 Thank you. Thank you, Malina. Good afternoon everybody How cool is this guy lives in New Hampshire gets to hang out here in Copenhagen now with some of the world's best chefs Not bad. Let me tell you a story There's a woman who graduated from college in Berkeley several decades ago and she decided that She would go and live the French lifestyle after she graduated and those of you from France know it only too well Probably most people here as chefs know it know it very well, which is travel around and go to the local markets and and and partake of the great food and Some of the words that are very common today organic food sustainable food farm to table These are the things that she engaged in as as Malina hinted She came back to America and she decided to open up a restaurant Of course, of course called Sheppanese and it's Alice Waters and the remarkable thing about her is if you look at the people that work for her over a period of decades Over 200 people who work for her went on to tremendous success in their own careers and having spent the last couple of days here I know that there are a bunch of chefs here that have all sorts of protégés former cooks former Farmer staff members that have had a that have gone on to success as well But you know in the chef business in the high-end cooking business the idea that you're a great chef And you have many people who work for you and some of them leave and end up being very successful on their own It's not a shocking idea, but it turns out when I started to look around. I found it in industry after industry So for example, I looked at American football Storm is coming down. I looked at American football and those of you that follow follow any of that may know the name Bill Walsh bill Walsh was the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and what I did is a genealogical study of all of the Super Bowl winners in the national football league in America over the length of the history of the league and what I was interested in by Genealogical is not who their parents were of course, but who they work for it And what I did is I created these trees of talent if you could picture that and when you go back and do that It turns out that this one person bill Walsh I counted for an incredible number of the most successful head coaches in that industry and in fact if you look at This year early 2016 the Super Bowl the two head coaches in that game Both came from the tree of talent of bill Walsh this by the way ten years after he died 20 years after he was a head coach. You want to talk about legacy? You want to talk about impact tremendous? And so he he is a he's another one that had this type of this type of influence. I kept going I was interested in a lot of different industries I looked at advertising Jay Shia Shia day if that name might sound familiar Shia day is the Agency that did the famous apple Apple ad where when the Mac was first introduced with all the IBM Automans kind of walking off the side of a cliff while while Steve Jobs and Apple showed up I looked at I looked at American fashion Ralph Lauren was the quote Superboss In fact the number of people that work for Ralph Lauren Over the course of decades. It's really unbelievable people like you know Joseph Abboud and John Varvatos and Vera Wang Tori Birch the guy that's the CEO of Michael Kors today And it's just a long long list American comedy Lauren Michaels those of you that know the show Saturday Night Live Tremendous number of people came from his his world something may be closer to home here Yorma Panola Do you know who that is? Orchestra conductor in Finland so many of the world's best orchestra conductors actually worked for Yorma Panola, and so industry after industry after industry 18 in total I was able to find this one person that had a tremendous track record in developing talent and it turned out I Called these people Superbosses, but it turned out that what they actually had is the secret to success I'm just quite a statement the secret to success and that is that they knew how to generate and Regenerate talent on a continuous basis, and I know a lot of you are thinking about your own kitchens your own businesses and saying I've got to do that to survive. That's exactly what these people did very diverse Different countries different backgrounds different industries yet the remarkable thing is when you look closely at them It turns out that they do a bunch of things in common Even though they come from different backgrounds and by the way even though their personalities vary quite a bit Some are really really tough almost nasty Larry Ellison from Oracle if you know anything about Larry Ellison not a not an easy guy Some are more nurturing some are more iconoclastic in fact Miles Davis is probably the most interesting of all the examples that I looked at the number of people that were miles They've you know the jazz genius right the number of people that went in miles They were in miles Davis's band over time became the absolute superstars of today Wayne shorter and Bill Evans and John Coltrane Herbie Hancock. What is it about these people? What did they do that's so magical that helps account for the tremendous track record of success their ability to generate regenerate talent? So let me share a little bit of what I learned from these Hundreds of interviews with all sorts of people in all these different industries and by the way I did a lot of interviews of the protégés of these people so the employees and I asked them You know, what did you learn from Alice? What did you learn? George Lucas is another one? What did you learn working with George Lucas? What did you learn working with Ralph Lauren and how did that impact you? How did that affect your life? You wouldn't believe it how common the answers were even though they come from completely different worlds So what are some of the key highlights starts with talent? I think everyone understands that these people these super bosses if you will are our talent scouts They're always on the lookout for talent wherever they go. They're looking for someone every conversation is an opportunity to meet someone that might fit into their world at some point in time and they are they actually go after Untapped talent pools places where other people maybe haven't gone