The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 256: Elena Botelho - How To Become A CEO

Episode Date: May 6, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #256: Elena Botelho - How To Become A CEO Elena Botelho has been a Partner at ghSMART since 2007. Elena initiated and co-leads The CEO Genome Project® featured in a cover article of Harvard Business Review.  Her recent book, The CEO Next Door, is a New York Times Bestseller. The CEO Genome Project® is an extensive research and client practice supporting CEO's and executives on the path to CEO. The research explores paths and behaviors that lead to the top, typical setbacks CEO's encounter and ways to prevent them. Elena is a member of McKinsey M&A Integration Council – an invitation-only forum of senior executives from major corporations to share M&A best practices. Elena is a sought after speaker at leading industry events on leadership and M&A. The Learning Leader Show "Charisma is a myth when it comes to success as a CEO. The research suggests introverts are equally or more successful than charismatic extroverts" Show Notes: How do we define excellence? "Delivering results is how we define it" The keys to excellence (delivering results) Decisiveness - Conviction and speed Adapting proactively Relentless reliability - Delivering consistently -- This is the most powerful and important behavior Engage for impact Self assessments The lowest rated among 11,000 people Elena surveyed was: Reliability Why do people struggle with consistency? Consistency is hard across all domains of our lives Reliability - 3 keys Mindset - basic habits. How do we develop the correct mindset? -> Recognize that others need to be able to count on you. This translates to consistent habits Get an honest look in the mirror The WHO - Who are your surrounding yourself with? Process and culture you build The CEO Myths: Need to go to an Ivy League school (not true) CEO's were destined for greatness (nope) 70% of CEO's never set a goal to be a CEO Charisma - It helps you get the job, however when you look at results, it's not the way the ensure results Introverts are not less likely for success Advice to a current individual contributor: Having powerful mentors didn't seem to help them more than those who didn't Becoming a mentor to others does show it helps It forces you to be clear and become a teacher. Helps you get in the head of others and lead What are some mistakes first time managers make? "It can be messy" Be clear on what success looks like Is this the right team? Do personnel changes need to be made? What are the career catapults? 25% went to a top business school 97% of them did one of these three sprinters: 60% "went small to go big" -> Took a smaller role at an organization that led to something big They took on a big mess and fixed it The big leap - Take a role well before you're ready --> Take a risk Adapting proactively Being able to let go of a profitable business in order for long term success (give up short term for the long term) Key learning = the ability let go of the past "Becoming a mentor to others forces you to be clear and become a teacher." Social Media: Read: The CEO Next Door Go to: ghsmart.com Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12

No matter where you are, you could be a teenager, you could be a recent graduate or an individual contributor. If you open the doors to help mentor others and help them along, you're going to learn managerial skills. When you become the boss, finally, you will be that much more effective. And the best part about it is in the book, we love to give advice that's actually actionable for anybody. And this is something that's fully within your control. And so if you want to get ahead, start not by necessarily thinking who's the best mentor for me, but start asking yourself, how can I mentor and elevate others? Welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Text Learners to 4422 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 44222. Now, on tonight's featured leader, it's with the great Elena Betelho, co-leader of the CEO Genome Project, has been advising and leading CEOs, boards, investors, and rising stars for over two decades at McKinsey and G.H. Smart.

Elena grew up in Moscow and Azerbaijan and now lives in Washington, D.C., recently named a New York Times bestselling author for her great book titled The CEO Next Door. A few of the topics we got into. The surprising behaviors and attributes of the most effective CEOs and leaders in the world. Then advice to an individual contributor who has a goal to be a manager. And this part surprise me. You'll hear it in my voice during the middle of this conversation. And then the three career catapults, three actionable things you can do to advance your career quickly.

So good. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Elena Boutelo. Elena, thank you so much for joining me here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you, Ryan. It's a pleasure to be here. And your team, I really appreciate them sending me a copy of the CEO next door, the four behaviors that transform ordinary people into world-class leaders. Because I like that part that you wrote was ordinary, given the fact that there's some myths out there about what it takes to be a CEO or to be in that role.

And you guys dispel some of those myths in your book, which I'm appreciative. We'll get to that. But before then, I do want to ask you one question, and that is, through the course of your career, you've done an immense amount of research on high achievers, on leaders who have sustained excellence. And I'm curious from your perspective, what are some of the commonalities of those people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time? Yeah, what a great question. So I think, Ryan, the first thing I would say is how should we define success? sustained excellence, right? Because in this day and age, there are not a lot of kind of icons that

hold up there for very long, right? And so in our practice at GH Smart, we define success and sustained excellence. I love how you put it as just simply delivering results. Because you can argue there could be a lot of kind of very complicated and moralistic arguments about what sustained excellence looks like. But so for the purposes of this conversation, we just think about who are the people that tend to deliver results time and again and excel against the goals set that they set? And so in that context, you know, I'm obviously tempted to bring up the four behaviors and you've highlighted the title of the book is the four behaviors that transform ordinary

people into world-class leaders. And essentially what we've tried to do with the book is look just at that question, is looking at the people that, you know, by some measures, have been the most successful people in business. Doesn't mean that they've had flawless track record, but they've reached real excellence and they've been able to sustain it as demonstrated in their results.

