The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 339: Robert Greifeld - Lessons Learned From A Decade Of Change As CEO Of NASDAQ

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Ep: #339: Robert Greifeld - Lessons Learned From A Decade Of Change As CEO Of NASDAQ Robert Greifeld served as the CEO of Nasdaq from 2003 to 2016. During his tenure, Bob led Nasdaq through a series of complex, innovative acquisitions that extended the company's footprint from a single U.S. equity exchange to a global exchange and technology solutions provider, nearly quadrupling revenue, growing annual operating profits by more than 24 times and achieving a market value of over $11 billion. He is the author of a new book called: Market Mover: Lessons from a Decade of Change at Nasdaq.  Notes: Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence: "Once you achieve competency, they're on a daily battle with complacency." Always looking forward - never resting on laurels A mindset that: "Success in the past is no guarantee that success will happen in the future." Self reflection is important for self awareness: "Being focused on the present doesn't preclude self reflection." Has being rich made you happy?  "Wealth makes you more secure?" How to balance family time and work time? "Balance is a dangerous word.  I prefer having an integrated life instead."  "I made a rule that I did no business dinners unless I was doing the selling." Make multiple short trips instead of longer ones... Only miss seeing your family for a day or two at a time Bob describes the story of how he was recruited to NASDAQ and why he took the job... During the interview process, he shared the five things he would do within the first 100 days: Get right people on board Reduce bureaucracy Embrace fiscal discipline Overhaul technology Stop being satisfied with number 2 Have to have the right people on the bus Bob met with many people prior to starting as the CEO of NASDAQ:  "I fired a lot of people before 8:00am on the first day I started.  I did a lot of work prior to starting to learn who was going to buy in." "Good morale in a bad organization is not a good thing." With promotions, live by the 80/20 rule: "We tried to promote 80% from within our organization." "When interviewing people from the outside, the odds of being wrong are higher." Qualities to look for in people to promote: Positive attitude/energy -- "Happy campers" Pure skills How well do they play with others? Won't tolerate prima donnas How to be a great leader? Must be in front of your customers Stand in the shoes of your people Do a lot of individual contributor work "Don't be a conference room pilot" -- Don't spend all your time in meetings Learned knowledge vs. Lived knowledge Learned: "Don't know what's coming, you just learned it." Lived: "You've sat in the seat, you can see around corners." Acquisitions: Geography - If location is near us, that helps Industry - If it's the same industry, just smaller, that helps Overall advice: Never had a career path or end goal Wanted to do something that energized me "I'll do that job well." "Don't focus on climbing the mythical career ladder." "Don't take a job to just get another job." Why leave NASDAQ? "I like controlling my schedule." The benefits of growing up with blue collar parents.  His dad worked for the Post Office, he was always upbeat and believe that life can be better.

What I would get upset with them, I see in the corporate setting, which as that became, and I saw that back when I was in the computer business, the people want to climb a mythical career ladder that they have. And they'll take a job to advance themselves to get to another job. I'm not a fan of that. Life is short and to take two or three of your years, just kind of checking in to get to another part of your life. I would not advise anybody to give up that part of your life there. So find something you have passion for. Do it well. Further opportunities will present themselves to you.

We are opening up applications to our learning leader circle. We do this once per year. Think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in your why, in your what, you need to be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help?

Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. Think about that. I'd ask you the same question. Who are you choosing to surround yourself with to help you grow, to push you, to challenge you, and to be there when you need help? this is a chance to surround yourself with other growth-oriented leaders looking to challenge themselves and grow to become more effective both personally and professionally. We've added specific curriculum elements so that by the end of the year you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader.

These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. And time and again, the thing that people say they love most about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another. very quickly. If you'd like to apply, go to LearningLeaderCircle.com. That's learningleaders circle.com to apply. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 44222

in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also, give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team, text learners, the 4422.2. Now, On the night's featured leader, it's former NASDAQ CEO, Bob Greifeld. He was CEO from 2003 to 2016. During his tenure as CEO, NASDAQ quadrupled revenue, grew annual operating profits by more than 24 times and achieved a market value of over $11 billion.