to look so for example I mentioned shy a day Jay shy it in the advertising industry Those of you that have ever seen the pretty successful TV series Mad Men You know, what's missing at the very top of Most advertising agencies in the 1960s 70s even into the 80s and that is of course women Jay shy it saw that and he said that's nuts Why would we want to do that and he purposely went out of his way to look for? talented people that have the potential for growth that happened to be women and he and one of the great side Effects of being a of being a super boss is you actually end up with more diversity than you might otherwise have And I'm not even saying that he was thinking about it and kind of the modern way that people think about diversity But it actually happened because he went after untapped Untapped talent pools it happened time and time again, and so they end up with unusual talent. What's unusual talent? These are people that don't necessarily fit the mold These are people that think differently and that's who they look for in fact when I try to kind of decipher that What does that mean unusual talent people would tell me that am I in these interviews? What does it mean and they and eventually I figured out that there are three or four things number one creative people They love creative people. That's not a shock in this industry. I'm talking about you know, hedge funds. I'm talking about junk bonds I'm talking about all kinds of industries Creative people they loved intelligence. Well, you know, who doesn't not just IQ could be emotional intelligence you know, there's a famous story about Larry Ellison the founder and longtime CEO of Oracle and especially in the early days when he was doing the interviewing of Job candidates himself and as he trained people he would say make sure in the interview you ask this person You know, are you the smartest person you know? How are you gonna answer that question? Yeah, are you the smartest person, you know If the answer is yes, the interview continues if the answer is no He says well who is and you go ahead and tell him and say thank you. I'm gonna go find her and you can leave now Extreme stuff, right? So creativity intelligence defined in a lot of different ways Flexibility they love people that could do different things and that could be plucked into a different world and a different type of job because they have that kind of mindset And competitiveness is no replacement for being competitive I think anyone who's a successful and virtually any walk of life has got to have a bit of that competitive gene So that's what I mean. That's what I learned about unusual talent untapped talent pools Constantly on the lookout for talent, but now you have great talent. What are you gonna do? Well, they're they're geniuses at motivation and I think we heard earlier today the world that many people here live in which is 12 14 16 18 hour days and You expect people that work for you in your restaurant to do the same thing Why why should they it's not their restaurant? You've got to add something else than pushing them pushing them hard and that word is a word. I also heard today inspiration You have to really inspire people to believe that this is important that this is what what what what they're calling is in life And it's not it's not their restaurant. It's your restaurant or your business But they still have to feel like they bought into your inspiration Ralph Lauren used to tell people We are the ones that set the standard Everybody else follows us We don't follow them. He would instill a sense of confidence into people Now we could think about how some people operate Do you actually instill a sense of confidence into the people that work for you or do you point out every? Detail that ever goes wrong and never provide the other thing. I'm not talking about You know getting soft. I'm not talking about not focusing on the highest highest quality But at the same time are you instilling a sense of confidence? I almost I almost look at some of these people as as feeling like they're the chosen ones that they somehow were chosen You know you hire someone and you have this reputation This success as a super boss and they know that they that you know Ralph Lauren picked you George Lucas picked you That's pretty exciting. That's pretty motivating But you have to earn that you have to earn that that that that mindset and that reputation so great talent They work hard. Of course, they're inspired and then we get to the word vision You cannot be a successful leader Even a successful manager in any walk of life unless you have a vision Alice Waters What was her vision? Her vision was to bring to America a vision of a view of how food should be What natural ingredients all the words we know today farm to table organic many of your restaurants, of course Embrace these these themes to and to use that restaurant almost as a platform And you look at the edible edible schoolyard and some of the work she's done. She has done that actually or George Lucas What was his vision? George Lucas had a vision to create a movie called Star Wars He didn't know what was going to be called Star Wars, but that was the vision and to give you a sense of how driven some of these people are There were there was really no or hardly any technology available for George Lucas to put into place The type of vision he had for the type of science fiction movie was he wants to create so he actually ended up building Literally a dozen different companies the most famous to them is Pixar Which is one he actually didn't stick with and everyone has a couple of billion dollar mistakes in their lives, I suppose But he had a few other a few other winners as well. So a Tremendous a tremendous vision and people respond to that people have to have a reason to be energized about what what they're doing and And I think every single person has to be able to craft a vision that that that gives people not just motivation Not just energy, but a powerful feeling that this is what they want to accomplish Here's something that's a bit unusual about superbosses. I call them uncompromisingly open Uncompromisingly open which sounds kind of weird. How could you do both? They are uncompromising in their vision Alice water is not about to sell You know process food