And then really take an analytical view by crunching through our database to see, so what are those things that they share in common? And so while we did study CEOs, the lens we took at those CEOs is, let's use them as a case study of people who've been most successful. And so that's how we've uncovered.

the four behaviors. So I'm happy to share them now or I don't want to. Let's do it. Yeah, let's not, let's not bury the lead. Let's go for it. So the four behaviors are, and you might want to use kind of an acronym just to help remember them. So we think of it as dare, D-A-R-E. So think of it as like dare to be excellent, right, to make it easy to remember. So D stands for decisiveness. I'll mention all of the behaviors and then I'm happy to go into any of them in depth or not, depending of what's useful. So D stands for decisiveness, deciding with conviction and speed. A stands for adopting proactively.

R stands for reliably delivering or relentless reliability, as we call it. And then E stands for how you engage with others. And we call it Engage for Impact. So those were the four behaviors that were uncovered. Okay. I think like a lot of people, when you look at the four, and I was preparing for my time, is, you know, I don't know if it's, I'm not trying to be self-serving, but I look at maybe one of them that jumps out. And so maybe let's not go in order to make it interesting here. Sure.

Yeah. I know you do a lot of interviews, so maybe we could tweak it a little bit to make it keep you on your toes. But the part that I take a lot of pride in, personally, Elena, that means a lot to me. is being reliable and consistent and there for my team. And so that is actually number three. But I think that part means a lot to me that my teammates, the people I lead, people I'm surrounded by, they know exactly what they're going to get for me that I will be there. I'm going to show up.

My dad always told me that one of the core behaviors of a great dad, and I pulled this out of them on this podcast, actually, is the fact that you're always. there. You simply need to show up every single day. And so I'll let you dive in a little bit deeper on the research and that, but let's start with this relentless reliability and being consistent in your behavior. Brian, I love that you picked it out as the first one to focus on, because I'll be honest with you, when we looked at these behaviors, we did a lot of analytics, and we didn't know what we would find. And relentless reliability was one of those things that when we uncovered it, we thought, huh, it was a little bit of a head scratcher for us.

because, you know, it's exactly as you shared, right, reliability is something we want in our colleagues. Reliability is something we certainly want in our spouse or our family members or fathers, right? It doesn't sound like such a kind of a highfalutant, if you had to describe the very short list of the elite performer behaviors. How is reliability? Reliability almost sounded so simple that we were surprised that even made the list. And yes, it actually turned out to be arguably the most powerful behavior, actually. And also interestingly, so we developed, because a lot of folks were asking, and I'll comment more on what I mean by that being the most powerful behavior. But we actually, a few folks asked us for a way to self-assess themselves on, like, how am I doing on these four behaviors? How do I know where do I need to focus? And so we designed the self-assessment that you can actually find online on our website,

is CEO Nextdoorbook.com. And shockingly, the one behavior that across 11,000 readers who've taken the assessment, the one behavior that was lowest rated was the reliability. Wow. And so shockingly, while it sounds very simple, it's actually not an easy behavior. And I do think you're spot on, whether it's your team or your family or highest levels of leadership, relentless, reliability. is really something that sets apart high performers.

Also across these four behaviors, what was interesting is we looked at both which behaviors made someone more effective in the role and which behaviors actually helped someone get picked for the job. And shockingly, the overlap of these four was only one behavior and it was right back to your reliability. So maybe part of your success formula in life perhaps has been the relentless reliability. But it's a behavior that, again, sounds very simple, but not at all easy to do.

Why do you think it's not easy? I mean, I have some thoughts, but maybe there's some science behind. To me, maybe it's because like, I think it maybe it's a family trait or we saw it from both of my parents growing up. My brothers and I, I think we all have this where we're disciplined to show up every day, whether it's get up at five to go to the gym every morning or show up for work or be there for it. We played sports growing up playing football as a quarterback to say, I've got to be there for my teammates. I mean, this doesn't seem that hard. I mean,

it's hard, but it seems it's obvious. So I've just got to do it. So why is it, why is this or do people struggle here? I think the challenge is actual consistency, right? I think many of us are reliable in some domains of our lives. It's hard to be consistently, relentlessly. reliable across all or most domains of our life, right? I think the other reason it's hard is that it's because it's deceptively simple, right? So we've coached CEOs who are really successful CEOs who have these, you know, seemingly innocent habits like, well, gee, they're just never on time for a meeting.

And it's just not a big deal to them. And it's incredible the cost that carries to the organization, it arose trust in them. It makes people feel disrespected. It actually creates a company culture where everybody is late, right? It becomes a downward spiral. And so something, I love how you said, you know, we just kind of drank it with our mother's milk, right? We grew up knowing you need to show up and you need to show up on time and ready. Yeah.

And it sounds simple, but it's not easy. And so I think sometimes it's the simplicity of it that makes it so easy to dismiss. It's almost kind of pedestrian, right? And when we think about reliability, it really boils down to three things. things, it boils down to number one is a mindset. It's exactly what you're describing, which is like I almost can't even imagine being any other way because that was just the expectation that was built into us growing up, both probably through what your parents said, but also importantly through what they did

and what they expected you to do, right? Those are the basic habits you developed so early in life that it just becomes part of your mindset. Yep. And it's actually remarkable because, again, while we analyze CEOs, the cool thing about each of these behaviors is that you could see mastery of these behaviors in some individuals really early in life, and you could see development needs in everyone across some of these behaviors, even in the most successful leaders. One of the executives we interviewed a while

