June 9, 2022 • 33 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.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi there, Welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your host,
Malika Kapoor my guest today. It's a legend in the
tech industry. John Chambers is the former CEO and executive
chairman of Cisco Systems. When John joined Cisco in n
it was a small network corporator. It soon grew into
an industry giant and became one of the most valuable
(00:26):
companies in the world. 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. Uh. We shared that success across the border.
While we were far from perfect, we dreamed big. John
is now the founder and CEO of j C two Ventures,
which focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world
(00:49):
build and scale. So my goal is, how do you
get startups in all fifty states in the US, in
all twenty nine states in India, or thirteen regions in
France and and do it away it completely transforms a
geographic region. And how you can change the future and
disrupt yourself and do it the way that benefits all
(01:10):
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. He's off to a
good start off. The twenty startups eight are already unicorns.
I talked to John about his work, about technology, his
career leadership, and about something else. John places a huge
(01:31):
premium on culture. Creating the right culture at work. Well,
the culture is one that we treat each other's family,
that we just do the right thing, whether it's in
the office, boardroom or during a bring your child to
work day. The young lady came up the stage. He
was standing in the line very patiently, and she had
her question written on her paper in the hand. She
(01:56):
tried to ask it, she couldn't get it out. She
tried to ask it again, she and get it out,
and she started to cry, and she said, I'm dyslexic.
And as she turned around and headed back to her seat,
and with five people watching, as you can imagine, it
was an emotional moment. And I walked off the stage
and follow her back to where she was sitting beside
(02:17):
the thort of her parents, and I said, I'm dyslexic too.
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. And I thought the leaders expected me to
be invincible, almost superhuman, and I thought of people I
(02:40):
had weaknesses, that they wouldn't follow me as much, et cetera.
The opposite turned out to be true. 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 and think it's a pleasure to
be with you today. We'll try to make this one
(03:01):
of your best sessions of the year. Oh yeah, excellent.
I'm looking forward to that. Always dream big, John. You
know when people hear your name, the moment you say
John Chamber, the immediate reaction is, oh, yes, Cisco. Cisco
has come to define you, not just to find your career,
but define you. How does that sit with you today?
I'm very very comfortable with that. Uh. Cisco is a
(03:25):
company that I think did change the world the way
you work, live, learn, and play. And when we said
that in early nineties, people said, you don't understand John,
you move around zeros and ones and it's few tech.
He's talking, and I said, no, it's going to change
every aspect of our lives, mainly for the better. Now
every company is a network company, and every company and
every country is about to become digital, whether you're in
(03:45):
India or the US or in Europe. And I'm proud,
very much of what we did at the company, 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 reckoned as by President
Obama and UH Secretary Clinton or President Bush and Secretary Rice.
(04:07):
Same from China, same from India, same from France, etcetera.
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. UH. We
shared that success across the board. And while we were
far from perfect, we dreamed big. You know, Shimon Perez
taught me an awful lot about no room in the
(04:28):
world for small dreams. We we had dreams that o
this thought were impossible, and yet we often executed on them.
And we want 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, UH in terms of what
it really means to to me and to the rest
of the organization. Trying to replicate it with startups now
(04:51):
with twenty startups and startups in India, US and France.
So similar playbook, a different chapter in my life. You know,
as a former chairman CEO of Cisco, and you've had
such a long innings at 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
what gives you the greatest satisfaction? Oh, it's how we
(05:14):
changed the world, UH. And it's our culture getting the
economic results speak for themselves. You know, in fifteen thousand
percent increase in stock, if you would have put a
dollarry 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 and hot
deck UH. Getting the balance which I think the world's
(05:38):
finally waking up to it's about economic returns but also
benefit to society, and we did both in terms of
the approach. So uh, 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.
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
(06:01):
model that i try to get my twenty startups to
follow as well. Very simply, how would you describe that model?
It basically is one that the leadership has responsibility to
set the vision and strategy for the company. Uh. They
then build the leadership team around that vision and strategy
to implement it. They define the culture, which is what
(06:22):
so many companies around the world, big and small news.
Track of culture is every bit as important strategy and vision,
and it varies dramatically by companies. But great companies always
have unbelieved to strang 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
(06:43):
always saying their job at average of five years. Most
CEOs cannot reinvent themselves. Uh don't understand the importance of it.
It takes courage to change yourself and it's risky in
terms of approaches, especially if what you're doing is right.
But leak they can take away here is that doing
the right thing too long is equally as bad is
doing the wrong thing. So having the courage to reinvent,
(07:06):
catch new market transitions enabled by new technologies, and then
uh empowering a team to can make it happen. You
talk a lot about the culture there creating the right
culture at a company, and the culture are not only
the one that you created at Cisco, the one that
you're trying to create now in your new venture j
C two Ventures. What's that culture? Well, the culture is
one that we treat each other's family, that we just
(07:29):
do the right thing, That we put our customers first,
that we drink big number one or number two. Learn
that from Jack Welts or we don't play. Uh, 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 out of the seventy employees.
(07:51):
There was life threatening for them, their spouse, their kids,
their parents. We were there for him in a way
that no one else does. Was 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,
et cetera. And and to really make a difference and
build that type teamwork, uh and change the world is exciting.
And so that's how described the culture. But it's one
(08:13):
on a strategy that the Internet changes the way the
world works, lives, learn some place, put your customers and
your people first. It sounds basic. Just do the right thing.
