July 1, 2025 • 32 mins
Klaus Kleinfeld, the former CEO of Siemens and Alcoa and the only leader to have successfully served as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies on different continents, recalls going to work at age 12, and covers the perils of sign language in the business world, getting close to the source of an issue, why we should be talking about energy instead of productivity, the "rule of feedback", the 5 critical components of a high performance team, why purpose is a laser, and being a "hypothesis generating machine".
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Klaus Kleinfeld (00:42):
Nashville Tennessee. Okay, that's very
nice.
Adam Outland (00:44):
Where in Germany? Did you grow up again? Or was
it...
Klaus Kleinfeld (00:47):
I was born in Bremen, but I left when I was
18, and my parents were refugeesfrom East Germany. Currently,
I'm outside of New York.
Adam Outland (00:56):
Well, uh, ich bin ein actor Berliner.
Klaus Kleinfeld (00:58):
Oh wunderbar, let's start with that. So, how
come you speak German?
Adam Outland (01:07):
Both my parents were opera singers, and they're
us, born in the US, but theylive 14 years in Bonn and
Cologne.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:14):
And they performed there at the.... does
cologne. Cologne has an operahouse?
Adam Outland (01:19):
It does, yeah, yeah. My dad performed locally
at the Cologne Opera House. Bondhad an opera house still does.
And my mom performed there, andthen she, she had an
international career after that,and performed all over.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:31):
I love opera. I'm also on the Metropolitan
Opera board, you know, so I justlove it. Yeah, lovely,
absolutely lovely. And bond atthe time probably still was the
capital of Germany, right?
Adam Outland (01:42):
Yes, yeah. My dad and mom would sometimes perform
in Berlin during that period.And the way they were paid was,
it was always interesting, andyou always wondered if your pay
would would make it back acrossto the other side.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:55):
What were they paid with gold coins? It's
interesting, yeah. I mean, Iwent to Nuremberg, or my first
place of work. Then fromNuremberg, I went to
Switzerland, you know, workedthere in the pharmaceutical
industry, back to Munich, andthere I started my career with
Siemens, you know. And thenSiemens moved me to to Erlangen.
(02:16):
And then from Erlangen, I wasasked to go to New York, then I
was asked to come back toMunich. And then after that, I
decided to leave Siemens, and Icame back to New York. And when
I co headquarter was in NewYork, you know, so which most
people don't know, because thepresence was usually in
Pittsburgh.
Adam Outland (02:32):
You know, when you were a young man, though, did
you did you already envisionthis, this path towards
administrative leadership of ofmajor companies? Or were you in
it for the details of thescience?
Klaus Kleinfeld (02:43):
And yeah, so no, I did not. I did not imagine
that. In fact, I enjoyedlearning. I mean, I've always
been curious and wanted to wantto learn more. I enjoyed being
in the outdoors, doing stuff Ionly later realized I was forced
into working when I was 12. Wasmy first paying job, you know,
(03:04):
because my father died. So whenI was so, so little, you know,
but I enjoyed it. I mean, Ienjoyed working in core
business. You know, for me, itwas making money, but it's also
something that I I started toreally like, you know, making
things, doing things, you know,so to be I always enjoy being
with people, and I also enjoyedcomplicated problems, you know.
(03:27):
So in the early days, I wouldhave thought I stay in academia
and and make an academic career,because I saw what some of my
friends who studied with me,when who went into business,
what type of jobs they had. AndI thought that I wasn't
interested in that, you know.
Adam Outland (03:44):
And so, I mean, 12 I just, I gotta spend a minute
on this, and then we can, whatcould a 12 year old do?
Klaus Kleinfeld (03:49):
Well, first of all, it's illegal to employ a 12
year old, you know. But, but,but the local supermarket, first
of all, I was fortunatelyrelatively tall at a young age
already, so they never asked mefor a passport, you know. So
they, they needed somebody whorefills the the racks, you know,
and and ideally comes in earlyin the morning, and changes also
the fresh goods, milk and stuff,you know, before the supermarket
(04:12):
opens, and be there on theweekends, you know, and where
there was a lot of traffic, youknow. So, so I did that, and
they paid me two Deutsche marksan hour. Made my first money.
The motive was very simple. Iwanted a new bike, for instance.
So things like, things I want todoes a 12 year old one, you
know, you want a nice bike. Andvery early on, then also, I
(04:34):
started to love music. So thenit became records, you know, I
was very intrigued by this thingthat had just gotten started,
called software as as a as aindividual, there was no way you
could have a computer. It didn'texist, you know, even the the
thought of it was insane, youknow. So I wanted to, I wanted
to get my hands on a computerand do programming. And at
(04:55):
gutting, there were only twolocations where I could program.
One was where the physics.Department. And the other one
was with the economicsdepartment, you know. And I
decided to start with theeconomics department, you know.
And and immediately got intosoftware writing, which I
enjoyed tremendously.
Adam Outland (05:11):
You speak to this a little bit in your book. And
maybe this is a good opportunityto take, take a principle out of
the story, your ability to orone's ability to untangle a
problem. It's a good visualimage because they're like nuts
in business, and the knots aresometimes created because of a
communication issue. Sometimesthey're created because of a
(05:32):
strategy issue, but what was aprocedure that you found most
helped you untangle the knots inbusiness?
Klaus Kleinfeld (05:41):
Asking questions. I think, I think that
I don't think I was shy askingquestions and and I even today,
and I think friends who haveworked with me, and what, even
those who are not friends who'veworked with me, would say,
closes a hypothesis generatingmachine, you know, because I
always try to verify or falsifyand find, find a course and, and
(06:07):
I'd like to drill down to thebottom, you know, to really
understand how the mechanicswork. Because that did me also
well, already in school, youknow, when you understand the
principle, then you don't haveto learn much, you know, you can
deduct everything from theprinciple. And in a way that
helped me a lot, you know,because I also had to be very
efficient with my time, becauseI had to do other things like
(06:28):
work, you know, where otherpeople could spend the time
doing homework or whatever, youknow, I use logic, you know. So
that's the one thing that youcan't have fault, you know. So
I, first of all, I'm I don'tthink there is such a thing than
a than a wrong question. Andalso, you also have to remind
(06:48):
people that they should talk toyou in non expert language,
because way too often have Iseen that expert language is a
way to hide behind and veryoften, certain terms that have
been coined in the expert worlddescribe the phenomena,
(07:09):
phenomenon in a limiting way. Imean, language is a limiting
thing. That's one of the reasonswhy you see there are large
differences in languages, like,for instance, the Australian
aborigines when they describethe different kinds of red, you
know, because they live in anenvironment, if you ever been in
Australia and fly over it, it'sred. The same with the Eskimos.
