May 2, 2025 • 36 mins
The focal point of this episode centers around the inspiring journey of Ed, who transformed a tumultuous childhood marked by instability into a successful career in the corporate world. As we delve into Ed's life story, we uncover the principles that have guided him, including the critical role of gratitude and the importance of perseverance. Ed shares insights from his autobiography, which encapsulates the lessons learned throughout his extraordinary experiences. We explore the significance of mentorship and the impact of adhering to foundational values, which have propelled him forward despite the adversities he faced. This episode serves as a testament to the power of resilience and the potential for greatness that lies within each of us, irrespective of our beginnings.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:59):
Well, hello, everybody, andwelcome to another episode of the
Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am Jaclyn Strominger,
your host, and I have the mostamazing guest for you today. His
name is Ed. Hey, Jim, right?Can I get that right?
You got it. Right.
And okay. And so what, guys? Ijust, you know, listeners, I want
(01:23):
you to know Ed has had anabsolutely amazing career in the
corporate world, greatcompanies, financial services. He's
done a lot of amazing things.But really what he is doing right
now, he is sharing his storyand the principles and pieces of
(01:44):
knowledge that he has gainedfrom a very interesting childhood.
And he has written anautobiography and a amazing fable.
It's going to call it theislands of four. P.S. this is really,
really great because, youknow, with when you read a fable,
you actually really rememberthings because it's a story. This
(02:07):
is an amazing story as wellthat you will actually remember,
too. But it's start lessonsand we keep going. So I am so excited
to welcome Ed to the show tolearn a lot and hear about your principles,
your story and how it pertainsto leadership. So I know there are
going to be an amazing wealthof nuggets. So welcome.
(02:32):
So nice to be here. Thank youfor having me.
Oh, my God, it is such apleasure. So, you know, you know,
first when I was looking atyour bio, I was like, oh, my God.
I saw the, you know,University of Rochester. I looked
at where you, you know, wasreading your story, and there's so
many questions I could ask.But, you know, I really am just amazed
(02:52):
that you started, you know,three years old, you had something
crazy, tragic in a way happen.And I'm. And the biggest thing is,
well, tell us a little bitabout that. But how on earth did
you go down your. The path youwent on versus where some people
(03:17):
may have gone down a path ofdestruction, you went to a path of
success. And I just find thatjust so fantastic.
It's hard to define it. I'mgoing to write another book called
From Black Leather Jacket toIt to a Bronze Statue, but we'll
(03:40):
leave that one out. Thequestion you ask has been asked me
a number, number of times, andI really had a lot of thinking about
it because I was kidnapped bymy father at 3. And I spent my first
18 years in 15 or so differentplaces, including five foster homes,
spent the summer in the YMCAon 34th street, hotel in Coney island,
(04:00):
and then two orphanages. And,you know, at age 17 or 18, I became
a ward of the state. My fatherdisappeared completely Father's story
is a long one, and it wasn'this fault. So I'm not going to go
into that. But from there, Imean, I look back on those 18 years
and say, you know, why didn'tI make the wrong turn? And I made
(04:20):
the right turn. A couple ofthings along the way. There were
mentors, especially at thelast orphanage. But more importantly,
I was raised early on. Myfather had some principles, and although
he spent very little time withme, the letters which I kept had
messages. Cleanliness is nextto godliness. Always work hard. Always
do this, always do that. Butthen the second step was five Catholic
(04:44):
elementary schools where thenuns made it very clear that, you
know, there's a golden rule.And they put it out with the golden
rule. Or if you didn't payattention, they also, you know, said,
if you do the right things,you go to that good place. If you
go to the wrong things, you goto that other place. Then finally,
when I was a child, when youwent to the movies every Saturday
afternoon, there were heroes.They were complete heroes. So those
(05:05):
were the kind of three thingsthat said to me, there's a better
life out there. If I do theright thing, I'll get ahead. And
then I got a break. When Igraduated from high school, I had
no money at all. But thementor at the orphanage said, you
got to go to a privatecollege. I didn't know how I'd get
there. Didn't have manyscholarships in those days. And the
scholarship I thought I wouldget was a New York State scholarship.
(05:26):
I didn't get it, but I got theNRTC scholarship. And that gave me
the chance to go any place Iwanted to go or could get in. I wanted
to go to Cornell, but theysaid the NRTC scholarships is five
years. The Navy only paid forfour. Didn't know how to do it. So
I went to Rochester, which wasreally a third choice, and that was
my first real home. Andalthough the first year was very
(05:48):
tough because I. I didn't havethe right clothes, I got rejected
by all the fraternities and soforth. As I always say to people,
the food was better than thefood at the orphanage. And instead
of living with a bunch ofguys, I was living with one person.
So things were better. Andfrom there, I've lived the American
dream. And I feel biggestprinciple I have now today is gratitude.
(06:09):
I'm a very, very lucky person.If you describe my life today, I
had a really successfulbusiness career. I had a simultaneous
career in education, and Ihave the most important Thing I,
I've been married for 60 yearsnext August and I have three children.
Congratulations. That's huge.
No, that's huge. And you know,and, and what's her, her credit?
(06:32):
We have three children and wehave eight grandchildren. I have
seven grandsons. So you knowwhat, what I started with essentially
one. I now have 16. I'm withmy in laws. So it's, you know, I'm
a very lucky person. And I,that's why when I wrote this book
from Bo, first of all, when Igraduated from high school, I went
to college, I decided to burymy background. Wasn't going to tell
(06:53):
anybody. I didn't want anybodyto give me anything because of my
background. I was ashamed ofit. I didn't want any special privileges
for it. So this really. Mywife didn't know the whole story.
But in my 70s, when I becamethe chairman of the board of trustees
at Rochester, they wanted toknow more. And then my wife said
she wanted to know more. Andthen the kids came hard on and said,
you've got it. So I sat downand started to write it. And as I
(07:15):
started to write it, first ofall, I couldn't write my, my, my
childhood. My daughter, who'sa writer, wrote the first draft of
it. Once she got it done, Iwas able to. Just couldn't. There
were so many things I buriedthat I didn't want to remember. And
so, but I, when I startedright, I started to learn things
about it. Then I started tosay myself, you know, Lisa, maybe
community ideas I cancommunicate to other people. And
(07:37):
then when I said, when Ifinished the book, it took me four
ghostwriters. But when Ifinished the book, I sent it out
and 15 people asked to writeblurbs. They said, you cannot not
take this public. So apublisher came running in and said
he would publish it. And Ithought that would be great because
I had nothing else to do.Well, you know, publishers don't
do anything. You have to hirea publicist so you get a hold of
(07:58):
people like yourself. So Ihave a publicist now. The publisher
was good though, because hedid a brilliant job on the second
book at least it's a beautifulbook. He also introduced me to a
person who did the Audiblesand the Audibles are great. The second
book has six voices and youcan do it in about two and a half
hours. It really is. She gotrid of the, all of the work at the
end of each chapter, made it areal story all the way through. Now
(08:21):
one of my weaknesses, I shouldhave said this earlier is answering
short questions long. Mydaughter's at TED talks as a dad.
That's your problem. So I'mgoing to stop now and give it back
to you if I can.
No, it's, it's, it's actually,it's. It's so fascinating. So I want
to go back a few differentquestions. So at what age did you
(08:43):
say that you finally startedtelling your wife and your family
about your.
My wife knew. My wife knewmost of it, probably 75% of it, because
I saved all my letters for myfather. Okay. When he died, he saved
all the letters from me. Butwe. I really buried. And I didn't
want to talk about it. Well, Iwas, I was in my early 70s and, you
know, and, and then. ButHoratio Alger came along, finished
(09:05):
it off, and Rochester dug intoit because they had to tell a story.
But Horatio Alger came andsaid, you know, we really like to
become a Horatio Alger, youknow, member. And then I had to go
public with it. And one of myvideos is my going public with that,
telling the story to the, tothe world. I mean, I sat up to 1200
people and I, I told them mystory, and then they did a video
and it went public and soforth. So when I was out there and
(09:28):
once I got comfortable withit, you know, I really felt there
was a. You know, it'sinspirational. I mean, the kids say
my main. I have threemessages. Anything is possible. I'm
proof of that. Because I was arunt, too. I, I didn't. I wasn't
5ft or I didn't weigh 100pounds when I entered high school.