If your culture is 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, uh, usually
(08:33):
they lead with their culture and their values equally important
to their theoretical strategy and goals. J C. 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 are tech companies with the power to
really be extremely disruptive. Is that right? It's correct. I
(08:56):
believe in doing playbooks for everything I do. We talk
briefly earlier before we started recording about being dyslexic. When
I have a playbook, I can operate it, which amen
the speed and instead of being bureaucracy and slowing you down,
it really speeds you up. So I have a playbook
on key goals and aspirations. My reasons on startups, however,
(09:17):
might surprise your listeners. Uh. I've achieved more success than
averag dreaming dot would in life, and I believe it's
time to continue to give back, which I think I've
done reasonably a wall on and the future of all
job creation whether you're in Asia, US, Europe, will be
around startups and the big companies because of automation, digitization,
(09:40):
et cetera, will not add headcount. Uh. It will be
a digital world and people don't quite grasp what that means.
That means every company, whether your healthcare, manufacturing, uh, tech,
government is going to be a tech company in terms
of the direction. And so my goal is, how do
you get startups in all fifty states in the US
and all twenty states in India, all thirteen regions in
(10:02):
France and then do it in a 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, and vision of how
you can change the future and disrupt yourself and do
it in a way that benefits all of America and
a model for others all of Europe, and a model
(10:24):
for others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I
don't think so. Uh, And we're off to 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 uh, that's almost one percent of the US unicorn market,
which is amazing for a very small organization. You talk
(10:47):
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. What
does that mean? What do you mean by that? Well,
in 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,
(11:10):
corporate headquarters. Just like Silicon Valley, and we were the
coal mining center of the world with a Hunton twenty
five thousand well paid coal miners, et cetera. But because
we didn't 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
(11:31):
realize what happens to your geography. Now, by the way,
we're gonna change that, and we may want to talk
about that later. Uh. But then I went into IBM
and UH into the Boston area with Wang UH where
they were the top computer company mainframes. IBM wonderful company.
And yet because they didn't disrupt themselves, so many computers
(11:53):
came along, the Wangs of the world, and 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 group
and one lost his magic around Boston, it was the
Silicon Valley. But because we didn't change M, I t
didn't change, the organization, didn't change. We got left behind
(12:15):
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, and Silicon Valley will be Austin, Texas,
or it will be Paris, or will be Bangalore. And
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.
(12:35):
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,
uh in major tech startups and really make a difference
in your future. What was your childhood like in West Virginia.
I know you're the son of doctors, it uh I
was very fortunate. Uh I had two parents who were amazing.
(12:59):
My mom, uh was in internal medicine psychiatry, and she
was a female athlete at the time that wasn't as
much accepted. What what sport did she play or was
she track and field at all? And everything from swimming
to lacrosse to table tennis, ballroom dancing, catcher on it.
(13:20):
And she broke a lot of gender barriers. And she
was the one who taught me emotional I Q and
and how to be in in touch. And she had
never let me go to bed angry or frustrating. And
that's kind of hard when you're in high school and
they knock on the door and say, hey, I have
a high schooler. I know I have a high school son,
(13:41):
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 the fourth
of them for free, uh, for people that were financially
challenged on him. But he was also a business person.
But he taught me never to make my first move
on the chess game. He taught me to do the
(14:02):
good ridge the same way until I've played out the
hand or played out the game to the end. And
then one of the scenarios, how do you play it through?
And while that slows you down at the start, allows
you we with tremendous speed. So he taught me how
to see what was happened into West Virginia and be
able to see around the corners. So when I saw
it at IBM, I knew what was gonna happen next.
When I saw it at waging in Boston. I knew
(14:24):
what was going to happen next when I saw the
economic slowdown coming in two thousand uh and I said,
it's a 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, I learned
from my mistakes at two thousand one, I disrupted myself
this time. Saw it coming. We called it already in
(14:45):
two thousand seven, and we actually economically piered through it
very strong, including giving UH 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, i UH, we became the number
(15:06):
one player in every automotive company in the world. So
even though in two thousand one, I did a two
billion dollar right down of inventory because I was carrying
inventory to meet my customers need in the dot com bust,
and I got criticized for it, that's fair. That's part
of the job. The CEOs take risk and and to
be candid when the risk didn't work out. As well
as you, hope. But I learned from it. In two
thousand eight we changed. What's the key takeaway, constantly re
(15:29):
admit yourself, constantly learned, and the other takeaway from parents
being doctors under tremendous pressure. It's easy to say, but
you've got to really stay calm, and you can't hide.
My dad taught me that when I almost drowned six
years of age and a river in West Virginia and
we were fishing, and uh, he told me to fish
(15:50):
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 this could be a problem. And
he went a couple hundred ord's upstream. And what did
I do? I stepped out in the current. After about
fifteen minutes got swept away, and uh, it was scary,
and he yelled at me. I could hear him coming
(16:10):
down the river as fast as you can. Round on
the side. Hold onto the fishing pole. Hold onto the
fishing pole. Well it was. It was an an expensive
fishing pole, might have cost five dollars. But because he
was concerned about the fishing pole. I grabbed ahold of
the fishing pole with both hands, and I was getting
banged up against the rocks and tom molded and everything
else you can say, hold on the fishing pole when
(16:31):
I'm going down current. He finally got below and me,
swam out, got me, brought me back in and I
handed him the fishing pole and he said, do you
understand what just about happen? And I said, yeah, I
thought I was gonna drowned, but obviously you told me
to take care of the fishing pole, so I did.
