Former Medtronic CEO: Leadership Secrets for Achieving Success Beyond Profits | Bill George

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So let's dive in. You can't really learn leadership in the classroom, but you can actually get into the arena and learn.
Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronics, currently an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, author, served on countless boards from Golden Saks and ExxonMobil and Versus and Target and more. Leadership is really tough today and you're going to get a lot of arrows.
You have to have the courage to make the bold decisions. I always ask people, do you have a passion for your purpose? What's important in life and why are we here? Everyone who works for me knows a lot more than I do.
So I learned really leadership is about academics. A lot of times don't like leadership because you can't quantify it.
All leaders are this tall and they went to this school and it has these characteristics. I used to read those.
All of it I thought was nonsense. You made a massive lead to a different industry.
You zoom up the ladder. How did you make that transition? I knew nothing about medicine or healthcare.
And I can tell you this. Bill George, former chairman and CEO of Medtronics, currently an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, author, served on countless boards from Golden Saks and Exxon Mobile and Versus and Target and more.
Bill, I'm so glad to talk to you today because you had a pivotal moment at a young age where your father sparked an idea. Can you take us back in time? Well, my father, I thought was a good consultant.
He worked for Booz Allen. He pulled me aside when I was 10 and said, son, I feel like I failed to be a leader.
I should have been. And I want you to become the leader I never became.
And not only that, son, I'd like you to be head of a major corporation. Now, I've held stock in this company in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1937.
It's called the Coca-Cola Company. You could be head of that company, son.
Or if that's not enough, maybe there's a company in Cincinnati, Procter & Gamble, great company. There's an emerging computer company out on the East Coast called IBM.
Wouldn't it be great to do that? Well, I can tell you, my mother was the source of my values. And I was kind of pushing my father away with one hand and taking it in subliminally with the other.
But somehow, I go into junior high, join lots of organizations, high school. I'm never selected to lead anything.
I'm not chosen to be elected to the student council. I'm not head of any organization.
I'm a good enough tennis player to play some division one college tennis, but I wouldn't even co-captain my high school tennis team. So finally my senior year, I said, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring and I'm going to run for president senior class.
I was running against one other person, nice person, but I clearly thought I was a lot better qualified than he was. So when the votes came in, I lost by margin of two to one.
So you can see I wasn't much of a leader because I really hadn't figured it out. But like a glutton for punishment, I went off to Georgia Tech to study engineering.
I ran for office six more times, lost all six. Then I'm 0 for 7 and feeling like a real loser.
One of the best things that ever happened to me is a group of seniors pulled me aside and said, Bill, no one's ever going to want to work with you, much less be led by you because you're moving so fast to get ahead, you don't take time for other people. And that was like a blow to the solar plexus.
But you know, they were right. And I had a lot to learn.
I had to learn that leadership is really about relationships, about relationships with people. And I really worked hard on that, came back, led a lot of organizations at Georgia Tech, and then went off to Harvard Business School and led some organizations there as well.
So first of all, what made you try again and again and again? Because again, most people would not try six times. They got a rejection the first time and they'll say, well, it's not for me.
Leadership is not it. I will just do whatever, something else.
What made you continue? Well, two things. One good, one maybe not so good, depending on your point of view.
One, I'm very persistent and not easily defeated. And so I keep coming back.
That's the one. The other one, maybe you think it's not so good, but I have a lot of confidence in my abilities.
And there are a few things in terms of leadership that I thought I couldn't do. And so I've never felt like there's a ceiling.
I can't go beyond this. At least we're talking about business leadership or nonprofit leadership.
So I just felt like I had a lot to learn. And maybe the best way to learn is by doing it, not by reading about it, not by studying books on leadership.
You can't really learn leadership in the classroom, but you can actually get into the arena and learn. That's incredible because you're absolutely right.
And I love that you're saying to get into the arena. And I think also John Maxwell always says that your success will be capped by your leadership lid.
And I think that just, it's exactly what you're saying. So you're getting this feedback of you're moving too fast.
People can't catch on. What are the things that shift for you to suddenly start taking more leadership roles, you think? Well, I had to learn about how to build relationships with people.
I'm an only child. I spent a lot of time with my parents who were older.
By the way, me too. How rare is that? Anyway, that's so cool.
That's why you have two sons. So do we, because I didn't mind just one.
But anyway, I feel like I just wanted to really learn more about relationships. And I really worked hard to learn about that in college.
And it was a great lesson. I spent my whole sophomore year learning about that.
And finally was ready my junior year to take on a lot of leadership roles and plus my senior year. But it was a learning process and building relationships and talking to a lot of older people.
I had some wonderful mentors. They weren't that much older, two, three years older, and I really learned a lot from them.
I'm very sensitive. People used to criticize me and one of my older mentors said, Bill, consider the source.
Why are they saying that? But you learn lessons as you go. And you learn how to handle difficult situations.
And you build some confidence in that. And I've built lifelong relationships.
I was just back with a group of guys I knew in college. And we had 12 of us got to dinner with our spouses.
And yeah, some of the guys had passed away, but it was great to renew those relationships. Now at an older age that I struggled to make in college, but eventually became good friends.
That's incredible, Bill. And I think a lot of that adaptability and learning fast and making those connections is just so fundamental.
But I want to take you maybe to a harder time in your life, if that's okay. You lose two very impactful people in your life, your mom and your fiance.
Can you take us there for a second and what those strategies shaped your thinking? First of all, I was very close to my mother, as I said earlier. My father traveled all the time, so my mother and I would drive from Michigan to Florida for spring vacation.
We were just very close, spent a lot of time together, go to church together. My father was out playing golf, and she died suddenly, and it was a great loss to me.
She'd had cancer, and she died of a heart attack. In reality, it was a blessing, but still it was a great loss.
And I still think of her like that little bird on my shoulder every day. And every time I make a decision, is that what my mother would want me to do? And she always said, son, I don't care if you get A's or C's, I just want you to be true to your values.
And here I am all these years later, still trying to do that. But I recovered my mother's death and fell in love with a woman who had lived about three blocks from us.