He's also the author of a great new book titled Market Mover, Lessons from a Decade of Change at Nasdaq. Few of the topics we discussed as a leader why you should always be a player coach and the benefits from it. And then the difference between learned knowledge and lived knowledge and how you can benefit from both. And then why you shouldn't strive for work-life balance and what you should do instead. There's so much packed into this shorter episode, including hiring, firing, and building effective teams and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Bob Greifeld. All right, Bob Greifeld, so good to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome.

It's my pleasure to be here, Ryan. I am, as I mentioned to you earlier when we were chatting, I'm fascinated by leaders who have found a way to sustain excellence over an extended period of time. And you've certainly done that, and you've done a really great job. of being intentional about surrounding yourself with others who have done that. And so I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? Well, that's a great question. It's something I wrestle with all the time.

And if I could boil it down to a couple simple words, it's a phrase I probably said, I don't know, half a million times. And that might not be an exaggeration. That is, once you achieve competency, you are on a daily battle with complacency. So I've seen so many people who really are talented, achieve competency, and there's some relaxation that happens as part of that. So you have to realize that you have to come in every day, even though you're competent, really trying to achieve new and better things. And these are simple words, easy to understand, but very, very difficult to do. What are some of the ways that you, some practices you had in place to ensure that complacency never happened?

And I would say that was one of the things that, to answer your question, I said, one of the things I didn't like about writing the book is it forced me to live in the past and to think about what happened before. So what I say to people is when you come in, every day is a new day, right? And you cannot be thinking about what you have achieved. I remember I was on one panel and the person asked me, you know, list your three greatest accomplishments, things like that. And I said, if I started to think in those terms, then the board should be looking for a new CEO. So you have to recognize that your success in the past is absolutely no guarantee of success in the future. And in many ways, it can impede your success in the future because you're sitting on your laurels. And you don't recognize that.

The other thought I always live with is the difference between success and failure are two sides of a very thin coin. right so nobody is preordained to fail nobody's preordained to succeed it's really your effort on the ground at that particular point in time that kept me on my toes i you know that's one of the parts i highlighted from your book which which i highly recommended called market mover lessons from a decade of change at nasdaq as you were the the CEO but it's chapter 13 it's titled don't look back and i took a note here about that question you were asked and you said if i ever thought about that it's time to hire somebody else. And this is one of the few parts of the book that I was curious about, and perhaps I may

disagree, because I have learned that self-reflection, analyzing why you've won and lost, can be very beneficial moving forward, doing a sort of what some would call a success autopsy or a post-mortem. What do you think, is that just not part of your process to review and analyze your past, in order to continue to do it and improve in the future, or I'm curious your thoughts on that? Yes, that's a great question and a great point. So certainly self-reflection is important and self-awareness is particularly important. So when I say that we want to be focused on the present, certainly that does not preclude learning from the past. I'm talking about resting on the

laurels in the past. I've been successful in the last eight years. That doesn't have anything to do with my success in the time to come. You certainly want to learn from your past successes and learn from your past failures and apply that to the here and now in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. So I think we're essentially saying the same thing, but I'm focused on, and I see it where people come to work where they're very competent, and this is always a matter of degrees, right? And it's not that self-apparent.

So I say, okay, I have 94% of what you were three years ago. you're missing that extra 6% of effort. It's not like they're at 50% that's easy, right? It's really that last 5% or 10% of effort that when you are competent, that's where complacency will creep in. I want to get to the phone call when you were being recruited to be the CEO of NASDAQ, but before that, I was reading the acknowledgement sections of your book because I think you can learn a lot from acknowledgments of who the people think and some of the first

people you think are your parents. They raised five kids and they said you can do anything. And I'm curious, what would you say are some of the greatest learnings you've taken from your parents? Well, so I came from a blue collar, lower economic background. My dad worked in the post office. We had five children. He always had a second and third job. But they were always upbeat and believing that life was going to get better.

