In a special summer encore episode, my guest is Carolyn Dewar, Canadian senior partner at McKinsey & Company and co-author of the bestselling "CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders from the Rest."
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In a special summer encore episode, my guest is Carolyn Dewar, senior partner at McKinsey & Company and co-author of the bestselling "CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders from the Rest."
Originally from Canada, now living in San Francisco, Carolyn takes us through the essence of her CEO excellence practice and book, starting with the six critical responsibilities of a CEO to help us set the frame. Then we dive into the six mindsets that set elite CEOS apart. Whether you are a CEO today, aspiring to a leadership position, or a business excellence student, this podcast episode is for you!
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About Carolyn
Carolyn founded and co-leads McKinsey’s CEO excellence work, coaching many Fortune 100 CEOs to maximize their effectiveness in the role, including business aspiration-setting and roadmap, culture shifts to unlock performance, top-team effectiveness, managing external stakeholders, board engagement, and resetting their own personal operating model. She also works extensively with clients to drive organizational effectiveness at pivotal moments—such as merger, strategic shift, and crisis—and lead large-scale performance improvement programs integrating strategic, operational, and cultural initiatives.
Examples of Carolyn’s recent client work include the following:
-new CEO onboarding across industries, counseling many CEOs as they navigate their CEO journey in terms of business priorities, organization, top team, stakeholders, and board dynamic
-working directly with the CEO and top team to manage one of the largest mergers in financial services and reinvent the operating model of a Fortune 50 firm in a new regulatory environment
-redesigning and installing a new operating model—including organization design, day-to-day management practices, culture, and incentives—of a Fortune 50 consumer-goods company to align resources and attention for future growth
-managing the merger integration between a spin-off of a Fortune 20 company with a fast-growth tech firm to establish a newco, involving significant culture, integration, leadership, and strategy alignment, as well as building and execution
In addition to her direct work with clients, Carolyn conducts ongoing research. Among her many articles are two of the most read McKinsey Quarterly articles of all time, “The CEO's role in leading transformation” and “The irrational side of change management”. She has also authored two foundational publications: “Performance culture imperative: A hard-nosed approach to the soft stuff” and “Breaking new ground: Making a successful transition into your new executive role”.
Carolyn regularly gives keynote speeches and hosts CEO and senior executive roundtables on topics related to leadership, executive transitions, and change management. Carolyn serves as faculty for McKinsey’s executive programs: The Bower Forum, The CEO Excellence Forum, and Executive Transitions Master Class.
Carolyn is a Canadian and British citizen, and currently lives in San Francisco with her two children and husband. She is a board trustee of Bay Area Discovery Museum and has a Master’s degree in economics and international relations from University of St Andrews, Scotland.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.
Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2023 for the third year in a row.
Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world.
Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers.
Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.
Michael LeBlanc 00:05
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Being a CEO in the modern age is one of the most complex and challenging roles in business. Notwithstanding that, there has been no guidebook or framework that describes what excellence looks like in this all-important role.
Michael LeBlanc 00:22
My guest on this episode is Carolyn Dewar, senior partner at McKinsey & Company, and co-author of the compelling new book, "CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from The Rest".
Michael LeBlanc 00:34
Originally from Canada, now living in San Francisco, Carolyn takes us through the essence of her CEO excellence practice and book, starting with the six critical responsibilities of a CEO to help us set the frame. Then we dive into six mindsets that set elite CEOs apart. Whether you're a CEO today, aspiring to a leadership position, or business, excellent student. This podcast is for you.
Carolyn Dewar 00:58
You know the first for example, on setting direction, it's about truly being bold, and having the courage not only to reframe what the company's trying to do and what the art of the possible is, but really swing resources behind the big bets that you're making.
Michael LeBlanc 01:14
Let's listen in now. Carolyn, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast.
Carolyn Dewar 01:18
Thanks for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 01:19
How are you doing this morning? Where, where am I finding you in the world?
Carolyn Dewar 01:22
Well, I am I am a born and bred Canadian, but I am in the Bay Area at the moment.
