When Mindy called her adopted parents to say she had broken off her wedding and dropped out of law school, her life of transformations had only begun. From the first woman to run a men’s fashion label to the bleeding edge of ecommerce, Mindy has spent her career building brands, fixing companies, and breaking glass ceilings.
🎙️ What one learns working with Phil Knight, Ralph Lauren, Barry Diller, and Tommy Hilfiger
🎙️ Going public in the financial crisis
🎙️ The radical rebranding of WeightWatchers
🎙️ Buying 4,000 Herman Miller chairs, just to let the team know she’d arrived
🎙️ Finding balance by putting your oxygen mask on first.
This episode will make you a better leader! Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-office-hours-with-mike-st-122602026/
Go Deeper
💪 The Career Manifesto, Mike's full reading list, art picks, and other resources here: www.mikesteib.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome office hours.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We sit down with the chief executives shaping the world
and answer your most pressing questions about leadership, career and life.
I'm Mike Steib and today we sit down with a
deeply respected leader who has transformed some of the most
important brands in the world, positively impacting the lives of
millions of people in the process. Mindy Grossman started her
(00:26):
illustrious career in retail and fashion, leading businesses for the
likes of Paulo, Ralph Lauren and Nike. She then took
the helm as CEO of HSN Inc, transforming the company
for the digital age and leading its initial public offering
in two thousand and eight. Subsequently, she became the CEO
of weight Watchers, where she oversaw the reinvention of the
brand and product for a broader vision of wellness. She's
(00:48):
been listed repeatedly as a Financial Times Top fifty Women
in the World of Business, as one of Fortune's Top
People in Business, and Forbes Most Powerful Women in the
World World. Mindy Grossman, what an honor and a pleasure
to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's an honor on this end too, so.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I've long admired your career. I've been really looking forward
to getting into this. We've got an awesome range of
questions today on technology, branding, management, career development, and I'll
roll us right into the first one. We'riana in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Many CEOs take a path through a company to the
top position. You've each been hired from the outside to
run companies. As someone who has not cut out to
be a lifer at any one company, can you tell
me how that career path works?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And Mindy started the top because some folks may not
know what you did at Nike, and roughly you've done
so many cool things. Maybe to tell us that you've
had this really cool horizontal journey through the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Just to give you some quick background, because some people
look at my career journey and say, how did that happen?
And it really all comes down to one word, and
I'll talk about it, and it's transformation. And transformation has
been a court to my life since before I even
(02:03):
started in the workforce, and I decided to transform my life.
In my senior year of college, I was scheduled to
go to law school in the fall, I was scheduled
to get married. I started college out of my junior
year in high school. I was very focused being an
adopted kid who was told you could do anything you
(02:23):
want to do. And I realized that where I was
in that time of my life, I was different than
a few years earlier. So in one fell swoop, I
called my parents, I broke my engagement. I'm not getting married,
I'm not going to law school, and I'm moving to
New York and I'm going to figure it out. And
(02:46):
that moment was truly transformational for me and I talk
about this to this day that not taking a risk
is often riskier than taking the risk and being able
to pivot and debt. So to your point, I started
out in the men'swear industry and had the opportunity to
(03:08):
work for some very visionary designers, uh Jeffrey Banks, Willie Smith,
who was an icon of eighties, first black designer to
really break every mold and really start the evolution of
street culture and art. Then I worked for Tommy Hill
(03:28):
figure when he was breaking out an.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Episode episode one of Office Hours, Folks make sure you
definitely to.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
A close friend to this day and just a spectacular human.
And then I had the opportunity to go be president
and turn around chapter Alph Warren. And you know, I
was really happy where I was, but I said, if
I ultimately want to be a CEO, there's not going
(04:00):
to be any opportunities. And you found even today a
lot of women take the tougher roles because you know
that everybody wants those goals all the time. And I
went in and turned around a business when from twenty
(04:21):
million dollars is money to two hundred and fifty million
dollars very very profitably created a whole new concept named
for Corrections in the men's apparel company. But I left
after three years. That I remember the CEO, who actually
was a woman, saying to me, you either have another job,
you're independently wealthy, or you're stupid. And I say, oh
(04:42):
d none of the above. And then I got a
call from someone named Phil Knight, and Phil had just
come back into Nike. The business had altered and he
wanted to create a new executive team. It was incredible
six years, but I was doing a crazy commute between
New York and Poor leaned out of the country all
the time, needed to get back for many reasons, to
(05:04):
the East Coast, and I shocked the world when instead
of going to some other big, giant known company. Now
you work for a company like a Nike or a
Ralph whatever, and you go to a cocktail party and
someone says, who do you work for? And you go
it's ooh, you know, you're like the cool kid.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And as you went from Ralph Lauren to Nike to
home shopping to wait watchers, each of those, it sounds
like was in a place of some great difficulty or
some moment of real new invention. It was never clean.
You weren't stepping into easy situations and easy jobs. I
(05:46):
wonder is that a pattern just for you, or is
that a pattern for folks who want to take this
somewhat orthogonal path rather than just climbing up the ladder
at one company.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, I think you have to know what inspires you.
I am not the person you bring in to keep
the flywell going, because I will disrupt it. So I
love transformation and whether that's a legacy brand or a
next generation of growth, whatever that is. And it's it's
(06:20):
hard radical change. But if you can accomplish that, the
rewards of what you can do for business, what you
can do for people, what you could do for culture,
what you can ultimately even do for society are that
much greater. And you know, it's about having transformative vision
(06:46):
and then being able to focus to achieve that vision.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And I had a friend who he took a he
took a really tough CEO gig recently and it's his
first one, and he was telling me all the things
that are you know, messy about the situation, And I say,
do you know if it were it's a really good situation,
they wouldn't have called you. You're getting this shot because
it's messy. If the company was doing great, they have
they're three levels deep with successors to step into this
(07:12):
role at the as you noted, at a flywheel that's
already turning, the world needs people to step up for
hard jobs. So if you're looking to take a career
path like Mindy's, look for look for situations that need
someone someone who's ready to have an impact in a
tough spot. So Jared and billings Montana tell.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You're to execute the digital transition as leading many companies
that irrelevant.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
How have you led your company to successfully transform in
the face of new technology?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So you touched on this in the open, but you
did some really amazing things at both a justcent and
weight watchers, taking them from the from their historical place
to this two modern products for the for the digital consumer.
