June 1, 2023 • 34 mins
A legend in the tech industry, the former CISCO CEO reveals why a chat with a young girl at a work function turned out to be a pivotal moment in his professional and personal life. In this candid and informal chat, John talks about disruption, dyslexia and why he’s always motivated to do the right thing.
Today's episode is a replay from June 9, 2022.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your
host Malika Kapoor. Today, I'm delighted to bring you one
of my favorite conversations. It's with John Chambers, the former
CEO of Cisco, and it's stayed with me because of
his raw candor and that brilliant laugh. Take a listen,
you'll know what I mean. Hi there, Welcome back to
(00:24):
Out of Office. I'm your host, Malika Kapoor. My guest
today is a legend in the tech industry. John Chambers
is the former CEO and executive chairman of Cisco Systems.
When John joined Cisco in nineteen ninety one, it was
a small network operator. It soon grew into an industry
giant and became one of the most valuable companies in
(00:47):
the world.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
We shared our success with our customers and our employees.
We created ten thousand millionaires back when a million dollars
could buy you a house in Silicon Valley. We shared
that success across the border. While we were from we dreamed big.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
John is now the founder and CEO of JC two Ventures,
which focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world
build and scale.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So my goal is how do you get startups in
all fifty states in the US, in all twenty nine
states in India, all thirteen regions in France, and then
do it away. It completely transforms a geographic region, and
how you can change the future and disrupt yourself and
do it away. The benefits all of America and a
(01:32):
model for others all of Europe and a model for
others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I don't
think so.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
He's off to a good start of the twenty startups
eight hour already unicorns. I talked to John about his work,
about technology, his career, leadership, and about something else. John
places a huge premium on culture. Creating the right culture
at work.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, the culture is one that we treat each other's family,
that we just do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Whether it's in the office, boardroom or during a bring
your child to work day.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
The young lady came up to the stage and was
standing in a line very patiently, and she had her
question written on paper in the hand. She tried to
ask it, she couldn't get it out. She tried to
ask it again, she couldn't get it out, and she
started to cry, and she said, I'm dyslexic. And she
turned around and headed back to her seat, and with
(02:29):
five hundred people watching, as you can imagine, it was
an emotional moment. And I walked off the stage and
followed her back to where she was sitting beside the
cord of her parents, and I said, I'm dyslexic too.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
It was the first time John had gone public about
his dyslexia. He thought he'd made a big mistake. It
was a turning point for him in his personal and
professional life.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And I thought the leaders expected me to be invincible,
almost superhuman. And I thought of people I had weaknesses,
that they wouldn't follow me as much, etc. The opposite
turned out to be true.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
There's all that and much more in this episode of
Out of Office with John Chambers. Here's our conversation. Great,
we'll go for about half an hour, and here we go. John,
Welcome to Out of Office.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I think it's a pleasure to be with you today.
We'll try to make this one of your best sessions
of the year. Oh yeah, excellent. I'm looking forward to that.
I always dream big, John.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know when people hear your name, the moment you
say John Chambers, the immediate reaction is, oh, yes, Cisco.
Cisco has come to define you, not just define your career,
but define you. How does that sit with you today?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I'm very, very comfortable with that. Cisco is a company
that I think did change the world the way you work, live, learned,
and play. And when we said that in the early nineties,
people said, you don't understand John, You move around zeros
and ones and it's tew Techi's talking. And I said, no,
it's going to change every aspect of our lives, mainly
for the best. Now every company is a network company,
(04:02):
and every company and every country is about to become digital,
whether you're in India or the US or in Europe.
And I'm proud, very much of what we did at
the company. I'm very proud of our economic return. Most
valuable company in the world for a period of time,
but also number one in the corporate social responsibility is
recognized by President Obama and Secretary Clinton or President Bush
(04:25):
and Secretary Rice. Same from China, same from India, same
from France, etc. And we shared our success with our
customers and our employees. We created ten thousand millionaires. Back
when a million dollars could buy you a house in
Silicon Valley. We shared that success across the bord and
while we were far from perfect, we dreamed big, you know.
In the Shimon Perez taught me an awful lot about
(04:48):
no room in the world for small dreams. We had
dreams that others thought were impossible, and yet we often
executed on them, and we won as a team, and
we won with an ecosystem where we try to have
everybody in our ecosystem win together. So I'm very proud
of that, perhaps most proud of the culture in terms
of what it really means to me and to the
(05:08):
rest of the organization. Trying to replicate it with startups
now with twenty startups and startups in India, US and France,
so similar playbook, a different chapter of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You know, as a former chairman and CEO of Cisco,
and you've had such a long innings of the company.
You ran it when it became one of the most
valuable companies in the world. Looking back at your time
with Cisco, what gives you the greatest satisfaction?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh, it's how we change the world, and it's our
culture getting the economic results speak for themselves. Doing fifteen
thousand percent increase in stock. If you would have put
a dollar in at the beginning, you would have when
I exited Cisco been worth fifteen thousand dollars, sharing that
with our customers, employees, having the highest customer satisfaction in
(05:54):
hot tech, getting the balance which I think the world's
finally waking up to. It's about economic returns but also
benefit to society, and we did both in terms of
the approach. So it was the success and sharing that
change in the world, but also sharing that with our
employees and our partners and the way you win together.
(06:14):
I'm surprised more companies don't follow a similar model on that,
but that's what I'm most proud of, but also a
model that I try to get my twenty startups to
follow as well.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Very simply, how would you describe that model?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It basically is one that the leadership has responsibility to
set the vision and strategy for the company. They then
build the leadership team around that vision and strategy to
implement it. They define the culture, which is watch so
many companies around the world, big and small, loose track
of culture is every bit is important as strategy and vision,
(06:49):
and it veries dramaticly by companies, but great companies always
have unbelieved to strain culture. Strange strong cultures you may
like them, you may not, but very strong. And then
it's having the courage to reinvent yourself and to constantly change.
That's probably the hardest part. It's the reason CEO is
always saying their job at average of five years. Most
CEOs cannot reinvent themselves. Don't understand the importance of it.
(07:11):
It takes courage to change yourself and as risky in
terms of the approach is especially if what you're doing
is right. But Malik, they can take away here is
that doing the right thing too long is equally as
bad as doing the wrong thing. So having the courage
to reinvent, catch new market transitions enabled by new technologies,
and then empowering a team to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You talk a lot about the culture, the creating the
right culture at a company, and the culture not only
the one that you created at Cisco, the one that
you're trying to create now in your new venture JC
two Ventures. What's that culture?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, the culture is one that we treat each other
as family, that we just do the right thing, that
we put our customers first that we dring big number
one or number two. Learn that from Jack Welch. So
we don't play that. We do it an inclusive approach.
We are an aggressive company, but we also treat everybody
like with respect. I knew every illness a very employee
(08:09):
out of the seventy five thousand employees there was life
threatening for them, their spouse, their kids, their parents. We
were there for them in a way that no one
else dies was. I still get lots of calls even
though I've been going for seven years about John, can
you help me with this, Here's what I'm finding out, etc.