Michael LeBlanc 01:27
Well, I have to admit, I did play the Canadian card in getting this interview, I did notice you were a Canadian. So, like I said, you know, welcome and thanks so much for, for joining me. I have to say you're one of, you're actually I believe the first, not the first McKinsey consultant but the first actual working McKinsey consultant, I've had a lot of former folks from McKinsey, Hubert Joly, Sally Potts for but I'm really thrilled that I actually have an active McKinsey-ite on the podcast today. (crossover talk), real time. All right. Well, let's jump right in. Tell us about yourself your personal, professional background and what you do at McKinsey.
Carolyn Dewar 02:04
Sure. As I said to Carolyn Dewar, I'm a senior partner here. I joined in 2000, which gosh, is a long time ago now in Toronto. And then I've been out here for the last 10 years or so. And I have a regular day job at McKinsey serving clients and helping them transform. But I also founded and lead our CEO excellent service line, broadly, which is, which is an exciting part of how I spend my day.
Michael LeBlanc 02:29
Well. And of course, that's one of the reasons we're here today to talk about the, the new book, ‘CEO Excellence’. But we'll get to that in a bit. Now. Certainly, a name familiar to my listeners McKinsey. But not everyone maybe understands the scope and the scale of the business, areas of practice. What makes you different from similar type organizations? You probably say there are no similar type organizations. But tell us about McKinsey a little bit.
Carolyn Dewar 02:53
Sure. So, McKinsey is a management consulting firm. We've been around amongst the longest 90 plus years now, and work across 130 cities and countries all around the world. So, we're very, very global, going across industries and functions. And, and we work every day with our clients to help them really transform their performance, and their, and their strategy, and their organizations, and, and to do great things. So, it's wonderful to be with you today.
Michael LeBlanc 03:21
And, and how many of there would you be like how big a organization I know you're global, but, -
Carolyn Dewar 03:26
I think we are north of 30,000 colleagues at the moment. So, we've grown pretty rapidly in the last couple of decades.
Michael LeBlanc 03:35
And you know my, I have known a bunch of and have friends who McKinsey and their life pre-COVID was four days on the road, Fridays back in the office, or maybe on the beach writing for a great McKinsey thought leadership. What's your life like now in the COVID era> has it been different and, and you know, you are probably traveling less? Is that more productive? Is it better? Is it, is it something that you'll continue to do? Talk about that for a bit?
Carolyn Dewar 03:59
Yeah, it's been a fascinating time, I think for all of us, right? Going from, as you say, being on the road almost all the time to suddenly grounded here at home. And it's been wonderful in terms of getting to spend time with family and reconnect. And I think we've all been really surprised how well it's worked from a client service point of view.
But of course, there's things you miss, and we're, we're certainly getting back into meeting people for important top team off sites and one on one dinners. I mean, there's no replacement for that relationship building. But day to day, people have worked remarkably well probably because a lot of my clients have been remote as well. And it, it's extraordinary how quickly we all kind of pivoted and now you can be in five cities in one day, which is a great thing.
Michael LeBlanc 04:44
In my discussions with, with C-Level executives, and I write a report for Retail Council of Canada, I talk to dozens and dozens of C-Level executives every quarter. So, I get to interact, I have the, the fun of interacting as well and many of them would rank productivity quite highly from the COVID era, and many would also admit they would have never in their entire lives expected to be hiring people that weren't showing up at the doorstep each and every day. Do you think this is something that's going to stick? Like, will this be one of those long-term implications structurally of the COVID era?
Carolyn Dewar 05:17
I certainly don't think we will snap back to the way it was, right. But I, my hope is, and what we're hearing from a lot of the CEOs we're talking to is, how do we bring together the best of what was before with some of the great learnings and innovations of the last two years to kind of reinvent what it looks like going forward, right? There are these moments where it's hard to replace in person, right? When someone is new and onboarding into the culture of an organization, or when you're having a really important development discussion. You know, there's some of these moments that being together really, really matters. And then there's a lot of, a lot of work that I think we've all realized we can do from anywhere. And I think that's the moment we're in now is trying to navigate what makes sense, right? And how are we going to weave these, these new options together going forward?