Tell us, how'd you pull it off?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
So I think what's amazing to me is that where
actually still talking about digital transition. Every company is a
digital company. But the way you have to think about
it is start with the consumer. Start with who your
(08:20):
consumer is. How are they absorbing content, how are they connecting?
It's the combination of digital and physical and virtual. It's
not bifurcating. So even when I was running the National
(08:40):
Retail Federation, I didn't like the word omni channel because
a channel is a vertical. You have to listen as
an ecosystem of how you're interfacing with who your ultimate
consumer is. So if you look at WW you know
(09:00):
our main connection twenty four hours a day was our app.
Now we did have in person powerful workshops thirty thousand
a week in thirteen different countries, but the opportunity to
(09:22):
have a connection to someone twenty four to seven. So
what we had we had acquired a company that actually
allowed us to have our own internal and within our
app social network where people could share, where people could
be very vulnerable and it was probably one of the
(09:46):
most positive experiences, not like what we're dealing with today
in social media. It was building community through digital capability.
And that's what's so important. What are you providing people
that is going to give them support? Depending on what
your business is and how are you using technology again,
(10:10):
whether it's in a digital environment or even today in
a physical environment, it's really important to understand what that
consumer behavior is and what you are providing then as
an asset to help them. And it's critical.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I've also found, and tell me, I suspect to you
have as well, that there's this from the outside. There's
this idea that things are analog and then they become
digital and it's like mission as a mission's accomplished. As
you're talking about it, you're talking about the user, the
actual consumer's experience, not just the channel, and as the
interface evolves, the technological transformation has to happen.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Again.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I actually went to when I went to the not
I went to a one ofthweb one dot com pioneers.
This was like, this was one of the dot com
IPOs of the turn of the century, and when I
got there, we needed a digital transformation because it was
a company built for the web, built for desktop web.
It was that by the time I got there, a
(11:16):
seventeen year old technology stack and we had to rewrite
all the code. We had to rebuild the company for mobile.
So it's not like there are analog companies and digital companies.
As you noted before, we're all digital companies now and
we're all in the middle of some next transformation. I mean,
think about what the the interface of conversational AI interfaces
(11:37):
is going to mean for how the consumer thinks about apps. Next,
we're going to.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Have to do it all again, one hundred percent. I
was going to bring that up, so all of a sudden,
every conversation you have integrates AI. Right, everybody's talking about it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
The next question touches on the commons you made earlier
about culture and Grant and Washington actually texted us and
he wrote, my workplace is pretty stale and complacent. How
do you create a winning culture at work and create
a sense of urgency. It's critical. So when you went
(12:17):
in at HSN and it had been ten CEOs and
whatever it was in eight years or eight CEOs in
ten years, and you said there were cobwebs like, how
what did you do to get that team to be
fired up for your leadership and your vision?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah. So the first thing I had to figure out
is how at the very onset would it triggered to
people that she's different. So I said to my head
of HR, She goes, what do you want to do
on your first day? I said, what would anybody else
who was coming into the company do on their first day?
(12:52):
She said they would go to employee orientation? So well,
I'm going to employ orientation. She goes, you're going to said, yes,
you're one of the team. I like that. I showed up.
There were twenty five people in the room. They went
around the room introducing themselves. They got to me. I said,
I'm Ndia Grossman, the new CEO. I spent the day
in the call center, backstage, television, meeting the people, interfacing
(13:16):
with all those new people. But all the people there,
and it spread like wildfire. It spread like wildfire. Who
is you know? So the next day when I got
up to do my first town hall, they are ready
because they felt I was different, that I was listening,
(13:37):
that I was understanding, that I had taken the time
to be with everyone before I just walked in with
some mandate. With that, I then said, we need to
give people a sense of pride. But I'm walking around
the campus and I saw that all the chairs were
(13:57):
broken and mismatched. I called the CEO of Herman Miller,
and I said, I need to buy four thousand air
on chairs. That's not a small ticket, which I did,
and so everybody cleaned up. On Friday. I had someone
come in and remove all the chairs and put in
(14:18):
all the new chairs. And when everybody came back Monday,
they all had.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Their new chair and they knew it was from you.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Eight hundred emails thanking me, you care about us, You're
doing something for us.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
The next question touches on probably how a lot of
people feel when they're going through these difficult transitions. It's
Andrea and Baden Rouge called us and said.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
The last few years has been really stressful, and it
feels like I'm always dealing with the crisis personally or
in the company I work for. As a manager, it's
really hard to keep the team motivated with all that's
going on. How have you managed crisis is in the past,
and what's your advice for other team leaders? For managing
through them.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
That is a great question and more relevant today than
ever before.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You're not just the CEO. You are the chief communication officer.
You can't underestimate the power of constant communication. You are
the chief crisis officer and you are the chief hope officer.
And you have to make people feel that not only
(15:46):
are you going to get through this, here's how we're
going to do it, and here's what the future still
is even when you're making hard decisions. The second thing
you have to do is you have to be willing
to show your own vulnerability. Now. I say to people,
if I had said that ten years ago, they would
(16:09):
have said, oh yeah, because you're a woman. No, if
you look right now when they look at top qualities
of leadership, vulnerability and empathy are in addition to vision
and strategy and the other things you need to have.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
People want to people.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's it's really important because you know, and there are
times where it's hard where you personally are, you know,
feeling challenged, But the most important thing is to continue
to communicate and motivate, not high behind anything. And again
(16:51):
it goes back to you know, giving people the understanding
and the hope that you're going to get beyond this.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I really agree with you. Only communication point, especially during
COVID we went to I did a weekly written update
to the company and a weekly all hands for the
entire company, and it felt like it feels like too much.
It does not feel like too much to the audience.
You want to know where we're going to be, Okay,
what's going on in the business. How are we tackling this?
And we've approached it with a radical amount of transparency.
(17:19):
I'm like, this is exactly what the budget is, this
is exactly what the forecast is. This is where we're
going for the rest of the year. This is the
amount of cash that we have, Like I don't, You're
not going to be surprised by anything that comes next.