And to really make a difference in build that type
teamwork and change the world is exciting. And so that's
(08:31):
how describe the culture. But it's one on a strategy
that the Internet changes the way the world works. Lives
learned from plays. Put your customers and your people first.
It sounds basic, just do the right thing. If your
culture's right, it should dictate almost every decision you make.
And if you watch leadership around the world in politics
or in business, or in society, usually they lead with
(08:55):
their culture and their values equally is important to their
theoretical strategy and goals.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
JC two ventures. You're investing in companies around the world,
like you just mentioned, even some in India, various parts
of the world. A lot of these tech companies with
the power to really be extremely disruptive.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Is that right, It's correct. I believe in doing playbooks
for everything I do. We talked briefly earlier before we
started recording about being dyslexic. When I have a playbook,
I can operate it, which I'm in the speed and
instead of being bureaucracy and slowing you down, it really
speeds you up. So I have a playbook on key
(09:34):
goals and aspirations. My reasons on startups, however, might surprise
your listeners. I've achieved more success than every dream that
would in life, and I believe it's time to continue
to give back, which I think I've done reasonably well on.
And the future of all job creation, whether you're in Asia, US, Europe,
(09:55):
will be around startups, and the big companies because of automation, didzation, etc.
Will not add headcount. It will be a digital world,
and people don't quite grasp what that means. That means
every company, whether you're healthcare, manufacturing, tech, government, is going
to be a tech company in terms of the direction,
and so my goal is, how do you get startups
(10:17):
in all fifty states in the US, in all twenty
nine states in India, all thirteen regions in France, and
then do it in the way it completely transforms a
geographic region, including my home state of West Virginia, where
we're going to make it the first true startup state
with regardless of political party, a vision of how you
can change the future and disrupt yourself and do it
(10:40):
in a way that benefits all of America, and a
model for others all of Europe, and a model for
others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I don't
think so. And we're often a pretty good start now.
When we started, I was a little bit nervous, but
so far the results have been very good. Twenty startups,
we've got eight unicorns already, very proud of that, and
(11:00):
that's almost one percent of the US unicorn market, which
is amazing a very small organization.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
You talk so much about the power of disruption, and
you said you grew up in West Virginia and the
area failed to disrupt and you saw the consequences of that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
What does that mean? What do you mean by that, well,
in simple terms, when I was growing up in West Virginia,
it was the chemical center of the world. FMC Carbide
do point six thousand engineers in Charleston, West Virginia, corporate headquarters,
just like Silicon Valley. And we were the coal mining
center of the world with one hundred and twenty five
thousand well paid coal miners, etc. But because we didn't
(11:40):
disrupt ourselves, because we didn't evolve to the next level,
we became one of the more challenge states in the US.
And as you see that occur, you realize what happens
to your geography. Now, by the way, we're going to
change that, and we may want to talk about that later.
But then I went into and into the Boston area
(12:04):
with Wang, where they were the top computer company mainframes, IBM,
wonderful company. And yet because they didn't disrupt themselves, so
many computers came along, the Wangs of the world. The
decks they got disrupted, then decks and Wang got disrupted
by the PC players. Then we disrupted the PC server
players at Cisco with the Internet. Then Cloud disrupts that
(12:25):
group and one eight lost its magic. Around Boston. It
was the Silicon Valley. But because we didn't change, MIT
didn't change, the organization, didn't change, we got left behind
in high tech. And now, by the way, Silicon Valley
is doing great, but it's going to be challenged. If
we don't change faster in Silicon Valley, it'll be Austin, Texas,
or it will be Paris, or it'll be Bangalore. And
(12:46):
that to me is kind of exciting. And that's one
of the benefits of the terrible pandemic we had to
go through with all the human suffering associated with it.
We've learned how to do things remotely with tremendous speed
and work virtually, so all of a sudden, you don't
have to be in a Silicon Valley really to participate
in major tech startups and really make a difference in
(13:08):
your future.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
What was your childhood like in West Virginia. I know
you're the son of doctors.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I was very fortunate. I had two parents who were amazing.
My mom was in internal medicine psychiatry, and she was
a female athlete at the time that wasn't as much accepted.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What sport did she play or was she track and field?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And everything from swimming to lacrosse to table tennis, ballroom
dancing her on it, and she broke a lot of
gender barriers. And she was the one who taught me
emotional IQ and how to be in touch. And she
had never let me go to bed angry or frustrated.
And that's kind of hard when you're in high school
(13:55):
when they knock on the door and say, hey.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I have a high schooler. I know I have a
high school son.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, so you know what that's like. And yet you're
so important to him to be very candid. And my dad,
he was the visionary. He could see things five ten,
fifteen years out, delivered six thousand babies, about fourth of
them for free for people that were financially challenged on him.
But he's also a business person. But he taught me
never to make my first move on the chess game.
(14:22):
He taught me to do the good ridge the same way.
And so I'd played out the hand or played out
the game to the end, and then one of the
scenario is how do you play it through? And while
that slows you down at the start, it allows you
to move with tremendous speed. So he taught me how
to see what was happening into West Virginia and be
able to see around the corners. So when I saw
it at IBM, I knew what was going to happen next.
(14:42):
When I saw it at WANG in Boston one twenty eight,
I knew what was going to happen next. When I
saw the economic slowdown coming in two thousand and I said,
its one hundred year flood. It's going to be much
worse than we realized, and unfortunately was accurate, and in
two thousand and eight, with a great recession, learn from
my mistakes in two thousand and one, I disrupted myself.
(15:03):
This time saw it coming. We called it early in
two thousand and seven, and we actually economically powered through
it very strong, including giving loans to the automotive companies
to purchase our equipment, which no other company would do
because everybody thought they would go out of business and
go bankrupt. Well, because of how we treated them. In
two thousand and eight, we became the number one player
(15:27):
in every automotive company in the world. So even though
in two thousand and one I did a two billion
dollar right down of inventory because I was carrying inventory
to meet my customer's need in the Dot com bust
and I got criticized for it. That's fair. That's part
of the job of the CEOs to take risk and
to be candied when the risk didn't work out as
well as you hope. But I learned from it. In
two thousand and eight we changed what's the key takeaway
(15:49):
constantly we emit yourself constantly learn and the other takeaway
from parents being doctors under tremendous pressure. It's easy to say,
but you got to really stay calm. He can't hide.
My dad taught me that when I almost drowned at
six years of age and a river in West Virginia
and we were fishing, and he told me to fish
(16:10):
one part of the river, and he said, don't get
out in the stream. It's unbelievably fast here. It's dangerous,
and even though you're a pretty good swimmer for six
years of age, this could be a problem. And he
went a couple hundred yards upstream. And what did I do.
I stepped out in the current. After about fifteen minutes
got swept away and it was scary, and he yelled
at me. I could hear him coming down the river
(16:31):
as fast as he could run on the side hold
onto the fishing pole. Hold onto the fishing pole. Well,
it was an an expensive fishing pole, might have cost
five dollars. But because he was concerned about the fishing pole,
I grabbed a hold of the fishing pole with both hands,
and I was getting banged up against the rocks and
tumbled it and everything else. And he kept saying, hold
on the fishing pole when I'm going down the current.