(07:30):
They have gazillions of wordsfor snow, whereas we say it's
snowing and the snow is a snowthere. Yes, you know. So. So I
always believe that you have tobe careful in in accepting this
terminology, because it mightactually prevent you from
finding the real issue. So Iasked them to explain it to me
in plain language, and I wouldcontinue if they use terms, I
(07:53):
would not be shy to say, Can youplease explain how you use the
term? What does that term mean?Then, then you get it, you know.
And very often people then say,word classes is complicated,
because if somebody tells meit's complicated, I mean, but
first I would say, we're in avery friendly way, yes, please
explain. I have time, you know.Because that's the other thing
that they would say, oh, takestoo much time, you know. And
(08:14):
say, no, no, I have all thetime. I want to understand. What
is this, you know? Why don't youexplain it? You know? But very
often, you see very quickly thatthey can't explain it, then you
find, then very often, flaws inthe logic. The moment you have
flaws in the logic, you say, whydid that individual, who's
supposedly the expert and notnot ask these questions? Maybe I
have to get some other peoplelooking into this. Or maybe I
(08:36):
have to drill even further here.
Adam Outland (08:38):
You know, this brings it to mind another
question where I feel that thisstrength of yours played out,
which is that there's, there'sreally only been, I think
yourself, that's, that's Captainmultiple companies at the CEO
level on different continentsthat are in the Fortune 500
right? There's two companiesthat you've led as a CEO on two
different continents, and thatreally hasn't been done before,
(08:59):
and one was US based, and onewas German. So, you know, I
think about the cultural andlanguage differences between two
different countries, what didyou find from a leadership
standpoint, as how you had toadapt?
Klaus Kleinfeld (09:13):
Yeah, I think that, yes, there are a lot of
differences, but thefundamentals are similar. You
know, because we all as humanbeings have some fundamental
principles that we live by. Howwe interpret certain things is
different, you know, but get thefundamentals is, everybody wants
respect. And I mean respectcomes to simple things,
(09:34):
listening to somebody, you know,asking, you know, their opinion,
you know, being thankful when,when they do something. So these
type of behaviors are, I think,unilateral, all around the
world. You have to learn, youknow, what, what exactly what
means. You know, certainly themost tricky thing is sign
language, very I would adviseeverybody to be very, very
(09:58):
cautious on this, you know, verycarefully. Can get you into real
trouble if you think that youknow the sign language and
suddenly realize it meanssomething not so nice to their
sign word, you know. But thoseare little things. Those are
little things you know, that youlearn. And overall, I think the
commonalities, particularly whenit comes to leading people, are
(10:18):
bigger than the differences. Oneother principle is that I always
try to go as close to the sourcewhere the issue originated.
Because you very often you havefilter processes. I mean, the
higher you get, the more filtertheoretical filter processes you
have, and to really understandwhat is going on, you know. I
(10:39):
mean, I would always go to thesource, you know, and literally,
to the person who is standing atat the machine, you know, where
something is going wrong, andunderstanding what exactly are
you observing that gets lost intranslation, you know. I mean at
a certain level you I mean, youdon't even talk to a head of the
to the head of the factoryanymore. You talk to the
(11:02):
division head, you want to makesure that you really, really go
down to the core.
Adam Outland (11:07):
It very rarely is, is someone's life just pure
accelerated growth. There'splateaus, there's down curves,
because you've had suchextraordinary success, not just
in arriving in leadership at acompany, but helping companies
really scale and grow. What havebeen some of those plateau
moments that presented realchallenges for you personally?
Klaus Kleinfeld (11:29):
The first kind of wake up call shock was when
my father died and I was 10, youknow, and basically life, our
life, my life, became a verydifferent life then, because it
made me ask a lot of veryfundamental questions. You know,
the next one, the next biggestone, was when, after 20 years,
you know, 20 plus years, Idecided to leave Siemens
(11:50):
because, I mean, obviously after20 years, you have a lot of
friends there, you have a lot ofmemories, you know, you feel at
home. But I decided to that'snot that the environment was
just not worth for me to stayon, you know. And I move very
difficult, very, very difficult,you know. And then there's a ton
of others, you know, when youwhen you have to restructure a
(12:12):
certain and you you know thatthat how many families are
affected by it. And you know, atthe same time, if you don't do
it, you'll risk that everybodywill get affected by it. I mean,
so by making that you can atleast save the core, I hope that
you can save the core, and youcan never be certain you know
whether it works out or not. Soyou you've done the best you
(12:35):
can, you've got all the factstogether, and you hope that it
will work out after you've doneyour your best. And there's
really nobody who as a leader.There's really nobody who
carries the burden other thanyou, and at least that's my
that's been my view ofleadership. You know, when I
when I take it on, I'maccountable and I live with the
(12:55):
consequences and I stand up for it.
Adam Outland (12:58):
Yeah. And you know, you, you mentioned quite a
bit around energy, you know,where it stems from, but also
how you can recognize whichquadrant you're in in that
moment, one of those quadrants,I think you you've labeled as
the burnout quadrant. It's, whatwas it? Low Energy, and what was
the other variable?