We're in this together and you just the talking really helps.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That's why you are the leader you are, and you
saw a lot of companies who didn't take that approach.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We needed to be chief chief hope officers. As you
noted exactly, I would I would say, Minna, I'd love
your thought on this because you tee this up by
saying now more than ever, and I really agree with you.
It used to feel like you've got a crisis a
decade and now it feels like we're in a perpetual
state of crisis. And I found that it was really
(18:00):
helpful to my team when I admitted that. I said,
there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
and it is another train. It is no longer that
everything's good. Something's bad, and then the bad thing will
be over and we can get back to everything's good.
We now have to have the resilience as individuals and
as a company for the thing that's coming next, because
it just feels like we're in we've entered a new
(18:20):
world where there's always a thing that's next. So how
do we build a company and a culture and bring
the kinds of people together who are ready for that.
That's what we need is an organization. And it was
like it was hard to hear it, but I think
it really for folks it was also it was it
was sort of it's nice to hear the truth. It's
a nice to that we're expected to deal with this.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
The other thing that's really important. You see a lot
of people there out there there in front when things
are good, and all of a sudden they're not around
as much.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, the the CFO takes startings call Okay, you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Need to be on the front line more when it's
not of course, then when it's good or somebody else
is going to tell the story for you and not
in the same way.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I couldn't agree more. Hannah in Charleston, South Carolina called
in Nindy.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
You worked with famous founders and leaders like Still Knight,
Ralph Lauren, and Barry Diller. What makes these kinds of
founders and leaders so different and so successful.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I've been very fortunate to, you know, have worked for
all of those individuals and leaders, and I would think,
I do think that some of the things that have
truly been part of it is their absolute commitment to
(19:45):
long term vision. Yes, they see the big picture and brand.
They see that they build cultures. They are willing to
take risks, but they know the difference between risk and suicide. Right.
They're willing to take risks to go where they need
(20:05):
to be. They are maniacally focused on brand and what
not to do. I'll never forget when I ran Paula
Jean's company, we would show Ralph's the concept for the
season and you would approve it and then the day
we were launching in the showroom, he'd come in and
walk around and he would literally pick up a shirt
(20:28):
or look at a fixture that was going in a store,
and he goes, maybe tell me why it's Ralph Lauren
before you put the label or the will go on it.
And I would have to have that answer, what was
it inspired by? How did it fit the grand And
these founders know that that has been why Nike is
(20:53):
where it is over you know, all of all of
these years, the same thing with Ralph, and close your
eyes and you can vision it, which I think is
really important. And they're humans, right, You look at these companies,
(21:14):
people stay there.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I experienced this, for example when I was at Google,
and we talked a little bit about it on the
previous podcast, The size of the vision. Tommy Hilfiger didn't
want to sell some genes. He wanted a global brand
or he wanted his name all over the world. And
you think about the way most of us are trained,
either through school or through work. You go from account
(21:38):
manager to senior account manager. You have a director to
managing director, and we celebrate these tiny optimizations and improvements,
and then you sit down with Larry Page who says
we're going to organize all of the world's information, like
all of it. What about books? He has a plan
for getting all of the books onto the Internet and
the cars will drive themselves. And then he was talking
(22:01):
about building a space elevator so that you could go
to space through a tube and you wouldn't need rockets.
And just the scope of the ambition and the belief
that if you go for it, something very special can happen.
To me is a characteristic of really important and special
founders and leaders.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Around one hundred percent. And I always use the expression
you need to have expansive vision and radical focus on
the things that are going to get you what you
never want. And my husband uses the expression you don't
want infinitismal incrementalism.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You're so you're so brilliant about the consumer and the
brands that you've led, and the next question, I think
you're gonna I really enjoyed this question. Now, Amber in
Idos is.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I'm a marketer and I observe the way Watchers rebranding
with great interest.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Can you talk about what it takes to remake a brand?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So that was pretty radical. It was weight Watchers for
ever was we Watchers magazine all the way back into
the seventies. Everyone knew it and then it was WW
tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, So we did a tremendous amount of work trying
to understand every element of from the inception of the business,
what the brand was, what the science was, what we
(23:26):
could really bring to people around community, what were the
elements of the brand. And no matter what we do,
we cannot lose. We cannot lose the fact that we're
science based. We cannot lose the fact that we built community,
and we cannot lose our relationship of how people felt
about us. Right. But at the same time, in the
(23:50):
world today, where life expectancy is going backwards, obesity is
an epidemic. As a matter of fact, it was the
number one contributed to COVID deaths was obese. And what
we need to do is not just give people tools,
(24:14):
but help them with overall behavior change. And that's everything
from handling stress to how they need to take care
of their bodies, to how they have to eat appropriately,
but how they have to still live their life right.
And that was very very important to us. This wasn't
(24:37):
about deprivation, this wasn't about you know, eating two carrots
a day. It's just about how do you change your mindset,
how do you change your habits. We did a lot,
a lot of that work. The other thing that was
happening and is still happening. You know, weight is a
(24:59):
you know, con reversial topics. It's not just provocative, it's polarizing.
It is you know, if you if you say you
want to lose weight, are you not supporting body positivity
whatever it is, and said we have to change the conversation.
We have to change the conversation.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I recall the tagline on the old magazine was weight Watchers,
a magazine for attractive people. Oh yeah, before your time.
But so it came from the brand, came from that place, yes,
and you thought to change it for the monitoring.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah. So what we did is we did a lot
of work to come up with a new manifesto and
vision and articulation of every aspect of the brand to
really be a healthy living brand. And you know, we
never wanted to lose our leadership in healthy weight loss,
(25:56):
but we needed to be bigger in terms of effect
what we were communicating. And when we came out with
you know, the manifesto of you know, we inspire healthy
habits for real life, for people, families, communities, the world,
for everyone to be the brand that could democratize wellness.
(26:16):
Because another thing that was happening in the world and
it still is today is access to many communities don't
even have access to healthy food. So we started the
Healthy Living Coalition, we started WW good and said this
is going to be part of our entire communication and
(26:39):
we need to articulate the brand. And you know, the
goal of WW was for that to become the mark
of wellness, right like when you go into a restaurant
if you see gluten free, if you see this, how
could we be motivating you to healthy? And where I
saw it brought to life and this was a moment,
(27:02):
a time I will never forget as long as I live.