back, it just really struck me at the age of 16. He was describing this experience he had. He was growing up on a farm in California, and his parents were out somewhere, and he got a that there's a fire and it's coming too close to his farm. And so the 16-year-old, he was described, you know, later on like he was describing to us how, so I said, well, what did you do? And his answer was, well, you know, first I got, I let the horses out of the barn and I took care of the chickens, and I loaded them in the truck. And then I locked up the house and I did what I could to kind of protect it from the fire. And I called the insurance company. And then I got in the truck, drove for 30 miles. And then I called my dad, mom and dad and told them that, you know,

we're fine. Everything is okay. And I did what I could. And that was at 16. And so it's never too early and it's never too late to really work on your reliability muscles. But when it comes to that mindset of I want others to be able to count on me, that often gets built pretty early in life. That's a cool story. I listened to him and I thought, oh, my God, if I'd been in that situation, I don't know that I'd be. He just showed a remarkable mindset of relaxation. So let's say somebody did not grow up in that environment.

And I realize I'm very lucky. You know, I didn't do anything to deserve that or I didn't earn that just the way it was for me and then for that same story there. Let's say somebody grew up in the opposite environment with parents or people around who did not instill that type of mindset in their kids. And this relates a little bit to some of the, you know, the myths of the CEO, the missed-versed reality of some people think you've got to go to the perfect kindergarten. in middle school and high school and certainly college to be a CEO, which the data, the research suggests that you've done that that's not the case. But so when you think about people who didn't grow up that way, how can somebody who is striving to improve to grow to be better develop that mindset at a later age?

You know, Ryan, I think fundamentally, if somebody aspires to be a leader, a fundamental part of that is that you, other. it's impossible to be a leader without followers. And an intrinsic part of being a leader is that others need to be able to count on you. And so while habits of reliability could be really poor growing up, the mindset of just recognizing that others need to be able to count on you, and that's how you also are able as a leader to count on others, I think at a very fundamental basis is not that foreign to most of us.

I think where it falls flat is translating that mindset, and I would argue it's hard to be a leader if you don't have that mindset of recognizing that others need to be able to count on you. So I think where often people fail around reliability is not so much that kernel of the fundamental value of being somebody that others can count on because that's kind of a human value. but really translating that into consistent habits and the habits you can train, right? And so when it comes to habits, I think to your question of how can we train ourselves later in life, I think the first place to start is get an honest look in the mirror, right? I think the funny thing about reliability is a little bit like driving, right? We all think we're above average. But when you actually ask others and when you actually take a disciplined look in the mirror through whether that's the assessment or some other way,

you'll find that maybe you're not as reliable as you thought. And so I think the starting point needs to be an honest look in the mirror. And then find a habit. Find one place, one domain where it's either the easiest place for you to build reliability or the most valuable. And the great thing about building new habits, and you probably, I imagine, know that from sports, is one good habit drags lots of other good habits with it. And so I think those are some ways you can build reliability.

at any stage. Now, if you already happen to be in a managerial role, in addition to the mindset, there are two other important pieces that have to come together to make you a reliable leader, which is people that you surround yourself with. I love that you instantly, when you talked about reliability, talked about your team and wanting to be reliable for your team. And so there's no reliable leader without having the right people around her or him. And then finally, the process and the culture you build around you. So those are the three components, kind of three legs of the reliability stool. And aside from this basic foundational, others have to be able to rely on everything else

you can develop at any stage in your career. The Who I found to be so vitally important, Elaine, and when it comes to everything, I know Jim Collins talks about, he said it on this podcast too, but the who is more important than the what, meaning the who are the people you surround yourself with because those people can lift you up or they can bring you down. You need to be very careful about the people that. are in your inner circle, the team that you decide to work with, the place that you go to work. You can't control everything, right?

Bosses get fired. Things like that happen. But the who I found to be the difference between success or lack thereof. And I think that's, I'm glad that you mentioned that too as points you. So there's so much here. Okay. And the CEO next door. Let's talk about some of the myths first to reality.

I briefly touched on this. Can I jump in just on your point? Because it was too, and I know you've done your homework clearly for the show. So absolutely. In fact, you know, the whole premise of our firm and our founders' bestselling book from 10 years ago, actually exactly 10 years ago is called Who, exactly for that reason, which is the number one most important problem and opportunity in business tends to be the who, not the what. And so I couldn't agree with you more. Sorry for moving on.

That was a, it's such a critical point. that I bring up to anybody at all, because you're probably getting asked for advice a lot. And I am too. I'm a part of these high school kids projects from time to time where they want to speak with a leader. And I try to trump everything pretty much with, let's start there, right? Let's start with the people that you're going to surround yourself with. And think about those decisions very carefully, whether it's your peer group, your friends,

your spouse, whatever may be, that is going to have the biggest impact on your life. So, okay, briefly talked about some of the things. the miss because there are there are probably thoughts that people have when they think of CEOs versus what actually is reality and and and so let's let's let's touch on some of them one of them all bring up is the fact that people assume that if you don't go to an ivy league school that your chances for becoming a CEO are very challenging but the research suggests something different can you share more yes absolutely And Ryan, I love that you notice the myths in the book because the myths are really dangerous.