Klaus Kleinfeld (13:16):
Low energy and negative, you know, so, so
burnout is basically your toast,yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's
an interesting one. Let me takea step back, you know, I've
always driven for efficiency,you know, because I also never
had time had to do stuff, youknow. So I was always driving
for efficiency. I always thoughtit's willpower, good German
(13:36):
willpower, boom, boom, boom,plow through, you know. So until
one day, I realized it's allabout energy and why? How did I
realize that? I realized it verystraight. It came relatively
late in my leadership life, youknow. So when I realized the
following phenomenon I sawaround me, people really getting
burned out, you know? I also sawthat not only older people, but
(13:57):
younger people got burned out,you know. And I thought, wow,
what is this? And then I loveplaying tennis. Wish I could
play better, but I love it, youknow. And in the tennis world, I
saw another phenomenon. They gotolder and older and older the
top performers. So I wasthinking, What on earth is going
on there? You know, in the end,it's all about performance,
(14:18):
whether you're in business orwhether you're in tennis you
know, all about performance. Howcome that there's this
dichotomy, you know? So Istarted looking into it, you
know, as a curious person, youknow, I want to learn more about
it, you know. How can a tennisplayer, you know, who has no
time to recover, really, youknow, just 20 seconds between
(14:39):
the serves? How can they dothat? And how can they do it at
such a late age. And I realizedthat in this whole high
performance scene, the conceptof energy had been introduced,
and that they were not talkingabout time management or
whatever on the court. They weretalking about, how do you
recharge, how do you keep yourenergy? How do you get
(14:59):
resilience? And then I startedmy own journey and trying to
figure out what is energy. Whatgives me energy? And I realized
it's the old thing of body, mindand soul. The body I understand,
you know, but then on the mindis basically mental and
emotional, and then on thespiritual side. Nobody even
talks about the spiritual sides,but those are the things there
(15:20):
are no more. Those are thethings that give us energy, and
they can also drain energy.There's a flow in this, because
you burn in the morning, you getup, you have a full tank of
energy, typically, if you haveslept relatively well, you know,
and then you burn it through.So, and there are a lot of
tricks, you know, that the highperformance players have
(15:41):
learned, and leaders can learnthe same thing. Leaders can
learn absolutely the same thing.So in the end, we are even more
high performance athletes, youknow, then, then the tennis
players. Because the tennisplayer after the game or after a
tournament, they have a timewhere they can go somewhere
else. We are on 24 hours, or 25hours, eight days a week. It
(16:02):
feels almost, you know. So thatgot me into this. And in regards
to the zones, it's relativelysimple. You know, you want to be
in performance zone. You know,performance zone is where you
have high energy, positive, butthen life happens, you know. So
what do you do? Panic, you know.So you immediately go into what
I call survival zone, by thehigh energy, but but negative,
(16:24):
you know. So what do you do now?What do you do now? You know,
you have to find a mechanism howyou quickly get back into
performance zone. The firstthing when you go into survival
zone. It's very good. And thehuman body is made for this,
because it's a flight or fightresponse. We get adrenaline. Our
focus goes like this. We getsuperpowers. The only thing is
(16:45):
that the superpower lasts for anhour, for two hours maximum, and
then you drop into burnout zone,so you have to very quickly get
back into performance zone. Andwhat's the trick of this? You
know, there's a ton of tricksmental training, you know,
figuring out the situation, butyou have to be aware of it. You
get back into it. So life is notI used to think. I thought life
(17:07):
is an ultra marathon. That's inreality, your life is sprints of
various distances, and rechargesprints and recharge and
recharge time. And the sprinttime is not equally, equal time,
you know? It can be much, muchless time today there, there is
a really simple way how you canfigure it out for yourself, you
know. So, so, I mean, many of ushave some type of tracker, you
(17:29):
know, so, and this tracker showsme my heart rate. The heart
rate, for me, is a super goodindicator of whether you're
stressed or not. You know one.The second one is breathing. If
your breathing gets veryshallow, very fast, you know,
then something is going onemotionally with you. The third
one is vision, you know, if yourvision becomes a tunnel vision,
(17:50):
you know. You know, where youonly see one thing, you know,
then you know something is goingon that is not healthy over a
longer period of time. You know.So, so, so there are things that
you can learn how to observeyourself. And I would think that
it's very easy to learn. Youknow, I don't even have to look
at the watch, and I knowexactly, roughly, exactly where,
(18:11):
where, where my heart rate is,you know. So because somehow you
you know your body, what, howthe body feels, you know when,
when the heart rate is outsideof the zone that you want it to
be in. It also requires acertain will to change. I mean,
certain will to first beconfronted with the realities,
which, unfortunately, veryoften. I mean, we kind of know
(18:32):
that something is not right, butin the we don't want to hear it,
because it inflicts stress onus, you know, but at the same
time, then, if you are notbrutally honest with yourself.
How often have you seen thatpeople have certain strange
habits? You know?
Adam Outland (18:47):
That feedback loop; I've interviewed numbers
of executives and leaders, andit's kind of a common feedback
when you arrive at a higherlevel of leadership is that the
honesty from your team candiminish because there's less of
incentive directly to the personto be directly honest with their
superior, right? How would yougo about moderating that risk
(19:08):
for those around you? Or howwould you go about making sure
the feedback was honest, even ifit's not always what you want to
hear?
Klaus Kleinfeld (19:16):
By the way, this is one of the big
differences when I was asked tomove into a leadership role here
in the US, for the first time,it's one of the big differences
between a German environment anda US environment the US. I mean,
if you as a CEO, start aconversation and want to want a
feedback from your team, it'svery interesting. The the team
(19:39):
very often does not offer offerfeedback. They ask you
questions. And I realize thatthe reason why in the US you
have that situation is simplybecause, in the US, if you want
to fire somebody, you know theperson is gone, literally, in a
minute. And whereas in Europeand Germany, particularly, you
know, you can't fire the personyou know you. Know, go through a
(20:00):
process, you know, becauseotherwise they sue you, you
know, and then talk with theunions. And so, in a way, the
perceived job security is, inthis case, is a positive, a
positive enforcer of they arenot, they are not afraid of
giving you feedback, even if thefeedback is against what they
(20:23):
think you want to hear, youknow, whereas here, there's more
an inclination to please, pleasethe boss. So it's it requires a
little bit more of an effort.And I would always do it in a
one on one and say, may I askyou to give me feedback, you
know? And and the and learn therule of feedback. And the rule
(20:43):
of feedback is you, you do notrespond to what the person says.
Your response is simply, thankyou for the feedback, and that's
it. If you draw a four by two bytwo, you know you basically you
say, what do you know aboutyourself and what do you not
know about yourself? And youhave the second one, what do
others know about you? And whatdo others not know about you?