(16:53):
He finally got below me, swam out, got me, brought
me back in and I handed him the fishing pole
and he's said, do you understand what just about having?
I said, yeah, I thought I was going to drown,
but obviously you told me to take care of the
fishing boss I did. He said, no, if you were
in trouble, but because you stayed focused, because you were
calm under crisis, you came through it. And then I
(17:17):
don't think you ever told mom this. He took me
back up river and said, I'm going to put you
in the river again, and this time you're going to
do it yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
I went right down through the current, right to the edge,
waited till there was a spot to come out, got
back out. But it taught me how do you deal
with crisis in life and the stories that your viewers remember.
That's something I tell again and again, and it's espatially
important now because many of the companies are going to
be in trouble this next year that are watching this.
(17:45):
The economy is going to slow. No one knows how
much We've got more headwinds that I've ever seen in
my lifetime in terms of complexity geopolitical with Russia China.
You've got inflation the people haven't seen in forty years.
You've got a FED that's trying to make a soft
landing in the US. I would take this soft landing
like the pala to landed a plane in Florida the
(18:06):
other day, who had never flown a plane right, Yes,
around the runway. It's a good landing, and take that. Uh.
And you've got supply chain issues all at one time.
So it's going to be complex, and so you've got
to keep calm during this, and you've got to develop
your playbook for how you're going to handle it. And
as you do this, it'd be a terrible mistake. You
(18:27):
hear the message you ever waste of crisis. There's a
lot of truth to it. When you have a problem,
and we're going to have one. In the degree they
usually are longer and deeper than you think. You say,
what am I going to do to deal with it?
And you address both what the micro issue is, which
is clearly some pretty good headwinds, but you address you've
probably been stagnant too long yourself. You haven't changed, so
(18:47):
what do you have to do differently? So well run
companies will say, you know, here's what I'm going to
do on the micro issue, but being very candidate, areas
that I need to do better, and here's what I'm
going to do to do them better. Companies whose say
this is all micro, I'm doing fine, don't worry about me,
probably had blinders on and could get into trouble pretty quickly.
So you want to do both at the same time.
(19:08):
That's what I trained my startups to do, and that unfortunately,
I've seen every movie there is to see a cisco
multiple times. People say, how do you know, Well, I
did it right a couple of times, and I did
it wrong other times. Since I've seen a movie for
the alternities and teaching, that is fine, and I guess
that's something we didn't hit earlier. I love to teach.
I'm a mentor at heart. I love to try to
(19:28):
change the world. I'm a dreamer peace to the Middle East.
Won the National Defense Go Medal from France, first non
French business person ever to have won that. Very honored
about the Corporate Social Responsibilities and the PODMA Vision Award
from Prime Minister Motives government in India, which is a
(19:48):
very unique award for that part of the world, as
you know, and deeply honored for that. So that's what
I enjoy doing.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
You've been very open about having dyslexia, and I know
you just decided to go public about it and started
talking about it after after a moment at take your
child to work day? Yes, can you tell us a
little bit about that and what happened that day?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, anybody who's dyslexic would tell you it makes you
feel dumb. You lose your place as you read, as
they come down the classroom to ask you to read.
Because thisslexics read right to left, we superimpose numbers. It's
the reason to this day I never read speeches. I
do speeches from an outline and try to talk spontaneous
to the audience where it's ten thousand people or ten
(20:34):
people inters of the direction. And because I had a
wonderful teacher, spatial teacher when they didn't even understand dyslexia,
but she understood learning disorders. She missus Anderson taught me
over three years how to deal with it. And it
doesn't go away, but you can you learn how to compensate.
(20:56):
And so take our child to workday the trial, and
they grill you with questions and it makes me sweat
even today. With the kids, they have no idea what.
You don't know what they're going to ask you. And
often you can hear the questions the parents told them
to ask as well, and it's just a great cultural
exchange to answer that. But a young lady came up
(21:17):
to the stage and was standing in the line very patiently,
and she had her question written on her paper in
the hand. She tried to ask it, she couldn't get
it out. She tried to ask it again, she couldn't
get it out, and she started to cry and she said,
I'm dyslexic. And she turned around and headed back to
her seat, and with five hundred people watching, as you
(21:40):
can imagine, it was an emotional moment. And I walked
off the stage and followed her back to where she
was sitting beside born of her parents, and I said,
I'm dyslexic too, And here's how you get the question out.
And you can't memorize it because you'll lose track of
it and don't read it. But look at it just
like you're talking to your parent, you're talking to me,
(22:02):
and visualize what you want to do. Look into the
person's eyes and have it like a conversation, and you
can get through that. And I said, let's go back
a couple of the stage. I asked the question again.
As I walked back up, the room was strangely quiet,
and I realized I'd left my lava eer mic on.
So I had told people what I thought was my
(22:24):
biggest weakness in life, something that even now my hands swept.
And if you talk to dyslexics, they would tell you
most of us. And I was riding in the car
watching the ball game with another dyslexics last night, and
you can spot each other because of your thought process
on it. So the four of us were there with
two dyslexics on it. You have to approach it differently
(22:46):
to be able to deal with it, so I she
asked the question. It was great. I gave a great answer,
complimented her. She went away feeling good, which is what
it was all about. We talked culture, we treat everybody
the same as still we watch out for our family
on it. But I thought I'd made a major mistake.
(23:07):
And I thought the leaders expected me to be invincible,
almost superhuman, and we did things that no other company
could do, and we did them regularly. And I thought
of people knew I had weaknesses, that they wouldn't follow
me as much, etc. The opposite turned out to be true.
I got more responses from that session that I had
(23:28):
any session ever at Cisco, with people saying I appreciate
your honesty, you're transparency. I'm dyslexic, or my children are dyslexic,
or John, you connected with me. I saw a side
that I hadn't seen before, and so I thought, good,
good deed. I'm fine. You know, it's like doing an
interview with you. If I walk away at the end
(23:49):
and I didn't get skimmed on something, I feel that's
that's very positive. But then a person called me up
in Fortune and said, John, I want to do an
article on you. And Chuck Schwab and Richard Branson and
three leaders who are dyslexic, and no one's rewritten about it.
And I said, no, I don't want to talk on that.
I'm honored, but it makes me uncomfortable when I actually
(24:12):
considered the weakness and she said my son's dyslexi.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
The generalist mean.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
She had me on them, and so I talked to
him and I said, all right, I'll do the article.