Michael LeBlanc 06:08
Yeah. And I've talked to some executives who say, you know, maybe that doesn't happen in the office, maybe we build culture outside of the nine to five offices, right, whether that's business conferences or purpose built, you know, get together with the people, right? I mean, your point is great about new, you know, it's tough to inculcate into the culture from, you know, your home office, right? I mean, that's just very difficult, right?
Carolyn Dewar 06:30
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things we learned in all the CEO interviews and conversations was how importantly, they take culture, right? I think everyone knows it intuitively. But the CEOs we talked to, were laser focused, what is the culture we're trying to build or shift, right? And they could name it. And in many cases, it was one thing, right? They weren't trying to be innovation and customer experience and simple and, and, and they had one or two things they were really trying to drive. And then they managed them with as much rigor as you would any operational initiative, right?
Carolyn Dewar 07:04
And so, if that's the culture you're trying to create, are you measuring it? Do you actually know if it's working or not, right? Do you know how people feel about, about their interactions? And are you setting expectations for leaders on how to behave? And are you hardwiring it into your people processes and how you spend time, I mean, it's real work. But the CEOs we talk to take it very, very seriously. And don't just leave it to chance.
Michael LeBlanc 07:30
Anyway, listen, it's a great segue to let's talk about the book, "CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest". So, first of all, let's talk about the tradecraft of writing the book and the process and how you and your co-authors went and created both the idea for the book and then, then how it came together.
Carolyn Dewar 07:47
I mean, we, we really married together two things. One is the quantitative analysis and level of rigor you would expect from McKinsey, right? So, we ran the numbers on performance of CEOs, their tenure, what have they done and not done. So, really, you dove in deeply to identify to a number of filters. What is this group of truly excellent CEOs who has really done, done this well, and that got us from several 1000 of the, the top 1000 company CEOs, all the way down to 200, that really passed this bar of excess returns in industry, they've been enrolled for six years, they passed a bunch of reputational screens.
Carolyn Dewar 08:26
And then with that data in hand, we had the opportunity to sit down and interview one on one for several hours, 67 of those CEOs each of the time. And I think that's what's most exciting, we marry together the data with those stories. And so, really going behind the curtain and understanding from Jamie Dimon and Mary Barra and Satya Nadella all these, these incredible CEOs. What is the job really like? And, and what do you think you can do differently that enables you to be so successful?
Michael LeBlanc 08:58
You know, one of my thoughts about the book was, and I, I would love you to speak on this. I mean, there's, I don't know, even in your own practice, decades of experience, and studying CEOs what works, you know, from good to great, from best to better or whatever. Is there something that is happening now that makes the content of this book more unique? Is something changed, like, in other words, I guess, why did you think there was room on the bookshelf for another book? Maybe this is the first one because I actually didn't find another one about CEOs talk about that for a bit.
Carolyn Dewar 09:29
Yeah, we did the same search that you did, right? And we found there's lots of books on leadership broadly. And there's lots of books on individual CEOs that write biographies or autobiographies. But we hadn't seen someone really take that systematic view across CEOs and say, what's the pattern recognition? And not just of CEOs in general, but those who've done it very well? What can we learn from that? And then you link that with what's happening in the world over the last few years and even the last few weeks? And I think we all realize that the world needs great CEOs right now, right? We need great leaders. And so, all the more reason why we really wanted to understand how to folks do this job well, that's so incredibly complex, the scale is only growing, the scrutiny is only growing. What are those lessons learned? And, and it feels like there's lessons learned, not just for CEOs, for frankly, for all of us,
Michael LeBlanc 10:23
Set the frame for us, and for the listeners about how and what you see the responsibilities of the CEO are at a strategic level, you talk about this in the book as a nice way to frame. Okay, what d-, what does a CEO do for a living?
Carolyn Dewar 10:35
You're right, the kind of job, question number one was, you know, what is the CEO role anyway, right? And we really spent time with each of the 67. And diving in on the research as well. And we are able to, tell you, we tried to get it down to one or two simple things.
