59:27.180 --> 00:59:29.580\nand knows when he can let go.\n\n1393\n00:59:29.580 --> 00:59:33.020\nThere's analysis, there's this example\n\n1394\n00:59:33.020 --> 00:59:35.900\nthat people I've heard used before.\n\n1395\n00:59:35.900 --> 00:59:38.260\nIt's like, if you're teaching your kid\n\n1396\n00:59:38.260 --> 00:59:41.420\nhow to ride a bicycle, you put the training wheels on\n\n1397\n00:59:41.420 --> 00:59:43.100\nand they learn how to pedal that bike\n\n1398\n00:59:43.100 --> 00:59:44.660\nand move it down the street.\n\n1399\n00:59:44.660 --> 00:59:46.060\nAnd once they get it good at that\n\n1400\n00:59:46.060 --> 00:59:48.820\nand you know they can hang on to the handlebars,\n\n1401\n00:59:48.820 --> 00:59:50.420\nyou take off the training wheels\n\n1402\n00:59:50.420 --> 00:59:51.780\nand you run alongside them\n\n1403\n00:59:51.780 --> 00:59:53.620\nbut you make sure you can still catch them.\n\n1404\n00:59:53.620 --> 00:59:55.900\nAnd then finally, you let them go\n\n1405\n00:59:55.900 --> 00:59:58.300\nafter they really demonstrated the skill.\n\n1406\n00:59:58.300 --> 01:00:00.940\nAnd I think that's a great way to think about\n\n1407\n01:00:00.940 --> 01:00:06.220\nhow you give people more responsibility.\n\n1408\n01:00:06.220 --> 01:00:09.980\nAnd I think it comes when they've earned it.\n\n1409\n01:00:09.980 --> 01:00:14.420\nI always thought empowerment was a very overused\n\n1410\n01:00:14.420 --> 01:00:19.420\nand oftentimes misunderstood and you know, phrase.\n\n1411\n01:00:19.900 --> 01:00:22.340\nAnd it's like, you know, I never really liked it.\n\n1412\n01:00:22.340 --> 01:00:24.820\nYou know, and doesn't mean I don't like to empower\n\n1413\n01:00:24.820 --> 01:00:28.020\npeople's per se, but you know,\n\n1414\n01:00:28.020 --> 01:00:29.820\nI think people talk about getting empowered.\n\n1415\n01:00:29.820 --> 01:00:31.180\nI want to be empowered to do something.\n\n1416\n01:00:31.180 --> 01:00:32.540\nWell, do your job.\n\n1417\n01:00:32.540 --> 01:00:34.060\nShow people you're really good at it\n\n1418\n01:00:34.060 --> 01:00:36.460\nand then you'll get empowered.\n\n1419\n01:00:36.460 --> 01:00:39.420\nBut don't ask for empowerment before you've really earned it.\n\n1420\n01:00:39.420 --> 01:00:40.260\n- That's so good, David.\n\n1421\n01:00:40.260 --> 01:00:42.140\nAutonomy as an earned right is something\n\n1422\n01:00:42.140 --> 01:00:44.420\nthat I remind myself of quite a bit\n\n1423\n01:00:44.420 --> 01:00:47.340\nas more people come into the fold\n\n1424\n01:00:47.340 --> 01:00:51.660\nand I continue to give away more and more control.\n\n1425\n01:00:51.660 --> 01:00:56.660\nI love that idea of autonomy and empowerment having to be earned.\n\n1426\n01:00:56.660 --> 01:01:00.300\nThe final theme, and this is a fun one,\n\n1427\n01:01:00.300 --> 01:01:01.820\nbut I noticed it quite a bit.\n\n1428\n01:01:01.820 --> 01:01:03.260\nAnd when you listen to this conversation\n\n1429\n01:01:03.260 --> 01:01:05.100\nbetween you and Chuck, it's just fun.\n\n1430\n01:01:05.100 --> 01:01:07.980\nAnd I found myself laughing out loud a couple times\n\n1431\n01:01:07.980 --> 01:01:10.420\nand you even asked Chuck in the interview,\n\n1432\n01:01:10.420 --> 01:01:11.620\nyou know, Chuck, you're a funny guy.