And so since then I have been honored to talk
about dyslexia very openly to individual dyslexics, which I do
on a regular basics to leadership. It will surprise you, Malika,
almost thirty percent of CEOs are DYSLEXI. Almost none of
(24:39):
them will admit to it. And the only reason I
know the number is because I can spot them on
the thought prior pattern. And so we're having a conversation,
if we're by ourselves or with a small group, I
will at the right point in time very gently say
are you dyslexic? And they'll look at me like, how
did you know? I don't tell people, but I can
see the thought process. Dyclexics go ABZ. They gather data
(25:01):
from multiple areas then they can't do it serially, but
they picture how it all comes together, and if they
are able to overcome that, they can perhaps move with
the speed and a vision that serial entrepreneurs may not
be able to do as well. So you take a
weakness trying to make it a strength. Would I prefer
not to be dyslexic, of course, but you deal with
(25:23):
life the way it is, not the way you wish
it was. And my parents taught me that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
What a story. And I'm just sitting here thinking, I
can only imagine what it did to that girl, the
young lady who came up on stage and had to
say I'm dyslexic, I mean in front of five hundred people,
and then having you reach out to her and give
her that support and confident it must have been the
world to her. Looking back, What did it mean to
(25:50):
you to be able to support her like that?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Well, first, on the transactional level, it made me very
comfortable with talking to other dyslexics who need help because
your parents will always tell you you're smart, and the parents
don't have any credibility. As you know, with your teenage son,
and you always tell him that he's smart and he's
handsome and he's a good athlete, and so we have
(26:14):
parents don't have that credibility. Same thing with my kids
who are now I'm your grandfather, but the ability to
share with them what it's like, that you understand the fear,
you understand how they think, and they need role models
and example posts that have been able to navigate through it. Again,
I'm far from perfect, but they want to see people
(26:36):
that can do it, and then they believe they can
perhaps do it. And you talk them through what the
fear is like, and you know what it feels like
in your stomach when that fear hits you, on space,
you when you're speaking in public or trying to read
a speech. And then you watch them progress. And so
you and I had three people who were dyslexi this
year graduate from college and all three originally we're struggling
(27:01):
with first would they go to college and secondly unlikely
to get into a very good college. All three of
them got into great colleges. But they just dropped me
a note at the end and said just thank you.
You make a difference. And of course the parent it
means the world, because we want to do anything we
can do to help our children on that and all
we want to do is be healthy and happy in life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Did it make you sort of feel more comfortable to
be able to lead with empathy?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Two separate questions. Did DYSLEXI make me more comfortable to
lead with people knowing I'm a dyslexic dancers? No, because
right now my hands are still sweating. It makes me
uncomfortable even to talk about it. Did it teach me
never to laugh at anybody else? Absolutely, Malika, And all
(27:46):
my years of leadership, I've never raised my voice ever,
and make no mistake about it. If you ask my team,
you asked Megan. I have very high expectations. I expect
her to a home run every time, and she almost
never disappoints, and when she does, I'll gently say, hey,
this is something we could have done better, but I
expect it back the other way. So leading with empathy,
(28:10):
I would say yes, And that's my mom teaching me
as well. And it's amazing how many people don't treat
other people well in space she is they've been successful,
they become over confident and don't listen. You learn from
everyone and we're all equal in life, and so that
connectivity is something that I do, and I take risk
on it. You and I form friendships with government leaders
(28:32):
around the world, like Prime Minister Modi is a very
good friend. President Macrone in France is a very good friend.
I'm in French's ambassador, you know, and leaders George Bush,
Bill Clinton throughout the years, but also people that are
just individuals that I formed tight friendships with. So it
teaches you to connect if you have the courage to
(28:56):
let down your guard and to be exposed, and then
when you do, that allows somebody else to con act.
And then an empathy story that surprises people is that
most of us men have trouble telling somebody other than
our spouse that we love them, and definitely have trouble
giving somebody a hug. And I was in that mode
(29:18):
and I had the chance. I went to Duke West Virginia,
Indiana school nine and a half years of college wherever
they had a good basketball team. But I was there
at Duke with coaches Esque who happened to go to
school at the same place I did at IU, and
I ran the NBA Association there and he was of
course on the Bobby Knight's basketball team as an assistant
(29:42):
for an NBA school and we form friendships. But he
asked me many years later I would follow Duke and
go to the games to be a part of the team.
Dinner the night before they played Stanford, and Duke was
one and Stanford was two, and it was a big
national TV and they were kind of enough to go
(30:03):
great seats. But he said, your assignment is to teach
the number six player. He's going to start in place
of his roommate, who's the number five player, because it's
the right matchup for us, and John, I want you
to teach him. It's about the team winning, it's about
doing what's right in total. And he was hesitant because
he did not want to hurt his roommate. And I
(30:23):
get that. And so in the first fifteen minutes of
dinner there were two tables. I accomplished my goal and
I was watching and listening. And these were big guys,
I mean huge, tremendous athletes and very very physical. You know,
they played, they played tough, and they were talking about
how they loved each other, how they cared for each other,
(30:48):
and they gave each other really hugs. This was at
a time that a lot of people didn't do that.
And afterward coach k said, well, John, what do you think?
And I said, tremendous culture, teamwork, I did assignment like
you told me, etc. I don't think this team is
quite tough enough, Mike. They may not be tough enough
(31:09):
to get what you wanted. This year it turned out
to be a national championship team, most physical center. They
were amazing. And so I learned that expression your emotions,
whether it's a dyslexia to the young lady, whether it's
to my family telling him I love them. Wanted to
hug my kids a hundred times a day again if
(31:30):
they let me in, which of course they won't. Then
with people that I really care about, having the courage
to say I love you and always saying if you
believe it, and having the courage to hug, and that's tough.
With COVID today, we've got to obviously adjust appropriately. But
there's one that I never thought would exactly turn out
(31:51):
the way it did. But it's why you've got to
constantly learn. And it's interesting when you give another guy
a hug, they kind of look at you at first
like interesting, and then all of a sudden you watch
them learn. You watch them learn to let down the guard,
tell people you care, tell your employees you care, let
them know that you have weaknesses. Apologize when you make
(32:11):
your strength. Don't raise your voice. Yan, When I get
my competitors emotional and get them angry or scared, it's
game over, got it, be just calm you execute well.
And maybe I'm a little bit too, Patty. I do
love to compete, as you probably already figured out. And
I believe in building number one. Teams number one and
(32:33):
number two don't come to the party.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And you believe in being nice, in the power of
being nice and in love. And that's such a beautiful
note to end this conversation on. So thank you so much,
John for joining me. I mean, in all these times, yeah,
I've never heard someone talk so openly and warmly and
passionately just about love and that it's okay to hug
and it's okay to be nice. I really appreciate it.
(32:56):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well, it's teachable, as Megan will tell you. With my teams,
they learn it now. It takes some of them a
couple of years to learn it, and then some of
them are hesitant. And you can't be somebody you're not
but Megan will have you. Out of my twenty CEOs,
probably what would you say, three four seven have done
(33:18):
very well on culture and very well about sharing their thoughts,
still in a very professional manner, but remaking a difference.
And that's what I love as a mentor. You all
of a sudden go they were listening, just like, yes,
we actually listened to me.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
That's right, exactly. Well, thank you so much. It's been
a real, real pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I wish you continued success. You were perfect. It was
so relaxing to follow you.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
That was my conversation with John Chambers, and I hope
you enjoyed it as much as I did recording it.