He said, no, if you were in trouble, but because
you stayed focused, because you were calm under crisis, uh
(16:54):
you you came through it. And then he I don't
think every told mom this. He took me back up
river and said, I gonna put you in the river again,
and this time you're gonna do it yourself. Oh my god.
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 it's the stories that your
(17:14):
your viewers remember. That's something I tell again and again
and It's especially important now because many of the companies
are gonna be in trouble this next year that are
watching this. Uh, the economy is gonna slow. No one
knows how much We've got more head winds than I've
ever seen in my lifetime in terms of complexity, geopolitical
with fresh China, You've got inflation the people haven't seen
(17:37):
in forty years. You've got a fit that's trying to
right make a soft landing in the US that I
would take the soft landing like the palate who landed
a plane on floor to the other day. You would
never flown a plane right, yes, around the runway. It's
a good landing, and I 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
(17:59):
calm during this and you've got to develop your playbook
for how you're gonna handle it. And as you do this,
it would be a terrible mistake. You hear the best
eage never waste a crisis. There's a lot of truth
to it. When you have a problem, and we're gonna
have one, and to be they use you are longer
and deeper than you think, You say, what am I
gonna do to deal with it? And you address both
what the micro issue is, which is clearly some pretty
(18:22):
good headwinds, but you address you've probably been stagnant too
long yourself. You haven't changed, so what do you have
to do differently? So we'll run companies, So say, you know,
and here's what I'm gonna do on the micro issue,
but being very candidate, areas that I need to do better,
and uh, here's what I'm gonna do to do them better.
Companies who say this is all micro, I'm doing fine,
don't worry about me. Uh, probably have blinders on and
(18:44):
could get into trouble pretty quickly. So you want to
do both at the same time. 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, did it
right a couple of times, and I did it wrong
other times. Since I've seen a movie of the alternatives
and teaching that is fun, and I guess that's something
we didn't hit earlier. I love to teach. I'm a
(19:06):
mentor at heart. I love to try to change the world.
I'm a dreamer peace in the Middle East. Uh when
the National Defense Gold Medal from France, first non French
business person ever to have won that. Very honored about
the corporate Social Responsibilities and the Partma Vision Award from
Prime Minister Modius government in India, which is a very
(19:28):
unique award for that part of the world, as you know,
and deeply honored for that. So that's what I enjoy doing.
You've been very open about having dyslexia, and I know
you 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
(19:50):
bit about that? What happened that day? 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 dyslexics read
right the left, we superimposed 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
(20:11):
where there's ten thousand people or or tend people in
terms to the direction. And because I had a wonderful teacher,
spatial teacher when they didn't even understand dyslexia, but she
understood learning disorders. She Mrs Anderson taught me over three
years how to deal with it. And it doesn't go away,
(20:33):
but you can you learn how to compensate. And so
take our child to work day. Uh. You know, the children,
they grill you with questions and it makes me sweat
even today. With the kids, they have no idea what what?
You don't know what they're gonna 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
(20:55):
to answer that. But a young lady came up to
the stage. It was standing in the line very patiently,
and she had her 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
(21:16):
back to her seat. And UH, with five 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 one 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
(21:36):
lose track of it. Don't read it, but look at
it just like you're talking to your parents, you're talking
to me, and visualize what you want to do. Look
into the person's eyes and have it like a conversation,
and you can. You can get through that. And uh,
I said, let's go back up to the stage. I
asked the question again. As I walked back up, the
room was strangely quiet, and I realized I left my
(21:58):
lava lier mike on. So I had told people what
I thought was my biggest weakness in life. Um, 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
(22:20):
four of us were there with two dyslexics on it. Uh.
You you have to approach it differently to be able
to deal with it. So uh I, uh, She asked
the question. It was great, I gave a great answer, complimented,
or she went away feeling good, which is what it
was all about. We taught culture, we treat everybody the
same Assisco. We watch out for our family on it.
(22:42):
But I thought I made a major mistake, and I
thought the leaders expected me to be invincible, almost superhuman.
Uh and uh. 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, et cetera. The opposite turned out to
(23:04):
be true. I got more responses for that session that
I had any session ever at Cisco, with people saying
I appreciate your honesty, your transparency. I'm dyslexic, or my
children of 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
(23:26):
like doing an interview with you. If I walk away
at the end and I didn't get skinned 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 Swab and
Richard Branson and three leaders who are dyslexic, and no
one's rewritten about it. And I said, no, I don't
(23:47):
want to talk on that. I'm honored, but it makes
me uncomfortable. And I actually considered a weakness, and she said,
my son's dyslexic. The journalist had me. She had me
on that, 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
(24:07):
to individual dyslexics, which I do on a regular basics
UH to UH leadership. It will surprise you and they
can almost of CEOs or dyslexic, almost none of them
will admit to it. And the only reason I know
the number is because I can spot them in the
thought private pattern. And so we're having a conversation, if
we're by ourselves or with a small group, I will
(24:28):
at the right point in time very gently say are
you dyslexic? And they look at me like, how did
you know? I don't tell people, but I can see
the thought process. The colexics go a b Z. They
gather data for multiple areas. Then they can't do it serially.
That they picture how it all comes together, and if
they are able to overcome that, they can perhaps move
(24:51):
with the speed in a vision that that serial entrepreneurs
may not be able to do as well. So you
take a weakness, try to make it a strength. Would
I prefer ought to be dyslexic, of course, but you
deal with life the way it is, not the way
you wish you us and my parents taught me that.