Carolyn Dewar 10:51
The reality is you can't, right? These jobs are complex, and the irreducible core of the role ends up being six different plates, if you will, that the CEOs are spinning at the same time. The first, is they need to set the direction for the organization, right? Where are we going? They need to align and, and mobilize the organization, the culture and talent so that they could get it done. They have to work with their leadership team and kind of set the tone from the top on how are we going to lead the place? What's that operating rhythm, they need to engage with their boards, again, something that's increasing in importance, they need to work with external stakeholders that are just multiplying, right?
Carolyn Dewar 11:33
And then the sixth part is managing their own personal time and energy and effectiveness, right? How are they showing up as a leader? And as much as we tried to reduce it, we couldn't get shorter than that list of six things. And that's part of what makes the job so tough. It's, it's a lot all at once. And you're trying to be the integrator across all of it.
Michael LeBlanc 11:52
And, and you know, what strikes me is it's not six, where you kind of have to divide more in the other. I mean, if you don't do all well, equally, others quickly fall apart, right? Like in other words, you can't focus on five and ignore the sixth. Has that been your experience as well?
Carolyn Dewar 12:09
A-, ab-, Absolutely, I think you need to keep all six plates spinning, right, at the same time, depending on your context, you may shift your emphasis a little here or there. But the reality is all six need to be happening at once. And then you layer on top, the fact that as the CEO, your job is not just to do each of those, well, in fact, you don't have to be the best of the best at each of them. We liken it almost if you take a sports analogy, right? You don't need to be the Serena Williams of tennis and you know, the Babe Ruth if baseball, but you do need to be the equivalent of the decathlete, right? The person who can do all of them at once. And at the same time, there's work that only you can do, which is the person finding the linkages across each of those six, right? How are you balancing short term versus long term, internal versus external voices, stakeholders and shareholders, all of these sort of in-built tensions, it's your job to manage across those as well.
Michael LeBlanc 13:09
It's such a complex role and getting even more complex. Now you put together as is the title of the book, six mindsets, and it's a nice frame. So, talk about these six mindsets. I mean, the one that jumped out at me that I hadn't thought as much about was how you now have a lot of bosses, when you manage the board, I didn't, I didn't put it in that same kind of context, in my mind, you know, you go from always reporting to one person or maybe two. And now you could be reporting to 12 people. And it's just an interesting dynamic. But talk about these six mindsets that at a high level that you've discovered, basically equal CEO excellence.
Carolyn Dewar 13:43
And this to us was a real insight, right, rather than trying to memorize what each of the, you know, what does Jamie Dimon do? What does, you know, Kurt, do? What do all these different folks do? If you can actually understand how they think it, it gets you in the right mindset, and then all the behaviors flow from that. So, we found a common mindset for each of the six responsibilities that really separated those who do it well.
Carolyn Dewar 14:09
Now the first for example, on setting direction, it's about truly being bold, and having the courage not only to reframe what the company is trying to do and what the art of the possible is, but really swing resources behind the big debts that you're making, right? Not just letting the budget go from year to year with slight tweaks, right? Making some bold moves, taking a stand and putting real money where your mouth is in terms of the boldness.
Carolyn Dewar 14:35
If we take another one on the board, as you mentioned, right? The prevailing wisdom is sort of the board is something you have to manage right, at worst. It's something to be kept slightly at arm's length, let them do their job. But, you know, minimize time spent. These excellent CEOs had a very different mindset. They said, how am I going to help the directors help me and help the business? I'm going to engage with the board in a way that I can think of these 10 or 12 people as an incredible resource to me that, that means they have to have information, right? Hubert Joly talks about radical transparency, right? I had to actually share the good, the bad and the ugly with my board so that they know enough that they have the right context, I have to make sure I have the right skills on the board, you know, Marilyn Hewson at Lockheed Martin worked with, with her chair and then through to evolve the board itself to make sure she had the capabilities and skills on that board that were going to be most helpful to her. And then you have to engage with them and involve them in the decision making. I mean, all of that felt quite different in terms of saying, how do I help them help me rather than something I need to manage? Just so that they can be backward looking.