We'll be back in two weeks. Till then, do check
out some of the other episodes out of Office. You
find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Bloomberg Terminal, and Bloomberg
dot Com. This episode was produced by Yang Yang. I'm
Alika Kapool. As always, thank you for listening.
Hello, and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your
host Malika Kapoor. Today, I'm delighted to bring you one
of my favorite conversations. It's with John Chambers, the former
CEO of Cisco, and it's stayed with me because of
his raw candor and that brilliant laugh. Take a listen,
you'll know what I mean. Hi there, Welcome back to
(00:24):
Out of Office. I'm your host, Malika Kapoor. My guest
today is a legend in the tech industry. John Chambers
is the former CEO and executive chairman of Cisco Systems.
When John joined Cisco in nineteen ninety one, it was
a small network operator. It soon grew into an industry
giant and became one of the most valuable companies in
(00:47):
the world.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
We shared our success with our customers and our employees.
We created ten thousand millionaires back when a million dollars
could buy you a house in Silicon Valley. We shared
that success across the border. While we were from we dreamed big.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
John is now the founder and CEO of JC two Ventures,
which focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world
build and scale.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So my goal is how do you get startups in
all fifty states in the US, in all twenty nine
states in India, all thirteen regions in France, and then
do it away. It completely transforms a geographic region, and
how you can change the future and disrupt yourself and
do it away. The benefits all of America and a
(01:32):
model for others all of Europe and a model for
others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I don't
think so.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
He's off to a good start of the twenty startups
eight hour already unicorns. I talked to John about his work,
about technology, his career, leadership, and about something else. John
places a huge premium on culture. Creating the right culture
at work.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, the culture is one that we treat each other's family,
that we just do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Whether it's in the office, boardroom or during a bring
your child to work day.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
The young lady came up to the stage and was
standing in a line very patiently, and she had her
question written on paper in the hand. She tried to
ask it, she couldn't get it out. She tried to
ask it again, she couldn't get it out, and she
started to cry, and she said, I'm dyslexic. And she
turned around and headed back to her seat, and with
(02:29):
five hundred people watching, as you can imagine, it was
an emotional moment. And I walked off the stage and
followed her back to where she was sitting beside the
cord of her parents, and I said, I'm dyslexic too.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
It was the first time John had gone public about
his dyslexia. He thought he'd made a big mistake. It
was a turning point for him in his personal and
professional life.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
And I thought the leaders expected me to be invincible,
almost superhuman. And I thought of people I had weaknesses,
that they wouldn't follow me as much, etc. The opposite
turned out to be true.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
There's all that and much more in this episode of
Out of Office with John Chambers. Here's our conversation. Great,
we'll go for about half an hour, and here we go. John,
Welcome to Out of Office.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I think it's a pleasure to be with you today.
We'll try to make this one of your best sessions
of the year. Oh yeah, excellent. I'm looking forward to that.
I always dream big, John.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know when people hear your name, the moment you
say John Chambers, the immediate reaction is, oh, yes, Cisco.
Cisco has come to define you, not just define your career,
but define you. How does that sit with you today?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I'm very, very comfortable with that. Cisco is a company
that I think did change the world the way you work, live, learned,
and play. And when we said that in the early nineties,
people said, you don't understand John, You move around zeros
and ones and it's tew Techi's talking. And I said, no,
it's going to change every aspect of our lives, mainly
for the best. Now every company is a network company,
(04:02):
and every company and every country is about to become digital,
whether you're in India or the US or in Europe.
And I'm proud, very much of what we did at
the company. I'm very proud of our economic return. Most
valuable company in the world for a period of time,
but also number one in the corporate social responsibility is
recognized by President Obama and Secretary Clinton or President Bush
(04:25):
and Secretary Rice. Same from China, same from India, same
from France, etc. And we shared our success with our
customers and our employees. We created ten thousand millionaires. Back
when a million dollars could buy you a house in
Silicon Valley. We shared that success across the bord and
while we were far from perfect, we dreamed big, you know.
In the Shimon Perez taught me an awful lot about
(04:48):
no room in the world for small dreams. We had
dreams that others thought were impossible, and yet we often
executed on them, and we won as a team, and
we won with an ecosystem where we try to have
everybody in our ecosystem win together. So I'm very proud
of that, perhaps most proud of the culture in terms
of what it really means to me and to the
(05:08):
rest of the organization. Trying to replicate it with startups
now with twenty startups and startups in India, US and France,
so similar playbook, a different chapter of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You know, as a former chairman and CEO of Cisco,
and you've had such a long innings of the company.
You ran it when it became one of the most
valuable companies in the world. Looking back at your time
with Cisco, what gives you the greatest satisfaction?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh, it's how we change the world, and it's our
culture getting the economic results speak for themselves. Doing fifteen
thousand percent increase in stock. If you would have put
a dollar in at the beginning, you would have when
I exited Cisco been worth fifteen thousand dollars, sharing that
with our customers, employees, having the highest customer satisfaction in
(05:54):
hot tech, getting the balance which I think the world's
finally waking up to. It's about economic returns but also
benefit to society, and we did both in terms of
the approach. So it was the success and sharing that
change in the world, but also sharing that with our
employees and our partners and the way you win together.
(06:14):
I'm surprised more companies don't follow a similar model on that,
but that's what I'm most proud of, but also a
model that I try to get my twenty startups to
follow as well.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Very simply, how would you describe that model?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It basically is one that the leadership has responsibility to
set the vision and strategy for the company. They then
build the leadership team around that vision and strategy to
implement it. They define the culture, which is watch so
many companies around the world, big and small, loose track
of culture is every bit is important as strategy and vision,
(06:49):
and it veries dramaticly by companies, but great companies always
have unbelieved to strain culture. Strange strong cultures you may
like them, you may not, but very strong. And then
it's having the courage to reinvent yourself and to constantly change.
That's probably the hardest part. It's the reason CEO is
always saying their job at average of five years. Most
CEOs cannot reinvent themselves. Don't understand the importance of it.
(07:11):
It takes courage to change yourself and as risky in
terms of the approach is especially if what you're doing
is right. But Malik, they can take away here is
that doing the right thing too long is equally as
bad as doing the wrong thing. So having the courage
to reinvent, catch new market transitions enabled by new technologies,
and then empowering a team to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You talk a lot about the culture, the creating the
right culture at a company, and the culture not only
the one that you created at Cisco, the one that
you're trying to create now in your new venture JC
two Ventures. What's that culture?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, the culture is one that we treat each other
as family, that we just do the right thing, that
we put our customers first that we dring big number
one or number two. Learn that from Jack Welch. So
we don't play that. We do it an inclusive approach.
We are an aggressive company, but we also treat everybody
like with respect. I knew every illness a very employee
(08:09):
out of the seventy five thousand employees there was life
threatening for them, their spouse, their kids, their parents. We
were there for them in a way that no one
else dies was. I still get lots of calls even
though I've been going for seven years about John, can
you help me with this, Here's what I'm finding out, etc.
And to really make a difference in build that type
teamwork and change the world is exciting. And so that's
(08:31):
how describe the culture. But it's one on a strategy
that the Internet changes the way the world works. Lives
learned from plays. Put your customers and your people first.