Often kind of what we expect ourselves to achieve in life depends in large degree on just these kind of models that we have in our heads, right? Our expectations were set for ourselves on whether leaders in power look like us, whether it's for us, right? And so when those myths are perpetuated, what happens is they lead folks like, you know, your audience members, to assume that, gosh, that guy or that woman at the top feels and looks nothing like me. And therefore, I shouldn't aspire to the top. And one of the shocking findings as we did the research is that actually, in a way, our research made us realize that CEO role is probably more difficult than most of us think, but also more accessible or at least kind of accessible to much broader range of people

than I think we tend to assume when we just look at the page. of, you know, Wall Street Journal and glossy profiles out in the press. And so the Ivy League piece is one of them is that, well, gosh, you know, people leading our biggest companies went to the highest pedigree schools. And, you know, look, college education in this country is becoming less and less affordable. And so we were interested to see that in our data set, only 7% of the CEOs went to an undergraduate that was an Ivy League college. Actually, 8% didn't graduate from college at all.

And ultimately, when, you know, when you look at the results, it was the behaviors much more so than the pedigree that ultimately affected their ability to deliver. And so that was one of the findings. Okay. So not to get down for that or feel like you can't make it if you choose not to go. I didn't go to Ivy League school. I know most people don't. What about this? And this is, this goes hand in hand with really the title of my show.

So maybe I was more drawn to this than something. else that I took away is the fact that people feel or there's a myth out there that there's a belief that certain people were just born for greatness or just born their destiny was to become a CEO as opposed to the fact that in my opinion it's more of a potential learn behavior, thus the name learning leader. So what about that myth? Yes. So absolutely. Well, so first of all, very important number to remember. When we ask, analyzed individuals who later went on to become successful CEOs, 70% of them, 70%, so vast, vast majority, didn't even set a goal at the top to get to the top until much later in their

career, until they're within a strike zone. And so most people listening to this podcast, and most people out there, particularly if you're early in your career, if you're not thinking, well, gosh, I aspire to be CEO, that's absolutely. That kind of puts you in the majority of folks who actually even ended up at the top, right? And so it's very easy to assume that, oh, that kid in high school who got voted most likely to succeed or, you know, that guy who in every meeting has to be the first at the board, et cetera, is the future CEO. In reality, when we do our assessment work to help boards to select CEOs, we analyze somebody's experience from very early years. And CEOs come in all shapes and colors.

And many of them will actually proactively reflect and say, yeah, actually, if you looked at me in high school, if you looked at me in my first five years of my career, there's really nothing that would have told you I was going to be the future CEO. And there are some stories like that in the book where there are a lot of quote unquote normal people who actually go on to be very successful CEOs because they demonstrate and develop the right behaviors and mindsets, not because they look like somebody who just kind of rode in on a white horse. Yeah. The other part, too, is you hear this, and this is often spoken about, I don't even like saying this, but it's true because I've heard it spoken about white males, which I'm sure you found, is the fact that they have this, this charisma about them of ownership of a room and that this is actually a myth. Can you share the research behind this? Because Olivia Foxcabani wrote a book about this, the charisma effect that I've read and I would like to talk to her more. about it. But thinking about the some say, well, you got to develop this charisma in order to take ownership of a room. And I, I, you know, because I sense that as a guy who played quarterback that my coaches would say, like, you have to own the huddle. You have to own the locker room. You have to own the rooms you walk into to deliver the impassioned speech to, to rally the troops so we can go out and win the game in the second half. So like, I've heard that that coaching before,

but I'm curious from your perspective about this charisma that is, uh, that's, uh, the myth of charisma. Yeah, so the fascinating thing about charisma is that when we're in the boardroom and the decisions get made about who will be the CEO, charisma absolutely matters. So charisma does help you get the job. There's just no two ways about it. Being charismatic, being likable, owning the room. And you had experience as a quarterback and you had experience in the sales career, right?

Yep. is if you're trying to sell yourself for a public office or for any job in any company, charisma really helps. So that's just reality. However, when you look at results and when you look at how leaders perform, it's ultimately, charisma is one way to get the job done by a long stretch. It's not the only way to get the job done. For example, we looked at the introverts, right?

So, you know, it's still, to this day, experienced investors and CEOs when they decide who's going to run the company, you get into conversation of, well, you know, gee, their track record is really good, but they're kind of introverted. Are they going to be charismatic enough? And then you look at the CEOs who actually have been successful and how they've done it, introverts are not any less likely to deliver strong results, actually. And when we looked at the executives who outperformed expectations, introverts were even slightly overrepresented. And so there's no evidence that actually, so charisma most certainly helps you get picked, but ultimately for delivering results, charisma is just one of the tools. And sometimes it could be effective,

but it has to be balanced with other behaviors and skills. And often when we look at somebody who looks so great on stage and you actually get to know them up close and personal and you look at what it takes for them to be that effective charismatic CEO, it actually, again, boils down to have disciplined exercise of very thoughtful, very deliberate habits, as opposed to this inspired natural charisma. So if you have it, that's terrific. If you don't have it, that cannot be an excuse or a barrier for being successful.

I love to use the words disciplined and thoughtful and habits after doing more than 250, 60 plus of these conversations. Elaine, I really try to distill what it is. It's a similar project to you, really, like figuring out what seems to be those commonalities. and the words that keep coming to mind are discipline, thoughtful, intentional. Really, they really are. They could, they could, that doesn't mean if you're great on stage, it doesn't mean you, you don't have those, but you got to have those, I think, first before being great on stage.