They're both working in Washington.

She was originally from Georgia.

We got engaged to be married.

Very happy.

Things are going really well.

I felt I had a great job.

Still mourning my mother some, but, you know, ready to get married, take on the new world.

And all of a sudden, she'd started having some headaches and even taking her to a doctor. They said there's nothing wrong with her.
She may be emotionally disturbed and doesn't want to get married. She'd gone back home to prepare for the wedding.
I remember talking to her on a Saturday night and trying to make final plans for the wedding, but a little traumatized to these headaches she was having. Well, the next morning, I got a call from her parents to tell me she died during the night of a malignant brain tumor.
And the call actually came in one of our roommates who in turn relayed it to me. And man, I was devastated because I'm a person of faith.
But when your parent dies, you mourn them, but it's the natural order of things. When a 25-year-old who's doing great work in Appalachia dies, I have no faith explanation.
I have no explanation, period. Plus, the two women I was closest to in my life are gone, and I'd gone to a lot of men's schools and live with a bunch of guys, so it was very traumatic, and my father really wasn't there for me.
He couldn't have the emotional openness to do that, emotional intelligence. And so I was really alone.
Fortunately, I had my friends around me. But in life, I would say this, there's a lesson you learn.
First of all, you never understand why someone passes away, why this happens or why that happens. But you have to be open to what comes.
And I've learned the hard way that sometimes one door closes in life and another one opens. And if the first door hadn't closed, you wouldn't see the door that was open.
That later happened in my career. But more significantly, a few months later, I was at a dinner party, actually, for me and my fiancé, former fiancé with some friends.
And another woman there and she was alone. So I'll ever take her home.
And it turned out that we fell in love and a year later got married. That's my wife, Penny.
So we've been together. We just had our 55th wedding anniversary.
So I feel blessed. And we've had a great life.
We have two sons, four grandchildren. Life is good, but I can't explain any of this.
I'm not going to give you some explanation just to say that you kind of know this is the right person for me. And maybe you should wait two years or something, but no, this is the right person.
And I feel really blessed that she came into my life when she did. And she had some issues of her own and she probably be grieving some, but still made her more willing to be open.
We've had a great marriage together for a long time, very proud of our family, so feel blessed. But having those crucibles early in life also taught me that life has many twists and turns, and you think, I'm a planner, I'm going to plan my life out, but you can't.
And things happen that you'd least expect. That's why I will talk about this later, but it's why this concept of crucible.
So that was definitely a crucible for me. Losing a seven elections was a crucible, but you learn about yourself.
It's kind of when you're standing there and you're so-called naked in a breeze, you know, you don't have all your, I look good. I got all the support.
I've got this title. I've got this.
You feel everything is stripped away. That's when you learn who you really are.
You're not this title, that person, graduate of the school. You don't have that identity.
And that's actually, I think, a growth experience. So it was a real growth experience when I went through this.
And I think it prepared me for some of the issues later in life. First of all, thank you for sharing that.

It feels like such a big slap in the face.

I know that losing my mom created a little bit of almost like life is so short.

What am I doing?

Why am I compromising?

Why am I not going all in?

Like it created a little bit of sense of urgency.

Did that create a little bit of a perspective?

Did that change anything in terms of your career or any way of looking at life? Well, it really showed me how precious life is. And you never know, in both cases, I never had a chance to say goodbye, but you never know what's going to come next in life.
And you learn when you're facing that, who can you count out? Who's going to be there? Who are you going to call to say this happened? And I was blessed to have friends around me. And then this is a long story, but at my fiance's funeral, a whole bunch of guys from Georgia Tech where I'd gone to college showed up.
Now, this is four years later. And they just showed up.
And I don't know how they even knew about this. And they were there for me.
And that felt like, okay, there are people that care about me, that I can get through this. You know, my roommate's back in Washington too.
So that made a big difference to know that I had that. So I tell people today, you need people around to support you.
No one goes through life alone. Like John Dunn said, no man is an island.
We are all part of the main. And so when you have that crisis, you're probably going to have one sometime in life.
Who's going to be there for you? And you don't wait until that happens to build relationships. Those are relationships you build over a long period of time that really matter.
And I felt like people were there for me. And so that's what made the difference for me in helping me get through that.
So inspiring. So you, at some point, you start working in some kind of some good environments, some a little more toxic environments, and I think they shaped you or shaped a little bit of your views and leadership.
Can you talk a little bit about that, your earlier career? See, I never really got rid of this notion of my father's that I'm going to be CEO of some large company. And I really thought I could, and I had the ability to do it.
So I went to work for Linton Industries. I started the consumer microwave oven business for Linton, built it up to $200 million business.
But I knew I wasn't going to stay there because their values in Beverly Hills were very much different than mine. And I knew that wasn't the place where I wanted to be.
So a wonderful man came to see a man named Ed Spencer, became a mentor to me and asked me to join Honeywell, gave me every opportunity. I can tell you that one of the great dreams I had, I went to become president of Honeywell Europe, Middle East, and Africa, living in Brussels.
My wife gave up her job, but she loved it. Our sons loved it.
They were little boys, but still, they loved it. And we had a great three years.
Then I come back and I get thrown into nothing but turnarounds. And the problem was a lot of the other executives are kind of kick the can ahead.
The problems don't go away when you kick the can ahead. So I was kind of person, I'd jump

in and address them. And so I became kind of a mixer fix, which I really wasn't what I wanted

to do. I want to build.
I'm a builder all my life. Like I was in a microwave business building