What a story. And I'm just sitting here thinking, I
can only imagine what it did to that girl, the
(25:14):
young lady who came up on stage and had to
say I'm dyslexic, I mean in front of five people,
and then having you reach out to her and give
her that support and confidence. It must have meant the
world to her. Looking back, What what did it mean
to you to be able to support her like that?
We all first on the transactional level. Uh. It made
(25:36):
me very comfortable talking to other dyslexics. You 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, uh, and you always tell him that
he's smart, and he's handsome and he's a good athlete,
and so we have parents don't have that credibility. Same
thing with with my kids or now I'm your grandfather,
(25:59):
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 the post and
they will navigated through it. Again, I'm far from perfect,
but they want to see people that can do it,
and then they believe they can perhaps do it. And
you talk them through what the fear is like, and
(26:22):
you know what it feels like in your stomach when
that fear at 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 dyslexic this year graduate uh from
college and all three originally were struggling with first would
they go to college and secondly unlikely to get into
(26:44):
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. Did it make
you feel more comfortable to be able to lead with empathy?
To separate questions, Uh, did dyslexia make me more comfortable
(27:10):
to lead with people knowing I'm a dyslexic dancers? No,
because right now my hands are still sweating. Uh. It
makes me uncomfortable even to talk about it. Did it
teach me never to laugh at anybody else? Absolutely, Malika,
And all my years of leadership, I've never raised my
voice ever, and uh, make no mistake about it. If
(27:33):
you ask my team, you asked Megan. I have very
high expectations. I expect her to home run every time,
and uh, she almost never disappoints. And when she does,
I'll gently say, hey, this is something we could have
done better, but I expected back the other way. Uh.
So leading with empathy, I would say yes. And that's
my mom teaching me as well. And Uh, it's amazing
(27:55):
how many people don't treat other people well, especially has
they've been successful. They become over confident and don't listen.
You learn from everyone and we're all weak on in life.
And so that connectivity is something that I do and
I take risk on it and I formed friendships with
government leaders around the world, like Prime Minister Modi is
a very good friend. President McCrone in France is a
(28:17):
very good friend of them in French, that Ambassador Uh,
you know, leaders George Bush, Bill Clinton throughout the years,
but also people that are just individuals that I formed
lay friendships with. So it teaches you to connect if
you have the courage to to let down your guard
and to be exposed, and then when you do that
(28:39):
allows somebody else to connect. 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 and I had the chance, So
(29:00):
I went to UH Duke West Virginia, Indiana school nine
and a half years of college where they had a
good basketball team. But I was there at Duke with
coaches Escue, who happened to go to school at the
same place I did at IU, and I ran the
NBA Association there and and he was of course on
the Bobby Unite's basketball team as an assistant for an
(29:23):
NBA school. And we've been for in friendships. But he
asked me many years later, I would follow Duke and
go to the games to uh be a part of UH.
The team dinner the night before they played Stanford, and
Duke was one and Stanford was two, and it was
a big event, national TV, and they were kind enough
to give great seats. But he said, your assignment is
(29:45):
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 tennant team winning. UH,
it's about doing what's writing in total. And he was
hesitant because he did not want to hurt his roommate.
And I get that. And so in the first fifteen
(30:05):
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, UM and very
very visible. You mean they played, they played tough, and UH.
They were talking about how they loved each other, how
they cared for each other, and they gave each other
(30:29):
really hugs. This was at a time a lot of
people didn't do that. And afterward coach k said, John,
what do you think? And I said, tremendous culture, teamwork.
I did my assignment like you told me, et cetera.
I don't think this team is quite tough enough, Uh, Mike, Uh,
they they may not be tough enough to get what
(30:49):
you wanted. This year it turned out to be a
nice LU championship team, most physical team the center. They
were amazing. And so I earned that espression. Your emotions,
whether it's a dyslexia to the young lady, whether it's
to my family telling him I love them, wanting to
hug my kids a hundred times a day if they
(31:10):
let me, which of course they won't. Uh. Then with
people that I really care about, having the courage to
say I love you, and we 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
(31:31):
the way it did. But that's why you've got to
constantly learn. And Uh it's interesting. Uh 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 your strain, don't raise your voice. You
(31:53):
And when I get my competitors emotional and get them
angry or scared, it's game over. Gotta be just calm.
You execute well. And maybe I'm a little bit too
that if I do love to compete, as you probably
already figured out, and I believe in building number one
teams number one or number two or don't don't come
(32:14):
to the party, 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.
(32:34):
I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Well, it's
it's teachable, as Megan would tell you. With my teams, Uh,
they learn it now. It takes some of them a
couple of years to learn it. Uh, and then some
of them are hesitant, and you can't be somebody you're not.
But make one you out of my twenty CEO is
probably what would just say three or four seve them
(32:56):
have done very well on culture and very well about
sharing their thoughts, still in a very professional manner, but
remakeing a difference. And that's what I love, is a
mentorn you. All of a sudden go they were listening,
just like you actually listen to me. That's right, exactly. Well,
(33:17):
thank you so much. It's been a real, real pleasure
to talk to you. I wish you continued success. You
were perfect. It was so relaxing to follow you. 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. Until then, do check out
some of the other episodes of Out of Office. You'll
find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Bloomberg Terminal, and
(33:40):
Bloomberg dot Com. This episode was produced by Yang Yang.
I'm Alika Kapol As always, thank you for listening.