So I, I had all the problemsand, and, you know, anything's possible.
(09:50):
Education is the solution toeverything. That's my life. And the
last but not least is one ofmy. A lot of little Edisons, they
call them. Last one is neverbe a victim. Never be a victim. Because
the energy used in the victim,you need use on what's next. And
you're going to hear thiswhat's next to me a number of times
this evening because that'sthe answer to a lot of problems.
(10:13):
Take that energy. And it's noteasy to find out what's next. But
I have a couple of examples inmy life that I just, I wasn't. You
got to be a victim for acouple hours or days, but get rid
of that and focus on what'snext now. So those are. That's.
You can't dwell on thenegative. You cannot dwell on the
negative.
It doesn't do you any good ifit doesn't, you know. And I at points,
in times I could have probablymade up, made a point of really hurting
(10:34):
somebody who hurt me, notonward next, you know.
And, and so that's. Thatbrings me to my. Some of the kind
of key questions that arethings that really big ahas, because
I want you to share this. Yousaid like you did not fault your
(10:55):
father. And, and it's not. Anddon't and. And kind of staying in,
in the same place of, ofdon't, don't wallow in being the
victim mode. And I thinkthat's, you know, leaders. I really
want you to listen to thatbecause it's really big. So you did
not fault your father. And wasthere a point in time where you like
(11:20):
were like maybe a minute ofthe time we had a.
Break, a very bad break afterI got out of the Navy. Writing the
book has helped me not defaultmy father, but you know, he loved
me more than anything else.That's why he kidnapped me, my mother,
when they got divorced. And inhis letters was. He basically sent
me the message that in mymind, the one thing you give people
(11:41):
is unconditional love. Infact, there's a letter when I was
10 years old which I kept.It's in the book. Basically, I wrote
him a letter, said, dad, I'mnot as good a kid as you think. I
sometimes I'm a bad kid, youknow, because I had to convince him
because he would never. Icould do no wrong. So that, that
message also is one of thethings that sent me forward. But
also, you know, when I reflecton people's lives, it's got to be
(12:02):
contextual. So man was born in1900. At 14 years old, he went through
the Spanish flu. At 18, he wasin the First World War. Okay, then
the First World War, you know,a couple good years where he made
lots of money, became verysuccessful, then lost it all, then
went through the Depressionand the Second World War. And you
know, that that leaves verybig scars. And so, you know, he was
(12:27):
just unlucky. Unlike, unlikepeople today. The last 40 years have
been almost besides 9, 11 nonstop straight up. It's a different
period of history. Also he wasan immigrant and so on and so forth.
So, you know, and he did whathe could do and he tried hard. And
you know, he abandoned me whenI was 15 at the orphanage and I had
(12:47):
to become a ward of the state.And I didn't find out why until 50
years later when Tom Dewey,the Governor of New York's papers
came to Rochester. It's toolong a story to tell. But again,
it wasn't his fault. So I.Writing the book and studying the
thing, I found out that he didwhat he could do, and that's all
we can do, you know, And Ialso don't blame people. Excuse me.
(13:08):
That's true. We don't blamepeople. Right. We don't blame people.
So something that you saidthat I really kind of want to. Want
to bring out, and then I wantto talk about, you know, how we'll
talk about how this all kindof goes into leadership, too. But
you said lucky, and I. And Iwould say maybe not the right word,
because we create our ownluck. You create your own destiny,
(13:32):
and maybe things fell intoplace for you, but I also. So I kind
of want to get your take onthat. And what's.
What do you think the contextto me is? I was born in the right
time. I was born in the rightcountry, you know, and I got. I got
a break when I was at, youknow, I did study hard. I became
(13:52):
a varsity athlete and did wellin math and science and so forth.
But, you know, I went into myphysical for this. This. This scholarship.
And you had to weigh 125pounds, and I weighed 122 pounds,
and I ate three pounds ofbananas that morning. And I walked
in and got on a scale, and Ididn't make it. And the corpsman
says, you didn't make it? Isaid, I gotta make it. I have no
(14:13):
money. He said, okay, 125. Getout of here. So the luck, you know,
that this guy was willing topass me through, all right, you know,
or just going to the secondorphanage when I become a ward of
the state, they could havesent me to a reform school. Some
wonderful lady found anotherorphanage in Yonkers which was close
to a high school. And thathigh school, 80% of the kids went
(14:35):
to a private college. And Igot an epiphany then. This was my
ticket out of my predicament.These people are doing something
that shows me the way. Sothose are all, but also lucky. I
mean, we've been. America forthe last 40 years has been something
to behold. I mean, just simplethings. 1983, I became the chairman
(14:55):
and the managing partner of aninvestment bank. All right? The stock
market was 1,600. Today, it's45,000. So, you know, it's. That's.
The wind has been at my back,you know, that respect, so forth,
right? And so, you know, Imean, you could have, could have
messed it up. There's no twoways about that. People have, but
I mean, I feel you have tohave a certain amount of luck. And
(15:15):
in my book, you'll find out inthe chapter under plans. After all
the studying they do, theyspend an afternoon in a festival
where there's lots of games ofchance just to give that little extra.
You need that little extralittle bit of luck marrying the right
woman. I mean, you know, Imean, we always, Barbara and I kid
each other, so we didn't knoweach other that well. We were in
(15:37):
love. We didn't know eachother that well. And 60 years later,
I mean, I wouldn't be herewithout her. There's no two ways
about that. I mean, she's areal partner and my p for partner
P.1 is the most importantdecision you're going to make. Get
someone you can share yourlife with, someone who will support
you. And by the way, even inyour business life, my wife has a
much better sense for peoplethan I do. She can tell a bad, bad
(16:01):
guy from. And by the way, thenetwork of women that you're around,
you know, they know whensomething is wrong. And, you know,
it's, it's shocking. And Iwouldn't want to go into that, but
she, you know, some personthat I was getting very close to,
she said, shook her head andshe was dead. Right. And so I stayed
away. And that was very good.But that's, that's a whole process
you have to go through, Ithink. But I am, I've been lucky.
(16:24):
You can't, you just, you know,you, you don't go from where I was
to where I am today without alittle bit of luck, you know, or
a lot of luck.
Right? You know.
Yeah, but you do make your ownluck. I mean, I, I did, I did put
my head down at age 15 and Isaid, I'm going to a private college.
How do I get there? I'm goingto study and I'm going to work. I
worked after school too. It'snot same kind of thing. And, and
(16:46):
you know, and when I went to,went to graduate school, you know,
I didn't work. I borrowed allthe money to go to graduate school
because I felt in college Ididn't do that well. And the reason
I did that well is I'm workingin laundry in a post office, you
know, high boy hamburger. Ihad about seven jobs going at the
same time. And you know that,that took away from the studies in
(17:06):
some, Some expense, right?
No, that's it's veryinteresting. So you know, one of
the things, you know, and youjust, you said this and, and I want
to talk about the P's becauseyour P's align a lot with what I
think are really keyprinciples in leadership. You know,
I, I talk a lot about, youknow, leveraging that communication
and that communicationactually is what you say to yourself.
(17:30):
It's. And that what you say toyourself is your vision and your
mission. And you talk aboutyour passions and it's. And find
the things that excite andmotivate you. And so you know, and
you just said one of the mostimportant parts is partner too, as
one of the other P's. And Iwant to try to talk about those two
(17:51):
things because I'm a realbeliever that companies today need
to really look whether you'rethe CEO and you've got 100,000 employees
or you've got three employees.They're not employees. They're partners.
(18:16):
They're partners.
They're partners. And so Iwanted you to talk a little bit about,
you know, well.
That you, you've got it,you've got it nailed. You know, I,
I had, during my lifetime Ihad a particular period of my life
where I had three employeesand at Rochester I had 30. 30 or
40, 000 employees that I wasthe chairman. So I've had this whole,
(18:37):
my company Furman sells, whenwe sold finally at 800, started with
70 employees, ended up with800. So I've had this whole process
and getting back to that wholeleadership kind of. What's your passion?