and not not go for the finest ingredients everywhere She can't as many of you are in the same in the same way That vision is not going to change it is staying the same if you want to work for Alice You better buy into that vision and if you don't Don't bother. You're not gonna last long, but as long as you are part of that on that vision What does she want? She wants to hear your ideas She wants you to come up with new ways of solving problems that word creativity I heard several times today both in the breakout sessions and this morning is such a big part of what of what? Superbosses do they try to unleash the creativity of the people around them Unleash the creativity and if you really think about that Is there anyone here that has all the answers to every challenge and every problem? I heard today also I learned a lot today. I learned that not only well I knew that that great chefs are perfectionist many people and many walks of life are afflicted with the same thing And I get I get that but I also heard about the the endless hours and the burnout and why is that? Well, there's a solution to that. You know that is it's called delegation It's a scary solution because no one can do it as well as you But then you're never gonna grow if that's not the case Those of you that have multiple restaurants that have opened that that have kind of extended or leveraged your brand And you know Jose is a great example You have to teach a lot of people you have to be willing to empower other people you have to be willing to to delegate But if you have that strong vision That that that defines what the world is all about then you can actually you can actually do it and and and unleash the Creativity think about it for a moment. Some of the things I've just been talking about Unusual talent Always looking for talent in all kinds of places Motivating and energizing and pushing hard the bar is set high and it keeps going higher But at the same time you're inspiring people and then you craft a vision that people are totally turned on to They want to be part of that count me in in fact so many of the interviews really amazing different industries people would say I heard I Heard what Bill Sanders a real estate guy I Heard what Bill Sanders was describing what he wanted to do in his business And I felt as if if I didn't join right now my life would never be the same I'd never forgive myself It was like a train leaving the station Talk about a powerful vision. Are you doing that for the people around you? So they feel like they've got to be there because this is their one opportunity or could be their one opportunity life And they want to be on your team That's what a great vision does and then you unleash the creativity of these people They don't just do everything you tell them to do they do that plus they come up with new ideas You do all that and you know what you've created you've created an incredibly adaptable adaptive Organization and incredibly adaptable, you know a lot of people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere talked about the uber's and the air B&B's Why are they doing so well because they broke the rules and they don't do it every what everyone else does and Who suffers it's the it's the established companies the established organizations They are the ones that are that get kind of get locked into their ways of doing things And as a result they're not as adaptable not as open-minded I think it's actually one of the one of the most critical capabilities if you will of any leader to build an adaptable and adaptive Organization one that keeps on moving and adjusting it because the world never stays the same That's kind of obvious. We all know that but yet we get locked into our ways of doing things and I think this This model this formula all these ideas that I'm sharing with you that I learned from the super bosses You put them all together and you do get that you do get a lot of that so What do they do in a day-to-day basis? Oh, by the way, I was gonna say this I don't know whether I'm sure many of you are big readers of business books I'm probably a bookshelf load of business books, right? Well, maybe super bosses There's a famous guy named Jim Collins. You're a good to great one of the most well-known business books around He wrote a book called built to last before that which is also, you know pretty successful and I've come to realize in talking to all these people and doing this research that built to last is not what you want if Your goal is to last forever. What kind of game is that? Where is the adaptability? I much rather you create an organization a company maybe even a kitchen That's built to change much more powerful and it turns out that when you build an organization You build a team that is much more that it's more built to change than anything else You end up lasting much longer than you otherwise would that's kind of the irony in the whole thing if you just if you're just trying to run Out the clock. It's not gonna work quite as quite as well so One of the big words that I that I learned from talking to many people is a word that in this industry You all know very well. It's called apprenticeship, right? Probably most of you started as an apprentice at some point in somebody's kitchen Well, it turns out it's really fascinating in most industries The idea of an apprenticeship is a foreign language. Just not done. It's it turns out that's the way that people develop That's how people learn their craft for centuries. It's actually Leonardo da Vinci started in the workshop of varocchio That's how he started and he was pretty talented guy and he started the same way as everyone else as an apprenticeship But what does an apprenticeship really mean? Well, first of all, it's hardly used in almost any industry I'm aware of some of the cultural industries culinary a couple others use it a little bit more But what does it really mean? There are three or four elements to it number one You got to create opportunities for people that are part of your team You have to give them an opportunity to learn because if you want the best people and you want to retain that talent I heard a lot about that today also, right? You want to retain that talent then you got to do everything you possibly can to push them and challenge them