Michael LeBlanc 15:45
Yeah, that's interesting. I've heard what's the phrase I've heard kind of arms out ears in or ears open kind of perspective. So (inaudible) is like, hey, you know, as a, as a board member, you know, don't get into the operational details. But how do I love that approach, how do you actually make them? I don't know, allies might not be the right word, but at least, -
Carolyn Dewar 16:04
(crossover talk) helpful, right?
Michael LeBlanc 16:05
Yeah.
Carolyn Dewar 16:05
Yeah I mean, you think Jamie Dimon has this, he starts the board meeting, this doesn't mean giving them, you know, hundreds of pages of binders and saying, there I'm being transparent. It's about the tone. So, he pulls out a piece of paper, handwritten notes, and it says, here's the things that have happened since last we met, right? The good, the bad, and the ugly. You know, Ivan at Diageo says, here's, I have a seven by seven, seven things that I'm really proud of, I want you to know, and seven things that are keeping me up at night. I mean, that's a level of transparency that many CEOs shy away from.
Michael LeBlanc 16:39
Interesting. All right, so you've touched on a couple of them keep going, let's, let's, let's check (inaudible), all six of these. (crossover talk) And, and for the lis-, and for the listeners, you know, when they get the book, it's a really, I mean, it's, it's a couple 100 pages, but really, it's six books in one because it does break down each of these components. That's why I wanted to kind of double down on on just outlining them.
Carolyn Dewar 16:59
Let's do it. I mean, on organization and culture, you know, we talked about that a little bit in terms of the culture shifts happening, but the CEOs really treat the, quote, "soft stuff", as if it's the hard stuff, right? Whether it's culture, talent, or design, they apply real rigor to it. And they don't just leave it up to HR, right? Think about what Satya Nadella did at Microsoft. When he came in, he said, a bold strategic vision around entering cloud and things like that.
Carolyn Dewar 17:26
But an equally bold vision on culture, right? He talked about growth mindset, he popularized really that term. And he was very clear on what he expected of leaders and the kinds of behaviors that, that weren't tolerated anymore, they moved from a culture of the smartest person in the room, to actually who's the most curious in the room who wants to learn the most. And it went a long way to break down their silos and to break down some of their, their kind of very inward-looking thinking.
Carolyn Dewar 17:56
So, taking the soft stuff and treating it hard that that applies to talent as well, which kind of bleeds into this idea of your top team. These excellent CEOs, I think they purposely put this kind of provocative phrase down, they don't put people first well, what does that mean? Of course, they care about people. But what it meant was they started with the roles that mattered most, it turns out that in these big companies, we were talking to about 200 roles, disproportionately contribute about 80% of the value, right? In a smaller company, maybe that's 50 roles.
Carolyn Dewar 18:30
But beyond just the top team, even a few levels down in the organization, what are the roles that are most critical to deliver on your strategy, to deliver on your growth agenda, or your turnaround? And do you as the CEO, know which roles those are, and then those are the roles you pay attention to, from a talent point of view.
Carolyn Dewar 18:52
Now, hopefully, you have your high potential list of talent, and those are the folks in those important roles. But you actually start with the roles first (inaudible), you know, if I'm doing a digital transformation my head of digital or if I'm growing in, in India, you know, the country manager of India that might be four levels down is critical. Do I know who they are? Do I know if we have a good bench? Are we making sure we retain that person and reward them? So, this notion of applying, you know, value driven thinking and analytics to the roles that matter and the talent I need is, is key. So, that was another example.
Carolyn Dewar 19:28
I'll hit off the last two real quick stakeholders, right? External stakeholders is one that I think every CEO every leader is, is struggling with and the expectations have gone through the roof in terms of the number of stakeholders who have an opinion on your business and opinion on what you should be taking a stand on. And these excellent CEOs, rather than starting with, who should I meet with and on what topics they really ground themselves in the why. And they start with the why for them. What, why does our company exist? What is our purpose, what is our set of values? What are we trying to do in the world? Why do we exist? And then as they think about their stakeholders, they ask, well, what why is that stakeholder raising that point of view, right? Is it a community group? Is it someone driving an ESG Agenda? Is it a customer or a regulator? What is it they're trying to solve for? And how do we find the common ground and the win, win, right?