It sounds basic, just do the right thing. If your
culture's right, it should dictate almost every decision you make.
And if you watch leadership around the world in politics
or in business, or in society, usually they lead with
(08:55):
their culture and their values equally is important to their
theoretical strategy and goals.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
JC two ventures. You're investing in companies around the world,
like you just mentioned, even some in India, various parts
of the world. A lot of these tech companies with
the power to really be extremely disruptive.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Is that right, It's correct. I believe in doing playbooks
for everything I do. We talked briefly earlier before we
started recording about being dyslexic. When I have a playbook,
I can operate it, which I'm in the speed and
instead of being bureaucracy and slowing you down, it really
speeds you up. So I have a playbook on key
(09:34):
goals and aspirations. My reasons on startups, however, might surprise
your listeners. I've achieved more success than every dream that
would in life, and I believe it's time to continue
to give back, which I think I've done reasonably well on.
And the future of all job creation, whether you're in Asia, US, Europe,
(09:55):
will be around startups, and the big companies because of automation, didzation, etc.
Will not add headcount. It will be a digital world,
and people don't quite grasp what that means. That means
every company, whether you're healthcare, manufacturing, tech, government, is going
to be a tech company in terms of the direction,
and so my goal is, how do you get startups
(10:17):
in all fifty states in the US, in all twenty
nine states in India, all thirteen regions in France, and
then do it in the way it completely transforms a
geographic region, including my home state of West Virginia, where
we're going to make it the first true startup state
with regardless of political party, a vision of how you
can change the future and disrupt yourself and do it
(10:40):
in a way that benefits all of America, and a
model for others all of Europe, and a model for
others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I don't
think so. And we're often a pretty good start now.
When we started, I was a little bit nervous, but
so far the results have been very good. Twenty startups,
we've got eight unicorns already, very proud of that, and
(11:00):
that's almost one percent of the US unicorn market, which
is amazing a very small organization.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
You talk so much about the power of disruption, and
you said you grew up in West Virginia and the
area failed to disrupt and you saw the consequences of that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
What does that mean? What do you mean by that, well,
in simple terms, when I was growing up in West Virginia,
it was the chemical center of the world. FMC Carbide
do point six thousand engineers in Charleston, West Virginia, corporate headquarters,
just like Silicon Valley. And we were the coal mining
center of the world with one hundred and twenty five
thousand well paid coal miners, etc. But because we didn't
(11:40):
disrupt ourselves, because we didn't evolve to the next level,
we became one of the more challenge states in the US.
And as you see that occur, you realize what happens
to your geography. Now, by the way, we're going to
change that, and we may want to talk about that later.
But then I went into and into the Boston area
(12:04):
with Wang, where they were the top computer company mainframes, IBM,
wonderful company. And yet because they didn't disrupt themselves, so
many computers came along, the Wangs of the world. The
decks they got disrupted, then decks and Wang got disrupted
by the PC players. Then we disrupted the PC server
players at Cisco with the Internet. Then Cloud disrupts that
(12:25):
group and one eight lost its magic. Around Boston. It
was the Silicon Valley. But because we didn't change, MIT
didn't change, the organization, didn't change, we got left behind
in high tech. And now, by the way, Silicon Valley
is doing great, but it's going to be challenged. If
we don't change faster in Silicon Valley, it'll be Austin, Texas,
or it will be Paris, or it'll be Bangalore. And
(12:46):
that to me is kind of exciting. And that's one
of the benefits of the terrible pandemic we had to
go through with all the human suffering associated with it.
We've learned how to do things remotely with tremendous speed
and work virtually, so all of a sudden, you don't
have to be in a Silicon Valley really to participate
in major tech startups and really make a difference in
(13:08):
your future.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
What was your childhood like in West Virginia. I know
you're the son of doctors.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I was very fortunate. I had two parents who were amazing.
My mom was in internal medicine psychiatry, and she was
a female athlete at the time that wasn't as much accepted.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What sport did she play or was she track and field?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And everything from swimming to lacrosse to table tennis, ballroom
dancing her on it, and she broke a lot of
gender barriers. And she was the one who taught me
emotional IQ and how to be in touch. And she
had never let me go to bed angry or frustrated.
And that's kind of hard when you're in high school
(13:55):
when they knock on the door and say, hey.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I have a high schooler. I know I have a
high school son.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, so you know what that's like. And yet you're
so important to him to be very candid. And my dad,
he was the visionary. He could see things five ten,
fifteen years out, delivered six thousand babies, about fourth of
them for free for people that were financially challenged on him.
But he's also a business person. But he taught me
never to make my first move on the chess game.
(14:22):
He taught me to do the good ridge the same way.
And so I'd played out the hand or played out
the game to the end, and then one of the
scenario is how do you play it through? And while
that slows you down at the start, it allows you
to move with tremendous speed. So he taught me how
to see what was happening into West Virginia and be
able to see around the corners. So when I saw
it at IBM, I knew what was going to happen next.
(14:42):
When I saw it at WANG in Boston one twenty eight,
I knew what was going to happen next. When I
saw the economic slowdown coming in two thousand and I said,
its one hundred year flood. It's going to be much
worse than we realized, and unfortunately was accurate, and in
two thousand and eight, with a great recession, learn from
my mistakes in two thousand and one, I disrupted myself.
(15:03):
This time saw it coming. We called it early in
two thousand and seven, and we actually economically powered through
it very strong, including giving loans to the automotive companies
to purchase our equipment, which no other company would do
because everybody thought they would go out of business and
go bankrupt. Well, because of how we treated them. In
two thousand and eight, we became the number one player
(15:27):
in every automotive company in the world. So even though
in two thousand and one I did a two billion
dollar right down of inventory because I was carrying inventory
to meet my customer's need in the Dot com bust
and I got criticized for it. That's fair. That's part
of the job of the CEOs to take risk and
to be candied when the risk didn't work out as
well as you hope. But I learned from it. In
two thousand and eight we changed what's the key takeaway
(15:49):
constantly we emit yourself constantly learn and the other takeaway
from parents being doctors under tremendous pressure. It's easy to say,
but you got to really stay calm. He can't hide.
My dad taught me that when I almost drowned at
six years of age and a river in West Virginia
and we were fishing, and he told me to fish
(16:10):
one part of the river, and he said, don't get
out in the stream. It's unbelievably fast here. It's dangerous,
and even though you're a pretty good swimmer for six
years of age, this could be a problem. And he
went a couple hundred yards upstream. And what did I do.
I stepped out in the current. After about fifteen minutes
got swept away and it was scary, and he yelled
at me. I could hear him coming down the river
(16:31):
as fast as he could run on the side hold
onto the fishing pole. Hold onto the fishing pole. Well,
it was an an expensive fishing pole, might have cost
five dollars. But because he was concerned about the fishing pole,
I grabbed a hold of the fishing pole with both hands,
and I was getting banged up against the rocks and
tumbled it and everything else. And he kept saying, hold
on the fishing pole when I'm going down the current.