(21:06):
And the interesting thing, thereis a an element there of
something that others know aboutyou that you don't know. So what
you do with feedback? You openthat window, and very often it's
these things that you you don'teven you don't even realize you
know. You've adopted somepractices, you've adopted some
language, you've adopted somesome evidence you know that, or
(21:29):
dress you know so that peopleinterpret in a certain way,
which was not your intention.And that's why it's so important
for learning. Just look at theNavy SEALs. I mean, they, after
mission was done, they wouldcriticize what didn't go well,
you know. And then they separatethe the feedback from the
(21:50):
person. They don't say you arean idiot. You didn't do, you
didn't didn't do, they will say,this went wrong. This went
wrong. It's clear whoseaccountability it is, you know,
but it's a mutual description ofhow can we get to better
performance. So brutal, honestfeedback cultures are the
fastest learning organizations,as long as it comes with an
(22:11):
understanding this is not aboutyou. This is about performance.
Adam Outland (22:15):
Yeah, so many good things here. Accountability
seems to be invited by topperformers. So for you know, an
executive that might belistening what you know, where
they find there's sometimesaccountability gaps for
themselves, right? How would youadvise them to seek
accountability for themselves?
Klaus Kleinfeld (22:35):
Yeah, I think in general, I believe, as we
just talked about feedback, Imean, you even in larger
organizations, to I would highlyrecommend that. And you can run
this multiple times of the year.It costs you nothing if you want
to have it, have a real fingeron the pulse if, particularly if
you're going through transitionphases, if you have made an
acquisition, you know, or youhave a major transformation
going through, you know. So Iwould highly recommend that, on
(22:57):
a personal level, I think veryoften people also don't
understand why this is soimportant. And it comes down to
what makes a great team. Youknow, will you be able? How will
you be able to make a greatteam? And accountability is one
of those five things that areessential. You know, if you want
a high performance team, theyare essential. And it starts
with trust. You know, that'sthat's the core. That's the
(23:19):
core. You have to have trustamong your core team, you know.
Secondly, we talked about this,what I call conflict, you know,
is you have to be willing tolive with conflict. By conflict
here, I mean, it's also verycritical feedback, you know. So
which many people interpret thatas conflict, you know, but
people have to have a capabilityof that commitment is, a big
(23:40):
thing, you know. And thenaccountability, you know, if
something goes wrong and you arecommitted and it's yours, it was
your work stream, you basicallysay, hey, look, I mean, I did
not do well in that moment, Iwill correct that. And last one
is basically the results. Andthat's also interesting me,
something that very often is notclear. You would not believe how
(24:01):
often I see when I ask mentors,CEOs, you know, and when I ask
CEOs who complain about thattheir team is not doing what
they think they're doing, andask them, explain to me, what
exactly do you want? Do you wantfrom them, you know? And
interestingly, I mean, then theygo into a rant, you know, it has
to be crystal clear. What is,what does winning look like? The
(24:25):
moment you know what winninglooks like, and you will you can
align the team around that'swhat winning looks like.
Adam Outland (24:31):
Wow, such a simple question to remember to ask your
team members to test.
Klaus Kleinfeld (24:37):
By the way, we didn't talk about purpose on the
energy side. I miss that. I meanpurposes, this thing on the
energy. It's a very interestingthing, because purpose does to
energy what laser does to light.You know, it basically focuses
the energy around one point. Andas you see, light is diffuse,
you know, it's nice. You know,the moment it becomes a laser,
(25:00):
it can cut through large walls.It can. And do anything, and
that's like, that's what purposedoes to energy the moment you
know what you want to achieve,what mission you want to do. You
know, all of your energy goes tothis one point. Visioning is a
great exercise. And in my book,I have a long chapter on
purpose, because a simpleconcept, yet a complicated
(25:22):
concept, you know, it's aconcept that the mankind has
struggled with as long as we exist.
Adam Outland (25:27):
What was your purpose? What was the purpose
that you landed on?
Klaus Kleinfeld (25:31):
That's the other thing. I mean, my purpose
also changed, you know, mypurpose changed. And, I mean,
and it's not just one purpose,it can be multiple purposes, you
know. So my purpose, clearly,has always been around. I want
to raise a lovely family andhave a great relationships with
my children, you know. And wantto have children, and want to
(25:52):
have a great relationship withmy children and also the family
of my my wife, you know, andwant to be a great husband at
the same time. I mean, when I'vebeen running large organizations
or even small ones, you know,the purpose was, I want to make
this successful. And I want tohelp people excel in here. The
people element also was alwaysthere. Those have been constant
(26:15):
elements of of the of thepurpose, you know. I mean, I
love it, I change it, or I leaveit, you know. So I Yes, I needed
work originally, you know, forfor making money, you know. But
I, even then, I lived by theprinciples, even then I
believed, you know, I want toget energy from it, and I want
to feel that it serves a goodpurpose for me.
Adam Outland (26:36):
So I love what you said, and this may, it's kind of
a great wrap up point. And ifyou've you've probably seen this
quote, but it's called themaster in the art of living. In
this description, he says, themaster and the art of living is
the person that makes it so hardto tell if he's working or
playing, because at the end ofthe day, he's always doing both.
Klaus Kleinfeld (26:54):
I like that. Yeah, wonderful.
Adam Outland (26:56):
So many good lessons in here. Klaus, I know
we could probably go for anotherhour, but I'll stay to our time.
The book was wonderful to do aninitial read through, and I'd
recommend it. Where can peoplefind and follow your your future
wisdom outside of what you've authored?
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:11):
I don't do much on social media. I do LinkedIn,
I mean, so my LinkedIn, LinkedInprofile, you find me on a Klaus
Kleinfeld, and I do write thesethings myself, and I do comment,
you comment also, and, yeah, so,and the book can be found on
Amazon, you know, and on manyother platforms. There's also an
audio book around it, you know,which I really like. I mean, I
(27:33):
didn't read it myself, but Ilike the guy who read it, and he
has a wonderful voice. I loveit. I really love it, you know.
Adam Outland (27:40):
So good, great knowledge today, and coming from
someone who grew up in the landof Haribo gum bears and
Beethoven, really glad to spendtime with you.