Exactly. In order to have it. So, Elena, I mentioned you two before we started recording. One of the areas and groups of people that I get a lot of email from are those who are maybe earlier in their career, very ambitious growth. oriented, want to get promoted, maybe want to be a CEO or they at least want to get that first promotion. And so I'm curious from your perspective and given all of your research, what advice would you

give to someone who's currently an individual contributor and they have hopes or goals or dreams of being a manager, of leading people, officially doing that within any size of a company, really. What's some advice you'd give to them if you were in a mentoring session? Oh my God. So the first one piece of advice I would give to them that they're probably not going to hear anywhere else because it really surprised us in our research. You use the word mentoring session. Well, so one of the things, one of the traditional pieces of career advice we get when we want to get ahead and we want to get promoted is what? Get a great mentor.

Make sure that you go find powerful mentor, find someone who's been wildly successful. Well, what's really fascinating is when we dug into our data, one of the findings on career trajectories was that having powerful mentors actually didn't seem to be statistically associated with faster ascent to the top with higher success. Frankly, not because it was a bad thing. Having a mentor is really helpful, but frankly, you know, it just didn't differentiate those who got ahead faster or who got ahead. However, what did is becoming a mentor to others at an early age. And that just was fascinating. And yet it actually goes right back to where you started this conversation, Ryan. I love that you started again by saying, I want to be there for my team.

Right. And that team doesn't need to be assigned to you with formal authority. There is never, no matter where you are, you could be a teenager, you could be a recent graduate or an individual contributor. if you open the doors to help mentor others and help them along, you're going to learn managerial skills. When you become the boss, finally, you will be that much more effective. And the best part about it is, you know, in the book, we love to give advice that's actually actionable for anybody.

And this is something that's fully within your control. And so if you want to get ahead, start not by necessarily thinking, who's the best mentor for me, but start asking yourself, how can I mentor and elevate others? One of the reviewers of your book mentioned that it's like this book is the CEO of Me, Inc. Yes, I love that. Yeah, me too. And what I just took away from that, which, for a second, Elena, I was ready to kind of to jump.

I was to say, Elena, I think you're wrong. You got to have a mentor. I was this way. But I thought, try to be patient and listen. And I'm so glad that I'm so glad that I did because what you just said was, I think, fundamentally the best possible mindset for anybody, regardless of a position is, if your thought process is, how can I add value to the lives of other people? That's the question you're constantly asking. How can I add value to lives of other people? And one way to do that is to lead

and to mentor and to be a teacher. One of the practices we get into when I do these, I do half-day workshops with companies and leaders. And one of the things we like to do is to say, what is a topic that you can teach to other people. Because in order to teach it, you've really got to know what you're talking about. Right? Teachers are so smart. And it's because they really have to understand their material that they're teaching to other people. And that's why it's a great practice for anyone to be forced, even if they're not comfortable initially, to give a presentation, to teach others, to mentor one-on-one about a specific topic because it really forces you to understand what you're talking about because you can't teach it if you don't really know it.

Well, it's both actually, yes, and it forces you to really be clear about what you're talking about. Even more so, it forces ideally, right, the best teaching is the one that allows the best learning, is that it forces you to get in the heads of others and understand what would help them learn. Because you could be the best content expert, but others around you may not learn much from you, right? And again, back to being an effective leader and one of the behaviors being engaging for impact, right, is the first step to being able to get anyone to follow you is actually understand what gets them to tick, right? What makes them tick? What gets them up every morning?

And so I think if you're going to be a good teacher, the way you describe, understanding your audience is just such a critical step to leadership. Let's say you've done a great job with that and you earn the promotion and now you're a manager and you have 15 people on your team that you are leading on the organizational, chart they report to you. What are some of the biggest mistakes first-time managers make, and how can we help people avoid those mistakes? Well, so the first mistake, Ryan, goes back right to where you started, which is, I think it's very tempting for a new manager to come into the role and focus on the top. So look upwards and focus primarily on what the boss expects from them, which would be very natural, or just focus on a task.

Because let's face it, any promotion, especially first management job, I still remember mine at McKinsey, and it's just messy. It's just a messy experience. It's a huge, going from being an individual contributor to managing anyone is a bigger jump than, say, you know, going from running a $100 million division to running a $500 million division. And so I think it's just a huge chasm. So it's really natural to focus up and focus on the task and really try to prove yourself and deliver. And then lo and behold, we've analyzed over 17,000 leaders. Number one mistake is always about who, right?

It's right back to the start of this conversation. And so I think two things, regardless of your role, regardless where you are in your career, whenever you step into any new job, or frankly, even if just the environment changed in your job and you still have the same. title, but nothing stands the same. And so this is something we recommend to leaders every year is you just need to ask yourself two questions, right? You need to re-underide the expectations for the role. So be really clear kind of what success looks like. And then instantly ask yourself, is my team that's with me the right team for the future? Or is it the team with me because

I feel loyal to them because of their past performance? And so I think if you've got the what, clear and the who, the right who around you, you're going to be much, much better set up for success. Do you think it could be a problem, though, if you come in as a new manager and you, after doing that analysis, this is kind of tough. I'm actually questioning myself as I'm asking, but do you think it could be a problem that if you fire a lot of people, for lack of a better phrase, fire a lot of people quickly? You know, like how that could create some big problems, you know what I mean? I completely know what you mean.

It's hard, right? And I heard you kind of exhaling, right? I think there are a lot of people who have things that hold people back because, you know, look, you've been talking about who for years. G.H. Smart has been talking about who since 1995. It's not a new topic. And so why is it that people keep getting it wrong or keep sitting on underperformers? Again, it's back to this. It's simple but not easy.