So I certainly learned that a lot of what you experience in life is relative. So I've met in my current life, you know, very many wealthy people who are not that happy. And they're not that happy because it's relative to what they think is possible. And I saw my parents with very little always be very happy. And so I would say clearly what I reference in the book is their belief that the future was unrestricted and everything was. possible. I kept that, right? So when you think about us making a bid on the London stock change as a relatively thinly capitalized stock at the time, you had to have that core belief in you. You're a very wealthy guy. How has wealth made you, has it made you more happy? And if so,

how? No, I would say this. It makes you more secure. So I can speak coming from both sides of the aisle, right? When we first got married, I'd map out our budget down to the penny. I allocated $8.52 for entertainment in a given period of time. So I don't need to do that now. But, you know, and I don't want to be trite here, but obviously I've been married for 38 years and have three wonderful children. And that's something that, you know, it's truly priceless there. So, but money is is wonderful. I don't want to probably, you know, and it's, you know, wonderful with respect to security, but it can also, you know, in the circles I travel in, there's a lot of busted marriages and failed family relationships, and you'd have to say money is part of the problem associated

with that. You've been able to maintain and thrive in a successful marriage with kids, and you write about that in your book. People listen to this for business advice, but their life and their marriage and that is more important. So since you touched on it, I'm curious, what are some ways that you've been intentional about having a great marriage through the course of a pretty wild career where you're traveling the world, you're working on certain long hours, making really tough decisions that could be, that could make or break a really massive business? How have you been able to balance those two things? So one, and I reference it in the book, the balance word is.

a dangerous word because you really, you will never get to balance. It just doesn't happen. And more often than not, the balance is going to be on the work side where you're neglecting your family so much. So the balance, don't try to get that. But you try to have what I call an integrated life, and that's so much easier today than it was back in 2000 based upon the technology that's available. But you want to have your family and the business life integrated where it's seamless and you can try to do both very well. The other thing I did, you know, in terms of just trying to restrict my time commitment is I would have a rule that I would not do business dinners unless I was doing the selling, right? So I had to be the person trying to get the deal,

and then I had to give up my evening to do that. But if somebody was a vendor to us, as much as I might have loved them, I'd much rather spend time with the family. And the other thing you had to do, when I only flew commercial, which made it difficult, is I would make multiple shorter trips. So to the extent you miss one night at home, you know, it's not that big of a deal. But the impact is exponential. So if you're missing five nights, and that's a big deal. So, you know, my trips are typically one and two days. And when we were spending a lot of time in Europe and certainly when we're bidding on the LLC,

on a number of occasions, I did the London trip in a day. You know, fly there, first flight in and last flight out and come back. And then it's kind of transparent to the kids. And so you do that. And, you know, it pays off in time. So tonight I have to give a speech down on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time of being there since 2003. There's no publicity. I would never be filmed there.

Allow myself to be filmed there. But it's for the NOIP, which is the National Organization of Investment Professionals. And somehow all three of my kids have climbed on and want to come there to see dad. So that's, you know, that's a good feeling there. So you have to work at it. You can't seek balance. You have to seek integration. Balance will get you upset because you'll never get there.

Let's talk about the time when you were being recruited to become the CEO of NASDAQ. Can you take us to that moment of what was going through your mind when you got the call and then when you ultimately decided to take the job? and your plan to get started. Yeah, so that was interesting. So I had sold my company to a larger company called Sun Guard data systems in 1999. That transaction probably happened in a year early, but as I say in the book, better to sell a year early than a year late. And I was spending time at Sun Guard,

really having a great time in that I learned a lot. Because when I sold my company at Sungard, we had 200 people in it, and I was kind of a micromanager for hell. And then within months, I had thousands of people spread across the globe. So I knew I had to learn management skills and build a strong team to make that work. Plus, at Sun Guard, they had done acquisitions as a kind of core to their being. So I learned that skill set.