something. I really wanted to build something and I didn't want to be just Mr.
Fixes. Well,

then my boss retired, a new person comes in and tried to manipulate me. And that did not go well.
He needed me, but I was ruining my life. And I thought about it.
Is this really what I want to do? It was a good company, but I really want to be there for three, four years. And yes, I'm one of the leading candidates or maybe the leading candidate to be the next CEO.
But is that really what I want to do with my life? And I thought about it a lot. And I remember going to my men's group.
I have a men's group. Actually, I had an awakening, I should tell you about.
One day I'm coming home from work. I remember when it was, November 1988, Minnesota, beautiful fall day, warm, maples are all turning.
And I looked at myself and I saw a miserable person. Now, seemingly, I had everything going for me.
I had a great career. My wife had a good career.
Our sons are happy. We have tons of friends here in Minneapolis.
How could I be miserable? Well, because I was realizing that I was miserable in my work. I was kind of faking it to make it.
People ask me, oh, I'm doing fine. Actually, I wasn't doing fine.
And I really wasn't loving what I was doing. And I was traveling 70, 80% of the time.
And it was not the time I wanted with my family. And so I went home and told Penny this.
And she said to me, Bill, I've been trying to tell you this for a year. You just refuse to listen.
And she saw those things going on. You know, it's that person closest to you that tells it like it is.
So I always tell people, I said, you really need to listen to that person. Then I have a men's group that meets.
In fact, we're meeting tomorrow morning, 7.15 to 8.30, been meeting every Wednesday for 49 years. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.
There were eight of us. Now we're down to five.
Three have passed away, but same group. And I told them what I was thinking.
And one of them said, well, what about Medtronic? You turned Medtronic down. I said, yeah, I did about four or five months ago.
You can see the ego coming out here. I said, really, I thought I was going to run a large company.
Back to my father. And I thought about that.
Why is that important? And why is that important? So I did call the CEO back. I said, is that job you asked me to consider that I down, still open.
He said, well, you can get in line. I'm about ready to fill it.
So I did. And I remember eventually accepting the job, walking in the door.
I felt like I was coming home, coming home to a place I'd never been before. And it was really interesting.
I'd never even been inside the building. But here's a company whose mission is to restore people to full life and health, whose values are consistent with mine.
This is a place where I can really make my life. It doesn't matter if I'm running a big company.
Well, it turned out Medtronic grew so fast, it turned out to be a big company, but it was not that big. I had $750 million in sales.
But it was a great 13 years. But that decision to leave Honeywell, join Medtronic was the best thing that ever happened to me.
And that's not to put Honeywell down. It's just to say this was the right thing for me at that time.
It solidified my marriage. I spent more time with my kids.
I actually coached soccer for 12 years, although I was doing some of that at Honeywell. And I don't know.
I was the place I should be. Let's put it that way.
And I think what you just said is so important because, you know, it's not just a paycheck. It's also the life that you want to create with that paycheck, right? It's like, what are we making possible? But take me there for a second, because you didn't come from the health industry.
And I think a lot of our listeners are always really scared. Like, oh, my God in this industry I can only go to the competition and you did a massive leap no pun intended right like you made a massive leap to a different industry you zoom up the ladder you know even before that but how did you make that transition and how did you prove maybe to the CEO that you are the right person.
Well, maybe that's what the Leave Academy does. But I was really good at running high-tech businesses.
I'd been in technology for 20 years, 25 years, and found my time in the defense department. But you know what? I knew nothing about medicine or healthcare.
And I started to read some books on what a pacemaker is, what a defibrillator is, or a stent. But actually, the best thing I did is I gowned up and would go in and watch procedures.
And I saw somewhere between 700 and 1,000 procedures while I was CEO of Medtronic, where I'd meet a doctor, they'd show me what they did. Maybe we'd have another procedure or a different doctor.
I wasn't selling anyone anything, but that's how I learned the business. And what I learned, what really matters is what I call the last three feet between you and your physician.
That's what makes a difference in health care. And a lot of people try to standardize health care.
It doesn't work. You've got to look at that relationship.
I have a son and daughter, both professors at UCSF. And so watching that not only inspired me, but I could take that back to the company and say, hey, what about this and some of these products? I once had business who weren't doing well, and we had a new product.
We got a doctor in Lenox Hill, New York, to try it out. And I remember it fell apart in his hands.
It was a catheter he was trying to get through the veins. And he took it out.
He pulled it out of the patient body and he threw it across the room at me, blood and all. So I ducked.
But that was really a great experience. And I fell in love with the business, the importance of restoring people to full life and health.
So just to extend this a little bit, we created a metric at Medtronic because I think a lot of people talk, you know, Alana, we have to earn 231 a share this year. And what are you doing to contribute to that? When you go talk to people on production lines, you go talk to the scientists, the engineers in your labs, you talk to the frontline salespeople or service people.
They don't relate to that at all. I can tell you what they do relate to is how many seconds will it take until another person's life is restored by Medtronic product.
And when I went there, it was a hundred seconds. Everyone knew the number.
And when I left, it was seven seconds. And today it's two per second.
And I remember going to the holiday party last December and the CEO, Jeff Martha puts up on this huge screen, 74 million. And everyone knew that was how many people were restored by Medtronic product last year.
And that gives me a chill even telling you, because it's not about 74 million. It's about that one person who had cerebral palsy, and you helped give him a new life by a new product you had, a breakthrough product.
Or an older person who had Parkinson's, and you couldn't cure it, but you could take away all the symptoms and he could live a life and so that's what inspired all of us in mentoring wasn't just me so I spent a lot of time talking to people that's why we're here and I think if you can inspire people look you don't have to be the expert in everything we have lots of engineers lots of scientists lots of people that are really experts in the business and you surround yourself with the best people and you listen to them. You can become a great leader.
In fact, if you are trying to be the expert in everything, you'll not be a good leader because you'll shut down all the other voices. Take me there for a second, because again, you came from a place where you weren't necessarily a great leader yet.
And then suddenly you learned leadership. And not only that you learned leadership, you found yourself CEO of Medtronics.
And not only that, I don't know, you just took it skyrocket. I mean, I was, you know, I was looking at the stocks throughout your time there.
I mean, it's just like incredible to watch Bill. So if somebody is listening to this, and I know you share a lot of it in True North and in some of your books, but what made that possible for you and what made it possible for Medtronic, you think? I can tell you this, I've never had a job at Medtronic or Honeywell or anywhere, or certainly teaching at Harvard, where I knew as much as anyone working for me.
Everyone who works for me knows a lot more than I do. So I learned really leadership is about finding people, getting them in the right positions.