(16:53):
He finally got below me, swam out, got me, brought
me back in and I handed him the fishing pole
and he's said, do you understand what just about having?
I said, yeah, I thought I was going to drown,
but obviously you told me to take care of the
fishing boss I did. He said, no, if you were
in trouble, but because you stayed focused, because you were
calm under crisis, you came through it. And then I
(17:17):
don't think you ever told mom this. He took me
back up river and said, I'm going to put you
in the river again, and this time you're going to
do it yourself.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
I went right down through the current, right to the edge,
waited till there was a spot to come out, got
back out. But it taught me how do you deal
with crisis in life and the stories that your viewers remember.
That's something I tell again and again, and it's espatially
important now because many of the companies are going to
be in trouble this next year that are watching this.
(17:45):
The economy is going to slow. No one knows how
much We've got more headwinds that I've ever seen in
my lifetime in terms of complexity geopolitical with Russia China.
You've got inflation the people haven't seen in forty years.
You've got a FED that's trying to make a soft
landing in the US. I would take this soft landing
like the pala to landed a plane in Florida the
(18:06):
other day, who had never flown a plane right, Yes,
around the runway. It's a good landing, and take that. Uh.
And you've got supply chain issues all at one time.
So it's going to be complex, and so you've got
to keep calm during this, and you've got to develop
your playbook for how you're going to handle it. And
as you do this, it'd be a terrible mistake. You
(18:27):
hear the message you ever waste of crisis. There's a
lot of truth to it. When you have a problem,
and we're going to have one. In the degree they
usually are longer and deeper than you think. You say,
what am I going to do to deal with it?
And you address both what the micro issue is, which
is clearly some pretty good headwinds, but you address you've
probably been stagnant too long yourself. You haven't changed, so
(18:47):
what do you have to do differently? So well run
companies will say, you know, here's what I'm going to
do on the micro issue, but being very candidate, areas
that I need to do better, and here's what I'm
going to do to do them better. Companies whose say
this is all micro, I'm doing fine, don't worry about me,
probably had blinders on and could get into trouble pretty quickly.
So you want to do both at the same time.
(19:08):
That's what I trained my startups to do, and that unfortunately,
I've seen every movie there is to see a cisco
multiple times. People say, how do you know, Well, I
did it right a couple of times, and I did
it wrong other times. Since I've seen a movie for
the alternities and teaching, that is fine, and I guess
that's something we didn't hit earlier. I love to teach.
I'm a mentor at heart. I love to try to
(19:28):
change the world. I'm a dreamer peace to the Middle East.
Won the National Defense Go Medal from France, first non
French business person ever to have won that. Very honored
about the Corporate Social Responsibilities and the PODMA Vision Award
from Prime Minister Motives government in India, which is a
(19:48):
very unique award for that part of the world, as
you know, and deeply honored for that. So that's what
I enjoy doing.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
You've been very open about having dyslexia, and I know
you just decided to go public about it and started
talking about it after after a moment at take your
child to work day? Yes, can you tell us a
little bit about that and what happened that day?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, anybody who's dyslexic would tell you it makes you
feel dumb. You lose your place as you read, as
they come down the classroom to ask you to read.
Because thisslexics read right to left, we superimpose numbers. It's
the reason to this day I never read speeches. I
do speeches from an outline and try to talk spontaneous
to the audience where it's ten thousand people or ten
(20:34):
people inters of the direction. And because I had a
wonderful teacher, spatial teacher when they didn't even understand dyslexia,
but she understood learning disorders. She missus Anderson taught me
over three years how to deal with it. And it
doesn't go away, but you can you learn how to compensate.
(20:56):
And so take our child to workday the trial, and
they grill you with questions and it makes me sweat
even today. With the kids, they have no idea what.
You don't know what they're going to ask you. And
often you can hear the questions the parents told them
to ask as well, and it's just a great cultural
exchange to answer that. But a young lady came up
(21:17):
to the stage and was standing in the line very patiently,
and she had her question written on her paper in
the hand. She tried to ask it, she couldn't get
it out. She tried to ask it again, she couldn't
get it out, and she started to cry and she said,
I'm dyslexic. And she turned around and headed back to
her seat, and with five hundred people watching, as you
(21:40):
can imagine, it was an emotional moment. And I walked
off the stage and followed her back to where she
was sitting beside born of her parents, and I said,
I'm dyslexic too, And here's how you get the question out.
And you can't memorize it because you'll lose track of
it and don't read it. But look at it just
like you're talking to your parent, you're talking to me,
(22:02):
and visualize what you want to do. Look into the
person's eyes and have it like a conversation, and you
can get through that. And I said, let's go back
a couple of the stage. I asked the question again.
As I walked back up, the room was strangely quiet,
and I realized I'd left my lava eer mic on.
So I had told people what I thought was my
(22:24):
biggest weakness in life, something that even now my hands swept.
And if you talk to dyslexics, they would tell you
most of us. And I was riding in the car
watching the ball game with another dyslexics last night, and
you can spot each other because of your thought process
on it. So the four of us were there with
two dyslexics on it. You have to approach it differently
(22:46):
to be able to deal with it, so I she
asked the question. It was great. I gave a great answer,
complimented her. She went away feeling good, which is what
it was all about. We talked culture, we treat everybody
the same as still we watch out for our family
on it. But I thought I'd made a major mistake.
(23:07):
And I thought the leaders expected me to be invincible,
almost superhuman, and we did things that no other company
could do, and we did them regularly. And I thought
of people knew I had weaknesses, that they wouldn't follow
me as much, etc. The opposite turned out to be true.
I got more responses from that session that I had
(23:28):
any session ever at Cisco, with people saying I appreciate
your honesty, you're transparency. I'm dyslexic, or my children are dyslexic,
or John, you connected with me. I saw a side
that I hadn't seen before, and so I thought, good,
good deed. I'm fine. You know, it's like doing an
interview with you. If I walk away at the end
(23:49):
and I didn't get skimmed on something, I feel that's
that's very positive. But then a person called me up
in Fortune and said, John, I want to do an
article on you. And Chuck Schwab and Richard Branson and
three leaders who are dyslexic, and no one's rewritten about it.
And I said, no, I don't want to talk on that.
I'm honored, but it makes me uncomfortable when I actually
(24:12):
considered the weakness and she said my son's dyslexi.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
The generalist mean.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
She had me on them, and so I talked to
him and I said, all right, I'll do the article.