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:51):
Well Adam, wonderful pleasure. Yeah.
Adam Outland (27:53):
Thank you so much, Klaus.
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:54):
Thank you very much.
Nashville Tennessee. Okay, that's very
nice.
Adam Outland (00:44):
Where in Germany? Did you grow up again? Or was
it...
Klaus Kleinfeld (00:47):
I was born in Bremen, but I left when I was
18, and my parents were refugeesfrom East Germany. Currently,
I'm outside of New York.
Adam Outland (00:56):
Well, uh, ich bin ein actor Berliner.
Klaus Kleinfeld (00:58):
Oh wunderbar, let's start with that. So, how
come you speak German?
Adam Outland (01:07):
Both my parents were opera singers, and they're
us, born in the US, but theylive 14 years in Bonn and
Cologne.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:14):
And they performed there at the.... does
cologne. Cologne has an operahouse?
Adam Outland (01:19):
It does, yeah, yeah. My dad performed locally
at the Cologne Opera House. Bondhad an opera house still does.
And my mom performed there, andthen she, she had an
international career after that,and performed all over.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:31):
I love opera. I'm also on the Metropolitan
Opera board, you know, so I justlove it. Yeah, lovely,
absolutely lovely. And bond atthe time probably still was the
capital of Germany, right?
Adam Outland (01:42):
Yes, yeah. My dad and mom would sometimes perform
in Berlin during that period.And the way they were paid was,
it was always interesting, andyou always wondered if your pay
would would make it back acrossto the other side.
Klaus Kleinfeld (01:55):
What were they paid with gold coins? It's
interesting, yeah. I mean, Iwent to Nuremberg, or my first
place of work. Then fromNuremberg, I went to
Switzerland, you know, workedthere in the pharmaceutical
industry, back to Munich, andthere I started my career with
Siemens, you know. And thenSiemens moved me to to Erlangen.
(02:16):
And then from Erlangen, I wasasked to go to New York, then I
was asked to come back toMunich. And then after that, I
decided to leave Siemens, and Icame back to New York. And when
I co headquarter was in NewYork, you know, so which most
people don't know, because thepresence was usually in
Pittsburgh.
Adam Outland (02:32):
You know, when you were a young man, though, did
you did you already envisionthis, this path towards
administrative leadership of ofmajor companies? Or were you in
it for the details of thescience?
Klaus Kleinfeld (02:43):
And yeah, so no, I did not. I did not imagine
that. In fact, I enjoyedlearning. I mean, I've always
been curious and wanted to wantto learn more. I enjoyed being
in the outdoors, doing stuff Ionly later realized I was forced
into working when I was 12. Wasmy first paying job, you know,
(03:04):
because my father died. So whenI was so, so little, you know,
but I enjoyed it. I mean, Ienjoyed working in core
business. You know, for me, itwas making money, but it's also
something that I I started toreally like, you know, making
things, doing things, you know,so to be I always enjoy being
with people, and I also enjoyedcomplicated problems, you know.
(03:27):
So in the early days, I wouldhave thought I stay in academia
and and make an academic career,because I saw what some of my
friends who studied with me,when who went into business,
what type of jobs they had. AndI thought that I wasn't
interested in that, you know.
Adam Outland (03:44):
And so, I mean, 12 I just, I gotta spend a minute
on this, and then we can, whatcould a 12 year old do?
Klaus Kleinfeld (03:49):
Well, first of all, it's illegal to employ a 12
year old, you know. But, but,but the local supermarket, first
of all, I was fortunatelyrelatively tall at a young age
already, so they never asked mefor a passport, you know. So
they, they needed somebody whorefills the the racks, you know,
and and ideally comes in earlyin the morning, and changes also
the fresh goods, milk and stuff,you know, before the supermarket
(04:12):
opens, and be there on theweekends, you know, and where
there was a lot of traffic, youknow. So, so I did that, and
they paid me two Deutsche marksan hour. Made my first money.
The motive was very simple. Iwanted a new bike, for instance.
So things like, things I want todoes a 12 year old one, you
know, you want a nice bike. Andvery early on, then also, I
(04:34):
started to love music. So thenit became records, you know, I
was very intrigued by this thingthat had just gotten started,
called software as as a as aindividual, there was no way you
could have a computer. It didn'texist, you know, even the the
thought of it was insane, youknow. So I wanted to, I wanted
to get my hands on a computerand do programming. And at
(04:55):
gutting, there were only twolocations where I could program.
One was where the physics.Department. And the other one
was with the economicsdepartment, you know. And I
decided to start with theeconomics department, you know.
And and immediately got intosoftware writing, which I
enjoyed tremendously.
Adam Outland (05:11):
You speak to this a little bit in your book. And
maybe this is a good opportunityto take, take a principle out of
the story, your ability to orone's ability to untangle a
problem. It's a good visualimage because they're like nuts
in business, and the knots aresometimes created because of a
communication issue. Sometimesthey're created because of a
(05:32):
strategy issue, but what was aprocedure that you found most
helped you untangle the knots inbusiness?
Klaus Kleinfeld (05:41):
Asking questions. I think, I think that
I don't think I was shy askingquestions and and I even today,
and I think friends who haveworked with me, and what, even
those who are not friends who'veworked with me, would say,
closes a hypothesis generatingmachine, you know, because I
always try to verify or falsifyand find, find a course and, and
(06:07):
I'd like to drill down to thebottom, you know, to really
understand how the mechanicswork. Because that did me also
well, already in school, youknow, when you understand the
principle, then you don't haveto learn much, you know, you can
deduct everything from theprinciple. And in a way that
helped me a lot, you know,because I also had to be very
efficient with my time, becauseI had to do other things like
(06:28):
work, you know, where otherpeople could spend the time
doing homework or whatever, youknow, I use logic, you know. So
that's the one thing that youcan't have fault, you know. So
I, first of all, I'm I don'tthink there is such a thing than
a than a wrong question. Andalso, you also have to remind
(06:48):
people that they should talk toyou in non expert language,
because way too often have Iseen that expert language is a
way to hide behind and veryoften, certain terms that have
been coined in the expert worlddescribe the phenomena,
(07:09):
phenomenon in a limiting way. Imean, language is a limiting
thing. That's one of the reasonswhy you see there are large
differences in languages, like,for instance, the Australian
aborigines when they describethe different kinds of red, you
know, because they live in anenvironment, if you ever been in
Australia and fly over it, it'sred. The same with the Eskimos.