Carolyn Dewar 20:26
I think about the CEO of Neste who was kind of a Finish oil company. And they were doing a lot of great things in ESG. They thought yet, when the CEO drove to work in the morning, there were Greenpeace protesters outside the building. Now, he easily could have rebuffed it and said, Look, we're doing great things, you know, they just don't get it. He actually invited them into the building and ended up having a whole series of conversations with them about what Neste was trying to do and accomplish what the Greenpeace folks were concerned about. And what's a shared agenda that they could pursue together with them kind of coaching and counseling each other as they went over a number of months and years. So, very, very different way to engage.
Carolyn Dewar 21:08
And then the last piece, and then I promise I'll stop is really this personal effectiveness piece, right? Ultimately, there's only one human being in this role. And so, what is it that the CEO can do to manage their time and energy and their own effectiveness? And the mindset there was, do only what you can do, right? The CEOs were very, very focused almost ruthless in saying, what is the work that only I can do as a CEO? Because if I don't do it, no one else can? And what's everything else that can be delegated, right? And that, that applies to each of these areas, right? In strategy, what's the unique thing only I can do? I can give the permission to the organization to dream big, and I can make sure that our resources are allocated well, right?
Carolyn Dewar 21:55
In organization, I can, I can set the tone from the top of the culture and how we're going to work together, and what is the talent expectation of, of who we need to be. And then really focus on the unique role only they could play and made sure that their calendar and their time was allocated to those priorities. Because if you let it 1000 Things will creep in. And, you know, I think it was Ajay Banga at MasterCard, after a year in the role of really struggling with this, his team, his assistant, and others said, look, if you can't decide what's important for your calendar, we can do it for you. And it was a real wake up call for him. And he ended up being much more disciplined in saying this is what I need to be doing. And here's what everyone else can do. And, and it freed up that precious capacity that was only his.
Michael LeBlanc 22:45
I, I love that last part. Because you know, I've struggled with the same thing, this idea called a role compression, right? If, if, you know, you wind up doing things you shouldn't be doing, because they need to be done. The temptation to get things done, and I always reflect on you know, these CEOs. It's not like they've got 48 hours in a day, right? They still have the same constraints. You know, they're, they're (crossover talk) the same number of hours that I do, you know, and but they're running incredibly complex organizations. Th-, the just like such a great review. Now for every one of those. There's exceptions to the rule, visionaries, Mavericks, renegades, I mean, we have a CEO today, you know, texting that he wants to take on Vladimir Putin, for the Ukraine. I mean, it's just insanity. Are these exceptions that are, are edge cases, they fall outside the rule? Because some of these companies are pretty, you know, pretty successful. How does that fit in your framework? And how do you think about are they just such outliers? That they're not useful to understand, talk about that a bit?
Carolyn Dewar 23:42
Absolutely. I mean, in this set of, of CEOs we talked to, we purposely tried to get a range of across industries, across geography, across demographics, but also of ownership structures.
Carolyn Dewar 23:54
So, you know, some folks have said, hey, why are there not more founder led CEOs in there, and we have a few we have Reed Hastings at Netflix, and a few others. But we purposely didn't stack the list with founder CEOs, right? Elon Musk isn't in there, for example, or, or Mark Zuckerberg. And part of it was they have degrees of freedom that, frankly, the rest of us don't have, right? They don't really report into a board. Many of them are majority shareholders. I mean, there's, there's just things that they can do that are outside of the, the scrutiny that other CEOs realistically have to have to live under. And we're trying to create lessons learned that would apply to everyone.