\n\n1433\n01:01:11.620 --> 01:01:14.300\nWhat role does humor play in leadership?\n\n1434\n01:01:14.300 --> 01:01:16.420\nAnd I love his answer and I'm curious\n\n1435\n01:01:16.420 --> 01:01:18.220\nwhat your answer would be to that question.\n\n1436\n01:01:18.220 --> 01:01:21.220\nDavid, what role does humor have in leadership?\n\n1437\n01:01:21.220 --> 01:01:23.500\n- You know, I think it plays a huge role\n\n1438\n01:01:23.500 --> 01:01:25.260\nbecause I think, you know, one of the things\n\n1439\n01:01:25.260 --> 01:01:29.060\nthat a leader can do is make people feel comfortable.\n\n1440\n01:01:29.060 --> 01:01:32.500\nAnd if you can, you know, poke fun at yourself.\n\n1441\n01:01:32.500 --> 01:01:35.220\nAnd I think that the biggest thing I got out of Chuck's humor,\n\n1442\n01:01:35.220 --> 01:01:36.860\nit's self-deprecating humor.\n\n1443\n01:01:36.860 --> 01:01:39.540\nYou know, he's not that smart, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.\n\n1444\n01:01:39.540 --> 01:01:42.340\nWell, he is that smart, but I mean, he kind of,\n\n1445\n01:01:42.340 --> 01:01:44.740\nyou know, he doesn't take himself too seriously.\n\n1446\n01:01:44.740 --> 01:01:47.540\nYou know, what's a, you know, people often say,\n\n1447\n01:01:47.540 --> 01:01:49.180\nyou know, take the business seriously,\n\n1448\n01:01:49.180 --> 01:01:50.900\nbut don't take yourself so seriously.\n\n1449\n01:01:50.900 --> 01:01:54.100\nAnd if you can make people laugh while you're doing the job,\n\n1450\n01:01:54.100 --> 01:01:56.580\nyou know, and have fun while you're doing the job,\n\n1451\n01:01:56.580 --> 01:01:58.900\nit's a lot more fun to go to work\n\n1452\n01:01:58.900 --> 01:02:01.220\nversus being with somebody that grits her teeth\n\n1453\n01:02:01.220 --> 01:02:02.780\nthat doesn't grinds them to the point\n\n1454\n01:02:02.780 --> 01:02:04.380\nwhere they don't have any teeth left.\n\n1455\n01:02:04.380 --> 01:02:06.180\nThat doesn't go over well.\n\n1456\n01:02:06.180 --> 01:02:08.460\nSo, you know, it's much, much better\n\n1457\n01:02:08.460 --> 01:02:09.740\nwhen you can have fun at work.\n\n1458\n01:02:09.740 --> 01:02:12.580\nAnd I think humor can play a role in that.\n\n1459\n01:02:12.580 --> 01:02:15.180\nAnd by the way, most people who have a really good sense\n\n1460\n01:02:15.180 --> 01:02:17.260\nof humor are really smart.\n\n1461\n01:02:17.260 --> 01:02:21.420\nAnd they're also very confident\n\n1462\n01:02:21.420 --> 01:02:23.940\nbecause you're not gonna stick your neck out there\n\n1463\n01:02:23.940 --> 01:02:27.540\nif you don't think you can do it and get that smile.\n\n1464\n01:02:27.540 --> 01:02:30.860\nYou know, you're not worried about the joke falling flat.\n\n1465\n01:02:30.860 --> 01:02:34.020\nYou know, you take, you're more of a risk center, you know?\n\n1466\n01:02:34.020 --> 01:02:37.220\nI think that the people that have a good sense of humor,\n\n1467\n01:02:37.220 --> 01:02:39.900\nyou know, they're pretty damn smart\n\n1468\n01:02:39.900 --> 01:02:44.020\nand they're humor that they have is because they're confident.