Hi there, Welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your host,
Malika Kapoor my guest today. It's a legend in the
tech industry. John Chambers is the former CEO and executive
chairman of Cisco Systems. When John joined Cisco in n
it was a small network corporator. It soon grew into
an industry giant and became one of the most valuable
(00:26):
companies in the world. 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. Uh. We shared that success across the border.
While we were far from perfect, we dreamed big. John
is now the founder and CEO of j C two Ventures,
which focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world
(00:49):
build and scale. So my goal is, how do you
get startups in all fifty states in the US, in
all twenty nine states in India, or thirteen regions in
France and and do it away it completely transforms a
geographic region. And how you can change the future and
disrupt yourself and do it the way that benefits all
(01:10):
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. He's off to a
good start off. The twenty startups eight are already unicorns.
I talked to John about his work, about technology, his
career leadership, and about something else. John places a huge
(01:31):
premium on culture. Creating the right culture at work. Well,
the culture is one that we treat each other's family,
that we just do the right thing, whether it's in
the office, boardroom or during a bring your child to
work day. The young lady came up the stage. He
was standing in the line very patiently, and she had
her question written on her paper in the hand. She
(01:56):
tried to ask it, she couldn't get it out. She
tried to ask it again, she and get it out,
and she started to cry, and she said, I'm dyslexic.
And as she turned around and headed back to her seat,
and with five people watching, as you can imagine, it
was an emotional moment. And I walked off the stage
and follow her back to where she was sitting beside
(02:17):
the thort of her parents, and I said, I'm dyslexic too.
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. And I thought the leaders expected me to
be invincible, almost superhuman, and I thought of people I
(02:40):
had weaknesses, that they wouldn't follow me as much, et cetera.
The opposite turned out to be true. 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 and think it's a pleasure to
be with you today. We'll try to make this one
(03:01):
of your best sessions of the year. Oh yeah, excellent.
I'm looking forward to that. Always dream big, John. You
know when people hear your name, the moment you say
John Chamber, the immediate reaction is, oh, yes, Cisco. Cisco
has come to define you, not just to find your career,
but define you. How does that sit with you today?
I'm very very comfortable with that. Uh. Cisco is a
(03:25):
company that I think did change the world the way
you work, live, learn, and play. And when we said
that in early nineties, people said, you don't understand John,
you move around zeros and ones and it's few tech.
He's talking, and I said, no, it's going to change
every aspect of our lives, mainly for the better. Now
every company is a network company, and every company and
every country is about to become digital, whether you're in
(03:45):
India or the US or in Europe. And I'm proud,
very much of what we did at the company, 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 reckoned as by President
Obama and UH Secretary Clinton or President Bush and Secretary Rice.
(04:07):
Same from China, same from India, same from France, etcetera.
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. UH. We
shared that success across the board. And while we were
far from perfect, we dreamed big. You know, Shimon Perez
taught me an awful lot about no room in the
(04:28):
world for small dreams. We we had dreams that o
this thought were impossible, and yet we often executed on them.
And we want 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, UH in terms of what
it really means to to me and to the rest
of the organization. Trying to replicate it with startups now
(04:51):
with twenty startups and startups in India, US and France.
So similar playbook, a different chapter in my life. You know,
as a former chairman CEO of Cisco, and you've had
such a long innings at 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
what gives you the greatest satisfaction? Oh, it's how we
(05:14):
changed the world, UH. And it's our culture getting the
economic results speak for themselves. You know, in fifteen thousand
percent increase in stock, if you would have put a
dollarry 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 and hot
deck UH. Getting the balance which I think the world's
(05:38):
finally waking up to it's about economic returns but also
benefit to society, and we did both in terms of
the approach. So uh, 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.
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
(06:01):
model that i try to get my twenty startups to
follow as well. Very simply, how would you describe that model?
It basically is one that the leadership has responsibility to
set the vision and strategy for the company. Uh. They
then build the leadership team around that vision and strategy
to implement it. They define the culture, which is what
(06:22):
so many companies around the world, big and small news.
Track of culture is every bit as important strategy and vision,
and it varies dramatically by companies. But great companies always
have unbelieved to strang 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
(06:43):
always saying their job at average of five years. Most
CEOs cannot reinvent themselves. Uh don't understand the importance of it.
It takes courage to change yourself and it's risky in
terms of approaches, especially if what you're doing is right.
But leak they can take away here is that doing
the right thing too long is equally as bad is
doing the wrong thing. So having the courage to reinvent,
(07:06):
catch new market transitions enabled by new technologies, and then
uh empowering a team to can make it happen. You
talk a lot about the culture there creating the right
culture at a company, and the culture are not only
the one that you created at Cisco, the one that
you're trying to create now in your new venture j
C two Ventures. What's that culture? Well, the culture is
one that we treat each other's family, that we just
(07:29):
do the right thing, That we put our customers first,
that we drink big number one or number two. Learn
that from Jack Welts or we don't play. Uh, 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 out of the seventy employees.
(07:51):
There was life threatening for them, their spouse, their kids,
their parents. We were there for him in a way
that no one else does. Was 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,
et cetera. And and to really make a difference and
build that type teamwork, uh and change the world is exciting.
And so that's how described the culture. But it's one
(08:13):
on a strategy that the Internet changes the way the
world works, lives, learn some place, put your customers and
your people first. It sounds basic. Just do the right thing.