Think of it like a sports analogy, like a football team or a soccer team, getting people in the right position in the field and then enabling them to play together as a team. And when there are conflicts, getting them to work it out.
And if you had problems, you had to solve the problem. So that's where my strength is.
I'm a builder of organizations. And I decided that I think about these different roles I've had throughout my life, including being a teacher now.
What do I bring to it? And what is my purpose? And it wasn't just building microwave ovens. And it wasn't just creating great products.
My goal, and I think the thing I've worked on so hard, is enabling people to reach their full potential. So today I'm mentoring a lot of people from ages 21 up to 71.
And I just had a long mentoring session today with CEO of one of the most important banks in the world. But I think my only goal, I don't know that much about banking.
I may have been on the board of Goldman, but I'm no expert, but it's enabling him or her to reach their full potential. And if I can do that, I feel like I've contributed something to them and helping them and challenging them to say, don't put a lid.
I've got a young mentee who lives overseas. Don't put a lid on what you can do.
You have so much potential. You've got to realize.
And I had a dean who did that for me when I was at Harvard Business School. And incredible.
So I think I can pass that on to people and help them realize what they can do. Then they can step up.
You open the door for them. You say, step up.
Here's the opportunity. Not everyone can or will, but that's your job to figure out how to help them or say, okay, maybe you'd like a different kind of role.
Hey, I'm pausing here for a second. I hope you're enjoying this amazing conversation.
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Now back to the show. So was there a hard moment when you just got started and you're trying to just figure out your way in Medtronics and how to take on such a big role.
We had an exciting new product. It's well known now, the implantable defibrillator.
And Eli Lilly, our competitor, it was already in the marketplace. We had a superior product.
We couldn't get the FDA to approve it. And they wanted to treat it like it was a drug and you blind randomized trials.
Well, you can't do that on a plentable device. And so each year we would get postponed a year.
After about three years, I got really frustrated. And so I had to go public at a conference of 700 people in Washington, Food and Drug and Drug Institute.
Half of them were from the FDA and said, look, if you don't prove this product, 10,000 people are going to die next year. This product works.
It's got a great record. It's being sold in Europe.
It's being sold in the rest of the world. And you're keeping Americans.
Why should an American fly to Germany to get this product, save their life? And then I went to see the head of the FDA and we had these discussions and eventually it got through. But that was a kind of touch and go time because the stock market was counting on us to have this product and it had been delayed three years.
And now then of course, fortunately Metron became number one and had over 50% of the market. Now it's closer to 60 and done very well.
And the technology kept going and it saved so many lives. And so I feel very proud of that.
But that was kind of a risky thing to do. Criticizing the FDA in front of all their peers.
But just put it in human terms. I always say to people, if you're going to do that, look at who's using your product.
What is it for? Let's not talk about ins and outs of technology and rules and rigs. Let's talk about if people need this product, do they really need it? And then how can we help them get it and have that passion to do that? And I'm not the kind of person that lets barriers stand in my way.
So we had to keep going there and take some risks. That was a risk.
No doubt. That's incredible.
And again, I think a lot of it is about this boldness of not being afraid of, but also you're not afraid because you know what you're creating. You know the impact that you're creating.
You know that it literally changes lives or saves lives and the ripple of what this creates. So you have this boldness of saying, yes, we're going to need to do that.
If I could just interrupt you. I always ask people, do you have a passion for your purpose? Is your purpose aligned with your company's purpose? If you're not excited about it, are you excited about the Leap Academy? If you're not, why should I go there? If you have that passion for, we're really helping people.
I'm sure you do. And that's what I try to do is really, that's what I do in my mentoring, try to help people.
Look, I don't charge for this. I don't get anything out of it other than the satisfaction and knowing I'm helping someone, which is worth a lot more than money at this stage in life.
It has been all my life, actually. And I think what you just shared is so, so, so important.
First of all, excitement is contagious. I think people see it.
And I think it's very hard to fake it for a long time. So you can't really fake that excitement for a long time.
And I think there's also an element of what you just said, as much as I'm proud of, we grew really fast and we got these awards and ink and all that. At the end of the day, it's that person that suddenly, you know, from going to from $25 an hour, and now she's at Accenture, creating some big things, and we changed her life, she's making 200 plus, and she can get her family to Pakistan to visit their family, because she couldn't afford it for five years.
So it's eventually it's the stories, it's the impact, it's the ripple that you create, which is so fundamental. And I think one thing that you're saying it so beautifully in your book, True North, and I think you're also sharing it in Emerging Leaders, which just launched and just came out.
And you say a lot around leading from the heart, right? Which is kind of what we're talking about, that EQ together with the IQ. Talk a little bit about that, Bill.
Well, you just described it. You helped a woman from Pakistan realize her potential, and you didn't describe it as a transaction.
We got her to pay X to come to our academy for a wide period of time, and we got a lot of people to pay, and here's how many people we had. I didn't hear you saying that at all.
You helped her and that's worth a lot for her. And there's an inner satisfaction.
So to me, that's leading with your heart. So a little story.
I'm trained as an industrial engineer. So I'm 18 years old.
I've just played my freshman year at Georgia Tech. I have a summer job and I've got a stopwatch like a good industrial engineer.
I'm going out and timing the measurements, the movements of these 50-year-old machine tool workers and then telling them how they can do it more efficiently. Now, think about the absurdity of that.
But that's what it's all about. How do we make production lines run? How do we make factories be more efficient? How do you make oil refineries maximize their output? That's all how do you work with your hands.
Then at about 1970, 50 years ago, we started to think about it's all about leading with your head. Who's the smartest person in the room? And who's the person that has the most brilliant person? Let's go to them and get the answers.
Well, today, it's not about that. I think COVID changed a lot.
I think it's about leading with your heart. And so people, what do you mean by that? Well, first of all, it's like you just described for Leap Academy.
You have a passion for your purpose of what you're trying to do. And I used to say, look, if you're not excited about restoring people to full life and health and saving lives, there are a lot of other places you can work.
You can go to Merrill Lynch and trade stocks. So you have a passion for your purpose.
Then you have to have compassion for other people. Everyone goes through difficulties and empathy.
Your employees do, your customers, maybe you've caused a problem. Maybe we had a product that didn't work and we had to go into the home and say, we're sorry.
How can we help you? We'll replace the product for free. Can we make recompense to you for this? But you have to have empathy.
Your employees and production people, they aren't making a lot of money. Do they find satisfaction in the work? They're making good money, like you said, like $25 an hour, but they're not getting rich on that.
And I think that the other thing that I learned through experience, and I don't think you