Carolyn Dewar 24:31
So, we definitely didn't over index on founders. But I think within that and all the folks we did talk to, there was a really nice mix of yes, some big famous names that you've heard of, but also a lot that you haven’t, right? Doug Baker at Ecolab. We had as I said Maddie and at Neste, Sandy Cutler at Eaton. Because we found there's extraordinary CEOs everywhere. And these mindsets and practices, they embody those too. So, it's not just about kind of the big Maverick, it's about people day to day, who are delivering extraordinary value for their shareholders, but also for their customers and their employees. And that'd what we were excited about the people who've delivered day in day out, who, who keep the wheels turning?
Michael LeBlanc 25:17
Who should read the book? I mean, obviously, it's like a CEO handbook. You're a CEO, you're aspiring CEO, you're maybe going onto a board of directors. But do you conceive of this as lessons for, for everyone? Or is this you know, it's the handbook for CEOs and that kind of group and, and really that get the most out of it. How, when you were writing it? Did you, how, who we're you imagining would be reading the book?
Carolyn Dewar 25:39
So, first you're right, we started off saying how do we demystify the CEO role? And how do we share some of this wisdom, because 50% of the CEOs we interviewed said the job was not what they expected, and they wished they'd known more. But as it evolved, it became really clear that these lessons apply broadly, frankly, to all of us as leaders, wherever we are in the organization. You know, if these guys can figure it out with the scale and complexity that they do, surely, we can all do it too, right? We can think boldly, we can make sure we're very clear on how we want our teams to run, we can give them the permission and the courage to act in exciting ways, right? We can align our stakeholders, whoever those might be. And we can manage our own personal effectiveness. Those apply to everyone, whether it's public, private sector, not for profit, any level of the organization can take something away.
Michael LeBlanc 26:31
Last question for you, advice for the listeners, I mean, you've got such a depth of practice and expertise. So, you're talking to amazing people, and, and you have amazing colleagues, advice on how to deal and how to think about operating in such a turbulent world getting more turbulent-er every day would seem any, any last advice beyond what we can think about as a CEO? Just from a leadership perspective?
Carolyn Dewar 26:57
Absolutely. And as you say, there's so much in the world at the moment, I think, from these folks we talked to and from just broad recognition, the ones who navigated well, are the ones who are very centered and grounded, both in who are they as a leader, what matters to them? And how do they want to lead, right? Michael Fisher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, called it his "to be list" is just as important as his "to do list".
Carolyn Dewar 27:25
And I think especially in these times, leaders are being called upon, you know, to be human and to bring humanity to their organizations and to be centered in you know who are they as a leader? And how do they bring confidence to, to all of their stakeholders. And then at the same time, they lead organizations that are very clear on their purpose and values as a company, right? And it's a time to really come back to who are we? What do we stand for, and that becomes a litmus test and a guide, through all of these in the moment decisions that we're all having to make.
Michael LeBlanc 27:57
My guest is Carolyn Dewar the book is, CEO Excellence available now on great places where you buy books, Carolyn, if folks want to just kind of keep in touch and, and follow you from an ongoing basis or learn more or even get in touch. How do they do that?
Carolyn Dewar 28:12
Absolutely, would be happy to whether it's on LinkedIn or, or via the McKinsey landing page. It's, it's Carolyn Dewar, D, E, W, A R, just like the whiskey and I'm at McKinsey, you can, you can type that in and find me easily.
Michael LeBlanc 28:26
Well, Carolyn, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail, it was a real treat, great book, anybody listening would benefit whether you're a CEO, or just you want to understand leadership in a framework that clicks a lot of complexity and in a nice frame. So, once again, congratulations on the book. I wish you continued success. And thanks again for joining me on The Voice of Retail.
Carolyn Dewar 28:46
Thank you so much, it's been super.
Michael LeBlanc 28:49
Thanks for tuning into this episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically each week. And check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast with Steve Dennis, and the Global E-Commerce Leaders podcast. Last but not least, if you’re into barbecue, check out my YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, consumer growth consultant, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc., Maven Media and keynote speaker. If you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Safe travels everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
CEOs, McKinsey, roles, book, organization, culture, board, mindsets, leaders, Neste, stakeholders, people, inaudible, folks, retail, talk, podcast, Carolyn, job, excellence