And so since then I have been honored to talk
about dyslexia very openly to individual dyslexics, which I do
on a regular basics to leadership. It will surprise you, Malika,
almost thirty percent of CEOs are DYSLEXI. Almost none of
(24:39):
them will admit to it. And the only reason I
know the number is because I can spot them on
the thought prior pattern. And so we're having a conversation,
if we're by ourselves or with a small group, I
will at the right point in time very gently say
are you dyslexic? And they'll look at me like, how
did you know? I don't tell people, but I can
see the thought process. Dyclexics go ABZ. They gather data
(25:01):
from multiple areas then they can't do it serially, but
they picture how it all comes together, and if they
are able to overcome that, they can perhaps move with
the speed and a vision that serial entrepreneurs may not
be able to do as well. So you take a
weakness trying to make it a strength. Would I prefer
not to be dyslexic, of course, but you deal with
(25:23):
life the way it is, not the way you wish
it was. And my parents taught me that.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
What a story. And I'm just sitting here thinking, I
can only imagine what it did to that girl, the
young lady who came up on stage and had to
say I'm dyslexic, I mean in front of five hundred people,
and then having you reach out to her and give
her that support and confident it must have been the
world to her. Looking back, What did it mean to
(25:50):
you to be able to support her like that?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Well, first, on the transactional level, it made me very
comfortable with talking to other dyslexics who need help because
your parents will always tell you you're smart, and the parents
don't have any credibility. As you know, with your teenage son,
and you always tell him that he's smart and he's
handsome and he's a good athlete, and so we have
(26:14):
parents don't have that credibility. Same thing with my kids
who are now I'm your grandfather, but the ability to
share with them what it's like, that you understand the fear,
you understand how they think, and they need role models
and example posts that have been able to navigate through it. Again,
I'm far from perfect, but they want to see people
(26:36):
that can do it, and then they believe they can
perhaps do it. And you talk them through what the
fear is like, and you know what it feels like
in your stomach when that fear hits you, on space,
you when you're speaking in public or trying to read
a speech. And then you watch them progress. And so
you and I had three people who were dyslexi this
year graduate from college and all three originally we're struggling
(27:01):
with first would they go to college and secondly unlikely
to get into a very good college. All three of
them got into great colleges. But they just dropped me
a note at the end and said just thank you.
You make a difference. And of course the parent it
means the world, because we want to do anything we
can do to help our children on that and all
we want to do is be healthy and happy in life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Did it make you sort of feel more comfortable to
be able to lead with empathy?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Two separate questions. Did DYSLEXI make me more comfortable to
lead with people knowing I'm a dyslexic dancers? No, because
right now my hands are still sweating. It makes me
uncomfortable even to talk about it. Did it teach me
never to laugh at anybody else? Absolutely, Malika, And all
(27:46):
my years of leadership, I've never raised my voice ever,
and make no mistake about it. If you ask my team,
you asked Megan. I have very high expectations. I expect
her to a home run every time, and she almost
never disappoints, and when she does, I'll gently say, hey,
this is something we could have done better, but I
expect it back the other way. So leading with empathy,
(28:10):
I would say yes, And that's my mom teaching me
as well. And it's amazing how many people don't treat
other people well in space she is they've been successful,
they become over confident and don't listen. You learn from
everyone and we're all equal in life, and so that
connectivity is something that I do, and I take risk
on it. You and I form friendships with government leaders
(28:32):
around the world, like Prime Minister Modi is a very
good friend. President Macrone in France is a very good friend.
I'm in French's ambassador, you know, and leaders George Bush,
Bill Clinton throughout the years, but also people that are
just individuals that I formed tight friendships with. So it
teaches you to connect if you have the courage to
(28:56):
let down your guard and to be exposed, and then
when you do, that allows somebody else to con act.
And then an empathy story that surprises people is that
most of us men have trouble telling somebody other than
our spouse that we love them, and definitely have trouble
giving somebody a hug. And I was in that mode
(29:18):
and I had the chance. I went to Duke West Virginia,
Indiana school nine and a half years of college wherever
they had a good basketball team. But I was there
at Duke with coaches Esque who happened to go to
school at the same place I did at IU, and
I ran the NBA Association there and he was of
course on the Bobby Knight's basketball team as an assistant
(29:42):
for an NBA school and we form friendships. But he
asked me many years later I would follow Duke and
go to the games to be a part of the team.
Dinner the night before they played Stanford, and Duke was
one and Stanford was two, and it was a big
national TV and they were kind of enough to go
(30:03):
great seats. But he said, your assignment is to teach
the number six player. He's going to start in place
of his roommate, who's the number five player, because it's
the right matchup for us, and John, I want you
to teach him. It's about the team winning, it's about
doing what's right in total. And he was hesitant because
he did not want to hurt his roommate. And I
(30:23):
get that. And so in the first fifteen minutes of
dinner there were two tables. I accomplished my goal and
I was watching and listening. And these were big guys,
I mean huge, tremendous athletes and very very physical. You know,
they played, they played tough, and they were talking about
how they loved each other, how they cared for each other,
(30:48):
and they gave each other really hugs. This was at
a time that a lot of people didn't do that.
And afterward coach k said, well, John, what do you think?
And I said, tremendous culture, teamwork, I did assignment like
you told me, etc. I don't think this team is
quite tough enough, Mike. They may not be tough enough
(31:09):
to get what you wanted. This year it turned out
to be a national championship team, most physical center. They
were amazing. And so I learned that expression your emotions,
whether it's a dyslexia to the young lady, whether it's
to my family telling him I love them. Wanted to
hug my kids a hundred times a day again if
(31:30):
they let me in, which of course they won't. Then
with people that I really care about, having the courage
to say I love you and always saying if you
believe it, and having the courage to hug, and that's tough.
With COVID today, we've got to obviously adjust appropriately. But
there's one that I never thought would exactly turn out
(31:51):
the way it did. But it's why you've got to
constantly learn. And it's interesting when you give another guy
a hug, they kind of look at you at first
like interesting, and then all of a sudden you watch
them learn. You watch them learn to let down the guard,
tell people you care, tell your employees you care, let
them know that you have weaknesses. Apologize when you make
(32:11):
your strength. Don't raise your voice. Yan, When I get
my competitors emotional and get them angry or scared, it's
game over, got it, be just calm you execute well.
And maybe I'm a little bit too, Patty. I do
love to compete, as you probably already figured out. And
I believe in building number one. Teams number one and
(32:33):
number two don't come to the party.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And you believe in being nice, in the power of
being nice and in love. And that's such a beautiful
note to end this conversation on. So thank you so much,
John for joining me. I mean, in all these times, yeah,
I've never heard someone talk so openly and warmly and
passionately just about love and that it's okay to hug
and it's okay to be nice. I really appreciate it.
(32:56):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well, it's teachable, as Megan will tell you. With my teams,
they learn it now. It takes some of them a
couple of years to learn it, and then some of
them are hesitant. And you can't be somebody you're not
but Megan will have you. Out of my twenty CEOs,
probably what would you say, three four seven have done
(33:18):
very well on culture and very well about sharing their thoughts,
still in a very professional manner, but remaking a difference.
And that's what I love as a mentor. You all
of a sudden go they were listening, just like, yes,
we actually listened to me.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
That's right, exactly. Well, thank you so much. It's been
a real, real pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I wish you continued success. You were perfect. It was
so relaxing to follow you.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
That was my conversation with John Chambers, and I hope
you enjoyed it as much as I did recording it.
We'll be back in two weeks. Till then, do check
out some of the other episodes out of Office. You
find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Bloomberg Terminal, and Bloomberg
dot Com. This episode was produced by Yang Yang. I'm
Alika Kapool. As always, thank you for listening.
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