can learn this in a classroom, and that's courage.

You have to have the courage to make the bold decisions.

And I just told you about one, but I could tell you about many where we had to make bold

decisions at Medtronic to move forward and take a risk.

And sometimes things don't work out.

And if it doesn't, then you just cap it and move on.

I mean, look at the big pharmaceutical companies.

They take risks all the time.

Look at the whole tech world.

You live in Silicon Valley.

I mean, you know, basically, they're doing things that have never been done before.

In fact, one of my favorite sayings I'll just share with you is it came from George Bernard Shaw play, but it used to be quoted a lot by Bobby Kennedy was alive.

Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not.
You know, why not? Why can't we use an implantable device to help someone with Parkinson's that has this terrible disease? You think it could be applied to other things? You know, how can we help people deal with? And I think that to me is the most exciting thing in life. If you can create a product that really helps people and changes their lives and in the process that everyone in your organization gets excited, they can get excited about that.
They don't get excited about two and I do want to share. I can tell you because they don't understand it.
They say, that's your job, not mine. I mean, you shared so many interesting things and I was taking notes.
I mean, first of all, it's not about what we make, it's what we make possible. And I think when you're really understanding the impact of what you're actually creating, it catapults everyone, right? And it just aligns them to the bigger thing because I want, I mean, I hire some of the best coaches on the planet.
I hire some of the best teams on my planet, but I need them to decide every single day that they want to be here because they can go in a second and earn more somewhere else. But I need them to decide that they want to change lives.
So first of all, I think that's a really important distinction that you just said. And the other thing that you touch, which I think is critical for leadership, and I don't really know, I think, how to teach that is decision-making.
Because in life, when we get started in life, I think a lot of it is if then else. If I accomplish this, then I do this.
If I do this, then I do that, right? But as a leader, you have to change the way you make decisions, right? You first make the decision to hire, then you will see ROI. You make a decision to go for a direction, you'll see ROI much later.
So you need at some point to get to those leadership capabilities, you have to start making decisions very differently than where our instincts are. How do you look at decision-making, Bill? Well, I think there's two levels.
And I think this is true in a world of AI too. You assemble all the data and information.
It just may be that before we had paper data, then we had computer data. Now with AI, we may have be able to assemble much more information.
That's very useful. And so you talk to any doctor, they'll say, we make rational decisions, database decisions.
Actually, they don't. They build on a base of data, and then they make an intuitive decision about what's right for this person on the table.
I try to help teach this to people that you really need to your intuitive skills, but intuitive skills without experience, without data, are useless. There was a man named John Scully that came to Apple years ago.
Steve Jobs hired him. Came from PepsiCo.
He had run their whole consumer soft drink business. Wildly successful.
He'd been in it 20, 25 years. He comes to Apple.
He doesn't know the industry at all. And he tried to use intuitive skills.
He made all the wrong decisions. So I think you need to build that based upon the combination of data and experience.
I've kind of seen one like this. So I used to debrief doctors and say, doctor, why'd you do it that way? The same person told me before the procedure, all the decisions we make here are database.
Why'd you do it that way? You know, I just remember I had a patient about six, seven years ago that looked very much like this patient. And I just thought, I'll give that a shot.
Now we can get AI to assemble all that data and present it to us, but you still have to have the courage. Because by the way, the doctor that did that, that might not have worked out.
He might have had procedure that didn't work out. But great decisions for me in business or any field, medicine, you name the field, are intuitive.
But you have to build it on a basis of logic and data. And so on one hand, I use a lot of data.
On the other hand, all the great things I've made in life are all intuitive. You could stack up this against this.
Should I leave here? You get all that. No, no.
What feels right to you? Where are we going to be happy? That was the decision I made at Medtronic. I'm going to be happy there.
And don't I deserve that? You know, I can apply my skills someplace. I'll be happy.
Now someplace I'll be unhappy. And I think you talk a lot about that also in True North.
And again, in both of your books, because I think a lot of it is and this is a big part in Leap Academy. Like, how do you find what's next for you? Because the plateau of opportunities now is endless.
And I think most people don't even know what's on the menu. What are you trying to convey with those stories? Because you bring so many stories from so many of the leading companies in the world.
It's a fascinating thing to just look at all the different companies and how they operate and all the different CEOs. But what are you trying to convey? I could go talk to an audience of 100, 500 people and say, here are seven principles of leadership that I think you should follow if you want to get ahead.
Walk out of there, talk to them two days later. They won't remember any of the seven.
I can tell them a story about someone and how their life was transformed or how they made a bold decision or the risks they took or how they stumbled and picked themselves up off the ground and came back. They'll remember that because I think it is about the human side.
Leadership, it's about relationship. It's a human connection.
Academics a lot of times don't like leadership because you can't quantify it. You can't make it into statistics.
There's no double-blind randomized trial for leadership. And so my work, the academics have struggled with because it doesn't quantify.
Well, I think leadership is the human side that matters. And that's very hard to quantify.
You can't say it's because you're so, you know, all leaders are this tall and they went to this school. And no, none of that's true.
And that's why they struggle with it. It has these characteristics.