Let me just give you the roadof my passion. When you're a teen,
you get a lot of passion. Youwant to be an astronaut and so forth.
But somewhere in your teenageyears you start to isolate your passion.
(18:59):
Passion is not overused word.It's your talents, your interests,
your likes, your dislike. Minein high school was math and science,
baseball and basketball andgirls, probably in the reverse order.
And then when I went tocollege that morphed first of all,
math and science morphed firstinto physics, which was a mistake,
and then into engineering.Okay. And the, the baseball and basketball
(19:22):
freshman year was over. Iwasn't going to be a professional
athlete. That morphed intoextracurricular activities and extracurriculars
really. I found my passion myjunior year taking organic and physical
chemistry. I started somethingcalled a humor magazine. Like I wanted
to get a look alike like theLampoon at Harvard because I thought
that Rochester was a placewhere fun went to die and you know,
(19:43):
I said, you know, I'm going tohave a little more humor. And everybody's
against. The president wasagainst it. The provost was against
it. The library was againstit. But I put 30 people together,
and I truly found my passion,looking back, was to put people together
to solve a problem, put peopletogether to create a product. And
inside that, there was anotherpassion, which I discovered 10, 15
(20:04):
years later, was I really gota kick out of helping people do better
than they thought they could.And that became a very big leadership
principle for me. Becausepeople. When young man came in about
10 or 15 years later when Iwas working, I was at the division,
he came in and said, Mr.Hazem, he said, I know why you're
successful. I said, what doyou mean? He says, because you really
(20:26):
want me to be better than Ireally think I am. And I copied that
down. And it's really one ofmy passion. And then, of course,
when you develop, youunderstand your passions, you say,
I've got to add principles tothat. And that principle there was,
what should I have on my wall?There's nothing that someone can't
do if he doesn't worry aboutwho gets the credit. You connect
that that's a leadershiptrait. People recognize that you're
(20:49):
not trying to take the credit.In fact, I added to that later on
in my life. A little bitlater, after I got enough credit,
I said, I started to deflectcredit. Every time someone said to
me, you've done a great job, Iwould say, no, no, I did okay. But
Mary sue and Jose, they did agreat job. Without them, I couldn't
do it. By the way, today'sworld, you'd never do anything alone
(21:10):
anyway. But when you do that,you get a trifecta. You feel good.
The person who's spoken to youis really a good guy. And when Mary
sue and Jose find out, theyfeel good. So those, what I call
transferring your passions anddeveloping your principles to basically
make those passions happen.And I love putting people together.
(21:31):
And then that, that there'sanother, other principle which I
found to be very, veryimportant, is give people as much
responsibility as you canpossibly do and leave them alone.
Because the only thing youhave greatest satisfaction in life
is doing something yourself,you know, you know, and then, and
then, then, then the two majorwords, there are two major words
(21:56):
are, are congratulate andcelebrate. Congratulate. Anytime
someone does something good,make sure you're there, Congratulation.
And then, if possible, if itreally lends itself to it, celebrate,
you know, and that that thoseare two. Those are managing techniques.
And the last one I want totell you is never tell anybody you're
(22:17):
the boss. Never use the wordCEO or managing partner. You're a
partner. You're just. And thenhe was fixed. And then, then you
have to have a littletechniques, which I always felt there's,
there are two goodies in beinga working company. One is money,
and the other is power. No,you can't have both. David Kearns
at Xerox taught me that, youknow, he was the boss, but he didn't
(22:41):
make the most money. He saidsome of my salesmen made more money
than I did. And at firm andsales, I worked for them for nearly
20 years. And in only one yearout of the 20 was I as the highest
paid player and all. I was amanaging partner the whole time.
And so there's a little, thoseare little things you do, you know,
And I found other people didit. Your question, which I'm answering
all your wonderful questions.But my, my, my question was everybody
(23:05):
has their own strategies basedon their personality and the business
situation. That doesn't workall the time. If you've got a really
ugly situation, you may haveto be the boss and go in and beat
people up and so on. And I didthat, you know, for some short period
of time when I had to turnLehman around, because I got there,
it was a mess. For first sixmonths there, I really, you know,
I really had to fire peopleand, and change things and so forth.
(23:27):
But as soon as I got some kindof rhythm, I went back to this concept
of getting people a feelingthat it's their company. And that's
another thing in my Furmansells, I, when we bought it back,
I distributed stock toEverybody. In fact, 200 shareholders.
And I, always kidding, Ididn't have to come to work in the
morning. They were pulling therock up the hill.
(23:48):
You know, something that youjust said, I think, I mean, there's
so many great little nuggetshere. And something that you said
that I just kind of, that,that really kind of hits home is
that. And I, I really want toapplaud you for it. And it's a key
takeaway, which is, you know,to not say, you know, to not quote,
unquote, always, like, putyourself at, like, I'm the boss.
(24:10):
But I would even say, evenduring the time when you may have
had to fire people, one of thekey things is that you recognize
in that you are a partner andyou recognize the people who are
not playing on the team andit's right. So it's not necessarily
the being the boss. It's maybemore being the captain. Like I'm
(24:31):
the captain of the team and Iget to find out who's not playing
in the sandbox the best way,so to speak. And we need to take
those people out of thesandbox and find them someplace else
where they can thrive. Andsometimes by doing that, you can
help somebody else be apartner someplace.
(24:52):
Else in your mind. In yourmind, you've got to take responsibility
when you're eliminatingsomeone to realize that at least
half your fault. If youbelieve that and let that person
know that. But this is, thisis my fault as well as yours. You
just don't feel back. There'sone of your answers here is that
one of the weaknesses of manymanagers is they can't do that. They
can't do it effectively. Wherethe person doesn't feel like, for
(25:16):
example, in 14, almost 20years at firm sales, I think I fired
two people, you know, quickly,the rest, everybody else was, this
is not going to work out.Let's go find you another job. I'll
write your recommendation. Youknow, and supervisor and I got together,
we try to find this personanother job because really it is
yours. When you hire someone,it's your responsibility. If they
(25:37):
don't fit, you know, it's yourfault, you know, you've made a mistake
and it's not fair to blame them.
And that's a key thing. Andthat goes back, I think, also to
the principles that if youknow both. Both principles, values,
how you want to describe it? Ikind of put the principles and values
together. But if you know yourprinciples and you know the principles
of your company and the valuesthat you have, and you can bring
(25:59):
people in, let's say, like thetop five values, they may not all
be in the same order, butmaybe the top five, you know, somebody
might have leadership andwhatever, but roughly those same
five somewhere in their mix,they could be a great fit. If they
don't have those and you don'trecognize it, then yes. Right. Then
(26:21):
it's like, you know what? Youwere not the right fit. My fault
for not realizing that, let'sfind you someplace else. And. Or
if you are, and I like to lookat, think of it in terms of a team
within a company, whether it'sif you're leading marketing versus
operations versus accounting,whatever, maybe that person has the
(26:44):
values better fit with theaccounting guy or the marketing person.
Right.
So that's your job.
Right.
See, see, I had A boss whobasically didn't believe that at
Lehman Brothers he would firepeople. Just fire this. One of the
guys. In the morning I camein, I said, where is Lou? He's this
other guy. He said, LouGluckman fired him this morning.
(27:06):
He told me, get clean out hisdesk. Guy had 11 children. I wanted
to say, what are you doing?You know, but he taught me that was
not the way to do it. And, youknow, other people that I'd come
in contact, you know, this is.And by the way, it costs you so little
because what happens if youdon't treat people right all of a
sudden? If you're in abusiness, a long period of time,
you've got a lot of badpeople, people badmouthing you out
(27:28):
there. But if you find youhelp people along the way, they say,
you know, Ed did. He let mego. But, you know, I. He treated
me right. And that. That wasvery important. These are sort of
management techniques that Ithink are very, very vital in today's
world because it's really asmall place. But that concept, you
got to act, you will hire someincorrectly, or the company will
change, too. That's anotherproblem in today's world, I tell
(27:50):
young people, is that you'regoing to have to pivot a number of
times because the world'sgoing to change. And when everybody
says, give me an example. Iused to have black records, then
cassettes, then discs, and nowI have this. And think about being
in that business all the waythrough. If you stayed with it, you're
dead. You know, that's the.That's the answer. Your major question
(28:12):
here is, is, you know, whatare the biggest blind spots for.