(07:30):
They have gazillions of wordsfor snow, whereas we say it's
snowing and the snow is a snowthere. Yes, you know. So. So I
always believe that you have tobe careful in in accepting this
terminology, because it mightactually prevent you from
finding the real issue. So Iasked them to explain it to me
in plain language, and I wouldcontinue if they use terms, I
(07:53):
would not be shy to say, Can youplease explain how you use the
term? What does that term mean?Then, then you get it, you know.
And very often people then say,word classes is complicated,
because if somebody tells meit's complicated, I mean, but
first I would say, we're in avery friendly way, yes, please
explain. I have time, you know.Because that's the other thing
that they would say, oh, takestoo much time, you know. And
(08:14):
say, no, no, I have all thetime. I want to understand. What
is this, you know? Why don't youexplain it? You know? But very
often, you see very quickly thatthey can't explain it, then you
find, then very often, flaws inthe logic. The moment you have
flaws in the logic, you say, whydid that individual, who's
supposedly the expert and notnot ask these questions? Maybe I
have to get some other peoplelooking into this. Or maybe I
(08:36):
have to drill even further here.
Adam Outland (08:38):
You know, this brings it to mind another
question where I feel that thisstrength of yours played out,
which is that there's, there'sreally only been, I think
yourself, that's, that's Captainmultiple companies at the CEO
level on different continentsthat are in the Fortune 500
right? There's two companiesthat you've led as a CEO on two
different continents, and thatreally hasn't been done before,
(08:59):
and one was US based, and onewas German. So, you know, I
think about the cultural andlanguage differences between two
different countries, what didyou find from a leadership
standpoint, as how you had toadapt?
Klaus Kleinfeld (09:13):
Yeah, I think that, yes, there are a lot of
differences, but thefundamentals are similar. You
know, because we all as humanbeings have some fundamental
principles that we live by. Howwe interpret certain things is
different, you know, but get thefundamentals is, everybody wants
respect. And I mean respectcomes to simple things,
(09:34):
listening to somebody, you know,asking, you know, their opinion,
you know, being thankful when,when they do something. So these
type of behaviors are, I think,unilateral, all around the
world. You have to learn, youknow, what, what exactly what
means. You know, certainly themost tricky thing is sign
language, very I would adviseeverybody to be very, very
(09:58):
cautious on this, you know, verycarefully. Can get you into real
trouble if you think that youknow the sign language and
suddenly realize it meanssomething not so nice to their
sign word, you know. But thoseare little things. Those are
little things you know, that youlearn. And overall, I think the
commonalities, particularly whenit comes to leading people, are
(10:18):
bigger than the differences. Oneother principle is that I always
try to go as close to the sourcewhere the issue originated.
Because you very often you havefilter processes. I mean, the
higher you get, the more filtertheoretical filter processes you
have, and to really understandwhat is going on, you know. I
(10:39):
mean, I would always go to thesource, you know, and literally,
to the person who is standing atat the machine, you know, where
something is going wrong, andunderstanding what exactly are
you observing that gets lost intranslation, you know. I mean at
a certain level you I mean, youdon't even talk to a head of the
to the head of the factoryanymore. You talk to the
(11:02):
division head, you want to makesure that you really, really go
down to the core.
Adam Outland (11:07):
It very rarely is, is someone's life just pure
accelerated growth. There'splateaus, there's down curves,
because you've had suchextraordinary success, not just
in arriving in leadership at acompany, but helping companies
really scale and grow. What havebeen some of those plateau
moments that presented realchallenges for you personally?
Klaus Kleinfeld (11:29):
The first kind of wake up call shock was when
my father died and I was 10, youknow, and basically life, our
life, my life, became a verydifferent life then, because it
made me ask a lot of veryfundamental questions. You know,
the next one, the next biggestone, was when, after 20 years,
you know, 20 plus years, Idecided to leave Siemens
(11:50):
because, I mean, obviously after20 years, you have a lot of
friends there, you have a lot ofmemories, you know, you feel at
home. But I decided to that'snot that the environment was
just not worth for me to stayon, you know. And I move very
difficult, very, very difficult,you know. And then there's a ton
of others, you know, when youwhen you have to restructure a
(12:12):
certain and you you know thatthat how many families are
affected by it. And you know, atthe same time, if you don't do
it, you'll risk that everybodywill get affected by it. I mean,
so by making that you can atleast save the core, I hope that
you can save the core, and youcan never be certain you know
whether it works out or not. Soyou you've done the best you
(12:35):
can, you've got all the factstogether, and you hope that it
will work out after you've doneyour your best. And there's
really nobody who as a leader.There's really nobody who
carries the burden other thanyou, and at least that's my
that's been my view ofleadership. You know, when I
when I take it on, I'maccountable and I live with the
(12:55):
consequences and I stand up for it.
Adam Outland (12:58):
Yeah. And you know, you, you mentioned quite a
bit around energy, you know,where it stems from, but also
how you can recognize whichquadrant you're in in that
moment, one of those quadrants,I think you you've labeled as
the burnout quadrant. It's, whatwas it? Low Energy, and what was
the other variable?
