My biggest successes have been building great teams,

finding great leaders,

exciting those leaders to do things

that are beyond what they thought they could do.

In the beginning, I was more... If I had to think about it,

more of a micromanager.

I had to do everything myself.

And then as my responsibilities grew,

I couldn't do everything myself.

So, I eventually got to be a good delegator

and a good truster of teams.

That's where I knew I had to have great people

because I couldn't do it all myself.

I learned that I learn so much from others,

that I got smarter

from getting better people around me doing great things,

and I could take from them, their knowledge and information.

And we got better and better.

My style changed from micromanager

to trusting delegator.

I think it just happened, I'd like to think

that I knew I was too impatient, I knew I was a micromanager...

And both of those things came about when you hire great people.

You can't be an impatient jerk,

they won't let you, you won't have them.

So, you learn from these experiences.

You can't be a micromanager when you've got 400 000 people.

You can't micromanage.

These things evolve, everything is an evolution.

I kept hiring more and more people

but, when I say building a team,

you are still the captain of the team.

So, you don't give up the vision,

the values of the company, where you're going,

how you're gonna get there...

So, the broad strategy is still you.

They then, take the broad strategy

and make it much bigger and better than it was,

under the same umbrella.

For example, I wanna be number one or two of whatever business we're in,

I wanna be the most competitive enterprise on earth.

What does that mean?

It means something to that business, it means something to that business.

So, that leader will take that broad brush

and make it their own, they'll own it.

And they'll define it their way.

So, it's an evolution.

Everything is sort of evolving, all the time.

Getting it's an iteration it's better,

it's better, you learn. Then, of course,

once you get 15 great direct reports, or 20,

you take the best of each and you transfer across,

transferring the best ideas from one business to another,

from one person to another.

They then multiply

because they've learned from the other 14.

And so, everything keeps... The boat keeps going up.

Making mistakes is part of the game.

And I made more than anybody, so I would always use mistakes,

in the classroom, at Crotonville, where I taught the students, once a month,

where I taught our young managers.

I would use my mistakes as an example.

If I can screw this up,

you ought to be taking bigger chances, okay?

Teaching people to take risks

and make mistakes is an important part of leadership.

I played hockey till I was 50.

I wanted to be a professional hockey player. That was my dream.

I was very good in high school.

I was very good in every sport when I was younger.

I was probably the best 12 year old, 14 year old, 15 year old,

baseball player. Best pitcher.

I was a terrific hockey player, I was a pretty good golfer.

The problem was, the only thing I ever got better at was golf,

because my legs never got any longer,

I never got fast enough.

My fastball was great when I was 14,

when I was 16 it looked like a soft ball coming at people.

Because other 16 year olds were much better.

It happened it every sport. But I was lucky, I realised I wasn't good enough.

When I think the lucky break I had...

How hard it was, I always loved teams,

playing on teams, being in sports.

I loved hanging around with people.

You know, so, it was always there.

And it's a natural thing for me. And I think business is a game.

I haven't changed a bit in many ways. From the teams before,

to the teams now.

I learned much of what I learned about business from those teams.

When I was young, and I was playing baseball

and I was playing with the older boys.

You would go to the playground

and they would pick teams.

One team and another team.

They would throw the bat up and you would go like this with the bat

and the person who puts the hands on top gets first pick.

So the captain, he was always the older kid.

So I was the little kid, the older kid...

Would pick the team and he'd pick a pitcher,

the best player would be the pitcher.

The second best player would be the shortstop.

And then the last player picked, it was often the youngest kids,

would go to right field, way out right field, okay?

Not very... That's differentiation.

That is what you practice in business.

You take the best, we want them, we take care of them,

and the weakest... All these things are simple things.

They're not big sophisticated... They're from the playground.

I mean, business is a game.

The team with the best players wins.

I think fair is important.

For example, when you take somebody out of a job,

you gotta be sure you are doing it right,

you're treating them right,

you've evaluated that they should be the one to go.

All these affairs are a very important part of business.

You can't be perceived in any way as playing favourites,

You gotta try...

Now, one of the problems of being a leader and a CEO

you weren't trained to be a judge.