But that being said, I knew I wasn't going to be there forever. And I'm fundamentally an entrepreneurial kind of fellow. And I would go back to that kind of roots. So when the call came from NASDAQ, it was not quite fitting into my life. plan. So initially, I said, no, I'm not, you know, really that interested. And my initial reaction was based upon having worked with the organization. Because when I was a software entrepreneur, we built trading systems for NASDAQ market makers. And we had to integrate with the exchange and a regular basis. And they were in some ways just, you know, obviously bureaucratic and

had a monopoly position. So that was my reaction. But then I thought about it and somebody, a friend approached me who had been on the board. And I said, I would. take the interview. And then the first inkling of it being a new life is that I was fortunate before I came to NASDAQ and that I had been successful but quite anonymous. And then it showed up in the Wall Street Journal that my name is one of the candidates. And I was not known in the Wall Street Journal circles there. So I said, this is a different life.

But I took the interview. And I was an unusual recruit for them at that time. Since that time, most exchanges have gone in the direction of where I was because I didn't come from an investment banking background. I had more of a technology entrepreneurial background. But they recognized that NASAC, when you skip the skins off, was fundamentally a technology company. And more than half the employees were technologists. They also knew they wanted to separate from the regulator. They knew they had a regulatory culture.

So they needed a entrepreneurial spirit who came from a technology background. crowd and you know I fit that bill you had five uh things you're going to do in the first 100 days that you mapped out get the right people on board reduce bureaucracy embrace fiscal discipline overhaul technology and stop being satisfied with number two why i'm curious always in how somebody gets to a place to where they're able to to be that confident in their five and then why those five uh and and were they right i'm curious now now that you're you are taking some time to look back. I'm glad you didn't ask me to name the five there, Ryan.

I could. Hey, I wrote my book and I had people reviewing it and they were giving me feedback. And I go, are you sure that I wrote that? And they said, yeah, it's on page 80. I go, okay, I got to make sure I know the stuff that's in my own book that I wrote myself. Yeah, I know. I agree. I have to reread it. But I'm glad you took mercy on me.

So one, I mean, the context there in terms of how life is interesting is, is I was, the headhunter slipped that I was one of the two finalists and I thought it was kind of mine to choose and I had the name of the finalist. And that finalist was somebody I interviewed when I was on the board of night. And I knew how articulate he was and he spoke in complete paragraphs. And so I said, going into this interview because they're going to have the two us in on the last go round and the same, you know, back to back. I said, I'm not going to get into a tit for tat with that person. And because I probably won't do as well as I would like to in that context. So I took the bull by the horns and said, okay, here's what I'm going to do in the first

hundred days. And here are the first five focuses that we have. So it came along from that point of view. But in direct response to your question, I'm going to tie back to something else I did at NASDAQ. I had people read the book, Good to Great. And then when people had employee lunches with me, I would give them a bus, NASDAQ bus. And on the book, Good to Great, which I just struck me as true to my core, he said, the most

important thing you have to do is get the right people on the bus. And the concept there is you have to have a one, three, or five-year strategic plan, but by definition, it will be wrong, right? So you have to have the people on the bus who are steering in a certain direction, who have the ability to change that direction when they see the circumstances change and respond to it and recognize new opportunities. So I've always been a people-first kind of culture. So when I say the five things I said to the board, did I believe at that time that those were in violet and there were the right things forever? You know, of course not. But they were the right things at that point in time. And I certainly meant it quite sincerely. But we just had to get on the bus and see where

it would go. But if you repeat them to me, I can remember them better. But I do remember Get the right people on board. It reduced bureaucracy. Yeah. Yeah. Embrace fiscal discipline. Overhaul technology. Stop being satisfied of number two.

Yes. I would say what you said there, all of that is good. But, you know, we got rid of the bureaucracy who put fiscal discipline in, you know, pretty quickly. So that had to then change. I had to make sure it was in the culture. But what, you know, I cover in the book is I knew going in that the organism called Nazak, the body kind of wanted to. wants to reject change.