I used to read those things. All of it, I thought was nonsense, but you have to be who you are.
So we came up with this. We interviewed for the first True North way back a long time ago, 125 people.
We had 3,000 pages of transcript. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to just be mush.
What's going to come out of this? It turned out what we realized what was really important are people's life stories and their experiences and what we call a crucible experience, the difficult time. And the academics said, no, no, just talk about the positive.
When's the best experience you ever had? You got a gold star in high school. That's not what people, that's not what moves them.
It's that maybe I have a boss and I hate my boss, but all of a sudden I remember, reminds me of my father. So that's why I can't, rather than saying, oh, how can I work with my boss? How can I make this go? Because you're hung up with that crucible you had back with an unresolved relationship with your father or something like that.
I could make up 20 stories, but I think it's realizing who you are. And that's how we came up with the term true north is that's your essence.
You know, that's who you are. What are your most deeply held beliefs, the principles you lead by and your values? And can you stay true to those? Because we all get off course a little bit and that's where you have a moral compass that will help pull you back on to that divining point, which is your true north.
I'm not saying what should be for you or for anyone else, but I think each person has to discover that for themselves. So we try to help people go through that process.
And part of it is digging deep in who they are. I love that.
And you have so many stories of leaders that were able to follow their true north and were not able to. Is there a favorite story that you like telling or that impacted you when you heard it? The Medtronic story was the young man with cerebral palsy.
We had a business. We had a drug pump and we were going to kill this business.
We'd been losing many millions every year, 10 million years or something, and we were going to kill it. And our founder said to me, Bill, take a look at this young man that's coming in today.
And he was an 18-year-old boy named T.J. Plack from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
And T.J. got up and he stood up in front of everyone and his speech was imperfect.
And he had to have little crutches to walk up the stage because he said, I had sterile palsy for birth. And then I was trying to commit suicide.
I tried three times to commit suicide. It didn't work.
And then I met this doctor and he gave me this pump and he patted his belly and he said, this is my friendly ally that changed my life. It was a Medtronic pump.
And he said, this totally changed my life. So I used to give his picture on my desk for all the time I was at medtronic, even after that, because that one life told me why we were there.
We actually were going to sell the business off. It had been decided before I got there.
I went back to the people and I said, no, we're going to give this a shot. We can consolidate this in another business, take some overhead off, and we're going to make this go.
And it became a very good business. But it was because of that one life.
And so that's not one person that goes to Leap Academy, a woman from Pakistan. So I think that kind of story is very powerful.
But I've seen many leaders go through very transformative experiences. And it's so exciting to me to see how an animal, Kay, he took in Xerox and she was said, no way prepared to be head of Xerox.
And I was so inspired by her story. I wrote a case about her.
She had no way prepared, but she's held true to the values of Xerox. And the company was going bankrupt.
And she just was so tenacious. They could have gone bankrupt.
She just hung in there. And the lawyers came and said, let's declare bankruptcy.
We get all this debt. You got 18 billion in debt.
We got to write it all off. We don't have all this interest rate.

She said, no, no.

Bankruptcy is never a win.

We're going to fight this through and we're going to restore Xerox to its true values and its greatness.

And she did.

And stories like that I find really inspiring because here's a mid-career woman who had the courage.

She said, I wasn't trying to be CEO.

It was almost an accident. My boss got fired and I kind of had to step into it.
And here I am. But I think it's knowing who you are and the struggles.
There's another woman that I have great admiration for. It's very active day.
Mary Barr, who's at General Motors, one of my former students at Harvard before she was CEO. General Motors was a mess.
I can tell you that union fights and bloated. It was kind of the old guard.
They never talked to the people. And she came in and she has turned that company around.
And she had some very bold decisions to make about going with electric vehicles. And it hadn't been easy, but boy, she's done it.
So I think because she started there at 18 and she said, I really care about this company. I've been here since I was 18 years old.
She was just out of high school and then they helped put her through school. But the real story is having that courage to see the way forward and not being deflected offline.
Another one, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. I consider him the greatest CEO in the world today.
Now, Satya was a brilliant engineer, got his master's in computer science, and he was coming up the computer engineering side at Microsoft and doing very well. And then his son was born named Zane, and Zane was born with cerebral palsy.
And he tells the story very openly, so he wouldn't mind me retelling it. So he said to his wife, Anu, when his son was born, he said, oh, we're going to have a really tough life with a son with cerebral palsy.
And his wife said to Absatja, how do you think it's going to be for our son? You better get some empathy. And so he brought that into Microsoft, a very, in a previous leadership, very arrogant company.
And he brought this into Microsoft and said, Alana, do you have empathy for our customers? We cause problems to them. Are you willing to go fix those problems? Do you have empathy for the people on your team? They're having a really tough time right now.
One of them's son is deathly sick right now. Do you have empathy? If you don't have empathy, but then think about, and he talked about growth trajectory,

but I think here's a story of how his life was transformed. He's built Microsoft's work 10 times what it was when he took over 10 years ago.
That's why he's a great leader because he's a human leader, you know? That's so beautiful. Yes.
We're talking a lot about some of these leaders. And I mean, it's just incredible to watch when it is coming from love and compassion and etc.