One reason that holds people back is that we have an assumption that being a nice person means you don't ever fire anyone. So before we even worry about having problems externally and what it looks like to your company, I think a lot of really good people just feel that I have to carry these underperformers, or not even underperformers, but just average folks, right? So that's one flawed assumption,

and we can come back to that. In terms of, I think you have a really savvy question, which is like, how's that going to look, right? I think it frankly depends on the organization you're in. If you're a G or if you're at a, well, if you're at a high performing, high charging organization, that's going to be more normal. Or if you're anywhere, but you have a boss who is a real high performer, likely they've made some changes as well. If you're in a place that where part of the company values is, you know, holding onto people, then, you know, you're going to need to be more thoughtful and more careful. And, you know, even within that environment, we've seen leaders be able to be able to be.

make changes, it may be that you're shifting roles, you know, you're more thoughtful. It may take a little bit longer, but it should not be, just because it's not kind of a normal practice around you shouldn't be the reason that you just assume you have to live with what you have. Yeah, I got you. The main reason for that, and I'm curious, by the way, Ryan, how that resonates with your experiences, like anyone that I've spoken with, and unfortunately, myself included, who's ever had to let go somebody who's not been measuring up.

whether in that first conversation or eventually, you actually realize that it's a relief for them. People want to be successful. They don't just, most people don't just want to have a job. They want to feel good about their contribution. And so often while you think you're kind of ending this person's career, you may actually be putting them out of their misery. And there's actually a column in the journal today that we contributed to that's called How to Mount an Executive Comeback, which is about the fact that, you know, one of the findings we uncovered as we did the research to support it is that, you know, look, even people who do get fired, which happens quite often, by the way,

they land their next job, 70% of them land their next job within the next few months. And so, and if you're a good boss who will support the transition and do it carefully and thoughtfully, ultimately, you're long, long run, short run, it's really difficult and uncomfortable, but long run you're helping them. Yeah, I think it goes with a number of leaders. told me this, that if you decide to be a leader, to be a manager and take that position on one, that's part of the responsibility to do something hard. But, Elena, I remember every person I fired and I remember their story. And there's unfortunately been that numbers more than 20

people over the course of my 12 year career leading and the profession of selling. And like, like, take, take this single mom who has three kids and she's the breadwinner for her family. and I vividly remember bringing her in the room and HR is there and me doing it and we're all like starting to cry and that was awful, awful, awful at the time. But a few things that I take from it that I learned is one, she did go on to be completely fine and get another good job. But two, and this goes for the longer term success of the manager, my team came to me, the leaders of my team and they said, what took you so long? Why didn't you do this sooner? That individual

was not doing a good enough job because we, our team is very successful and they were holding us back. You know, one of the brands I created there was of hiring and developing and training good people. And that person wasn't someone I typically, I actually hired. And so they said, we know we can hire somebody who, who was up to our standards. And that was an eye opening moment for me as a, young manager to learn that my team, they were starting to lose respect for me as the leader of the team because I couldn't pull the trigger as early as I thought because I felt bad. I mean, just personally felt bad for her and what she was doing. And that made me at the time a less successful manager.

And in my team's eyes, I think they thought less of me for that moment. And it took some time to bounce back from that. Absolutely. Yeah, what a great example. And it's hard. Those, those are hard-earned lessons. They are.

And I think that's why I also hope for this show that maybe other people who are in similar positions, they get the data and they get the science and the research that you've done and some of the stories that we're sharing, that hopefully they can implement it into their work. And if they have a similar spot, that they don't make the same mistakes that I made or that other people have made along the way. And they can be better quicker. And that's why we're doing this. I mean,

that's the purpose of reading the CEO. next door, listening to this show is so that we can improve and learn from the wisdom and the mistakes of other people. Okay, there's so much there. But you write about career catapults. And that's kind of a broad term, but I think people understand what that means. But what are, what's a career catapult? What could somebody do if they say, oh, that sounds interesting.

How can I have a career catapult? So what would be some examples? Yeah. So, Ryan, you shared the emails you get from the folks. that are really eager to ascend to the top, to accelerate their way to the top. And so we did the catapult's analysis for them. We did it for your audience that wants to know,

well, how do I really to protect my career? Because it's all good. You know, I get the behaviors, but yet I look around and some people pound for pound of capabilities seem to go faster, further. How do I do this? And so what we did is we looked at the folks who got to the top faster, faster than average.

And we started to look for those, catapults, so things that helped them, propelled them to the top. What is it that they all have in common? And I'll tell you, things that we expected to see, and we're a little nervous, right? As we thought, well, gee, of course, we're going to find that they went to Wharton, or they went and got a job at McKinsey, and how is that going to be actionable? And so when we drilled into the data, we found that actually truly, about a quarter of the executives who got to the top faster, about a quarter of them went to top business school.

And then we kept looking, and we kept looking at the choices they were making in their career. And then we were shocked because while a quarter of them went to a top business school, 97% of them. 97% of them. So virtually all of them, right, as far as statistics are concerned, undertook one of these three catapoles that we uncovered. And the best part of these catapults is that those are the things that you can actually create in your own career. and you can make choices that help you accelerate to the top. And so we uncovered three catapults. The one that was most common, 60% of the, we call them sprinters,

because they got to the top faster. So over 60% of them, we call it go small to go big. So they took a smaller role or job at a smaller company or they helped start something that looked speculative at the time. And then ultimately that allowed them both helped them build the skills and gave them the visibility to get to the top. Because one of the things we noticed, and it's probably not going to be new to your listeners, is when you think about who gets ahead, right?

