WEBVTT - Where to Go If You Need a CEO 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:07.560 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:12.080 General Electric. GE made headlines back in twenty twenty two 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.360 when it decided to close Crotonville, it storied corporate campus 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.759 in New York's Hudson Valley. In its heyday, GE was 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.400 known for making well almost everything, from trains to microwaves. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.520 It also had a reputation for making good managers who 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.479 took classes in leadership at that Crotonville office park, and 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.279 many of them eventually left GE to run other companies. 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.880 GE for years was the training ground, the original CEO factory. 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.360 Matt Boyle covers work and management for Bloomberg, and he 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.760 says Crotonville was legendary. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.080 It was just sort of the sprawling facility upstate, just 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.600 not far from the city where you would go and 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.000 it wouldn't just be like a one day leadership seminar 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:00.960 like a lot of companies would do where you might 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.040 get a guest speaker from Harvard Business. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:03.880 School to a trust fall. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.520 Yeah, you would stay there. You would stay there for 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.000 days and days, and you know, you would of course 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.160 also learn the ins and outs of like some of gees, 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.920 you know, like their six sigma black belts, you know, 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.319 management techniques, then you would hear from management professor. 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.680 If you're a fan of the sitcom Thirty Rock, all 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.880 of this may sound familiar. One of the main characters, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.520 Jack Doneghie, the brassy network boss played by Alec Baldwin, 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.240 had climbed to the top of GE's corporate ladder. I'm 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.720 giving the keynote address of the company's six Sigma Retreat 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.800 to Move Forward in Croton On Hudson. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:38.639 Oh, is that like a corporate retreat? 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.759 Doneghie is so nervous about that speech. He makes Liz Lemon, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.080 Tina Fey's character, go with him. 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:45.800 Lemon. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.320 The Retreat to Move Forward is a global meeting of 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:49.680 GE's best and brightest. 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.160 Careers are made there. 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.600 It's no wonder Jack Doneghie was anxious. GE's training center 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.800 was where the company put managers through their paces. 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.880 Your weaknesses would be identified, they would be worked on, 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.800 you know, really hammering home if your weakness was in 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.360 financial statements or on the finance side, if your weakness 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:11.840 was on marketing, they would work on those and they 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.160 would just churn through hundreds of people. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.640 That rigorous training made those GE managers attractive to other 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.400 companies when they were looking for new leadership and by 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.480 virtue of how big GE was and how much it did, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.359 those trainees had broad experience. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.360 They were conglomerates, so you could work in you know, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.720 jet engines, you could work in GE Capital, you could 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.480 work making refrigerators, and if you were the head of 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.800 that business unit, you're basically the CEO of a fortune 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.080 one thousand company that did a lot for their global 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:44.639 stature to be Like, if you learn how to be 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.919 a CEO at GE, you can run anything. 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.560 So Matt says it was the end of an era 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.880 when GE closed Crotonville and sold it, raising questions about 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.919 where the next generation of executives would come from and 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.360 what values they'd learn along the way. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.360 Just three dozen companies accounted for preponderance of SMP fifteen 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.880 hundred CEOs over the years, so we knew these factories 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.280 always existed. What we didn't know, though, was how they 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.120 were changing. So I said, well, if GE's not the 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.440 pre eminent CEO factory anymore. 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:18.080 Who is. 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:23.520 I'm David Gera and this is the big take from 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.160 Bloomberg News today on the show, the next generation of 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:32.079 CEO factories, the new pipeline for executive talent where tomorrow's 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.640 CEOs are learning to lead and what that says about 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:45.040 global business. For years, GE's management training program was the 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.320 gold standard, according to Bloomberg's Matt Boyle, and other companies 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.760 sought to emulate GE's approach. 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.920 So that model was replicated, not perfectly, but look at 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.600 a Procter and Gamble, where if you were running Pampers 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.720 or something, you know, you were basic the CEO of 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.160 a global company, or even abroad at Semens, the German conglomerate, 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.320 Honeywell IBM. You know, this was replicated. Johnson and Johnson 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.920 is another one. So you have these sort of other 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.760 CEO factories coming up. But traditionally GE was the be 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.240 all end all. So if you went through Crotonville, whether 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.560 you only spent you know, a few days there or 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.919 a few months, you're really seen as sort of this 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:24.159 management material. 