For executives? And it'swhat's next? I mean, I. No matter
what I have been in all mylife, even myself, we go away on
Christmas time and we sit downand say, what's next? But, you know,
in my company, I make surethat every year we do something different
and new. And, you know, mostpeople get stuck. And I. There's
(28:33):
some brilliant examples. Kodakis one. When things are too good,
you just can't do what's next.And, you know, I was at EF Hutton,
and I ran. He hired me to runthe institutional business. It was
a retail firm, a wonderfulretail firm. Super. In fact, it was
the best retail firm in theUnited States. Better than Merrill
lynch at that time. And theywere really at carriage trade. Wonderful.
(28:54):
He needed an institutionalpartner. He didn't want it very big.
I didn't know that. Hired meto institutional Business. I got
it going. It was going greatguns. He said, okay, now you're done.
You can run the instituteretail business. That was a really
big job. That was, that waswonderful. I said, you don't understand.
The way the business is goingis institutional is going to become
someday more important thanretail. He said, no, you don't understand.
(29:16):
And so I had to leave Huttonbecause he didn't look at what's
next. And then five yearslater, he was gone because the institutional
business became the majorbusiness. Lehman Brothers at the
time was building a tradingroom with 400 seats in it. And it
said, we're going to takeadvantage of what's coming. So I
had to move in that direction.And I think everything you do, I
mean, I'm the lead director inthe golf club. And every year I say,
(29:40):
what are we going to do?What's next? This year we're redoing
the pergola in front of theclub and so forth.
So how do you think companiesfind what's next? Or how do leaders
find what's next?
First of all, your team. I hada requirement that every day at 4:00,
(30:01):
we'd sit around a round table.That was one of my secrets of making
everybody equal. Have a roundtable in the conference room. So
there was no head at thetable. That was very important. No.
But your team, you send themessage to them and you spend time
thinking about what I call thedrivers. The economy, demographics,
(30:26):
geography, Most important,technology. They're drivers. Keep
looking. Drivers. You should.And if you're, if you have enough
money and you're a largeenough company, you should have an
outside service that keepstelling you what the big trends are.
But your trends really comefrom your people. You ask each person
in each of their divisions,you know, what's. Who, what are your
competitors doing really well,you know, what would, what could
(30:46):
you do to make, you know, takethe next step? What, what takes you
to the next level? These arekind of words you use with people.
And I think that's whathappens. And it is a. You, you do.
You do it weekly. Like, I didit in a very mild manner. And then
kind of on a quarterly basisor some periodic basis, you do it
in depth. You actually go, gosomeplace in a hotel room and you
(31:07):
sit around with a whiteboardand you, you brainstorm and you do
that. I do that personallyevery Christmas with my family. And
we have, you know, we go on aboat. It's great about a boat. I
love giving, giving advice to,to families. I said, you Know, you
go on a boat. What's greatabout a boat is at night, guess what?
Kids can't get away. Hotel,they're gone, you know, skiing, they're
(31:32):
gone. Boat, they're stuck. Andyou know, for years our kid, we went
down the British VirginIslands with little tiny boat at
the beginning and now a biggerboat. So no, but this is, this what's
next has to be a formalexperience. And, and you gotta, you
gotta also this is one of theearly things that I very important
failure is okay. In fact, Iwant to. You asked the question of
(31:53):
how do I handle failure? Earlyfailure is a gift you get in your
life, I'm saying, but you alsogot to contribute to your guys. That
the fact if you fail, it'sokay if you, if you're taking a shot.
The. We all think it's apretty good idea. We're all in it
together. You know, my boardmeeting used to be like a Quaker
meeting where guys would standup and say, I need some help. And
(32:14):
the guys will all help eachother. You know, because we were
a small firm and we werecompeting against a lot of big guys.
But what's next is it's aprocess and it's not one of these
long term planning things somuch. It's little steps. Little,
tiny. I'm going to add alittle of this, you know, I'm going
to do this, I'm going to hirea salesman to cover this little new
area. You know, so it's littlesteps. You know, this business about
(32:37):
a long journey starts with asmall step is, you know, it's a cliche,
but it really is true.
And each person, you know, andI, I talk about, I talk about something
called two steps to. Yes. Andtwo steps is basically because one
step doesn't get you anywhere.Two steps create starts creating
the momentum. But you have to,you have to be taking those two little
(32:59):
steps and they get to bebigger and bigger and bigger.
Automatically gives you achance to take a second step. Right?
So the interesting thing isthat, and I think this is really,
really important for ourlisteners, you know, when we're talking
about leadership, somethingthat I really want to make sure that
you. We've talked about this,but I want to really kind of hit
(33:22):
it home is that you need tolisten, you need to, to get to that
next and find out what's next.You need to keep your ears open.
You need to be listening toyour team and your partners. Your
partners need to be listeningto your customers and your clients.
(33:42):
And you need to keep Your earsopen. Because you will. If your ears
are clogged and you're. Yougot them, you're not listening, you're
going to miss.
It may be the most importantword I use that also, people ask
me, how did you spend 60years? How did you stay sick, married
for 60 years? And I said oneword. Listen. No, no, no. And the
(34:04):
same thing there. You got tolisten. Especially the head. The
head person. You got tolisten. Because if you start putting
things out, you don't know howthose are accepted. But when people
come to you with stuff, youknow, you know, if you agree with
it, you're on your way. Butyou have to listen. Absolutely. I
mean, I think when a personsays to me, how do you. I say, how
do you stay married? Becausepeople change, systems change. And
(34:26):
if you don't listen to thatchange, you will get left behind.
You'll be a stranger in yourfamily and you'll be a stranger in
your job if you don't listen.I. You've hit it on the head. You
don't need me.
Oh, my God. And I could talkto you forever. So how can people
find you? You've got. I'll putlinks to the books. You got to make
(34:46):
sure I give me links to thebook so people can get these. Seriously.
I was reading. I was sittingdown yesterday, started to read this
one and I got like, probablyhalfway through it and I'm like,
God, this is really good. AndI had a. Didn't get to finish it
last night. And I cannot waitto read this. I read a parts of the
synopsis, but really, reallygreat. So where can people find you?
(35:08):
How.
You know, they named theengineering school after me at the
University of Rochester. And Ialways say I love that because kids
have to pronounce my namecorrectly. Having an unusual name
is wonderful because if youpunch in Ed Hadron into Amazon, you
get my two books. If you punchwww.edhedrom.com into Google, you
end up getting a very robust.Which is, I give my publicist credit,
(35:31):
very robust website. Andthat's, you know, tells the whole
story. In fact, I don't liketo put people on my website because
they don't have to read thebooks then.
All right, so go to Amazon,get the books and get. Download them.
Download them. Audible so youcan listen to them.
Audible. Audible. The. The.There's six voices in the the. And
(35:53):
the guy who did the, theywanted me to do. To read the first
my autobiography, but I did.It took me two hours to do eight
minutes. And so I got somebodythat actually, it sounds like me.
And he's, he's quite good. Andwe had a lot in common. His father
and I both, you know, were inthe Navy. Both, both engineers and
so forth and so on.
Oh, well, that is fantastic.So listeners, I hope you get these
(36:16):
books. I hope you taken somegreat nuggets. And from today's episode,
you have to understand thatleadership, you know, if you're looking
at it from the standpoint ofwhat you can learn from this, think
about those P's, passions,principles, partners and plans. It
is really important, reallyimportant. And then, and I'm just
(36:39):
going to add in there, add theL in there, make sure that you're
listening. So I really, reallywant you to add that in there. I
don't know what cancel. So Ican't spell ear or listen with a
P. So otherwise I would. So,Ed, thank you for being a guest.
This is the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast. If
you have love this, please hitsubscribe. And please share this
(37:03):
with your friends andcolleagues. Our goal is to make better
leaders great leaders outthere and great leaders makes a greater
world. So thank you so muchfor listening and thank you, Ed,
once again for being anamazing guest.