If your culture is 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, uh, usually
(08:33):
they lead with their culture and their values equally important
to their theoretical strategy and goals. J C. 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 are tech companies with the power to
really be extremely disruptive. Is that right? It's correct. I
(08:56):
believe in doing playbooks for everything I do. We talk
briefly earlier before we started recording about being dyslexic. When
I have a playbook, I can operate it, which amen
the speed and instead of being bureaucracy and slowing you down,
it really speeds you up. So I have a playbook
on key goals and aspirations. My reasons on startups, however,
(09:17):
might surprise your listeners. Uh. I've achieved more success than
averag dreaming dot would in life, and I believe it's
time to continue to give back, which I think I've
done reasonably a wall on and the future of all
job creation whether you're in Asia, US, Europe, will be
around startups and the big companies because of automation, digitization,
(09:40):
et cetera, will not add headcount. Uh. It will be
a digital world and people don't quite grasp what that means.
That means every company, whether your healthcare, manufacturing, uh, tech,
government is going to be a tech company in terms
of the direction. And so my goal is, how do
you get startups in all fifty states in the US
and all twenty states in India, all thirteen regions in
(10:02):
France and then do it in a 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, and vision of how
you can change the future and disrupt yourself and do
it in a way that benefits all of America and
a model for others all of Europe, and a model
(10:24):
for others in all of India. Dreaming too big? I
don't think so. Uh, And we're off to 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 uh, that's almost one percent of the US unicorn market,
which is amazing for a very small organization. You talk
(10:47):
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. What
does that mean? What do you mean by that? Well,
in 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,
(11:10):
corporate headquarters. Just like Silicon Valley, and we were the
coal mining center of the world with a Hunton twenty
five thousand well paid coal miners, et cetera. But because
we didn't 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
(11:31):
realize what happens to your geography. Now, by the way,
we're gonna change that, and we may want to talk
about that later. Uh. But then I went into IBM
and UH into the Boston area with Wang UH where
they were the top computer company mainframes. IBM wonderful company.
And yet because they didn't disrupt themselves, so many computers
(11:53):
came along, the Wangs of the world, and 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 group
and one lost his magic around Boston, it was the
Silicon Valley. But because we didn't change M, I t
didn't change, the organization, didn't change. We got left behind
(12:15):
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, and Silicon Valley will be Austin, Texas,
or it will be Paris, or will be Bangalore. And
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.
(12:35):
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,
uh in major tech startups and really make a difference
in your future. What was your childhood like in West Virginia.
I know you're the son of doctors, it uh I
was very fortunate. Uh I had two parents who were amazing.
(12:59):
My mom, uh was in internal medicine psychiatry, and she
was a female athlete at the time that wasn't as
much accepted. What what sport did she play or was
she track and field at all? And everything from swimming
to lacrosse to table tennis, ballroom dancing, catcher on it.
(13:20):
And she broke a lot of gender barriers. And she
was the one who taught me emotional I Q and
and how to be in in touch. And she had
never let me go to bed angry or frustrating. And
that's kind of hard when you're in high school and
they knock on the door and say, hey, I have
a high schooler. I know I have a high school son,
(13:41):
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 the fourth
of them for free, uh, for people that were financially
challenged on him. But he was also a business person.
But he taught me never to make my first move
on the chess game. He taught me to do the
(14:02):
good ridge the same way until I've played out the
hand or played out the game to the end. And
then one of the scenarios, how do you play it through?
And while that slows you down at the start, allows
you we with tremendous speed. So he taught me how
to see what was happened into West Virginia and be
able to see around the corners. So when I saw
it at IBM, I knew what was gonna happen next.
When I saw it at waging in Boston. I knew
(14:24):
what was going to happen next when I saw the
economic slowdown coming in two thousand uh and I said,
it's a 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, I learned
from my mistakes at two thousand one, I disrupted myself
this time. Saw it coming. We called it already in
(14:45):
two thousand seven, and we actually economically piered through it
very strong, including giving UH 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, i UH, we became the number
(15:06):
one player in every automotive company in the world. So
even though in two thousand one, I did a two
billion dollar right down of inventory because I was carrying
inventory to meet my customers need in the dot com bust,
and I got criticized for it, that's fair. That's part
of the job. The CEOs take risk and and to
be candid when the risk didn't work out. As well
as you, hope. But I learned from it. In two
thousand eight we changed. What's the key takeaway, constantly re
(15:29):
admit yourself, constantly learned, and the other takeaway from parents
being doctors under tremendous pressure. It's easy to say, but
you've got to really stay calm, and you can't hide.
My dad taught me that when I almost drowned six
years of age and a river in West Virginia and
we were fishing, and uh, he told me to fish
(15:50):
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 this could be a problem. And
he went a couple hundred ord's upstream. And what did
I do? I stepped out in the current. After about
fifteen minutes got swept away, and uh, it was scary,
and he yelled at me. I could hear him coming
(16:10):
down the river as fast as you can. Round on
the side. Hold onto the fishing pole. Hold onto the
fishing pole. Well it was. It was an an expensive
fishing pole, might have cost five dollars. But because he
was concerned about the fishing pole. I grabbed ahold of
the fishing pole with both hands, and I was getting
banged up against the rocks and tom molded and everything
else you can say, hold on the fishing pole when
(16:31):
I'm going down current. He finally got below and me,
swam out, got me, brought me back in and I
handed him the fishing pole and he said, do you
understand what just about happen? And I said, yeah, I
thought I was gonna drowned, but obviously you told me
to take care of the fishing pole, so I did.