By the way, it doesn't always work that way.

I keep telling CEOs and senior executives, do you have toxic leads?

I said, yes.

Why do you tolerate that?

Do you know how much harm they do?

I talk to their subordinate.

I can tell you the pain.

I mentor a lot of people in their 30s and 40s and the pain they cause because of their arrogance, their self-centeredness, they're taking your ideas and taking credit for it. And just the brutality.
I said, don't tolerate it. It's poisoning your organization.
You have to confront it. You have to address it.
Now, I'm pretty direct. People consider that a weakness.
I don't know. It is what it is.
At least you know where you stand. Well, I come from Israel.
I like that. Yes, Israelis are very direct, which I like about them.
We're very direct, so we don't know how to show your code. But you talk about balancing career and family, which I think is also part of something that I think is important to talk about, because I think we see a lot of people with massive burnout.
We see people that, you know, are on the break of suicide because they just can't go any further. And again, we see some people that just want more, right? More recognition, more accomplishment, more impact, whatever it is.
So we see both spectrum, but how do you see balancing career and family and all of that was a big career? First of all, that question about more, we need to ask how much is enough? Because most people say they want more, and I'm not sure that brings you happiness. And I think we've had a misnomer for the last 10, 20 years that some hours worked is equated with success.

And I think that's not true.

In fact, people who work 100 hours a week probably are terrible delegators.

So I think if you understand you have a job.

I was just advising CEO of a very large company today.

I said, you know, you need to delegate more of these things so that you can really think about the big picture, the strategy, the vision.

And what's the impact you're going to have outside your company on everyone else and positioning it. So I think this is really important that people understand that don't drive yourself to the ground.
But look, there's no perfect balance between work and home life. And I do teach this, but I say you have to be true to who you are in every environment.
Can you be the same at home when you're playing with your kids or talking to them, you know, play with yours or two older, but when you're talking to them that you are at work, can you be that same person? And I think that's critical. That's having an integrated life.
You can be that integral person. And the word integral comes from the French word cur, which is the word for heart, which is that's really the heart of how you lead.
And so if you can lead with your heart, people will come around and they'll go all out for you and do a lot of things. And so I think the idea, I used to be one person at work, a different person at home, a different person in the community.
I said, different person in my personal life. I said, no, I got to knock down those holes.
Be the same person. What you see is what you get.
But I think it's really important to find that integration. Today, the eight to five job is gone.
It's 24-7. But we teach this with new CEOs at Harvard is how are you thinking about your time? And so that you're making sure you're spending time with your family, you're taking care of yourself, mind, body, and spirit.
What are you doing to build? Because these are tough jobs. Leadership is really tough today, and you're going to get a lot of arrows.
So to be prepared for that, you need to make sure that you continue to nurture your whole self. You're not just an automaton, but mind, body, and spirit.
And I think all three are really important. You have to nurture relationships with family, with people at work, and everyone.
And when you do that, then people go the extra mile and you get a lot more done. I love that.
And I think one of the things that we share is I do believe that maybe the ultimate balance, it doesn't really exist. Like I think life is in phases and different things will be important for you in different phases of your life.
You just need to know what your focus is and just make sure that you're all in, in whatever it is. I think the problem is our mindset around it.
Oh, but I haven't done enough and it's that victim. Like I haven't been enough with my kids or I haven't been, and then you're, you're just not happy anywhere.
So it's really more about just making that decision, knowing what's important for you and just making sure that you can go all in on that. And it's sometimes the quality, not necessarily the quantity of time.
Well, I had a boss many years ago who really helped build my career. He gave me my first general management assignment when I was 27 years old in the microwave business.
And he had built the thing. He was a founder, but it was now he had sold his to Litton Industries.
And he worked and worked and worked. And he had a heart attack at 51 and passed away.
And I was living in Europe at the time. And I came back to his funeral.
And I remember his brother-in-law saying to me, Bill, you see Bob up there, don't ever give your life for the company. And that was very good advice.
Why would you do that? The company didn't appreciate it, wasn't going to give it back, I can tell you. And so I think you can do a lot and you can achieve a great deal through other and with other people, but you don't have to give your life for the company.
Wow, that's a big lesson. Thank you for sharing that, Bill.
I think we all needed to hear a little bit of that. Based on all your experience, if you're looking back in time, what would be an advice to your younger self? Again, you have your book for emerging leaders.
So what would you say to those emerging leaders, I guess? Life is long. I was in way too big a hurry to get ahead.
I went straight through from college to Harvard Business School, just had a summer job every summer. I never took that, put that pack on my back and wandered through Europe.
In fact, I didn't really get to Europe until my honeymoon when I was 26 years old. Life is long and it's going to go in different directions.
I thought it was a straight line to the top. I knew how the path up at any company I was with.
Well, there's Coca-Cola or Procter & Gamble, but is that the path that's right for you? So take life as it comes, do a really good job, do things really well today, and eventually life will show you the way. But be open to that when the path changes.
It's different. My path changed from running a large company like Honeywell to running a midsize company like Medtronic.
Now, Medtronic became a large company. It's 32 billion in sales now and a very large market cap, but it didn't start out that way.
It's not important. It became a large company.
It's what's right for you. And that's what I tell my mentees who are younger.
Think about your life and what you really, and make sure you appreciate all aspects of life. Like, and I had one call me the other day and talk about, when do you think I should have children? And my fiance and I are planning to get married.
What do you think? And I said, well, I really can't advise you on that, but make sure that when you do, you take enough time. You're going to have, in your own case, you have two sons.
I hate to tell you, but three years from now, they'll all be graduated from school, but you're still there. And it's those relationships you formed.
I had, I remember somebody told me, an older man told me once, he said, you know, my daughter graduated from high school last week. I realized I don't know my daughter.
He'd been working so hard. He never got to know his daughter.
I tell you, you're not going to come back and get to know her when she's 22. You know, she's got her own life.
So I think it's really important to think about what's important in life and why are we here? Ask yourself the existential question. Why are we here on earth? What's my purpose? Each of us has a purpose for our life.
We have gifts. And to me, what we're given gifts, we develop those gifts to give back to other people.
And I think I have the gift of helping people realize their full potential. And that's where I spend a lot of my time.
And so I'm not retiring down to Florida and sitting on the beach every day. I really think and I'm willing to spend as much time as it takes to try to help other people because that gives me deep satisfaction.
And I never take credit. If they got a promotion or something, they call and say, I got this job.
Congratulations. You got it.
But it's having those relationships, people that they can count on you and you can count on them. And I think, by the way, when you mentor people, you learn so much from them about your own life.
You know, I can tell you, I've just learned tremendous amounts. So that's why I think it's important to have people, friends and colleagues and people you help of all ages, not just your age.
We don't, yes, we go through life together, but it's nice to have people we've gone through life together and we went to college years ago. But right now it's also nice to have younger people coming along and really trying to help them.
That's how I wrote the book, to try to help emerging leaders get on the right foot, on the right track and recognize that how complex life is and how to really do their deep work and thinking about what do I want of life not what my father wanted my mother wanted and it's certainly not what my company or society