Thank you very much. Amen.
Well, hello, everybody, andwelcome to another episode of the
Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am Jaclyn Strominger,
your host, and I have the mostamazing guest for you today. His
name is Ed. Hey, Jim, right?Can I get that right?
You got it. Right.
And okay. And so what, guys? Ijust, you know, listeners, I want
(01:23):
you to know Ed has had anabsolutely amazing career in the
corporate world, greatcompanies, financial services. He's
done a lot of amazing things.But really what he is doing right
now, he is sharing his storyand the principles and pieces of
(01:44):
knowledge that he has gainedfrom a very interesting childhood.
And he has written anautobiography and a amazing fable.
It's going to call it theislands of four. P.S. this is really,
really great because, youknow, with when you read a fable,
you actually really rememberthings because it's a story. This
(02:07):
is an amazing story as wellthat you will actually remember,
too. But it's start lessonsand we keep going. So I am so excited
to welcome Ed to the show tolearn a lot and hear about your principles,
your story and how it pertainsto leadership. So I know there are
going to be an amazing wealthof nuggets. So welcome.
(02:32):
So nice to be here. Thank youfor having me.
Oh, my God, it is such apleasure. So, you know, you know,
first when I was looking atyour bio, I was like, oh, my God.
I saw the, you know,University of Rochester. I looked
at where you, you know, wasreading your story, and there's so
many questions I could ask.But, you know, I really am just amazed
(02:52):
that you started, you know,three years old, you had something
crazy, tragic in a way happen.And I'm. And the biggest thing is,
well, tell us a little bitabout that. But how on earth did
you go down your. The path youwent on versus where some people
(03:17):
may have gone down a path ofdestruction, you went to a path of
success. And I just find thatjust so fantastic.
It's hard to define it. I'mgoing to write another book called
From Black Leather Jacket toIt to a Bronze Statue, but we'll
(03:40):
leave that one out. Thequestion you ask has been asked me
a number, number of times, andI really had a lot of thinking about
it because I was kidnapped bymy father at 3. And I spent my first
18 years in 15 or so differentplaces, including five foster homes,
spent the summer in the YMCAon 34th street, hotel in Coney island,
(04:00):
and then two orphanages. And,you know, at age 17 or 18, I became
a ward of the state. My fatherdisappeared completely Father's story
is a long one, and it wasn'this fault. So I'm not going to go
into that. But from there, Imean, I look back on those 18 years
and say, you know, why didn'tI make the wrong turn? And I made
(04:20):
the right turn. A couple ofthings along the way. There were
mentors, especially at thelast orphanage. But more importantly,
I was raised early on. Myfather had some principles, and although
he spent very little time withme, the letters which I kept had
messages. Cleanliness is nextto godliness. Always work hard. Always
do this, always do that. Butthen the second step was five Catholic
(04:44):
elementary schools where thenuns made it very clear that, you
know, there's a golden rule.And they put it out with the golden
rule. Or if you didn't payattention, they also, you know, said,
if you do the right things,you go to that good place. If you
go to the wrong things, you goto that other place. Then finally,
when I was a child, when youwent to the movies every Saturday
afternoon, there were heroes.They were complete heroes. So those
(05:05):
were the kind of three thingsthat said to me, there's a better
life out there. If I do theright thing, I'll get ahead. And
then I got a break. When Igraduated from high school, I had
no money at all. But thementor at the orphanage said, you
got to go to a privatecollege. I didn't know how I'd get
there. Didn't have manyscholarships in those days. And the
scholarship I thought I wouldget was a New York State scholarship.
(05:26):
I didn't get it, but I got theNRTC scholarship. And that gave me
the chance to go any place Iwanted to go or could get in. I wanted
to go to Cornell, but theysaid the NRTC scholarships is five
years. The Navy only paid forfour. Didn't know how to do it. So
I went to Rochester, which wasreally a third choice, and that was
my first real home. Andalthough the first year was very
(05:48):
tough because I. I didn't havethe right clothes, I got rejected
by all the fraternities and soforth. As I always say to people,
the food was better than thefood at the orphanage. And instead
of living with a bunch ofguys, I was living with one person.
So things were better. Andfrom there, I've lived the American
dream. And I feel biggestprinciple I have now today is gratitude.
(06:09):
I'm a very, very lucky person.If you describe my life today, I
had a really successfulbusiness career. I had a simultaneous
career in education, and Ihave the most important Thing I,
I've been married for 60 yearsnext August and I have three children.
Congratulations. That's huge.
No, that's huge. And you know,and, and what's her, her credit?
(06:32):
We have three children and wehave eight grandchildren. I have
seven grandsons. So you knowwhat, what I started with essentially
one. I now have 16. I'm withmy in laws. So it's, you know, I'm
a very lucky person. And I,that's why when I wrote this book
from Bo, first of all, when Igraduated from high school, I went
to college, I decided to burymy background. Wasn't going to tell
(06:53):
anybody. I didn't want anybodyto give me anything because of my
background. I was ashamed ofit. I didn't want any special privileges
for it. So this really. Mywife didn't know the whole story.
But in my 70s, when I becamethe chairman of the board of trustees
at Rochester, they wanted toknow more. And then my wife said
she wanted to know more. Andthen the kids came hard on and said,
you've got it. So I sat downand started to write it. And as I
(07:15):
started to write it, first ofall, I couldn't write my, my, my
childhood. My daughter, who'sa writer, wrote the first draft of
it. Once she got it done, Iwas able to. Just couldn't. There
were so many things I buriedthat I didn't want to remember. And
so, but I, when I startedright, I started to learn things
about it. Then I started tosay myself, you know, Lisa, maybe
community ideas I cancommunicate to other people. And
(07:37):
then when I said, when Ifinished the book, it took me four
ghostwriters. But when Ifinished the book, I sent it out
and 15 people asked to writeblurbs. They said, you cannot not
take this public. So apublisher came running in and said
he would publish it. And Ithought that would be great because
I had nothing else to do.Well, you know, publishers don't
do anything. You have to hirea publicist so you get a hold of
(07:58):
people like yourself. So Ihave a publicist now. The publisher
was good though, because hedid a brilliant job on the second
book at least it's a beautifulbook. He also introduced me to a
person who did the Audiblesand the Audibles are great. The second
book has six voices and youcan do it in about two and a half
hours. It really is. She gotrid of the, all of the work at the
end of each chapter, made it areal story all the way through. Now
(08:21):
one of my weaknesses, I shouldhave said this earlier is answering
short questions long. Mydaughter's at TED talks as a dad.
That's your problem. So I'mgoing to stop now and give it back
to you if I can.
No, it's, it's, it's actually,it's. It's so fascinating. So I want
to go back a few differentquestions. So at what age did you
(08:43):
say that you finally startedtelling your wife and your family
about your.
My wife knew. My wife knewmost of it, probably 75% of it, because
I saved all my letters for myfather. Okay. When he died, he saved
all the letters from me. Butwe. I really buried. And I didn't
want to talk about it. Well, Iwas, I was in my early 70s and, you
know, and, and then. ButHoratio Alger came along, finished
(09:05):
it off, and Rochester dug intoit because they had to tell a story.
But Horatio Alger came andsaid, you know, we really like to
become a Horatio Alger, youknow, member. And then I had to go
public with it. And one of myvideos is my going public with that,
telling the story to the, tothe world. I mean, I sat up to 1200
people and I, I told them mystory, and then they did a video
and it went public and soforth. So when I was out there and
(09:28):
once I got comfortable withit, you know, I really felt there
was a. You know, it'sinspirational. I mean, the kids say
my main. I have threemessages. Anything is possible. I'm
proof of that. Because I was arunt, too. I, I didn't. I wasn't
5ft or I didn't weigh 100pounds when I entered high school.
So I, I had all the problemsand, and, you know, anything's possible.