When we launched the WW presents Oprah's twenty twenty Vision
Your Life in Focused tour, it was a nine city tour.
We had twenty five to forty thousand people in every
arena and it was eight in the morning till the
(27:26):
end of the day. Oprah leading along with other kind
of visionaries and people doing great things, and everyone came
in in the morning and by the time they left
at the end of the day, you could see them transformed.
And the whole day was how are you reassessing how
(27:48):
you want to live the rest of your life and
how can you live the most fulfilled, healthiest life? And
you saw it was visc role. You saw people transformed,
and that's what we want to do. And look, not everybody's.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oprah as somebody who's successfully changed a world famous brand
like that. What do you think about the Twitter rebranding?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, I'm I'm not going to comment on someone
else's reband I think they're still in process. As I
said before, no matter who the brand is, it doesn't
happen overnight. You've got to bring people along. They have
(28:43):
you know, it's you know, I said it before. You know,
it's provocative versus polarizing. And I think that you know,
they're doing work to be able to, you know, bring
people back and start the right conversation. But it takes time.
It's gonna take time.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It's been a big change.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
We talked about how people are impacted in the ww rebranding,
and I think this next uh and it's our last
question is one I'm excited to hear your perspective on
so Chloe and Charlotte asked, So.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
I've had kids recently, and I'm also a busy professional
returning from parental leave. I've always struggled with my way,
and now I'm ready to just kind of give up. Honestly,
I don't know how I could be expected to do
it all, working, parenting, taking care of myself. What's your advice?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So my advice is, on any given day, it's impossible
to do it. It's impossible, right, and you have to
sit back and say, what, based on where I am
and what I need to do today, what do I
have to prioritize, right? And you know, I have a
(30:10):
daughter who's now thirty three and has I have two
granddaughters who are seven and four and a half, and
we talk about this all the time. Because I commuted
for six years, I was out of the country an
average of twenty percent of the time, and the most
(30:31):
important thing was when I was with my family. I
was focused on my family. And I think that it's
hard because you're so distracted and in today's world with
our you know, our phones twenty four seven, it's easy
(30:53):
to live in the mailstrom up distraction. And I think
it's really important to figure out the moments that you
need for yourself, the moments you need for your family,
the moments you need for work. But what I say,
a lot and particularly women, you know, people use the
(31:14):
expression all the time. It's still the best expression. You
got to put your you know, oxygen mask on first, right, Right,
you have to practice a certain level of self care.
And what you realize with your kids, it's not about
the number of hours, it's the quality of those hours.
(31:38):
When you're there. They know you're there for them. You're
asking them the questions about their day and all of
those things. And I'm telling you I was not perfect. Right.
I look back and I go, I should have. But
you can't look back. You got to keep looking forward
and you got to you got to learn from that.
(31:58):
And you know, but that is definitely you know, because
it can be overwhelming. I mean there are days that
it's just overwhelming and then I need a reset day
where reset, Ok, I rethink this am I allocating my time?
And then the thing that has worked for me. And
(32:18):
I don't say what works for me works for everyone.
I try and find a certain amount of rituals, right,
like I wake up in the morning. The first thing
I do is absorb information, my coffee and I'm watching whatever.
The second thing is I set what do I need
to accomplish today for myself, for my family, you know,
(32:43):
for business, and how am I going to allocate it?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Create those intentions.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And create those intentions. And it sounds easier than it
is because it's easier, you know, to get distracted. But
I think it makes a difference. I really think it
makes a difference.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
One of the mistakes I made earlier in my career
was I thought of sleep and exercise as sort of
taking away from the time that I needed for work
and parenting and all the other things in my life.
And one thing I have come to appreciate and I
would i'd share with our caller and our audience is
sleep and exercise are additive to my productivity, to my
(33:22):
ability to make good decisions, for my ability to be
present with my family. Those are things I always encourage everything.
You can't do everything, but give yourself the gift of
setting an alarm for when to go to sleep, and
set an alarm for when to get up, and set
an alarm for when to go for a walk. Or
a run or the gym or whatever you do like,
getting that right can just be a nice foundation to
(33:42):
build the rest on. That's the perfect advice, Mindy. This
has been an absolute pleasure. You inspired me. I'd love
to talking with you today and I think I think
our audience got a ton out of it. So I
just want to say thanks.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, as always, you get to the heart of things
and great conversations and really thrilled to have been able
to do this with you.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Friends, today was really refreshing. We talked to a wonderful
leader who's had impact in four different industries and in
so many different ways, and I felt all of her
advice was it was it was really sincere. But the
one I took most to heart was when many said,
sometimes not taking a risk is the biggest risk. And
(34:30):
I see this so often in people's careers where there's
a there's a safety, there's a comfort in what they
already know and the job that they have and the
manager who they know and the brand that they work for,
and taking a leap to something else is a risk.
It's scary, and what we don't realize is the risk
of not taking action, the risk of becoming stale, the
(34:53):
risk of not being consistently challenged, the risk of depending
too much on one company for your future. These will
turn out to be risks as well, and we'll sometimes
see later in people's careers they if they're not constantly
on the mood, they're not constantly being challenged, they stop learning,
they flatten out, and then all of a sudden, the
(35:14):
roles that they thought were there for them aren't there
for them anymore. So I'll reinforce Mindy's brilliant point sometimes
not taking the risk is the risk. And in your careers,
I hope friends, you're always looking for what's that next
moment where I can have impact, I can be challenged,
I can step up to the new thing. Because you'll
(35:36):
do a lot more fun stuff your career and your life.
You'll be shocked at how much you can grow and
what you can really handle. Gang, We've got some amazing
guests coming up the next few weeks, including a world
renowned restaurant tour, the leading voicing crisis communications, a former
big tech product exec who left to start his own
company from scratch, an entrepreneur. There's a lot of fun
(35:59):
stuff coming up, so text or calling your questions at
two one, three, four one nine h five nine six,
or just hit me up in LinkedIn or Instagram, slide
into my DMS and I'll read your question on the air.