It takes the right results, the right capabilities, and being noticed, right? And so the beauty about these catapults is that it allows you the platform to show the right results, build the right skills in these behaviors, the four behaviors we talked about, and it gives you the visibility that helps you become known and get considered for the best opportunities. So the first of the three was go small to go big. The other one was taking on a big mess, right? About a third of the sprinters took on something either because they practically volunteered for it or because they're just given it a big hot potato that nobody wanted to touch. We talked about one leader, Simon Castigiana, Simon went to Puerto Rico to clean up, you know,

really underperforming division. Others take on, you know, something that really looks kind of undermanaged and doomed for failure. And that's what really allows them both the opportunity and the space to make their mark. And then finally, about another third undertook what we'll call a big leap, which is taking on a role well before you look ready. And often there are reasons for why those things happen. But taking a big leap, the one big common denominator among those three that you've probably already picked up is it's taking risks.

It's actually taking risks, right? So we've concluded looking at this analysis that probably the riskiest thing you can do in your career, if you want to go far and fast, is play it safe. But what you can do is be thoughtful about your choices and, again, emphasize the right behavior so that you make the most out of those opportunities. But those are the three catapults. And in the book, we give a lot of ideas of how you could create these. You know, you don't need to sit around and wait for them to fall out of the sky. There are ways that you can create those in your career proactively. I love the practical nature.

Long time listeners know, Elena, one of the questions that I ask is great ideas, great stories. Now, how do we implement and execute on what we are learning? And that's what you just delivered right there. So I think the too long don't read is take risk. But the deeper are the three things that are potentially catapults for sprinters about going small to go big, take on a big mess or make a, a big leap. I love it. One of the other parts you mentioned at the beginning, if you're okay with me advancing a little bit here, is, and I heard this actually from one of my mentors earlier in my career, is I said, well, what is it? And he's a CEO right now, actually. I said, what is it that you think

is key for me? And he said, I feel like, and I asked him about himself, he said, I feel like I've been able to adapt to many different situations and that's to help propel me in my career. is that being able to adapt and settle in quickly to whatever the new surroundings are, understanding the people, the key stakeholders, whatever it may be, that's been the key to him. And you mentioned that at the beginning of yours as being able to adapt proactively. Can you share more about that? Absolutely. So, Ryan, of the four behaviors, the one that today gets talked most is this adaptability.

Simply because, you know, it has become a cliche and probably more real than ever, right? that the pace of change is accelerating. We've gone through lots of surprises as a society, right, in the last handful of years. And so one thing that's certain is that no matter you can pick the best person for the job, but one thing you know is that the day they step into the job, something will be different. And so this need to adapt is really, really critical in leaders. Here's what surprised us. If you picture somebody who is really adaptable.

When you think about people who are really adaptable, often we get two pictures in our minds. It's either somebody who just has this amazing crystal ball and they're the woman, like she was able to see the financial crisis three years before it came and before anyone, or they knew exactly how the e-commerce was going to play out before anybody else.

So we imagine that these people who just see the future better than we do, right? That's one version of what we most imagine as being adaptable. The other version is that they're just, they just turn on a dime. They're just these kind of high velocity, reactive people. Well, when we actually analyzed what highly adaptable leaders do really well and that differentiates them from the rest of us, we were surprised that it actually wasn't either of

those. But what they do really, really well is they proactively are able to let go of businesses that are still profitable that will no longer serve them in the future of personal habits that got them to success all along the way that no longer actually are relevant for the the role and hold them back. And so shockingly, adaptability, the key thing to learn around adaptability is actually ability to let go of the past, not knowing the future. The other cool thing that we learned about adaptability is actually, while we tend to be overly kind to ourselves or overestimate our abilities in being reliable, we tend to underestimate made ourselves on adaptability.

And what's different here is that most of us are actually very adaptable in a crisis. What sets apart the most successful leaders is being adapting proactively. And we've all heard the term the Bering platform. Sometimes they have to create or use a crisis to get everyone else adapt. And so if you ask yourself, what will make me stand out as a leader is being proactive in adapting and then again, creating that platform for change versus, you know, being like that boiling frog, right, where the temperature goes up really gradually and then the frog is first so comfortable that they never, they don't jump out of the pot and then they get boiled, right?

And so if you want to learn to be adaptable, it's being proactive about letting go of the past and rewiring your habits and your business for the future. This is great, Elena. I could talk to you all day. I really appreciate everything that, um, you're sharing and I'm learning so much and I really appreciate you that you wrote this book and I would encourage people to get it, the CEO next door. By the way, how did you come up with that title? Which by the way is now that New York Times. I know. I saw it New York Times,

Wall Street, which is not an easy feat. There are thousands of people going for that, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people going for that every week and you guys did it. You and your co-author. And by the way, I talk with Tall, Raz, who I know you. you guys, he helped write the book, but it was mainly you and Kim, who did the bulk. Kim Powell did the bulk of the work. And Tal did a great job. I want to give him a shout out. He helped me prepare for this conversation.