(09:50):
Education is the solution toeverything. That's my life. And the
last but not least is one ofmy. A lot of little Edisons, they
call them. Last one is neverbe a victim. Never be a victim. Because
the energy used in the victim,you need use on what's next. And
you're going to hear thiswhat's next to me a number of times
this evening because that'sthe answer to a lot of problems.
(10:13):
Take that energy. And it's noteasy to find out what's next. But
I have a couple of examples inmy life that I just, I wasn't. You
got to be a victim for acouple hours or days, but get rid
of that and focus on what'snext now. So those are. That's.
You can't dwell on thenegative. You cannot dwell on the
negative.
It doesn't do you any good ifit doesn't, you know. And I at points,
in times I could have probablymade up, made a point of really hurting
(10:34):
somebody who hurt me, notonward next, you know.
And, and so that's. Thatbrings me to my. Some of the kind
of key questions that arethings that really big ahas, because
I want you to share this. Yousaid like you did not fault your
(10:55):
father. And, and it's not. Anddon't and. And kind of staying in,
in the same place of, ofdon't, don't wallow in being the
victim mode. And I thinkthat's, you know, leaders. I really
want you to listen to thatbecause it's really big. So you did
not fault your father. And wasthere a point in time where you like
(11:20):
were like maybe a minute ofthe time we had a.
Break, a very bad break afterI got out of the Navy. Writing the
book has helped me not defaultmy father, but you know, he loved
me more than anything else.That's why he kidnapped me, my mother,
when they got divorced. And inhis letters was. He basically sent
me the message that in mymind, the one thing you give people
(11:41):
is unconditional love. Infact, there's a letter when I was
10 years old which I kept.It's in the book. Basically, I wrote
him a letter, said, dad, I'mnot as good a kid as you think. I
sometimes I'm a bad kid, youknow, because I had to convince him
because he would never. Icould do no wrong. So that, that
message also is one of thethings that sent me forward. But
also, you know, when I reflecton people's lives, it's got to be
(12:02):
contextual. So man was born in1900. At 14 years old, he went through
the Spanish flu. At 18, he wasin the First World War. Okay, then
the First World War, you know,a couple good years where he made
lots of money, became verysuccessful, then lost it all, then
went through the Depressionand the Second World War. And you
know, that that leaves verybig scars. And so, you know, he was
(12:27):
just unlucky. Unlike, unlikepeople today. The last 40 years have
been almost besides 9, 11 nonstop straight up. It's a different
period of history. Also he wasan immigrant and so on and so forth.
So, you know, and he did whathe could do and he tried hard. And
you know, he abandoned me whenI was 15 at the orphanage and I had
(12:47):
to become a ward of the state.And I didn't find out why until 50
years later when Tom Dewey,the Governor of New York's papers
came to Rochester. It's toolong a story to tell. But again,
it wasn't his fault. So I.Writing the book and studying the
thing, I found out that he didwhat he could do, and that's all
we can do, you know, And Ialso don't blame people. Excuse me.
(13:08):
That's true. We don't blamepeople. Right. We don't blame people.
So something that you saidthat I really kind of want to. Want
to bring out, and then I wantto talk about, you know, how we'll
talk about how this all kindof goes into leadership, too. But
you said lucky, and I. And Iwould say maybe not the right word,
because we create our ownluck. You create your own destiny,
(13:32):
and maybe things fell intoplace for you, but I also. So I kind
of want to get your take onthat. And what's.
What do you think the contextto me is? I was born in the right
time. I was born in the rightcountry, you know, and I got. I got
a break when I was at, youknow, I did study hard. I became
(13:52):
a varsity athlete and did wellin math and science and so forth.
But, you know, I went into myphysical for this. This. This scholarship.
And you had to weigh 125pounds, and I weighed 122 pounds,
and I ate three pounds ofbananas that morning. And I walked
in and got on a scale, and Ididn't make it. And the corpsman
says, you didn't make it? Isaid, I gotta make it. I have no
(14:13):
money. He said, okay, 125. Getout of here. So the luck, you know,
that this guy was willing topass me through, all right, you know,
or just going to the secondorphanage when I become a ward of
the state, they could havesent me to a reform school. Some
wonderful lady found anotherorphanage in Yonkers which was close
to a high school. And thathigh school, 80% of the kids went
(14:35):
to a private college. And Igot an epiphany then. This was my
ticket out of my predicament.These people are doing something
that shows me the way. Sothose are all, but also lucky. I
mean, we've been. America forthe last 40 years has been something
to behold. I mean, just simplethings. 1983, I became the chairman
(14:55):
and the managing partner of aninvestment bank. All right? The stock
market was 1,600. Today, it's45,000. So, you know, it's. That's.
The wind has been at my back,you know, that respect, so forth,
right? And so, you know, Imean, you could have, could have
messed it up. There's no twoways about that. People have, but
I mean, I feel you have tohave a certain amount of luck. And
(15:15):
in my book, you'll find out inthe chapter under plans. After all
the studying they do, theyspend an afternoon in a festival
where there's lots of games ofchance just to give that little extra.
You need that little extralittle bit of luck marrying the right
woman. I mean, you know, Imean, we always, Barbara and I kid
each other, so we didn't knoweach other that well. We were in
(15:37):
love. We didn't know eachother that well. And 60 years later,
I mean, I wouldn't be herewithout her. There's no two ways
about that. I mean, she's areal partner and my p for partner
P.1 is the most importantdecision you're going to make. Get
someone you can share yourlife with, someone who will support
you. And by the way, even inyour business life, my wife has a
much better sense for peoplethan I do. She can tell a bad, bad
(16:01):
guy from. And by the way, thenetwork of women that you're around,
you know, they know whensomething is wrong. And, you know,
it's, it's shocking. And Iwouldn't want to go into that, but
she, you know, some personthat I was getting very close to,
she said, shook her head andshe was dead. Right. And so I stayed
away. And that was very good.But that's, that's a whole process
you have to go through, Ithink. But I am, I've been lucky.
(16:24):
You can't, you just, you know,you, you don't go from where I was
to where I am today without alittle bit of luck, you know, or
a lot of luck.
Right? You know.
Yeah, but you do make your ownluck. I mean, I, I did, I did put
my head down at age 15 and Isaid, I'm going to a private college.
How do I get there? I'm goingto study and I'm going to work. I
worked after school too. It'snot same kind of thing. And, and
(16:46):
you know, and when I went to,went to graduate school, you know,
I didn't work. I borrowed allthe money to go to graduate school
because I felt in college Ididn't do that well. And the reason
I did that well is I'm workingin laundry in a post office, you
know, high boy hamburger. Ihad about seven jobs going at the
same time. And you know that,that took away from the studies in
(17:06):
some, Some expense, right?
No, that's it's veryinteresting. So you know, one of
the things, you know, and youjust, you said this and, and I want
to talk about the P's becauseyour P's align a lot with what I
think are really keyprinciples in leadership. You know,
I, I talk a lot about, youknow, leveraging that communication
and that communicationactually is what you say to yourself.
(17:30):
It's. And that what you say toyourself is your vision and your
mission. And you talk aboutyour passions and it's. And find
the things that excite andmotivate you. And so you know, and
you just said one of the mostimportant parts is partner too, as
one of the other P's. And Iwant to try to talk about those two
(17:51):
things because I'm a realbeliever that companies today need
to really look whether you'rethe CEO and you've got 100,000 employees
or you've got three employees.They're not employees. They're partners.
(18:16):
They're partners.
They're partners. And so Iwanted you to talk a little bit about,
you know, well.
That you, you've got it,you've got it nailed. You know, I,
I had, during my lifetime Ihad a particular period of my life
where I had three employeesand at Rochester I had 30. 30 or
40, 000 employees that I wasthe chairman. So I've had this whole,
(18:37):
my company Furman sells, whenwe sold finally at 800, started with
70 employees, ended up with800. So I've had this whole process
and getting back to that wholeleadership kind of. What's your passion?
Let me just give you the roadof my passion. When you're a teen,
you get a lot of passion. Youwant to be an astronaut and so forth.