I want to thank Mindy and of course Jen, Cara, Meg, Jada,
Matt and the team at Blue Duck Media for pulling
this all together, Dylan, Sasha, Gay, Nathan and Christina at
(36:19):
iHeart and Ben and the team at William Morrison Devor
for all their support. Office Hours is a production of
Blue Duck Media and distributed by iHeartRadio. I will see
you next week and until then, team, stay on your grind.
Welcome office hours.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
We sit down with the chief executives shaping the world
and answer your most pressing questions about leadership, career and life.
I'm Mike Steib and today we sit down with a
deeply respected leader who has transformed some of the most
important brands in the world, positively impacting the lives of
millions of people in the process. Mindy Grossman started her
(00:26):
illustrious career in retail and fashion, leading businesses for the
likes of Paulo, Ralph Lauren and Nike. She then took
the helm as CEO of HSN Inc, transforming the company
for the digital age and leading its initial public offering
in two thousand and eight. Subsequently, she became the CEO
of weight Watchers, where she oversaw the reinvention of the
brand and product for a broader vision of wellness. She's
(00:48):
been listed repeatedly as a Financial Times Top fifty Women
in the World of Business, as one of Fortune's Top
People in Business, and Forbes Most Powerful Women in the
World World. Mindy Grossman, what an honor and a pleasure
to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's an honor on this end too, so.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I've long admired your career. I've been really looking forward
to getting into this. We've got an awesome range of
questions today on technology, branding, management, career development, and I'll
roll us right into the first one. We'riana in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Many CEOs take a path through a company to the
top position. You've each been hired from the outside to
run companies. As someone who has not cut out to
be a lifer at any one company, can you tell
me how that career path works?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And Mindy started the top because some folks may not
know what you did at Nike, and roughly you've done
so many cool things. Maybe to tell us that you've
had this really cool horizontal journey through the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Just to give you some quick background, because some people
look at my career journey and say, how did that happen?
And it really all comes down to one word, and
I'll talk about it, and it's transformation. And transformation has
been a court to my life since before I even
(02:03):
started in the workforce, and I decided to transform my life.
In my senior year of college, I was scheduled to
go to law school in the fall, I was scheduled
to get married. I started college out of my junior
year in high school. I was very focused being an
adopted kid who was told you could do anything you
(02:23):
want to do. And I realized that where I was
in that time of my life, I was different than
a few years earlier. So in one fell swoop, I
called my parents, I broke my engagement. I'm not getting married,
I'm not going to law school, and I'm moving to
New York and I'm going to figure it out. And
(02:46):
that moment was truly transformational for me and I talk
about this to this day that not taking a risk
is often riskier than taking the risk and being able
to pivot and debt. So to your point, I started
out in the men'swear industry and had the opportunity to
(03:08):
work for some very visionary designers, uh Jeffrey Banks, Willie Smith,
who was an icon of eighties, first black designer to
really break every mold and really start the evolution of
street culture and art. Then I worked for Tommy Hill
(03:28):
figure when he was breaking out an.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Episode episode one of Office Hours, Folks make sure you
definitely to.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
A close friend to this day and just a spectacular human.
And then I had the opportunity to go be president
and turn around chapter Alph Warren. And you know, I
was really happy where I was, but I said, if
I ultimately want to be a CEO, there's not going
(04:00):
to be any opportunities. And you found even today a
lot of women take the tougher roles because you know
that everybody wants those goals all the time. And I
went in and turned around a business when from twenty
(04:21):
million dollars is money to two hundred and fifty million
dollars very very profitably created a whole new concept named
for Corrections in the men's apparel company. But I left
after three years. That I remember the CEO, who actually
was a woman, saying to me, you either have another job,
you're independently wealthy, or you're stupid. And I say, oh
(04:42):
d none of the above. And then I got a
call from someone named Phil Knight, and Phil had just
come back into Nike. The business had altered and he
wanted to create a new executive team. It was incredible
six years, but I was doing a crazy commute between
New York and Poor leaned out of the country all
the time, needed to get back for many reasons, to
(05:04):
the East Coast, and I shocked the world when instead
of going to some other big, giant known company. Now
you work for a company like a Nike or a
Ralph whatever, and you go to a cocktail party and
someone says, who do you work for? And you go
it's ooh, you know, you're like the cool kid.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And as you went from Ralph Lauren to Nike to
home shopping to wait watchers, each of those, it sounds
like was in a place of some great difficulty or
some moment of real new invention. It was never clean.
You weren't stepping into easy situations and easy jobs. I
(05:46):
wonder is that a pattern just for you, or is
that a pattern for folks who want to take this
somewhat orthogonal path rather than just climbing up the ladder
at one company.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Well, I think you have to know what inspires you.
I am not the person you bring in to keep
the flywell going, because I will disrupt it. So I
love transformation and whether that's a legacy brand or a
next generation of growth, whatever that is. And it's it's
(06:20):
hard radical change. But if you can accomplish that, the
rewards of what you can do for business, what you
can do for people, what you could do for culture,
what you can ultimately even do for society are that
much greater. And you know, it's about having transformative vision
(06:46):
and then being able to focus to achieve that vision.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And I had a friend who he took a he
took a really tough CEO gig recently and it's his
first one, and he was telling me all the things
that are you know, messy about the situation, And I say,
do you know if it were it's a really good situation,
they wouldn't have called you. You're getting this shot because
it's messy. If the company was doing great, they have
they're three levels deep with successors to step into this
(07:12):
role at the as you noted, at a flywheel that's
already turning, the world needs people to step up for
hard jobs. So if you're looking to take a career
path like Mindy's, look for look for situations that need
someone someone who's ready to have an impact in a
tough spot. So Jared and billings Montana tell.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You're to execute the digital transition as leading many companies
that irrelevant.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
How have you led your company to successfully transform in
the face of new technology?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So you touched on this in the open, but you
did some really amazing things at both a justcent and
weight watchers, taking them from the from their historical place
to this two modern products for the for the digital consumer.
Tell us, how'd you pull it off?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
So I think what's amazing to me is that where
actually still talking about digital transition. Every company is a
digital company. But the way you have to think about
it is start with the consumer. Start with who your
(08:20):
consumer is. How are they absorbing content, how are they connecting?