\n\n1469\n01:02:44.020 --> 01:02:48.180\nAnd, you know, I think that can be contagious too, by the way.\n\n1470\n01:02:48.180 --> 01:02:50.580\nI think people wanna be around people\n\n1471\n01:02:50.580 --> 01:02:53.340\nthat are fun to be around, have a good time\n\n1472\n01:02:53.340 --> 01:02:54.780\nand still get the work done.\n\n1473\n01:02:54.780 --> 01:02:58.260\nObviously, you know, you go to work for one reason.\n\n1474\n01:02:58.260 --> 01:03:03.340\nYou know, obviously you wanna enjoy your job, et cetera, et cetera.\n\n1475\n01:03:03.340 --> 01:03:05.740\nBut in terms of the end result,\n\n1476\n01:03:05.740 --> 01:03:07.980\nyou're there for one reason as to win.\n\n1477\n01:03:07.980 --> 01:03:09.940\nYou wanna take your team to victory, okay?\n\n1478\n01:03:09.940 --> 01:03:11.140\nAnd that's why you're getting paid.\n\n1479\n01:03:11.140 --> 01:03:13.420\nI mean, people aren't paying you just to show up.\n\n1480\n01:03:13.420 --> 01:03:16.300\nThey're paying you to win.\n\n1481\n01:03:16.300 --> 01:03:18.620\n- I love too that humor is so disarming\n\n1482\n01:03:18.620 --> 01:03:21.660\nand it allows your humanity to show too.\n\n1483\n01:03:21.660 --> 01:03:24.420\nSo kind of going back to what we chatted about\n\n1484\n01:03:24.420 --> 01:03:26.660\nin our first main takeaway,\n\n1485\n01:03:26.660 --> 01:03:28.820\nknowing when to be human and how to connect with people\n\n1486\n01:03:28.820 --> 01:03:29.740\nand how to stay grounded.\n\n1487\n01:03:29.740 --> 01:03:31.420\nHumor is a great way to do that.\n\n1488\n01:03:31.420 --> 01:03:34.420\nIt just disarms people and kind of like allows folks\n\n1489\n01:03:34.420 --> 01:03:36.260\nto exhale a little bit and understand\n\n1490\n01:03:36.260 --> 01:03:38.180\nthat even though you're the one in charge,\n\n1491\n01:03:38.180 --> 01:03:40.940\nthey can still connect with you in a real human way.\n\n1492\n01:03:40.940 --> 01:03:41.780\n- Yeah.\n\n1493\n01:03:41.780 --> 01:03:43.980\nAnd, you know, what's the single biggest thing\n\n1494\n01:03:43.980 --> 01:03:46.780\nthat really stuck out to me, you know,\n\n1495\n01:03:46.780 --> 01:03:49.660\nwith this conversation with Chuck is that\n\n1496\n01:03:49.660 --> 01:03:53.380\nhere's this guy running this incredible company.\n\n1497\n01:03:53.380 --> 01:03:56.940\nYou know, I mean, this is like, they've got, you know,\n\n1498\n01:03:56.940 --> 01:04:00.940\ntremendous market share, you know, you know,\n\n1499\n01:04:00.940 --> 01:04:04.620\ntheir market cap is just growing through the roof.\n\n1500\n01:04:04.620 --> 01:04:07.740\nBut he understands the importance that, you know,\n\n1501\n01:04:07.740 --> 01:04:09.100\nyou got to stay grounded.\n\n1502\n01:04:09.100 --> 01:04:10.820\nYou got to be human.\n\n1503\n01:04:10.820 --> 01:04:12.900\nYou got to know that, you know,\n\n1504\n01:04:12.900 --> 01:04:16.660\nyou can't get intoxicated by your success.\n\n1505\n01:04:16.660 --> 01:04:20.100\nYou got to go, you know, know that what you did today\n\n1506\n01:04:20.100 --> 01:04:22.100\nis yesterday's newspaper.