But somewhere in your teenageyears you start to isolate your passion.
(18:59):
Passion is not overused word.It's your talents, your interests,
your likes, your dislike. Minein high school was math and science,
baseball and basketball andgirls, probably in the reverse order.
And then when I went tocollege that morphed first of all,
math and science morphed firstinto physics, which was a mistake,
and then into engineering.Okay. And the, the baseball and basketball
(19:22):
freshman year was over. Iwasn't going to be a professional
athlete. That morphed intoextracurricular activities and extracurriculars
really. I found my passion myjunior year taking organic and physical
chemistry. I started somethingcalled a humor magazine. Like I wanted
to get a look alike like theLampoon at Harvard because I thought
that Rochester was a placewhere fun went to die and you know,
(19:43):
I said, you know, I'm going tohave a little more humor. And everybody's
against. The president wasagainst it. The provost was against
it. The library was againstit. But I put 30 people together,
and I truly found my passion,looking back, was to put people together
to solve a problem, put peopletogether to create a product. And
inside that, there was anotherpassion, which I discovered 10, 15
(20:04):
years later, was I really gota kick out of helping people do better
than they thought they could.And that became a very big leadership
principle for me. Becausepeople. When young man came in about
10 or 15 years later when Iwas working, I was at the division,
he came in and said, Mr.Hazem, he said, I know why you're
successful. I said, what doyou mean? He says, because you really
(20:26):
want me to be better than Ireally think I am. And I copied that
down. And it's really one ofmy passion. And then, of course,
when you develop, youunderstand your passions, you say,
I've got to add principles tothat. And that principle there was,
what should I have on my wall?There's nothing that someone can't
do if he doesn't worry aboutwho gets the credit. You connect
that that's a leadershiptrait. People recognize that you're
(20:49):
not trying to take the credit.In fact, I added to that later on
in my life. A little bitlater, after I got enough credit,
I said, I started to deflectcredit. Every time someone said to
me, you've done a great job, Iwould say, no, no, I did okay. But
Mary sue and Jose, they did agreat job. Without them, I couldn't
do it. By the way, today'sworld, you'd never do anything alone
(21:10):
anyway. But when you do that,you get a trifecta. You feel good.
The person who's spoken to youis really a good guy. And when Mary
sue and Jose find out, theyfeel good. So those, what I call
transferring your passions anddeveloping your principles to basically
make those passions happen.And I love putting people together.
(21:31):
And then that, that there'sanother, other principle which I
found to be very, veryimportant, is give people as much
responsibility as you canpossibly do and leave them alone.
Because the only thing youhave greatest satisfaction in life
is doing something yourself,you know, you know, and then, and
then, then, then the two majorwords, there are two major words
(21:56):
are, are congratulate andcelebrate. Congratulate. Anytime
someone does something good,make sure you're there, Congratulation.
And then, if possible, if itreally lends itself to it, celebrate,
you know, and that that thoseare two. Those are managing techniques.
And the last one I want totell you is never tell anybody you're
(22:17):
the boss. Never use the wordCEO or managing partner. You're a
partner. You're just. And thenhe was fixed. And then, then you
have to have a littletechniques, which I always felt there's,
there are two goodies in beinga working company. One is money,
and the other is power. No,you can't have both. David Kearns
at Xerox taught me that, youknow, he was the boss, but he didn't
(22:41):
make the most money. He saidsome of my salesmen made more money
than I did. And at firm andsales, I worked for them for nearly
20 years. And in only one yearout of the 20 was I as the highest
paid player and all. I was amanaging partner the whole time.
And so there's a little, thoseare little things you do, you know,
And I found other people didit. Your question, which I'm answering
all your wonderful questions.But my, my, my question was everybody
(23:05):
has their own strategies basedon their personality and the business
situation. That doesn't workall the time. If you've got a really
ugly situation, you may haveto be the boss and go in and beat
people up and so on. And I didthat, you know, for some short period
of time when I had to turnLehman around, because I got there,
it was a mess. For first sixmonths there, I really, you know,
I really had to fire peopleand, and change things and so forth.
(23:27):
But as soon as I got some kindof rhythm, I went back to this concept
of getting people a feelingthat it's their company. And that's
another thing in my Furmansells, I, when we bought it back,
I distributed stock toEverybody. In fact, 200 shareholders.
And I, always kidding, Ididn't have to come to work in the
morning. They were pulling therock up the hill.
(23:48):
You know, something that youjust said, I think, I mean, there's
so many great little nuggetshere. And something that you said
that I just kind of, that,that really kind of hits home is
that. And I, I really want toapplaud you for it. And it's a key
takeaway, which is, you know,to not say, you know, to not quote,
unquote, always, like, putyourself at, like, I'm the boss.
(24:10):
But I would even say, evenduring the time when you may have
had to fire people, one of thekey things is that you recognize
in that you are a partner andyou recognize the people who are
not playing on the team andit's right. So it's not necessarily
the being the boss. It's maybemore being the captain. Like I'm
(24:31):
the captain of the team and Iget to find out who's not playing
in the sandbox the best way,so to speak. And we need to take
those people out of thesandbox and find them someplace else
where they can thrive. Andsometimes by doing that, you can
help somebody else be apartner someplace.
(24:52):
Else in your mind. In yourmind, you've got to take responsibility
when you're eliminatingsomeone to realize that at least
half your fault. If youbelieve that and let that person
know that. But this is, thisis my fault as well as yours. You
just don't feel back. There'sone of your answers here is that
one of the weaknesses of manymanagers is they can't do that. They
can't do it effectively. Wherethe person doesn't feel like, for
(25:16):
example, in 14, almost 20years at firm sales, I think I fired
two people, you know, quickly,the rest, everybody else was, this
is not going to work out.Let's go find you another job. I'll
write your recommendation. Youknow, and supervisor and I got together,
we try to find this personanother job because really it is
yours. When you hire someone,it's your responsibility. If they
(25:37):
don't fit, you know, it's yourfault, you know, you've made a mistake
and it's not fair to blame them.
And that's a key thing. Andthat goes back, I think, also to
the principles that if youknow both. Both principles, values,
how you want to describe it? Ikind of put the principles and values
together. But if you know yourprinciples and you know the principles
of your company and the valuesthat you have, and you can bring
(25:59):
people in, let's say, like thetop five values, they may not all
be in the same order, butmaybe the top five, you know, somebody
might have leadership andwhatever, but roughly those same
five somewhere in their mix,they could be a great fit. If they
don't have those and you don'trecognize it, then yes. Right. Then
(26:21):
it's like, you know what? Youwere not the right fit. My fault
for not realizing that, let'sfind you someplace else. And. Or
if you are, and I like to lookat, think of it in terms of a team
within a company, whether it'sif you're leading marketing versus
operations versus accounting,whatever, maybe that person has the
(26:44):
values better fit with theaccounting guy or the marketing person.
Right.
So that's your job.
Right.
See, see, I had A boss whobasically didn't believe that at
Lehman Brothers he would firepeople. Just fire this. One of the
guys. In the morning I camein, I said, where is Lou? He's this
other guy. He said, LouGluckman fired him this morning.
(27:06):
He told me, get clean out hisdesk. Guy had 11 children. I wanted
to say, what are you doing?You know, but he taught me that was
not the way to do it. And, youknow, other people that I'd come
in contact, you know, this is.And by the way, it costs you so little
because what happens if youdon't treat people right all of a
sudden? If you're in abusiness, a long period of time,
you've got a lot of badpeople, people badmouthing you out
(27:28):
there. But if you find youhelp people along the way, they say,
you know, Ed did. He let mego. But, you know, I. He treated
me right. And that. That wasvery important. These are sort of
management techniques that Ithink are very, very vital in today's
world because it's really asmall place. But that concept, you
got to act, you will hire someincorrectly, or the company will
change, too. That's anotherproblem in today's world, I tell
(27:50):
young people, is that you'regoing to have to pivot a number of
times because the world'sgoing to change. And when everybody
says, give me an example. Iused to have black records, then
cassettes, then discs, and nowI have this. And think about being
in that business all the waythrough. If you stayed with it, you're
dead. You know, that's the.That's the answer. Your major question
(28:12):
here is, is, you know, whatare the biggest blind spots for.