So we recount that I fired, you know, a number of people before 8 o'clock my first day. Really? Yes. Yeah, before I came in, before most people at work, I had people in and said, okay, thank you for your service for the years, but we're going in a different direction. And I'd met these people in the months before I had started, so I had a clear sentence. And what that achieved is that any concept of battling me for the cultural change, evaporated, you know, first thing in the morning. So people knew that we were going in the new direction. And, you know, most times you want to have communal decisions, communal at least

discussions. You really have a dictator at the top in the CEO, but you want to have communal discussions. You want to get the input here. But I was keenly aware that I didn't have that much time, right? Because I had started in ECEN. They were eating at lunches day to day. And we just had to get on with the mission. So I didn't want to spend a lot of time discussing who we were and where we're going. I just wanted to say this is where we're going. And that was the reason I wanted to make that statement. These people obviously were not going to go with me 100% nor were the capable of doing that.

And, you know, how did you know that? I'm curious. Like, because nowadays, what you're saying, it seems like a lot in leadership, it's out there that people are saying, no, I'm going to spend the first certain amount of time to learn and to listen and to understand. and you're saying, no, no, I don't have time for that. It's time. The train has left the station. We're going and these people are not going to be on the train with us. How did you make that call?

Did you have any fears at the time of saying, wait a second, this could be really bad for culture and the fact that people are going to be scared or nervous that am I next or what's happening? Is Bob going to fire everybody? I mean, what was going through your mind? Well, a few things. One, who's mentioned in the book, who's my friend in life, Vinnie Viola, who's, who's the founder of Virtue, we had lunch before I started and he said, Bob, you know, good morale in a bad organization is not a good thing, right? So I certainly knew I was going to be sacrificing

morale. You had to go into a dark place and come out the other side. And I would say this, you know, I moved with a different speed. So the transaction business, the technology business, the stuff I was intimate with, I knew exactly what I had to do, right? Hard, hard stop. So I know doubts in that regard, right? So we had this monolithic mainframe where they changed the software once a year. It was unbelievably well tested and reliable. The competitors had these rickety unixistence, which would go down every week, but they changed the software every week, and that's what the customer wanted at that point in time. We were losing more sure a day, so it didn't have time to wait on that. But, you know, what was interesting, when I got there,

I had set in my mind what I had to do, but I had to learn a lot also. So clearly when I got there, I didn't understand the publicity part of the job. I didn't understand the government relations part of the job. And then the listings business. We compete with New York Stock Exchange to win a listing or we compete to retain our listing. I kept hearing from the salespeople that Dick Rosso was in my account. And at first I didn't believe it, but they had to talk into a number of salespeople, a number of CEOs of customers. And they were saying, yeah, Dick has been calling on me for years.

I had to make sure I spent adequate time because in that business, it has to be a CEO of the CEO conversation. So I didn't know really what I was doing. I had to spend a lot of time with that organization that didn't want to. And certainly when Dick was let go by the New York Stock Exchange and some pretty controversial issues, then it made my life easier because that forward press for our listings kind of dissipated. And I could focus more on what I thought was the more important problem at that time. So you fired people, but then you also have to make hiring decisions. And I'm always fascinated by what leaders who have sustained excellence look for and people to add to their management team. And this is something that you've written about in your book is how to build a high performing management team.

What's your overall philosophy as well as characteristics and people that you look for to be part of your leadership team? So the first thing I would say is I live by the 80-20 rule. And that I'd like to see 80% of the promoting. emotions across all levels happen internally, right? Because when you're working there, essentially, you're getting interviewed for three months, six months, three years, right? So you know this person under different sets of circumstances. And when you interview somebody, no matter how much interviewing you put them through, the odds of you being wrong are certainly a lot higher than promoting from within. And I take great pride when you look at the management team, the vast

majority of them are people we developed over the years. And I think that just contributes to the culture. People feel good about it. And it's a win-win all around. Now, you do have to hire outside because you need to expand and extend the culture over time. And certainly you run into certain types of knowledgees that you don't have internally. That's what the 80-20 rule works for me. As far as qualities or characteristics in people, what are some of the things you look for. Yes, I would say this. One, I definitely abided by the happy camper philosophy. You want to see somebody who fundamentally likes being there because, you know, you are building a team. So, you know, you have the pure athletic skills, which are necessary. So from our point of view, we think, okay,

what are the minimum IQs? What's the minimum athletic skills you have to be on the team? But then after that, you have to say, okay, how will they play with others in the team? And then after that, you have to say, okay, how will they play with others in the team? Are they really going to help others? Are people going to be willing to help them kind of thing? And do they bring a positive energy to the team? So we look at that very clearly. So you certainly have situations where you think somebody has more upside but is difficult.