And you are often making the umpire's call,

the referee's call,

and you weren't trained to do that.

You have to...

Fair though is a very important part of being a good business leader.

And it's not...

You gotta try and make it as black and white as you can.

I don't think people know

that, in business, to be good you've got to be fair.

For example, in negotiations,

you wanna leave something on the table

so the person you negotiated with goes home feeling well.

It's not a victory if you take all the spoils

and they're mad at you.

And they don't trust you and they won't do business with you again.

So, "fair" is a very important word,

I'm glad you brought it up. Because it is an important thing

for every young business leader to think about.

But I believe, deeply, in that word.

The most self-confident people are simple.

But to be simple is hard.

Anybody can write a 20 page paper.

Try writing two paragraphs and getting your message across.

But use the word "informal".

Making a company informal is a big deal.

A big company.

And I don't mean no tie,

I don't mean Friday afternoon casual,

I mean culturally.

I mean everybody's first name,

everybody is able to talk to everybody.

There's no floor that is isolated, there's no...

Nobody is above talking to the lowest person in the place.

Anybody with an idea that's good can surface it.

That takes a lot of...

A lot of...

We put a process called "workout",

which I described in my first book in great detail.

Where we had...

Hundreds of employees would tip in to a meeting.

The CEO of the business where we would tip in,

maybe would have 120 people,

The CEO would come in,

the CEO would say: "Here's where we're going, here's what we're doing.

"I like your best ideas about everything.

"Your own job, the company's job"...

The CEO would have a facilitator there,

in those days, a professor from a business school

would be sitting there with him.

Then the CEO would leave

come back 24 hours later.

We had easels

with the writings on them.

And they would've come up with 50 ideas.

The rules were the CEO had to say "yes" or "no"

to 75 % of them.

And within 30 days,

had to have 25, the last 25 %

answers. So the employees learned one thing from that:

We gave them voice and dignity.

And voice and dignity to every employee is critical,

so that they don't have to wait for a hierarchy to...

These people...

I remember sitting once in a meeting,

with the Union Steward in Louisville...

Was... An engineer was up describing

a paint line.

The doors of the refrigerator

would go up around the building and be spray painted

and covered with this and everything...

And the engineer had a suggestion, was describing what he would like to do.

And the Union guy got up and said: "That's bullshit.

"Let me show you how that really works up there."

And he showed the whole thing. That gave him voice, in that meeting.

And it was... Cause I went to the final day

when they were telling what the ideas for everyone, just sit in on it.

And he got up and he just...

That guy never would have spoken before.

We gave them voice. So everybody felt they had a role in the company.

No one... And the guy said at the end of the meeting,

he used a great line and I'll never forget it as long as I live:

"Hey, Jack, you've been paying me for 25 years

"to get my hands and my legs,

"you could've had my brain for nothing.

"You never asked."

You cannot make a head decision without a heart.

There's no question.

You'd like to be able to clearly draw a line,

but you can't.

Because you're an emotional human being.

To think you could isolate your heart or your head,

is impossible.

Now, balancing, that's tricky. Sometimes you're heart gets in the way.

And you don't make the best decision.

Sometimes your head jumps in too analytically

and you don't think of the consequences.

But you're always trying to balance that.

It's the challenge.

It's the challenge of it being a dream, short range, long range.

Business is a bunch of paradoxes.

Short, long.

Heart, head.

And you try and do your best, and you don't always get it right.

Intuition got to me.

It's, at least, 75 % of the game.

And when you're in a job like I had, as CEO,

with thousands and thousands of people, everyone wanting something...

Every deal you look at has got a perfect return

otherwise, they wouldn't bring it to you.

It's 100 %.

We have a DCRR of 25 % on return investment point...

So, every deal you're gonna look at, no one brings in a bad deal.

It wouldn't show up.

So in order to him to say "yes" or "no" it's got...

The numbers are all gonna be perfect.

I had...

... 10 to 12 real close buddies.

And what we always said: "We're running the family grocery store."

You know?

What happens in the family grocery store?

You want to be that family grocery store.

You know your every employee.

You know when they're sick,

when their mother's sick, when their kids can't get enough money for school...

You know everything.