For executives? And it'swhat's next? I mean, I. No matter
what I have been in all mylife, even myself, we go away on
Christmas time and we sit downand say, what's next? But, you know,
in my company, I make surethat every year we do something different
and new. And, you know, mostpeople get stuck. And I. There's
(28:33):
some brilliant examples. Kodakis one. When things are too good,
you just can't do what's next.And, you know, I was at EF Hutton,
and I ran. He hired me to runthe institutional business. It was
a retail firm, a wonderfulretail firm. Super. In fact, it was
the best retail firm in theUnited States. Better than Merrill
lynch at that time. And theywere really at carriage trade. Wonderful.
(28:54):
He needed an institutionalpartner. He didn't want it very big.
I didn't know that. Hired meto institutional Business. I got
it going. It was going greatguns. He said, okay, now you're done.
You can run the instituteretail business. That was a really
big job. That was, that waswonderful. I said, you don't understand.
The way the business is goingis institutional is going to become
someday more important thanretail. He said, no, you don't understand.
(29:16):
And so I had to leave Huttonbecause he didn't look at what's
next. And then five yearslater, he was gone because the institutional
business became the majorbusiness. Lehman Brothers at the
time was building a tradingroom with 400 seats in it. And it
said, we're going to takeadvantage of what's coming. So I
had to move in that direction.And I think everything you do, I
mean, I'm the lead director inthe golf club. And every year I say,
(29:40):
what are we going to do?What's next? This year we're redoing
the pergola in front of theclub and so forth.
So how do you think companiesfind what's next? Or how do leaders
find what's next?
First of all, your team. I hada requirement that every day at 4:00,
(30:01):
we'd sit around a round table.That was one of my secrets of making
everybody equal. Have a roundtable in the conference room. So
there was no head at thetable. That was very important. No.
But your team, you send themessage to them and you spend time
thinking about what I call thedrivers. The economy, demographics,
(30:26):
geography, Most important,technology. They're drivers. Keep
looking. Drivers. You should.And if you're, if you have enough
money and you're a largeenough company, you should have an
outside service that keepstelling you what the big trends are.
But your trends really comefrom your people. You ask each person
in each of their divisions,you know, what's. Who, what are your
competitors doing really well,you know, what would, what could
(30:46):
you do to make, you know, takethe next step? What, what takes you
to the next level? These arekind of words you use with people.
And I think that's whathappens. And it is a. You, you do.
You do it weekly. Like, I didit in a very mild manner. And then
kind of on a quarterly basisor some periodic basis, you do it
in depth. You actually go, gosomeplace in a hotel room and you
(31:07):
sit around with a whiteboardand you, you brainstorm and you do
that. I do that personallyevery Christmas with my family. And
we have, you know, we go on aboat. It's great about a boat. I
love giving, giving advice to,to families. I said, you Know, you
go on a boat. What's greatabout a boat is at night, guess what?
Kids can't get away. Hotel,they're gone, you know, skiing, they're
(31:32):
gone. Boat, they're stuck. Andyou know, for years our kid, we went
down the British VirginIslands with little tiny boat at
the beginning and now a biggerboat. So no, but this is, this what's
next has to be a formalexperience. And, and you gotta, you
gotta also this is one of theearly things that I very important
failure is okay. In fact, Iwant to. You asked the question of
(31:53):
how do I handle failure? Earlyfailure is a gift you get in your
life, I'm saying, but you alsogot to contribute to your guys. That
the fact if you fail, it'sokay if you, if you're taking a shot.
The. We all think it's apretty good idea. We're all in it
together. You know, my boardmeeting used to be like a Quaker
meeting where guys would standup and say, I need some help. And
(32:14):
the guys will all help eachother. You know, because we were
a small firm and we werecompeting against a lot of big guys.
But what's next is it's aprocess and it's not one of these
long term planning things somuch. It's little steps. Little,
tiny. I'm going to add alittle of this, you know, I'm going
to do this, I'm going to hirea salesman to cover this little new
area. You know, so it's littlesteps. You know, this business about
(32:37):
a long journey starts with asmall step is, you know, it's a cliche,
but it really is true.
And each person, you know, andI, I talk about, I talk about something
called two steps to. Yes. Andtwo steps is basically because one
step doesn't get you anywhere.Two steps create starts creating
the momentum. But you have to,you have to be taking those two little
(32:59):
steps and they get to bebigger and bigger and bigger.
Automatically gives you achance to take a second step. Right?
So the interesting thing isthat, and I think this is really,
really important for ourlisteners, you know, when we're talking
about leadership, somethingthat I really want to make sure that
you. We've talked about this,but I want to really kind of hit
(33:22):
it home is that you need tolisten, you need to, to get to that
next and find out what's next.You need to keep your ears open.
You need to be listening toyour team and your partners. Your
partners need to be listeningto your customers and your clients.
(33:42):
And you need to keep Your earsopen. Because you will. If your ears
are clogged and you're. Yougot them, you're not listening, you're
going to miss.
It may be the most importantword I use that also, people ask
me, how did you spend 60years? How did you stay sick, married
for 60 years? And I said oneword. Listen. No, no, no. And the
(34:04):
same thing there. You got tolisten. Especially the head. The
head person. You got tolisten. Because if you start putting
things out, you don't know howthose are accepted. But when people
come to you with stuff, youknow, you know, if you agree with
it, you're on your way. Butyou have to listen. Absolutely. I
mean, I think when a personsays to me, how do you. I say, how
do you stay married? Becausepeople change, systems change. And
(34:26):
if you don't listen to thatchange, you will get left behind.
You'll be a stranger in yourfamily and you'll be a stranger in
your job if you don't listen.I. You've hit it on the head. You
don't need me.
Oh, my God. And I could talkto you forever. So how can people
find you? You've got. I'll putlinks to the books. You got to make
(34:46):
sure I give me links to thebook so people can get these. Seriously.
I was reading. I was sittingdown yesterday, started to read this
one and I got like, probablyhalfway through it and I'm like,
God, this is really good. AndI had a. Didn't get to finish it
last night. And I cannot waitto read this. I read a parts of the
synopsis, but really, reallygreat. So where can people find you?
(35:08):
How.
You know, they named theengineering school after me at the
University of Rochester. And Ialways say I love that because kids
have to pronounce my namecorrectly. Having an unusual name
is wonderful because if youpunch in Ed Hadron into Amazon, you
get my two books. If you punchwww.edhedrom.com into Google, you
end up getting a very robust.Which is, I give my publicist credit,
(35:31):
very robust website. Andthat's, you know, tells the whole
story. In fact, I don't liketo put people on my website because
they don't have to read thebooks then.
All right, so go to Amazon,get the books and get. Download them.
Download them. Audible so youcan listen to them.
Audible. Audible. The. The.There's six voices in the the. And
(35:53):
the guy who did the, theywanted me to do. To read the first
my autobiography, but I did.It took me two hours to do eight
minutes. And so I got somebodythat actually, it sounds like me.
And he's, he's quite good. Andwe had a lot in common. His father
and I both, you know, were inthe Navy. Both, both engineers and
so forth and so on.
Oh, well, that is fantastic.So listeners, I hope you get these
(36:16):
books. I hope you taken somegreat nuggets. And from today's episode,
you have to understand thatleadership, you know, if you're looking
at it from the standpoint ofwhat you can learn from this, think
about those P's, passions,principles, partners and plans. It
is really important, reallyimportant. And then, and I'm just
(36:39):
going to add in there, add theL in there, make sure that you're
listening. So I really, reallywant you to add that in there. I
don't know what cancel. So Ican't spell ear or listen with a
P. So otherwise I would. So,Ed, thank you for being a guest.
This is the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast. If
you have love this, please hitsubscribe. And please share this
(37:03):
with your friends andcolleagues. Our goal is to make better
leaders great leaders outthere and great leaders makes a greater
world. So thank you so muchfor listening and thank you, Ed,
once again for being anamazing guest.
Thank you very much. Amen.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com