is telling me ask that what's right for me I think this is just so it's also so important especially

today because it's not about what society wants you to do it's really you're gonna need to like

you say find your true I usually just say I want to have fun and that's a big moto and leap academy that's i think you know in our culture everybody knows in the team fun is number one because when fun will happen the client experience will happen the growth will happen like it all gonna fall into place when we're not having fun and we're like it's everything isug. It's never going to happen.
So I personally do take the backpack and travel the world. And again, just do whatever is right for you.
I don't know if my kids will, but I'm just saying do whatever is right for you, but don't be afraid of taking bold action and just enjoying the journey because it is a long journey and it's beautiful. And each person has to figure it out for themselves, you know,

and some of that comes about through stumbles through difficult times,

but you can help them.

You can be there for them when they're experiencing it.

Maybe they married and the marriage didn't work out.

Maybe they had a life-threatening illness.

Maybe they got fired from their job.

Are you there for them?

I remember my son lost his job and I flew all the way to Zurich to go

have dinner with him to see how he was doing, you know, to be there for him. And so I think that's

really important that we're there for people when they most need us. And when people reach out to

you and say, I need help, be there for them because they'll remember it. Then they'll be there for you

too. That's true.
Bill, thank you so much for everything that you do and for changing so many

Thank you. I'd love to meet you in person and learn more about LEAP Academy.
I sound like you're doing great things. And just a little plug on education.
I think one of the problems we've got right now is that everyone's judged by the same IQ standard, whether you call it an SAT test or a high school grade. You know, people have different ways of learning, okay? And I was with a

friend the other day, and he's a brilliant businessman, but he was dyslexic. He also had ADHD,

and he got pushed out of school and had to fight his way back. I had another young mentee who was

I'm going to go to apprentice in Germany. They made him go to apprentice program for three years.
He said, I don't want to do that. So he went back and graduated from one of the top universities in Europe.
Then he went to one of the top academic centers and got a great education. Now he's doing great things, but he had that tenacity, that persistence to do, but he learned a different way.
And I think the fact we need to take that into account and not just drive everyone to the same pattern, because people have different qualities, different styles, and we need to realize, so you can realize your full potential. It doesn't have to be what your brother does or what your mom or dad did.
It can be who you are and what's right for you. And we have to experience that through life.
There's no one that can tell you that. I think that's such an important distinction.
I was not a great student. By the way, we just published, you know, an episode with Richard Branson speaking of people that, you know, had to leave school at 15.
So I agree, like, it's not going to be all about the scoring. That's not necessarily what's going to show whether you're going to be successful in life or not.
There's a trillion other things that will come into seeing if you're going to be successful. And I think that's a big part of Leap Academy.
Like I want people to lean on their experiences and what they are good at and their zone of genius and to see how that ripples them and catapults their career. Because when we do lean on that, what else is available? What can you make possible? So yeah, Bill, thank you so much for raising that.
That's beautiful. Well, thank you for the work you're doing and helping other people realize their full potential going back to where we started and helping realize what it is, what are the gifts they have and how do you use those? And yes, most of the leaders I know have done great work, have gone through difficult times.
I don't know a lot that just life is up, up and away and everything falls into play. Sometimes you look at them that way and you think they are and then tell us your story.
So in all of my classes, people tell their stories to a small group of five other people. And you say, oh my God, really? I didn't realize that.
I looked at you as some superstar, super success. I didn't realize you had to go through that.
Wow. You know, and let me share my story with you.
And so we find that that's the human connection. And we connect at the heart.
You asked about the heart. We connect at the heart.
We don't connect at the head. We don't connect with somebody.
You're

the smartest person in the room. I never met anyone as smart as you are.
That's not a real

connection. Absolutely love this, Bill.
Thank you so much. hey i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did if you did please leave a five-star review below this really helps us continue to bring amazing guests also if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career,

watch this 30-minute free training at leapacademy.com slash training. That's leapacademy.com slash training.
Now, I will see you in the next episode of the Leap Academy with

Ilana Gulancho.