\n\n1507\n01:04:22.100 --> 01:04:24.180\nAnd you got to create some new news.\n\n1508\n01:04:24.180 --> 01:04:26.420\nAnd, you know, I think he really gets that\n\n1509\n01:04:26.420 --> 01:04:28.700\nand he gets the importance of being real.\n\n1510\n01:04:28.700 --> 01:04:32.540\nYou know, people talk about authentic and authenticity\n\n1511\n01:04:32.540 --> 01:04:34.340\nand being real and genuine,\n\n1512\n01:04:34.340 --> 01:04:36.340\nbeing such a tremendous leadership trait.\n\n1513\n01:04:36.340 --> 01:04:39.860\nIt is because you can't be someone you're not.\n\n1514\n01:04:39.860 --> 01:04:42.180\nAnd I think he's a great example\n\n1515\n01:04:42.180 --> 01:04:45.780\nof being someone who stays true to who he is.\n\n1516\n01:04:45.780 --> 01:04:48.740\nAnd as a result, people don't see him as a fake.\n\n1517\n01:04:48.740 --> 01:04:50.660\nPeople see him as the real deal.\n\n1518\n01:04:50.660 --> 01:04:54.300\nAnd, you know, he commands respect.\n\n1519\n01:04:54.300 --> 01:04:55.740\nAnd I love that.\n\n1520\n01:04:55.740 --> 01:04:58.220\nAnd the other thing I really like is he's a learner.\n\n1521\n01:04:58.220 --> 01:05:00.220\nYou know, I love the fact how he's took his board\n\n1522\n01:05:00.220 --> 01:05:03.660\ndirectors and took him through AI training.\n\n1523\n01:05:03.660 --> 01:05:05.060\nYou know, I thought that was great.\n\n1524\n01:05:05.060 --> 01:05:06.620\nAnd he's trying to get better at it.\n\n1525\n01:05:06.620 --> 01:05:08.620\nAnd he wants to be challenged.\n\n1526\n01:05:08.620 --> 01:05:09.620\nThat's cool.\n\n1527\n01:05:09.620 --> 01:05:11.420\nI love the fact that he wants to be challenged.\n\n1528\n01:05:11.420 --> 01:05:14.700\nAnd so I really think Chuck is a terrific person.\n\n1529\n01:05:14.700 --> 01:05:16.500\nI look forward to playing him in golf\n\n1530\n01:05:16.500 --> 01:05:17.860\nbecause I know he's a good guy.\n\n1531\n01:05:17.860 --> 01:05:19.220\nHe'll have a few jokes.\n\n1532\n01:05:19.220 --> 01:05:21.620\nAnd from what I understand,\n\n1533\n01:05:21.620 --> 01:05:23.820\nhe's really not that good at it.\n\n1534\n01:05:23.820 --> 01:05:24.660\n- So you'll beat him.\n\n1535\n01:05:24.660 --> 01:05:26.220\nThat's my one. - Well, maybe.\n\n1536\n01:05:26.220 --> 01:05:28.260\nI'm not that good at it these days either.\n\n1537\n01:05:28.260 --> 01:05:29.300\n- I love it, David.\n\n1538\n01:05:29.300 --> 01:05:31.660\n- Well, everybody, that does it for today's episode.\n\n1539\n01:05:31.660 --> 01:05:33.500\nThank you so much for tuning in\n\n1540\n01:05:33.500 --> 01:05:35.500\nto How Leaders Lead with David Novak.\n\n1541\n01:05:35.500 --> 01:05:38.740\nStay tuned for another great episode coming next week.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL2874871909.mp3","dx_media_id",2665,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2026-01-15","itunes_episode_id",274,"youtube_id","rZDinNci1G8","2026-08-19T21:28:06.000000Z","Listen to this leadership podcast with Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco, and discover how to adapt your leadership style to get more from your 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