and give Them new opportunities to learn and and and and this is something I saw an industry after industry But at the same time, which is a delegation type of thing, right? But at the same time What I also saw is that these Superbosses these leaders were very hands-on They were working closely with people on their team on a regular basis I'm not going to call them micro managers Ralph Lauren stepped over the line a little bit Some of you may be proud of that micro management side It's very tough to build a business when you're a micro manager There's only 24 hours in the day You got to be willing to give something to somebody else to do and you want to train them as best not as best you can But exceptionally well and so what what I what I found fascinating is many people talk about leaders as you know She's a really big delegator. She gives me a lot of opportunities versus the opposite Which is I work for a micro manager It turns out that you combine both of these things together where you can still provide a lot of opportunities You can still delegate but at the same time you're totally hands-on you're involved You're stepping in to see what's going on and and and working with people periodically I saw that in a lot of different examples a lot of different a lot of different industries from you know The young the young woman the NBA grad who did all the analysis for for the CFO chief financial officer of a company The CFO is walking into a big meeting and the the 32 year old NBA did all the analysis and all the you know All the PowerPoints and all the rest she's carrying the the laptop and he turns to her as as they're walking towards the room And he says I like you to start the presentation today. She had about 15 20 second warning she did it if She stumbled he was there to step right in and then you think about this and say How did that affect her and you should hear when I talked to some of these people what they said about this? It changed their lives it absolutely changed their lives Because if you can if if you can do something as a really really tough and you can plow through that and you're successful There's nothing you can't do. It's a gift. Some of you as you think back Not only may you have done that in kitchens, but you may have had teachers that have created that type of that type of opportunity You know I once gave not that long ago I gave a talk in New York to a big group of senior executives and there was a chief human resource officer CHRO and in the Q&A session he raised his hand He said you know this what you're talking about this opportunity thing that happened to me and he said when he was 28 This is a merit. This was a global company, but he was a man. He was actually not American, but English-speaking and he he went to His boss told him when he was 28. I want you to run HR in Japan He wasn't a Japanese speaker you can imagine how difficult that was and he said no no there's no way I can do that come on and His boss said of course you can't I wouldn't ask you to do it I wouldn't tell you to do it if you couldn't do it and he ends up it was hard. He worked hard It ended up working out really well He comes back and he stands up in front of you know 500 people were there and he says it changed my life That moment changed my life and there's nothing I knew I knew then that there's nothing that I can't do So that's what an apprenticeship means big opportunities hands-on involvement Customizing how you work with people making sure you know what each person is like what motivates them What makes them tick you know tomorrow? I'm gonna do a little breakout session about super bosses or what I call the super boss playbook And I'll be able to share more stories and examples and we'll have a chance for Q&A during that During that time during that time as well But I want to in closing highlight maybe a couple of the key themes that I'm hoping you're gonna walk away You're gonna walk away with number one Great bosses great leaders exist in every industry number two anyone Can become a great leader? We are all born with different skills some are more natural than others There's nothing that I that I saw that I learned from what these super bosses did that Cannot be learned cannot be developed cannot be enhanced over a period of time every single person here in this room has this Has that opportunity and number three? I want to talk about legacy in closing One of the one of the I do some consulting for companies sometimes and there's a company called Constellation brands maybe some of you heard it one of the biggest wine companies in the world and they bought Mondavi winery some 15 years ago Robert Mondavi legendary really built the wine business in Napa and he so they They had bought a Mondavi and we were doing a full-day retreat out there in Napa I was working with the top 40 executives in this company and then we had a dinner in Mondavi ranch Which is kind of cool, and they invited mr. Mondavi, and he's he was in his early 90s. He's in a wheelchair He didn't see he was dressing a beautiful suit and his wife was helping him, but he didn't say a word I don't know whether he could talk or chose not to But he obviously was struggling a little bit and I was seated at the same table as mr. Mondavi, which is a great honor of course and just as dinner is barely beginning I turn around I notice some of these senior executives from this global company that have flown in for this occasion They started to walk towards the the table where I was at to go to mr. Mondavi, and you have to picture this He's in a wheelchair, and so they they kind of kneel down to make eye contact, and you know at each of these executives said They said thank you Thank you for what you've done. Thank you for creating the wine business in America are helping to create the wine business in America Thank you for the impact for the opportunity that I've had in my life to do something I love to do and take care of my family, etc. I mean, that's what they said Who doesn't want that who wouldn't want that and So in closing let me wish you and hope that in embracing some of these ideas The opportunity to have a legacy to have an impact on people that goes long beyond when your restaurants are closed and you and I Are all gone is fantastic. Thank you very much Thank you