And what I said my first day is we will not tolerate primadanas on the team. And the prima donnas come wrapped typically in a, high degree of talent. And I think some of the technical people we had, which were just brilliant in terms of what they could do individually. But collectively, they would drag down the team. So you're always looking, you're always thinking we have the team at large. I'm a big fan of the New York Knicks and NBA. And I love their plus minus stats when you see the players.

I know if you follow the NBA, but yeah, we had Carmelo. Yeah. So you look at players can have great individual stats, but they're on the floor. the team actually lost five points, that kind of thing. So I always had that concept in my mind. Did you create some form of the analytics of plus minus that? Plus minus for those who don't follow, basically as you look at a player and does the team gain points or lose points in the minutes that they play? Is there a way to do that in the business world?

Or is that more just like your gut feeling? Yeah, I would say it's more gut feeling, but not entirely because people know me. We would try to weigh measure and count everything. It could be way measured and counted there. So we need more stats and more things than most people would care to think about there. But in terms of the team attitude, you have to say there was a gut feeling to it there. I also don't want to overstate it because we had some people that we were just super talented and just team-oriented enough. And that was fine, right?

They all come in different degrees. You've written that you've always got to be a player coach. For those people listening who are in mid-level leadership roles within big companies that are striving to grow higher within that organization or perhaps another one, why do they always need to be a player coach? Yeah, so the worst thing in the world is that you get promoted to vice president or senior vice president, executive vice president, take an office near the corner of the floor and say, I've arrived that I feel good about this and I'm going to control this. and I'm going to control this vast machinery. That's a sure way to make yourself obsolete in a very quick period of time. So, you know, it ties back to how do you get to be a great leader? How do you get to be a great manager?

It starts by understanding, obviously, the customer and being in front of the customer, however you define the customer in that situation. It comes from being able to stand in the shoes and the people who work for you to fully understand what they're doing. and then be in the best position to evaluate who's doing the better job there. So I always felt, you know, I was doing a lot of individual contributor stuff. And as I know, Dina and the whole team always felt that way. You have to touch and feel the pulse of the company.

The last thing we want is conference room pilots there. I spent most of my days in conference rooms, mind you, but I always had a thing about, you know, conference zoom pilots who just really didn't know what they were talking about. What do you mean by, so when you were saying I spent a lot of time doing the role of a individual contributor, which a lot of leadership, managers and managers and leaders get away from that. How would you do that? What would you do? Well, one, you know, when you look at the transaction side, we had called eight or ten major

customers, right? So it was my job to understand the, really the global head of trading there because you go higher than that, which is also my job, they became. less effective. The individual contributor role that I complained about all the time but secretly enjoyed was when we were trying to win a listing or retain a listing, I had to talk to the CEO one-on-one. You had a certain degree of CEO snobbery. So that kind of individual contributor thing was forced upon you, right? So between that and the transactions business, but anytime, you know, we developed a market technology business where exchanges around the world who are our customers

and they obviously expect you to be talking to them also. Page 153, you write about learn knowledge versus lived knowledge. And some of the great advantages of growing through acquisition is an opportunity to eliminate overlapping cost structures while increasing revenue. How do you balance those two, that learn knowledge versus lived knowledge? How has that impacted your life as a leader? Yeah, this ties into the point I'm making. So when you have learned knowledge, right?

So you live in a world with very smart people. They get a lot of data. They read, digest it and can sound very intelligent about the topic. And, you know, they are. But learn knowledge is different in that you don't know what's coming, right? You know what you learned, right? You read the book. You read the thing.