It's the combination of digital and physical and virtual. It's
not bifurcating. So even when I was running the National
(08:40):
Retail Federation, I didn't like the word omni channel because
a channel is a vertical. You have to listen as
an ecosystem of how you're interfacing with who your ultimate
consumer is. So if you look at WW you know
(09:00):
our main connection twenty four hours a day was our app.
Now we did have in person powerful workshops thirty thousand
a week in thirteen different countries, but the opportunity to
(09:22):
have a connection to someone twenty four to seven. So
what we had we had acquired a company that actually
allowed us to have our own internal and within our
app social network where people could share, where people could
be very vulnerable and it was probably one of the
(09:46):
most positive experiences, not like what we're dealing with today
in social media. It was building community through digital capability.
And that's what's so important. What are you providing people
that is going to give them support? Depending on what
your business is and how are you using technology again,
(10:10):
whether it's in a digital environment or even today in
a physical environment, it's really important to understand what that
consumer behavior is and what you are providing then as
an asset to help them. And it's critical.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I've also found, and tell me, I suspect to you
have as well, that there's this from the outside. There's
this idea that things are analog and then they become
digital and it's like mission as a mission's accomplished. As
you're talking about it, you're talking about the user, the
actual consumer's experience, not just the channel, and as the
interface evolves, the technological transformation has to happen.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Again.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I actually went to when I went to the not
I went to a one ofthweb one dot com pioneers.
This was like, this was one of the dot com
IPOs of the turn of the century, and when I
got there, we needed a digital transformation because it was
a company built for the web, built for desktop web.
It was that by the time I got there, a
(11:16):
seventeen year old technology stack and we had to rewrite
all the code. We had to rebuild the company for mobile.
So it's not like there are analog companies and digital companies.
As you noted before, we're all digital companies now and
we're all in the middle of some next transformation. I mean,
think about what the the interface of conversational AI interfaces
(11:37):
is going to mean for how the consumer thinks about apps. Next,
we're going to.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Have to do it all again, one hundred percent. I
was going to bring that up, so all of a sudden,
every conversation you have integrates AI. Right, everybody's talking about it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
The next question touches on the commons you made earlier
about culture and Grant and Washington actually texted us and
he wrote, my workplace is pretty stale and complacent. How
do you create a winning culture at work and create
a sense of urgency. It's critical. So when you went
(12:17):
in at HSN and it had been ten CEOs and
whatever it was in eight years or eight CEOs in
ten years, and you said there were cobwebs like, how
what did you do to get that team to be
fired up for your leadership and your vision?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah. So the first thing I had to figure out
is how at the very onset would it triggered to
people that she's different. So I said to my head
of HR, She goes, what do you want to do
on your first day? I said, what would anybody else
who was coming into the company do on their first day?
(12:52):
She said they would go to employee orientation? So well,
I'm going to employ orientation. She goes, you're going to said, yes,
you're one of the team. I like that. I showed up.
There were twenty five people in the room. They went
around the room introducing themselves. They got to me. I said,
I'm Ndia Grossman, the new CEO. I spent the day
in the call center, backstage, television, meeting the people, interfacing
(13:16):
with all those new people. But all the people there,
and it spread like wildfire. It spread like wildfire. Who
is you know? So the next day when I got
up to do my first town hall, they are ready
because they felt I was different, that I was listening,
(13:37):
that I was understanding, that I had taken the time
to be with everyone before I just walked in with
some mandate. With that, I then said, we need to
give people a sense of pride. But I'm walking around
the campus and I saw that all the chairs were
(13:57):
broken and mismatched. I called the CEO of Herman Miller,
and I said, I need to buy four thousand air
on chairs. That's not a small ticket, which I did,
and so everybody cleaned up. On Friday. I had someone
come in and remove all the chairs and put in
(14:18):
all the new chairs. And when everybody came back Monday,
they all had.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Their new chair and they knew it was from you.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Eight hundred emails thanking me, you care about us, You're
doing something for us.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
The next question touches on probably how a lot of
people feel when they're going through these difficult transitions. It's
Andrea and Baden Rouge called us and said.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
The last few years has been really stressful, and it
feels like I'm always dealing with the crisis personally or
in the company I work for. As a manager, it's
really hard to keep the team motivated with all that's
going on. How have you managed crisis is in the past,
and what's your advice for other team leaders? For managing
through them.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
That is a great question and more relevant today than
ever before.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
You're not just the CEO. You are the chief communication officer.
You can't underestimate the power of constant communication. You are
the chief crisis officer and you are the chief hope officer.
And you have to make people feel that not only
(15:46):
are you going to get through this, here's how we're
going to do it, and here's what the future still
is even when you're making hard decisions. The second thing
you have to do is you have to be willing
to show your own vulnerability. Now. I say to people,
if I had said that ten years ago, they would
(16:09):
have said, oh yeah, because you're a woman. No, if
you look right now when they look at top qualities
of leadership, vulnerability and empathy are in addition to vision
and strategy and the other things you need to have.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
People want to people.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's it's really important because you know, and there are
times where it's hard where you personally are, you know,
feeling challenged, But the most important thing is to continue
to communicate and motivate, not high behind anything. And again
(16:51):
it goes back to you know, giving people the understanding
and the hope that you're going to get beyond this.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I really agree with you. Only communication point, especially during
COVID we went to I did a weekly written update
to the company and a weekly all hands for the
entire company, and it felt like it feels like too much.
It does not feel like too much to the audience.
You want to know where we're going to be, Okay,
what's going on in the business. How are we tackling this?
And we've approached it with a radical amount of transparency.
(17:19):
I'm like, this is exactly what the budget is, this
is exactly what the forecast is. This is where we're
going for the rest of the year. This is the
amount of cash that we have, Like I don't, You're
not going to be surprised by anything that comes next.
We're in this together and you just the talking really helps.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That's why you are the leader you are, and you
saw a lot of companies who didn't take that approach.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We needed to be chief chief hope officers. As you
noted exactly, I would I would say, Minna, I'd love
your thought on this because you tee this up by
saying now more than ever, and I really agree with you.