Klaus Kleinfeld (13:16):
Low energy and negative, you know, so, so
burnout is basically your toast,yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's
an interesting one. Let me takea step back, you know, I've
always driven for efficiency,you know, because I also never
had time had to do stuff, youknow. So I was always driving
for efficiency. I always thoughtit's willpower, good German
(13:36):
willpower, boom, boom, boom,plow through, you know. So until
one day, I realized it's allabout energy and why? How did I
realize that? I realized it verystraight. It came relatively
late in my leadership life, youknow. So when I realized the
following phenomenon I sawaround me, people really getting
burned out, you know? I also sawthat not only older people, but
(13:57):
younger people got burned out,you know. And I thought, wow,
what is this? And then I loveplaying tennis. Wish I could
play better, but I love it, youknow. And in the tennis world, I
saw another phenomenon. They gotolder and older and older the
top performers. So I wasthinking, What on earth is going
on there? You know, in the end,it's all about performance,
(14:18):
whether you're in business orwhether you're in tennis you
know, all about performance. Howcome that there's this
dichotomy, you know? So Istarted looking into it, you
know, as a curious person, youknow, I want to learn more about
it, you know. How can a tennisplayer, you know, who has no
time to recover, really, youknow, just 20 seconds between
(14:39):
the serves? How can they dothat? And how can they do it at
such a late age. And I realizedthat in this whole high
performance scene, the conceptof energy had been introduced,
and that they were not talkingabout time management or
whatever on the court. They weretalking about, how do you
recharge, how do you keep yourenergy? How do you get
(14:59):
resilience? And then I startedmy own journey and trying to
figure out what is energy. Whatgives me energy? And I realized
it's the old thing of body, mindand soul. The body I understand,
you know, but then on the mindis basically mental and
emotional, and then on thespiritual side. Nobody even
talks about the spiritual sides,but those are the things there
(15:20):
are no more. Those are thethings that give us energy, and
they can also drain energy.There's a flow in this, because
you burn in the morning, you getup, you have a full tank of
energy, typically, if you haveslept relatively well, you know,
and then you burn it through.So, and there are a lot of
tricks, you know, that the highperformance players have
(15:41):
learned, and leaders can learnthe same thing. Leaders can
learn absolutely the same thing.So in the end, we are even more
high performance athletes, youknow, then, then the tennis
players. Because the tennisplayer after the game or after a
tournament, they have a timewhere they can go somewhere
else. We are on 24 hours, or 25hours, eight days a week. It
(16:02):
feels almost, you know. So thatgot me into this. And in regards
to the zones, it's relativelysimple. You know, you want to be
in performance zone. You know,performance zone is where you
have high energy, positive, butthen life happens, you know. So
what do you do? Panic, you know.So you immediately go into what
I call survival zone, by thehigh energy, but but negative,
(16:24):
you know. So what do you do now?What do you do now? You know,
you have to find a mechanism howyou quickly get back into
performance zone. The firstthing when you go into survival
zone. It's very good. And thehuman body is made for this,
because it's a flight or fightresponse. We get adrenaline. Our
focus goes like this. We getsuperpowers. The only thing is
(16:45):
that the superpower lasts for anhour, for two hours maximum, and
then you drop into burnout zone,so you have to very quickly get
back into performance zone. Andwhat's the trick of this? You
know, there's a ton of tricksmental training, you know,
figuring out the situation, butyou have to be aware of it. You
get back into it. So life is notI used to think. I thought life
(17:07):
is an ultra marathon. That's inreality, your life is sprints of
various distances, and rechargesprints and recharge and
recharge time. And the sprinttime is not equally, equal time,
you know? It can be much, muchless time today there, there is
a really simple way how you canfigure it out for yourself, you
know. So, so, I mean, many of ushave some type of tracker, you
(17:29):
know, so, and this tracker showsme my heart rate. The heart
rate, for me, is a super goodindicator of whether you're
stressed or not. You know one.The second one is breathing. If
your breathing gets veryshallow, very fast, you know,
then something is going onemotionally with you. The third
one is vision, you know, if yourvision becomes a tunnel vision,
(17:50):
you know. You know, where youonly see one thing, you know,
then you know something is goingon that is not healthy over a
longer period of time. You know.So, so, so there are things that
you can learn how to observeyourself. And I would think that
it's very easy to learn. Youknow, I don't even have to look
at the watch, and I knowexactly, roughly, exactly where,
(18:11):
where, where my heart rate is,you know. So because somehow you
you know your body, what, howthe body feels, you know when,
when the heart rate is outsideof the zone that you want it to
be in. It also requires acertain will to change. I mean,
certain will to first beconfronted with the realities,
which, unfortunately, veryoften. I mean, we kind of know
(18:32):
that something is not right, butin the we don't want to hear it,
because it inflicts stress onus, you know, but at the same
time, then, if you are notbrutally honest with yourself.
How often have you seen thatpeople have certain strange
habits? You know?
Adam Outland (18:47):
That feedback loop; I've interviewed numbers
of executives and leaders, andit's kind of a common feedback
when you arrive at a higherlevel of leadership is that the
honesty from your team candiminish because there's less of
incentive directly to the personto be directly honest with their
superior, right? How would yougo about moderating that risk
(19:08):
for those around you? Or howwould you go about making sure
the feedback was honest, even ifit's not always what you want to
hear?
Klaus Kleinfeld (19:16):
By the way, this is one of the big
differences when I was asked tomove into a leadership role here
in the US, for the first time,it's one of the big differences
between a German environment anda US environment the US. I mean,
if you as a CEO, start aconversation and want to want a
feedback from your team, it'svery interesting. The the team
(19:39):
very often does not offer offerfeedback. They ask you
questions. And I realize thatthe reason why in the US you
have that situation is simplybecause, in the US, if you want
to fire somebody, you know theperson is gone, literally, in a
minute. And whereas in Europeand Germany, particularly, you
know, you can't fire the personyou know you. Know, go through a
(20:00):
process, you know, becauseotherwise they sue you, you
know, and then talk with theunions. And so, in a way, the
perceived job security is, inthis case, is a positive, a
positive enforcer of they arenot, they are not afraid of
giving you feedback, even if thefeedback is against what they
(20:23):
think you want to hear, youknow, whereas here, there's more
an inclination to please, pleasethe boss. So it's it requires a
little bit more of an effort.And I would always do it in a
one on one and say, may I askyou to give me feedback, you
know? And and the and learn therule of feedback. And the rule
(20:43):
of feedback is you, you do notrespond to what the person says.
Your response is simply, thankyou for the feedback, and that's
it. If you draw a four by two bytwo, you know you basically you
say, what do you know aboutyourself and what do you not
know about yourself? And youhave the second one, what do
others know about you? And whatdo others not know about you?