He said, no, if you were in trouble, but because
you stayed focused, because you were calm under crisis, uh
(16:54):
you you came through it. And then he I don't
think every told mom this. He took me back up
river and said, I gonna put you in the river again,
and this time you're gonna do it yourself. Oh my god.
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 it's the stories that your
(17:14):
your viewers remember. That's something I tell again and again
and It's especially important now because many of the companies
are gonna be in trouble this next year that are
watching this. Uh, the economy is gonna slow. No one
knows how much We've got more head winds than I've
ever seen in my lifetime in terms of complexity, geopolitical
with fresh China, You've got inflation the people haven't seen
(17:37):
in forty years. You've got a fit that's trying to
right make a soft landing in the US that I
would take the soft landing like the palate who landed
a plane on floor to the other day. You would
never flown a plane right, yes, around the runway. It's
a good landing, and I 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
(17:59):
calm during this and you've got to develop your playbook
for how you're gonna handle it. And as you do this,
it would be a terrible mistake. You hear the best
eage never waste a crisis. There's a lot of truth
to it. When you have a problem, and we're gonna
have one, and to be they use you are longer
and deeper than you think, You say, what am I
gonna do to deal with it? And you address both
what the micro issue is, which is clearly some pretty
(18:22):
good headwinds, but you address you've probably been stagnant too
long yourself. You haven't changed, so what do you have
to do differently? So we'll run companies, So say, you know,
and here's what I'm gonna do on the micro issue,
but being very candidate, areas that I need to do better,
and uh, here's what I'm gonna do to do them better.
Companies who say this is all micro, I'm doing fine,
don't worry about me. Uh, probably have blinders on and
(18:44):
could get into trouble pretty quickly. So you want to
do both at the same time. 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, did it
right a couple of times, and I did it wrong
other times. Since I've seen a movie of the alternatives
and teaching that is fun, and I guess that's something
we didn't hit earlier. I love to teach. I'm a
(19:06):
mentor at heart. I love to try to change the world.
I'm a dreamer peace in the Middle East. Uh when
the National Defense Gold Medal from France, first non French
business person ever to have won that. Very honored about
the corporate Social Responsibilities and the Partma Vision Award from
Prime Minister Modius government in India, which is a very
(19:28):
unique award for that part of the world, as you know,
and deeply honored for that. So that's what I enjoy doing.
You've been very open about having dyslexia, and I know
you 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
(19:50):
bit about that? What happened that day? 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 dyslexics read
right the left, we superimposed 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
(20:11):
where there's ten thousand people or or tend people in
terms to the direction. And because I had a wonderful teacher,
spatial teacher when they didn't even understand dyslexia, but she
understood learning disorders. She Mrs Anderson taught me over three
years how to deal with it. And it doesn't go away,
(20:33):
but you can you learn how to compensate. And so
take our child to work day. Uh. You know, the children,
they grill you with questions and it makes me sweat
even today. With the kids, they have no idea what what?
You don't know what they're gonna 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
(20:55):
to answer that. But a young lady came up to
the stage. It was standing in the line very patiently,
and she had her 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
(21:16):
back to her seat. And UH, with five 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 one 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
(21:36):
lose track of it. Don't read it, but look at
it just like you're talking to your parents, you're talking
to me, and visualize what you want to do. Look
into the person's eyes and have it like a conversation,
and you can. You can get through that. And uh,
I said, let's go back up to the stage. I
asked the question again. As I walked back up, the
room was strangely quiet, and I realized I left my
(21:58):
lava lier mike on. So I had told people what
I thought was my biggest weakness in life. Um, 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
(22:20):
four of us were there with two dyslexics on it. Uh.
You you have to approach it differently to be able
to deal with it. So uh I, uh, She asked
the question. It was great, I gave a great answer, complimented,
or she went away feeling good, which is what it
was all about. We taught culture, we treat everybody the
same Assisco. We watch out for our family on it.
(22:42):
But I thought I made a major mistake, and I
thought the leaders expected me to be invincible, almost superhuman.
Uh and uh. 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, et cetera. The opposite turned out to
(23:04):
be true. I got more responses for that session that
I had any session ever at Cisco, with people saying
I appreciate your honesty, your transparency. I'm dyslexic, or my
children of 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
(23:26):
like doing an interview with you. If I walk away
at the end and I didn't get skinned 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 Swab and
Richard Branson and three leaders who are dyslexic, and no
one's rewritten about it. And I said, no, I don't
(23:47):
want to talk on that. I'm honored, but it makes
me uncomfortable. And I actually considered a weakness, and she said,
my son's dyslexic. The journalist had me. She had me
on that, 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
(24:07):
to individual dyslexics, which I do on a regular basics
UH to UH leadership. It will surprise you and they
can almost of CEOs or dyslexic, almost none of them
will admit to it. And the only reason I know
the number is because I can spot them in the
thought private pattern. And so we're having a conversation, if
we're by ourselves or with a small group, I will
(24:28):
at the right point in time very gently say are
you dyslexic? And they look at me like, how did
you know? I don't tell people, but I can see
the thought process. The colexics go a b Z. They
gather data for multiple areas. Then they can't do it serially.
That they picture how it all comes together, and if
they are able to overcome that, they can perhaps move
(24:51):
with the speed in a vision that that serial entrepreneurs
may not be able to do as well. So you
take a weakness, try to make it a strength. Would
I prefer ought to be dyslexic, of course, but you
deal with life the way it is, not the way
you wish you us and my parents taught me that.