It used to feel like you've got a crisis a
decade and now it feels like we're in a perpetual
state of crisis. And I found that it was really
(18:00):
helpful to my team when I admitted that. I said,
there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
and it is another train. It is no longer that
everything's good. Something's bad, and then the bad thing will
be over and we can get back to everything's good.
We now have to have the resilience as individuals and
as a company for the thing that's coming next, because
it just feels like we're in we've entered a new
(18:20):
world where there's always a thing that's next. So how
do we build a company and a culture and bring
the kinds of people together who are ready for that.
That's what we need is an organization. And it was
like it was hard to hear it, but I think
it really for folks it was also it was it
was sort of it's nice to hear the truth. It's
a nice to that we're expected to deal with this.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
The other thing that's really important. You see a lot
of people there out there there in front when things
are good, and all of a sudden they're not around
as much.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, the the CFO takes startings call Okay, you.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Need to be on the front line more when it's
not of course, then when it's good or somebody else
is going to tell the story for you and not
in the same way.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I couldn't agree more. Hannah in Charleston, South Carolina called
in Nindy.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
You worked with famous founders and leaders like Still Knight,
Ralph Lauren, and Barry Diller. What makes these kinds of
founders and leaders so different and so successful.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I've been very fortunate to, you know, have worked for
all of those individuals and leaders, and I would think,
I do think that some of the things that have
truly been part of it is their absolute commitment to
(19:45):
long term vision. Yes, they see the big picture and brand.
They see that they build cultures. They are willing to
take risks, but they know the difference between risk and suicide. Right.
They're willing to take risks to go where they need
(20:05):
to be. They are maniacally focused on brand and what
not to do. I'll never forget when I ran Paula
Jean's company, we would show Ralph's the concept for the
season and you would approve it and then the day
we were launching in the showroom, he'd come in and
walk around and he would literally pick up a shirt
(20:28):
or look at a fixture that was going in a store,
and he goes, maybe tell me why it's Ralph Lauren
before you put the label or the will go on it.
And I would have to have that answer, what was
it inspired by? How did it fit the grand And
these founders know that that has been why Nike is
(20:53):
where it is over you know, all of all of
these years, the same thing with Ralph, and close your
eyes and you can vision it, which I think is
really important. And they're humans, right, You look at these companies,
(21:14):
people stay there.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I experienced this, for example when I was at Google,
and we talked a little bit about it on the
previous podcast, The size of the vision. Tommy Hilfiger didn't
want to sell some genes. He wanted a global brand
or he wanted his name all over the world. And
you think about the way most of us are trained,
either through school or through work. You go from account
(21:38):
manager to senior account manager. You have a director to
managing director, and we celebrate these tiny optimizations and improvements,
and then you sit down with Larry Page who says
we're going to organize all of the world's information, like
all of it. What about books? He has a plan
for getting all of the books onto the Internet and
the cars will drive themselves. And then he was talking
(22:01):
about building a space elevator so that you could go
to space through a tube and you wouldn't need rockets.
And just the scope of the ambition and the belief
that if you go for it, something very special can happen.
To me is a characteristic of really important and special
founders and leaders.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Around one hundred percent. And I always use the expression
you need to have expansive vision and radical focus on
the things that are going to get you what you
never want. And my husband uses the expression you don't
want infinitismal incrementalism.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
You're so you're so brilliant about the consumer and the
brands that you've led, and the next question, I think
you're gonna I really enjoyed this question. Now, Amber in
Idos is.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I'm a marketer and I observe the way Watchers rebranding
with great interest.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Can you talk about what it takes to remake a brand?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So that was pretty radical. It was weight Watchers for
ever was we Watchers magazine all the way back into
the seventies. Everyone knew it and then it was WW
tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, So we did a tremendous amount of work trying
to understand every element of from the inception of the business,
what the brand was, what the science was, what we
(23:26):
could really bring to people around community, what were the
elements of the brand. And no matter what we do,
we cannot lose. We cannot lose the fact that we're
science based. We cannot lose the fact that we built community,
and we cannot lose our relationship of how people felt
about us. Right. But at the same time, in the
(23:50):
world today, where life expectancy is going backwards, obesity is
an epidemic. As a matter of fact, it was the
number one contributed to COVID deaths was obese. And what
we need to do is not just give people tools,
(24:14):
but help them with overall behavior change. And that's everything
from handling stress to how they need to take care
of their bodies, to how they have to eat appropriately,
but how they have to still live their life right.
And that was very very important to us. This wasn't
(24:37):
about deprivation, this wasn't about you know, eating two carrots
a day. It's just about how do you change your mindset,
how do you change your habits. We did a lot,
a lot of that work. The other thing that was
happening and is still happening. You know, weight is a
(24:59):
you know, con reversial topics. It's not just provocative, it's polarizing.
It is you know, if you if you say you
want to lose weight, are you not supporting body positivity
whatever it is, and said we have to change the conversation.
We have to change the conversation.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I recall the tagline on the old magazine was weight Watchers,
a magazine for attractive people. Oh yeah, before your time.
But so it came from the brand, came from that place, yes,
and you thought to change it for the monitoring.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah. So what we did is we did a lot
of work to come up with a new manifesto and
vision and articulation of every aspect of the brand to
really be a healthy living brand. And you know, we
never wanted to lose our leadership in healthy weight loss,
(25:56):
but we needed to be bigger in terms of effect
what we were communicating. And when we came out with
you know, the manifesto of you know, we inspire healthy
habits for real life, for people, families, communities, the world,
for everyone to be the brand that could democratize wellness.
(26:16):
Because another thing that was happening in the world and
it still is today is access to many communities don't
even have access to healthy food. So we started the
Healthy Living Coalition, we started WW good and said this
is going to be part of our entire communication and
(26:39):
we need to articulate the brand. And you know, the
goal of WW was for that to become the mark
of wellness, right like when you go into a restaurant
if you see gluten free, if you see this, how
could we be motivating you to healthy? And where I
saw it brought to life and this was a moment,
(27:02):
a time I will never forget as long as I live.
When we launched the WW presents Oprah's twenty twenty Vision
Your Life in Focused tour, it was a nine city tour.