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.320 I know they sold it off in twenty twenty four, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.520 so there's a delicious metaphor there. But what led to 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:34.200 the end of GE's reign as a factory for s 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:34.760 a lot. 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.880 Of it, you know, the end of GE as sort 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.159 of the paragon of American business. It's fall from grace 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.000 has been well chronicled by Bloomberg and by other outlets, certainly, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.080 But once you get broken up, once the bloom is 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.599 off the rows in terms of the CEOs you are 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.960 producing and sending out into the world, not exactly distinguishing themselves. 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.160 As you've saw some of the people, especially more recently 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.200 the GE alums who have gone to run Boeing to 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.120 the ground basically yeah, barb no daily at home depot, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.240 some of them not really setting the world on fire, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.000 and so it sort of just ceased to be the 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.120 factory that it was still churning out very talented business executives, 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.240 of course, but once you got past that period in 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.400 the nineties and the aughts where it was, you know, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.120 in a pedestal. But I think GE, since they were 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.400 so high up, had the furthest to fall. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.720 And as that happened, as GE struggled to find its 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.839 footing and broke up, we saw big tech continue to rise. 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.360 But replicating the kind of leadership that sets those companies 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.600 apart isn't easy. We had Mark Kerman on the show, 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.599 our colleague at Bloombergoo covers Apple, and he was talking 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.000 about the uniqueness of that company that they've tried to 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.800 bring in outside executives, and it's failed time and time again. 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.000 There's something about Apple's culture that can't be replicated. It's 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.120 hard to get somebody to come in and recognize what 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.440 it is or how to operate in that world. How 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.240 much of an outlier is it as you see it? 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.840 Are there still major companies today in tech or other 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.440 sectors that are just kind of by virtue of the 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.760 way they're built or they've evolved, kind of resistant to 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:09.800 having somebody come in from the outside to run them. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.480 Yeah, and I think what mark set is totally true. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.520 Another supporting point there is how hard it is to 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.799 come out of those big tech firms and be successful 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:20.120 as a CEO elsewhere. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:21.840 That was happening a lot now that was a big 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:22.520 head scratcher. 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.000 Matt worked with a data research group called Live Data Technologies. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.920 I said, okay, well, can you just tell us where 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.800 every public company CEO over the past twenty years has 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.000 come from, or where have they ever worked, what's on 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.880 their resume? And so we generated this data set that 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.960 showed over three five year periods, how the factories to speak, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.360 have risen and fallen. When so, when these rankings came 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.240 in and we're looking down the list of the top 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.280 CEO factories. First thing we said was, Where's Apple, Where's Meta, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.600 Where's Amazon? Where are all these tech titans that are 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.520 these days the sort of paragons of business whatever they do, 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.800 whether it's their return to office policy or their approach 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.040 to try you know, companies model themselves on big tech 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.479 these days, and so we said, well, where are they? 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.160 And we realize there's a couple of reasons why you 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.640 don't see a lot of the big tech firms outside 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.880 of IBM. One reason is positive to us, is that 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.800 when you leave big tech, you often go into the 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.120 world of venture capital. You want to invest. You want 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.280 to invest in the next Meta or the next Google, 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.000 So that kind of takes them out of their running 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.840 to be a corporate CEO. Another reason is that they're 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.080 often very skilled and being what's called like a product 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.920 CEO rather than a general management CEO. So their skills 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:42.080 are really applicable to launching the next iPhone or launching 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.880 some sort of you know, software as a service type 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:46.960 of thing. But they're very concerned to tech, and you 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.000 can't just take them out of tech and then send 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:50.880 them to some other company and be like, okay, now 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.320 go sell refrigerators, so you don't have that GE model 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.760 that you used to. And the third reason is they're 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:58.760 just young. They don't have enough of a track record. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.920 Metta only went public twenty twelve, which is just like 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.920 halfway through the time period we were looking at here. 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.280 So there's just not enough executives that they've hired to 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.920 go off into the wilderness and become CEOs elsewhere. So 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.360 that might change, we might see some more CEOs in 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.240 corporate America or the corporate world at large who have 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.360 that big tech pedigree, but for now not as many. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.560 So there was the underrepresentation of big tech. And another 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.720 trend emerged in the data. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.320 And it just hit me over the head immediately as 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.400 soon as I saw the chronological breakdown of how the 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.560 professional services firms and the consulting firms were just slowly, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.360 steadily and then all of a sudden, you know, occupying 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.400 nearly the entire top ten. In our top ten, we 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:48.679 have McKinsey, Accenture, the A Deco Group, Ey, Deloitte, and PwC. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.720 And so you start to think, well, where's where's IBM, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.880 You know, where's GE. They're still there, but much further down, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.400 so they've been knocked from their perch, and I think 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.240 this is the first sort of story that really takes 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.160 a look at here is the case and here's why. 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:09.120 So how did large consulting firms become the new CEO pipeline? 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:10.840 And how is that changing business? 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:22.800 That's next pop quiz. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.560 What do Sundar Pichai, Sheryl Sandberg and James Gorman have 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.880 in common? They all used to work at McKenzie. My 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.600 colleague Matt Boyle has been reporting on this trend that 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.680 the new pipeline for executive talent runs from consulting firms 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.640 to C suites and he's been thinking a lot about 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.959 what's required of a modern day executive. So it's twenty 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:45.520 twenty five. 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:46.959 What are the. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.120 Qualities or assets in a good CEO today? I imagine 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.480 that definition has changed in recent day. 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:54.520 It really has. 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:56.960 I mean, he speaks to the evolution of the role 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:01.679 of the CEO. One big thing I came acro is adaptability. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.199 You have to be able to adapt quickly to an 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.680 ever changing role. Then if you talk about ever changing 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.360 world today is a perfect example in terms of the 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.040 word uncertainty being used what ten million times over the 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.440 past three months on earnings calls and the estimate, yes, exact, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.960 probably it's low balling it. But you need that ability 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.440 to anticipate. And if you can't anticipate because you don't 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.400 know what, let's say, President Trump's going to do with 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.600 tariffs next week, you have to at least be able 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:33.040 to adapt quickly. And that's where consultants are pretty strong. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.840 Their whole job is to go in blind to a company, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.120 assess it very quickly, and then figure out what to do. 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.640 So adaptability is one another one is just a sort 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.360 of a facility with digits and data, let's call it, 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.360 you know, a tech savviness. They also have a good 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.920 understanding of corporate cultures because again they have to come 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.240 in fly in parachute, in blind, get to read on 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.120 a corporate culture quickly and sort of suss that, okay, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.600 what's going to be possible, you know, within the scope 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.880 of of this engagement. And they are usually pretty good 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.440 at selling themselves. These are consultants, you know, that's sort 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.040 of if you're not good at selling yourself and your vision, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.319 you're not going to last very long at McKinsey, a 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.360 Bane or a BCG. And so that is a huge 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.200 part of these days of a CEO's job. 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.560 So this new pipeline runs from the accentures and the 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:23.160 PWC's and the McKinsey's of the world to these C suites. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.800 Let me pose to you an age old question, and 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.040 that is what do consultants actually do? 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.599 Well? What are they so fast? Side? That is the 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.199 age old question. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.760 Certainly, what consultants do, I think is a little bit 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.200 different than what a lot of Americans think consultants do. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.920 They might just think of a consultant as you know, 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.640 someone who jets in first class, comes to the company 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.920 and has a quick look around and then delivers, you know, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.560 a presentation. This is what you should do, you know, 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.680 lay off twenty percent of your people, you know, go 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.400 into China, you know, launch a new product, and then 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.200 they get skidattle, they're gone. While that is one element 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.920 of what some consultants do usually more on this strategy side, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.240 what I learned in the course of reporting this story 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.360 is that that is not what most consultants are doing today. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.840 The big difference being that they are often sticking around 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.440 and making sure that you know, whatever they recommend, whether 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.400 it's a new technology, a new way of management, they 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.760 stick and make sure it's actually working. So they're kind 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:29.000 of they're getting their hands dirty in a way that 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.239 I don't think a lot of people recognize that consultants 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:32.800 normally do. 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.240 We were talking about the kind of training apparatus that 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.280 these old industrial companies built up, if that was a 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.040 corporate campus or just a program, a training program. Do 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.120 you see the same thing playing out at these consulting firms. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.560 Do They have very rigorous training programs of their own 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.760 with the goal of, yes, building their ranks, but getting 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.319 exactly to the head of HRT accentsure. They spend as 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.200 much on training what they call learning and development, as 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.400 GE used to spend on all of its Crotonville apparats. 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:09.360 That said accentre has hundreds of thousands of employees, so 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.320 there is a lot of training that needs to be done. 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.240 But I've talked to other firms as well, and they're 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.160 just getting a lot more rigorous about creating putting some 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.640 structure behind this, which is a good thing. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:20.120 Certainly. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:21.800 Now we all laugh and joke about, oh I got 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.320 to sit through with stupid you webinar, or there's some 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.200 course from hr I have to take, But these companies 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.080 really take it super seriously and they know if you're 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.040 actually paying attention in some of this training. And granted 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.320 it shouldn't all just be boring webinars. It should be 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:37.440 one on one learning with senior leaders, you know, in 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.760 person stuff, stuff that you're not just going to do 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.679 over a zoom call. But the point is, whether it's 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.560 Accenture or the Swiss Staffing firm a deco group, you 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.560 talk to the heads of HR there, you really learn 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.480 that they really have realized, wait a minute, we've got 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.520 to put some more structure and rigor into this training. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.600 So it's not just something you tick a box and 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.280 do on a random Friday in the summer. It's something 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.040 that you want to actual we spend time on. You know, 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.640 it's going to make you a better employee and then 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.040 a more employable executive hopefully down the line. 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.760 Is the most common path to go from being a 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.439 partner at one of these firms directly to becoming a 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.080 CEO or their other stops along the way to them. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.320 It should never be a direct path actually from partner 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.640 at Accenture right into the C suite. That is kind 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.920 of actually a recipe for disaster. Some of the advisors 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.320 I talked to for this story. Had really said you 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.960 have to allow them to make all the predictable mistakes 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.520 in one or two let's say lower level corporate jobs. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.800 So usually if you're coming out of consulting and you 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.320 get a corporate job, you should maybe work as an 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.040 operations chief or a strategy chief is a very common one. 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.760 Walmart and other companies have hired being consultants as heads 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:50.720 of strategy, so then you get the feel for the 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.720 company and the culture and you're really immersed in it 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:55.640 without having to be the sort of the be all, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.480 end all decision maker before you're elevated right into the 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:00.560 CEO position. 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.200 I want to ask you about times when this has 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.480 worked out well, drawing from the world of consulting, putting 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.680 folks from there into the c suite, and times when 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:09.200 it hasn't. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.400 Yeah, I mean a good example. And this is a 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.240 CEO I talked to as a CEO of Ranstad. Now 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.480 this is company not a lot of Americans know about 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.880 staffing company. Staffing company. They do a lot of you know, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.360 staffing solutions. If you've got a workforce issue, you'll call 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.640 him in to fix it. They also own the job 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.480 site Monster dot com. So some of us might know 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:30.080 them that way. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.840 So anyway, their CEO is this Dutch guy. 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.720 They're based in the Netherlands, and he had run two 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.600 massive units of Accenture. He'd actually been there so long 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.440 he was there when it used to be called Anderson 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:43.440 Consulting in. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:44.120 The old days. 