(21:06):
And the interesting thing, thereis a an element there of
something that others know aboutyou that you don't know. So what
you do with feedback? You openthat window, and very often it's
these things that you you don'teven you don't even realize you
know. You've adopted somepractices, you've adopted some
language, you've adopted somesome evidence you know that, or
(21:29):
dress you know so that peopleinterpret in a certain way,
which was not your intention.And that's why it's so important
for learning. Just look at theNavy SEALs. I mean, they, after
mission was done, they wouldcriticize what didn't go well,
you know. And then they separatethe the feedback from the
(21:50):
person. They don't say you arean idiot. You didn't do, you
didn't didn't do, they will say,this went wrong. This went
wrong. It's clear whoseaccountability it is, you know,
but it's a mutual description ofhow can we get to better
performance. So brutal, honestfeedback cultures are the
fastest learning organizations,as long as it comes with an
(22:11):
understanding this is not aboutyou. This is about performance.
Adam Outland (22:15):
Yeah, so many good things here. Accountability
seems to be invited by topperformers. So for you know, an
executive that might belistening what you know, where
they find there's sometimesaccountability gaps for
themselves, right? How would youadvise them to seek
accountability for themselves?
Klaus Kleinfeld (22:35):
Yeah, I think in general, I believe, as we
just talked about feedback, Imean, you even in larger
organizations, to I would highlyrecommend that. And you can run
this multiple times of the year.It costs you nothing if you want
to have it, have a real fingeron the pulse if, particularly if
you're going through transitionphases, if you have made an
acquisition, you know, or youhave a major transformation
going through, you know. So Iwould highly recommend that, on
(22:57):
a personal level, I think veryoften people also don't
understand why this is soimportant. And it comes down to
what makes a great team. Youknow, will you be able? How will
you be able to make a greatteam? And accountability is one
of those five things that areessential. You know, if you want
a high performance team, theyare essential. And it starts
with trust. You know, that'sthat's the core. That's the
(23:19):
core. You have to have trustamong your core team, you know.
Secondly, we talked about this,what I call conflict, you know,
is you have to be willing tolive with conflict. By conflict
here, I mean, it's also verycritical feedback, you know. So
which many people interpret thatas conflict, you know, but
people have to have a capabilityof that commitment is, a big
(23:40):
thing, you know. And thenaccountability, you know, if
something goes wrong and you arecommitted and it's yours, it was
your work stream, you basicallysay, hey, look, I mean, I did
not do well in that moment, Iwill correct that. And last one
is basically the results. Andthat's also interesting me,
something that very often is notclear. You would not believe how
(24:01):
often I see when I ask mentors,CEOs, you know, and when I ask
CEOs who complain about thattheir team is not doing what
they think they're doing, andask them, explain to me, what
exactly do you want? Do you wantfrom them, you know? And
interestingly, I mean, then theygo into a rant, you know, it has
to be crystal clear. What is,what does winning look like? The
(24:25):
moment you know what winninglooks like, and you will you can
align the team around that'swhat winning looks like.
Adam Outland (24:31):
Wow, such a simple question to remember to ask your
team members to test.
Klaus Kleinfeld (24:37):
By the way, we didn't talk about purpose on the
energy side. I miss that. I meanpurposes, this thing on the
energy. It's a very interestingthing, because purpose does to
energy what laser does to light.You know, it basically focuses
the energy around one point. Andas you see, light is diffuse,
you know, it's nice. You know,the moment it becomes a laser,
(25:00):
it can cut through large walls.It can. And do anything, and
that's like, that's what purposedoes to energy the moment you
know what you want to achieve,what mission you want to do. You
know, all of your energy goes tothis one point. Visioning is a
great exercise. And in my book,I have a long chapter on
purpose, because a simpleconcept, yet a complicated
(25:22):
concept, you know, it's aconcept that the mankind has
struggled with as long as we exist.
Adam Outland (25:27):
What was your purpose? What was the purpose
that you landed on?
Klaus Kleinfeld (25:31):
That's the other thing. I mean, my purpose
also changed, you know, mypurpose changed. And, I mean,
and it's not just one purpose,it can be multiple purposes, you
know. So my purpose, clearly,has always been around. I want
to raise a lovely family andhave a great relationships with
my children, you know. And wantto have children, and want to
(25:52):
have a great relationship withmy children and also the family
of my my wife, you know, andwant to be a great husband at
the same time. I mean, when I'vebeen running large organizations
or even small ones, you know,the purpose was, I want to make
this successful. And I want tohelp people excel in here. The
people element also was alwaysthere. Those have been constant
(26:15):
elements of of the of thepurpose, you know. I mean, I
love it, I change it, or I leaveit, you know. So I Yes, I needed
work originally, you know, forfor making money, you know. But
I, even then, I lived by theprinciples, even then I
believed, you know, I want toget energy from it, and I want
to feel that it serves a goodpurpose for me.
Adam Outland (26:36):
So I love what you said, and this may, it's kind of
a great wrap up point. And ifyou've you've probably seen this
quote, but it's called themaster in the art of living. In
this description, he says, themaster and the art of living is
the person that makes it so hardto tell if he's working or
playing, because at the end ofthe day, he's always doing both.
Klaus Kleinfeld (26:54):
I like that. Yeah, wonderful.
Adam Outland (26:56):
So many good lessons in here. Klaus, I know
we could probably go for anotherhour, but I'll stay to our time.
The book was wonderful to do aninitial read through, and I'd
recommend it. Where can peoplefind and follow your your future
wisdom outside of what you've authored?
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:11):
I don't do much on social media. I do LinkedIn,
I mean, so my LinkedIn, LinkedInprofile, you find me on a Klaus
Kleinfeld, and I do write thesethings myself, and I do comment,
you comment also, and, yeah, so,and the book can be found on
Amazon, you know, and on manyother platforms. There's also an
audio book around it, you know,which I really like. I mean, I
(27:33):
didn't read it myself, but Ilike the guy who read it, and he
has a wonderful voice. I loveit. I really love it, you know.
Adam Outland (27:40):
So good, great knowledge today, and coming from
someone who grew up in the landof Haribo gum bears and
Beethoven, really glad to spendtime with you.
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:51):
Well Adam, wonderful pleasure. Yeah.
Adam Outland (27:53):
Thank you so much, Klaus.
Klaus Kleinfeld (27:54):
Thank you very much.
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