We had twenty five to forty thousand people in every
arena and it was eight in the morning till the
(27:26):
end of the day. Oprah leading along with other kind
of visionaries and people doing great things, and everyone came
in in the morning and by the time they left
at the end of the day, you could see them transformed.
And the whole day was how are you reassessing how
(27:48):
you want to live the rest of your life and
how can you live the most fulfilled, healthiest life? And
you saw it was visc role. You saw people transformed,
and that's what we want to do. And look, not everybody's.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oprah as somebody who's successfully changed a world famous brand
like that. What do you think about the Twitter rebranding?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, I'm I'm not going to comment on someone
else's reband I think they're still in process. As I
said before, no matter who the brand is, it doesn't
happen overnight. You've got to bring people along. They have
(28:43):
you know, it's you know, I said it before. You know,
it's provocative versus polarizing. And I think that you know,
they're doing work to be able to, you know, bring
people back and start the right conversation. But it takes time.
It's gonna take time.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
It's been a big change.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
We talked about how people are impacted in the ww rebranding,
and I think this next uh and it's our last
question is one I'm excited to hear your perspective on
so Chloe and Charlotte asked, So.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
I've had kids recently, and I'm also a busy professional
returning from parental leave. I've always struggled with my way,
and now I'm ready to just kind of give up. Honestly,
I don't know how I could be expected to do
it all, working, parenting, taking care of myself. What's your advice?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So my advice is, on any given day, it's impossible
to do it. It's impossible, right, and you have to
sit back and say, what, based on where I am
and what I need to do today, what do I
have to prioritize, right? And you know, I have a
(30:10):
daughter who's now thirty three and has I have two
granddaughters who are seven and four and a half, and
we talk about this all the time. Because I commuted
for six years, I was out of the country an
average of twenty percent of the time, and the most
(30:31):
important thing was when I was with my family. I
was focused on my family. And I think that it's
hard because you're so distracted and in today's world with
our you know, our phones twenty four seven, it's easy
(30:53):
to live in the mailstrom up distraction. And I think
it's really important to figure out the moments that you
need for yourself, the moments you need for your family,
the moments you need for work. But what I say,
a lot and particularly women, you know, people use the
(31:14):
expression all the time. It's still the best expression. You
got to put your you know, oxygen mask on first, right, Right,
you have to practice a certain level of self care.
And what you realize with your kids, it's not about
the number of hours, it's the quality of those hours.
(31:38):
When you're there. They know you're there for them. You're
asking them the questions about their day and all of
those things. And I'm telling you I was not perfect. Right.
I look back and I go, I should have. But
you can't look back. You got to keep looking forward
and you got to you got to learn from that.
(31:58):
And you know, but that is definitely you know, because
it can be overwhelming. I mean there are days that
it's just overwhelming and then I need a reset day
where reset, Ok, I rethink this am I allocating my time?
And then the thing that has worked for me. And
(32:18):
I don't say what works for me works for everyone.
I try and find a certain amount of rituals, right,
like I wake up in the morning. The first thing
I do is absorb information, my coffee and I'm watching whatever.
The second thing is I set what do I need
to accomplish today for myself, for my family, you know,
(32:43):
for business, and how am I going to allocate it?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Create those intentions.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And create those intentions. And it sounds easier than it
is because it's easier, you know, to get distracted. But
I think it makes a difference. I really think it
makes a difference.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
One of the mistakes I made earlier in my career
was I thought of sleep and exercise as sort of
taking away from the time that I needed for work
and parenting and all the other things in my life.
And one thing I have come to appreciate and I
would i'd share with our caller and our audience is
sleep and exercise are additive to my productivity, to my
(33:22):
ability to make good decisions, for my ability to be
present with my family. Those are things I always encourage everything.
You can't do everything, but give yourself the gift of
setting an alarm for when to go to sleep, and
set an alarm for when to get up, and set
an alarm for when to go for a walk. Or
a run or the gym or whatever you do like,
getting that right can just be a nice foundation to
(33:42):
build the rest on. That's the perfect advice, Mindy. This
has been an absolute pleasure. You inspired me. I'd love
to talking with you today and I think I think
our audience got a ton out of it. So I
just want to say thanks.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, as always, you get to the heart of things
and great conversations and really thrilled to have been able
to do this with you.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Friends, today was really refreshing. We talked to a wonderful
leader who's had impact in four different industries and in
so many different ways, and I felt all of her
advice was it was it was really sincere. But the
one I took most to heart was when many said,
sometimes not taking a risk is the biggest risk. And
(34:30):
I see this so often in people's careers where there's
a there's a safety, there's a comfort in what they
already know and the job that they have and the
manager who they know and the brand that they work for,
and taking a leap to something else is a risk.
It's scary, and what we don't realize is the risk
of not taking action, the risk of becoming stale, the
(34:53):
risk of not being consistently challenged, the risk of depending
too much on one company for your future. These will
turn out to be risks as well, and we'll sometimes
see later in people's careers they if they're not constantly
on the mood, they're not constantly being challenged, they stop learning,
they flatten out, and then all of a sudden, the
(35:14):
roles that they thought were there for them aren't there
for them anymore. So I'll reinforce Mindy's brilliant point sometimes
not taking the risk is the risk. And in your careers,
I hope friends, you're always looking for what's that next
moment where I can have impact, I can be challenged,
I can step up to the new thing. Because you'll
(35:36):
do a lot more fun stuff your career and your life.
You'll be shocked at how much you can grow and
what you can really handle. Gang, We've got some amazing
guests coming up the next few weeks, including a world
renowned restaurant tour, the leading voicing crisis communications, a former
big tech product exec who left to start his own
company from scratch, an entrepreneur. There's a lot of fun
(35:59):
stuff coming up, so text or calling your questions at
two one, three, four one nine h five nine six,
or just hit me up in LinkedIn or Instagram, slide
into my DMS and I'll read your question on the air.
I want to thank Mindy and of course Jen, Cara, Meg, Jada,
Matt and the team at Blue Duck Media for pulling
this all together, Dylan, Sasha, Gay, Nathan and Christina at
(36:19):
iHeart and Ben and the team at William Morrison Devor
for all their support. Office Hours is a production of
Blue Duck Media and distributed by iHeartRadio. I will see
you next week and until then, team, stay on your grind.
Host
Mike Steib
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