But, you know, where is this walker really going? How do you have a touch and feel of it? If you sat in the seat, you live the topic, right? Then you see around the corners. And I probably said this mainly in the context of acquisitions. You know, I did not want to do acquisitions and I did not have direct knowledge of what that business meant. And certainly as we got bigger, that was not always possible. But I always would judge, okay, who's in front of me, who is not just sounding smart, who has learned a lot,

who's been in this space for a period of time and can tell me where the bodies are buried and where the puck is moving. you've written also about that the acquisition part what are for somebody who is running a business now and they're looking to acquire another business or potentially be acquired so on either end of it what are what advice would you give to them right so i always had what i called the bowling pin strategy right where i didn't want to make an acquisition that was more than one bowling pin left and right and i found that if it was half a bowling pin left or right we were even more more successful. And I think it was Jack Welsh, I'm not sure, but said, you know, when you look at, you know, a lot of people talk about acquisitions failing. And I didn't see that. But I do agree with the thought that when you buy a company that's in your business, that's a lot smaller than yours, the odds of that acquisition working are incredibly high, 90-something percent. If you buy a company that's roughly your size that is not near where your business is, I'm talking about pure geography, and that business is also in a different business than you, the odds of that deal succeeding

are quite low, right? So you've got to look at geography matters, right? So if you have two companies in New York, you can work things out a lot face to face. We required, and I talked about this in the book, Olex out of Stockholm. Now we geographically reversed. We put in video conferencing back then and got to meet each other that way, but it's still fundamentally different. And OMX also had a derivatives platform, which we didn't have.

I had looked and knew derivatives for a long period of time, but never was directly responsible for a derivative's business. So you have that kind of issue going there. And OMEX had more people than NASDAQ had. So they had their own strong culture, which was, you know, centered in Sweden. So I knew when we did that deal, Bob, you're hitting the tripwire, right? And you're 0 for three in terms of the odds that they're working. But identification of the problems have the solution. But if I had bought when we bought a ECN that was headquartered in New York City that did U.S.

equities trading that at the 10th of the people that we had, then one, there are no cultural decisions. The acquired companies know they're getting merged into NASDAQ culture. We can speak in context telepathically about U.S. equity markets. So, you know, we don't have to have long bureaucratic meetings about that. Those things, those deals work. The other ones you've got to be really careful of. One more question, Bob. So let's say you're sitting down with somebody, your kids' age, and they want to, and perhaps

it is one of your kids, but they want to live a life where they're making a positive contribution on the world, perhaps have a career like yours, right? A great marriage with good kids and a really great career. But they're earlier on. what are a few of the pieces of advice that you would give to them? Yeah. So here's the biggest single thing I can say is that I never had a concept of a career path in mind. I didn't have an end goal per se, but I knew that I wanted to do something that would energize me

and want me to come to work and make a difference in my life and hopefully a positive contribution to society. And I think if you do that and choose that role, right, then you'll do that job well. And if you do that job well, then other opportunities present themselves to you. Now, I have to qualify that by saying, when I say, you want to do a job that you have passion for that you love, that does not mean that the alarm bell goes off at 8 o'clock and you're jumping for joy because, oh, thank God the weekend's over. I can finally get them back to work. But it's so it's not always that.

But it is certainly something you bring passion to that you generally love to do it. What I would get upset with, and I see in the corporate setting, which as that became, and I saw that back when I was in the computer business, that people want to climb a mythical career ladder that they have. And they'll take a job to advance themselves to get to another job. I'm not a fan of that. Life is short. And to take two or three of your years, just kind of change. checking in to get to another part of your life, I would not advise anybody to give up that

part of your life there. So find something you have passion for. Do it well. Further opportunities will present themselves to you. Thank you so much for being here, Bob. The book's called Market Mover Lessons from a Decade of Change at NASDAQ. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? I don't know.

That's a great question. The book can be bought anywhere that books are sold. Yeah, that's for sure. It's certainly on Amazon. I encourage everybody to read the book. It's kind of interesting. And I think the management lessons are particularly good there. But I don't have a social media presence yet.