And he's a terrific, he's a terrific writer and really helped make the book much, much better than we ever could have imagined. So why was it tied? Was the CEO next door the original title or did you come up with that later? Oh, what a great question. So it's actually credit, all the credit goes to my call author, Kim Powell. it was her idea. Initially, the working title when we were talking to publishers was called Up, up, up meaning kind of ascending up or moving up in your career.

And then that kind of got mixed reviews. What we loved about the CEO next door is this whole notion that, based on the research, it actually could be much more accessible to a much broader range of people, the actual role of the CEO. And more importantly, that whether or not you're going to be a CEO, kind of being great is just right next door. and here's some data that helped you get there. I think it's the millionaire next door, which was sold millions of copies too.

Was that part of the decision-making process too? I think Kim probably teed off of that. That was, I don't know if we'll ever aspire to that level of success, but I think she had a great idea. Publicists send ideas, books, and guests pretty much every day. and I remember when I saw the title, it really piqued my interest. And I'm not trying to get picky, but that doesn't happen very much anymore. So when I saw the time, so we were very lucky. I think you did.

I think you guys titled it. It's a great book because what's the title of a book supposed to do, really? It's just supposed to give you the chance to read it. And the reason that I'm glad that you guys picked this title is because one, it made me want to read it. And then once you get into it, you're like, whoa, I'm learning a ton. And it's not just what you think. I mean, that's part of it. But it's also backed with all of the research, which is so critical when you can marry those things together.

That's how you get powerful work. Thank you. Well, so I have a question for you then. I think one of the challenges with the book is exactly what we described earlier, which is most normal people don't go around thinking they're going to be CEO. And so with the book that's titled the CEO next door, how do we convey this notion that this is actually for anybody who wants to excel. It's the lessons from the top for anybody at any stage in their career. Because I don't, I mean, in the work that I do, I don't really care about being a CEO.

And so I think that that could be a challenge for some. But I think part of it then becomes, one, the title peaks a lot of people's interest, even if they don't want to be a CEO, I think at least. If you see it in the airport, you'd be like, oh, let me check that book out. And then you dig in and you figure it out. then I think great books spread because of word of mouth. I really do. So if you look at anyone, any of the books that are on the list today

or that are the perennial sellers, as Ryan Holiday would say, and they spread because of word of mouth. And in that case, I don't think it matters as much if somebody doesn't want to be CEO. Because really, your book, I don't think it's necessarily for someone who wants to be a CEO. I think it's someone who has, as the reviewer said, is it wants to be a CEO of Me, Inc. of someone who wants to build a quality life and quality career. So really, it's maybe doing things like this, right? Doing podcasts and sharing the message and then creating word of mouth.

Obviously hitting the list helps. So you guys don't have a ton of control over that other than writing a good book. So I don't know. I think it's a good question. But I think you're on the right path. Thank you for you. I feel really grasped the concept of the book and the key insights so well. Ryan, so thank you. Thanks for kind of understanding the book.

We're helping spread the word. I hope it's going to be helpful to your, to your listeners. Definitely. A lot of actionable things here. So thank you for investing your time, Elena. Where would you send my listeners to learn more online? CEO Nextdoorbook.com. CEO Nextdoor book. Or the easy places, just go on Amazon, pick up the book. Hey, by the way, what was it like when you got the call or the e-o-nextor book? email or the text that said, hey, you're a New York Times bestselling author?

I screamed. Did you really? I did. We were on vacation in Utah with my family and my college called. And yeah, it was really just fantastic. Both Kim and I think had a similar reaction. And look, you have to remember, I mean, not only that, right, I think it's a pretty kind of exciting accomplishment for anyone.

English isn't even my first language. And when I told somebody, one of our family friends who's known me since before I was born, I shared that I was writing a book. she looked at me and said, all right, well, I get it why you'd want to write a book. I get it why you maybe even think you have something to say, but what makes you think you can write a book? So it was a, yeah, it felt like a really exciting milestone. I love it. Congratulations.

You know what was even better? I have to tell you, the emails we get from readers who say things like, gosh, I've made better decisions as a result of this book. This book made me rethink some of my career choices. it's inspired me to really strive for something that I thought was outside of reach. One of the folks that I talked to, Laura Zara, knowledge at Wharton, said, yeah, it's almost like if you read it, you can be it. And so that's really inspiring because the reason we wrote the book is to be helpful to lots of folks out there who otherwise may not have access to this kind of level of research

and insight from the top leaders. So that's what gets us really out of bed every morning. That's the best. That is absolutely the best. I think my listeners know that the feeling of receiving feedback from the people who have been impacted in a positive way by your work. There's nothing better. So great. So, Elena, thanks again for being here.

This is fantastic. Everyone by the book, the CEO next door. And I certainly would like to stay in touch and continue this dialogue as we both progress, Elena. Sounds great, Ryan. Thank you. It's a real pleasure. appreciate this conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Wow, what a fascinating conversation. I could have spoken with Elena for hours. I loved it. I learned so much. A huge thank you to Elena for joining me. And thank you for listening and supporting the show.

I would love it if you would write a review, subscribe and rate the show in iTunes Apple Podcast. That's write a thoughtful review. I do read all of them. Rate the show, hopefully five stars and subscribe to it. in iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to a podcast. Thank you so much for your support. As you know, I love doing this more than anything other than spending time with my family.

And the reason I'm able to keep doing it is because of you and your support. So thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, I will see you next week. Can't wait.