What a story. And I'm just sitting here thinking, I
can only imagine what it did to that girl, the
(25:14):
young lady who came up on stage and had to
say I'm dyslexic, I mean in front of five people,
and then having you reach out to her and give
her that support and confidence. It must have meant the
world to her. Looking back, What what did it mean
to you to be able to support her like that?
We all first on the transactional level. Uh. It made
(25:36):
me very comfortable talking to other dyslexics. You 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, uh, and you always tell him that
he's smart, and he's handsome and he's a good athlete,
and so we have parents don't have that credibility. Same
thing with with my kids or now I'm your grandfather,
(25:59):
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 the post and
they will navigated through it. Again, I'm far from perfect,
but they want to see people that can do it,
and then they believe they can perhaps do it. And
you talk them through what the fear is like, and
(26:22):
you know what it feels like in your stomach when
that fear at 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 dyslexic this year graduate uh from
college and all three originally were struggling with first would
they go to college and secondly unlikely to get into
(26:44):
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. Did it make
you feel more comfortable to be able to lead with empathy?
To separate questions, Uh, did dyslexia make me more comfortable
(27:10):
to lead with people knowing I'm a dyslexic dancers? No,
because right now my hands are still sweating. Uh. It
makes me uncomfortable even to talk about it. Did it
teach me never to laugh at anybody else? Absolutely, Malika,
And all my years of leadership, I've never raised my
voice ever, and uh, make no mistake about it. If
(27:33):
you ask my team, you asked Megan. I have very
high expectations. I expect her to home run every time,
and uh, she almost never disappoints. And when she does,
I'll gently say, hey, this is something we could have
done better, but I expected back the other way. Uh.
So leading with empathy, I would say yes. And that's
my mom teaching me as well. And Uh, it's amazing
(27:55):
how many people don't treat other people well, especially has
they've been successful. They become over confident and don't listen.
You learn from everyone and we're all weak on in life.
And so that connectivity is something that I do and
I take risk on it and I formed friendships with
government leaders around the world, like Prime Minister Modi is
a very good friend. President McCrone in France is a
(28:17):
very good friend of them in French, that Ambassador Uh,
you know, leaders George Bush, Bill Clinton throughout the years,
but also people that are just individuals that I formed
lay friendships with. So it teaches you to connect if
you have the courage to to let down your guard
and to be exposed, and then when you do that
(28:39):
allows somebody else to connect. 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 and I had the chance, So
(29:00):
I went to UH Duke West Virginia, Indiana school nine
and a half years of college where they had a
good basketball team. But I was there at Duke with
coaches Escue, who happened to go to school at the
same place I did at IU, and I ran the
NBA Association there and and he was of course on
the Bobby Unite's basketball team as an assistant for an
(29:23):
NBA school. And we've been for in friendships. But he
asked me many years later, I would follow Duke and
go to the games to uh be a part of UH.
The team dinner the night before they played Stanford, and
Duke was one and Stanford was two, and it was
a big event, national TV, and they were kind enough
to give great seats. But he said, your assignment is
(29:45):
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 tennant team winning. UH,
it's about doing what's writing in total. And he was
hesitant because he did not want to hurt his roommate.
And I get that. And so in the first fifteen
(30:05):
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, UM and very
very visible. You mean they played, they played tough, and UH.
They were talking about how they loved each other, how
they cared for each other, and they gave each other
(30:29):
really hugs. This was at a time a lot of
people didn't do that. And afterward coach k said, John,
what do you think? And I said, tremendous culture, teamwork.
I did my assignment like you told me, et cetera.
I don't think this team is quite tough enough, Uh, Mike, Uh,
they they may not be tough enough to get what
(30:49):
you wanted. This year it turned out to be a
nice LU championship team, most physical team the center. They
were amazing. And so I earned that espression. Your emotions,
whether it's a dyslexia to the young lady, whether it's
to my family telling him I love them, wanting to
hug my kids a hundred times a day if they
(31:10):
let me, which of course they won't. Uh. Then with
people that I really care about, having the courage to
say I love you, and we 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
(31:31):
the way it did. But that's why you've got to
constantly learn. And Uh it's interesting. Uh 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 your strain, don't raise your voice. You
(31:53):
And when I get my competitors emotional and get them
angry or scared, it's game over. Gotta be just calm.
You execute well. And maybe I'm a little bit too
that if I do love to compete, as you probably
already figured out, and I believe in building number one
teams number one or number two or don't don't come
(32:14):
to the party, 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.
(32:34):
I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Well, it's
it's teachable, as Megan would tell you. With my teams, Uh,
they learn it now. It takes some of them a
couple of years to learn it. Uh, and then some
of them are hesitant, and you can't be somebody you're not.
But make one you out of my twenty CEO is
probably what would just say three or four seve them
(32:56):
have done very well on culture and very well about
sharing their thoughts, still in a very professional manner, but
remakeing a difference. And that's what I love, is a
mentorn you. All of a sudden go they were listening,
just like you actually listen to me. That's right, exactly. Well,
(33:17):
thank you so much. It's been a real, real pleasure
to talk to you. I wish you continued success. You
were perfect. It was so relaxing to follow you. 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. Until then, do check out
some of the other episodes of Out of Office. You'll
find us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Bloomberg Terminal, and
(33:40):
Bloomberg dot Com. This episode was produced by Yang Yang.
I'm Alika Kapol As always, thank you for listening.
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