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.880 But the point is, having talked to him, he got 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.720 to know just about every industry under the sun, from 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.480 retails to autos to utilities. So he had the industry 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.960 knowledge of just about any industry, which is very helpful 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.160 now that his clients are across industries. But he also 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.520 was very good at deploying experts to fix whatever problems 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.160 issues their clients were having in his years and Axcenture. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.840 And he's also just like he's a personable guy too. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.640 He's not this robotic consultant who just speaks like he's 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.640 a PowerPoint in human form, which I think goes a 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.840 long way as well. So when he missed out on 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.640 the job of running Accenture, he was on everyone short 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.280 list to get a global CEO job and he took 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.400 the job at Ranstad. So he's a great example sort 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.720 of a consultant made good. Now, how about a couple 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.880 examples when this hasn't worked out. Yes, the recent poster 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.080 child for a consultant who did not turn out well 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.040 in the c suite was John Donahoe at Nike, a 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.360 longtime Bain and Co. Consultant, did very well there. He 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.840 also had some other corporate roles before he was at eBay, 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.320 did extremely well there. So he was following like the 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.520 proper path, you know, a couple of corporate roles in 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.600 c suite seasoning. But then he goes Intoni, which you 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.840 know is a challenging culture, a very challenging culture to 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.480 come into from the outside, and it was a flame out. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.119 Now it wasn't just because he was a consultant that 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.360 it didn't work, but it's sure as heck didn't help 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.920 that he was trying to bring some of his bin 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.840 teachings into a culture and sometimes these corporate cultures will 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.000 just reject it out a hand and say, no, that's 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.280 not how it's done here, this is not you know, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.080 this is not the Nike way. And you know, financial 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.440 performance COVID on top of it. A lot of things 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.040 contributed to his downfall. But another one is the former 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.639 CEO of Starbucks, who's Mackenzie Alum. There you have a 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.800 case of a founder, Howard Schultz, who just never. 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:39.640 Really seems to go away. 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:44.400 Yes, and maybe you know, he didn't have as much 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.840 of a runway as he needed to do some of 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.240 the things to turn Starbucks around, but there was not 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.879 much patience given to him, and so he was out after. 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:53.840 Just over a year. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.920 I want to end with a philosophical question, and that is, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:00.879 what do we gain or lose by hoving a pipeline 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.879 like this, having this kind of mold of who the 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.040 ideal CEO is? What does it mean that we're kind 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.879 of restricting I don't know, a diversity of opinion or 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.800 perspective on what that job entails or could entail. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:13.720 Yeah, I think it's a really good point, and we 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.080 are probably constraining and constricting ourselves a little bit to 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:19.680 say that, Okay, well now we don't need to hire 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.800 and the CEO doesn't have to be from ge but 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.720 he now has to be from Accenture. So okay, you're 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.120 not getting someone from this box. You're getting someone from 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.560 a different box. Whereas, especially these days in the world 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.520 of business, we really need to be hiring people who 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.840 are not in a box at all, or at least 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.240 willing to look up outside the box and have a 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:42.480 peek around. But I think it's the job of corporations, though, 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.320 when they are figuring out who's going to be leading 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.919 us into this wilderness that we're into right now, to 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.199 be hopefully looking across the board at not just the 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.399 people from let's say Central Casting, whether Central Casting is 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.000 ge or now it's Accenture and McKinsey and saying or 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.680 at least filling up the senior management roles with enough 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.359 people who are willing to challenge orthodoxy, have a sense 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.160 of you know, is this really the way we should 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.720 be doing things guys? And I think there's a lot 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.480 to be said for maybe taking a chance at least 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.439 on someone who's in a non traditional type and you know, 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.800 roll the dice there and see what happens. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:26.879 This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:27.680 I'm David Gerra. 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.920 To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.360 to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.320 dot com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode, 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:40.520 make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.080 you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.680 Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.