You must. I do. But that's okay. I think the main thing that the reason why we were connected was because of the fact that you decided to reflect and put it in writing, which is, I'm happy that you did. because as I was taking notes, finding useful nuggets for my life and my career. And certainly that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you because I wanted to expand on those topics and those key areas that were really interesting to me. One more thing, though, so you decided to leave and you write about this, about you had this final toast with Vinny, who you mentioned earlier in our conversation. And I'm curious, how is it going now that you've, I mean, it's not like you're retorting.

tire. You're still hard at it. So what, why leave and then how has it been since that, that, that conversation with Vinny and the time with your wife that you write about in the book? Well, it's different, though. I mean, so yes, you know, the retirement word, it doesn't really make any sense and have to come up with a new word. But I'm engaged at, you know, 30%, 40% of where I was before. Sometimes it spikes higher than that. But what I said in, you know, the next phase, I wanted to control my schedule, right? When you're CEO of NASAC, you cannot control your schedule. So now I'm in a better position to arrange my schedule

in the way that I want there. But I'm not kidding myself. I'm not working like I did when I was the CEO of NASDAQ. So it is a different phase of life. But would people say you're working? Well, I never expected you to shut down. I don't know what I would do. What do you do for fun?

have? Well, I bike ride. I used to run. I had to run marathons, but, you know, when I meet my maker up in heaven, hopefully, I'm going to complain about how he constructed knees because he didn't do such a good job there. So now biking is great for me there. But also, you know, I was very involved with track and field. So in next phase of life, you want to give back. So I joined the board of NYU Stern School where I got my master's. I went at night. And, you know, I didn't know at the time. But, you know, they have 40, something percent of their applicants, the undergrad school, are Pell Grant recipients. So that's where, you know, I want to spend, you know, my big thing is how do I find disadvantaged people who are motivated and talented? And so with NYU, I kind of get that filter happening naturally. They have, you know, very strong SAT scores. They've applied to NYU. They're, uh, they're motivated, they're talented. So I'm having a lot of fun with that and some other things into it. So, yeah, I have more time for non-work activities, too. Love it. Well, Bob, thanks again for being here. I really appreciate your investment. It was great fun.

I can tell you have passion what you're doing, so keep it up and good things happen. Thank you. That's my favorite thing to do right now is have conversation with really smart guys like you and try to hang. And it makes me feel good when I can learn and hopefully help others along the way, man. It sounds like you're doing just that. So thank you for your time. All right. Thanks, Bob. Okay. Thank you. Bye. I get a lot of joy out of having conversations with people like Bob. The highly intelligent straight shooters, no messing around types. We did it on video so I could see his mannerisms, his head nods, his eyes light up, his smile.

The level of engagement and energy was extremely high. He seemed to be enjoying himself. And I certainly want to always put myself in situations where I am. am forced to level up, to hang with someone as smart as him. A guy was a CEO of NASDAQ. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you did as well. A few of the topics that really stuck out to me.

The five things you're going to do during your first 100 days. And Hiss, remember, get the right people on board. Reduce bureaucracy. Embrace fiscal discipline. Overhaul technology. Stop being satisfied with number two. Really helpful. Then you must be a player coach.

Don't be a conference room pilot. And then don't be concerned. consumed with a career pat and never take a job just to get the next job. Life is far too short from that. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I hope you did as well. If so, I'd love it if you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leader show so you can listen to the wisdom from the former CEO of Nasdaq.

Bob Greifeld, very helpful. Thank you once again for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis for that. I will forever be grateful. Thank you. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. We are opening up applications to our learning leader circle. We do this once per year. Think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in your why, in your what, you need to be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your friends? Who will be your. your mentor. Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single

greatest determining factor in your long-term success. Think about that. I'd ask you the same question. Who are you choosing to surround yourself with to help you grow, to push you, to challenge you, and to be there when you need help. This is a chance to surround yourself with other growth-oriented leaders looking to challenge themselves and grow to become more effective both personally and professionally. We've added specific curriculum elements so that by the end of the year you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. And time and again, the thing that people say they love most about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another very quickly.

If you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle.com. That's learning leader circle.com to apply.