Redefining Leadership: Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO

The University of Washington hosted Carol Bartz (CEO, Yahoo) for the inaugural Redefining Leadership event. Being the avid notetaker that I am, I thought I’d share my notes from the discussion.

Interview

• Carol Bartz (CEO, Yahoo)
• Robert Herbold (Managing Director, Herbold Group)

Carol Bartz: “Hire for talent, fire for fit.”

- it’s tempting to hang on to people who are good at what they do but do not fit the culture – you need to let them go

Carol Bartz: “Listening”

- be a good listener, you’ll be able to ‘see’ what people are really trying get from you / tell you

- as a manager in the 70′s-80′s, we’re taught to not dig into peoples personal lives as managers – this doesn’t work for me

- you need to know people well enough that you can read their body language

- don’t assume that you’ll be able to diagnose a problem in the first go around

- honesty is critical, regardless of the cost

Robert Herbold (moderator): Suppose you’re running a company and a top person in a crucial area quits, what traits do you look for in someone to replace them?

Carol Bartz:

- look for competence

- “I have a rule with CFOs: if she can’t make it through, then she gets ride of them

- look for personality

- look for energy

- avoids senior people looking for their “swan song”

Robert Herbold (moderator): If you think about leaders you’ve met or teachers you’ve had, which ones stick in your mind and why and what were the lessons or teachings?

Carol Bartz:

- watch people, take pieces / styles from each

- notice / pay attention to what you would do- notice / pay attention to what you wouldn’t do

- learned how to get things done from her grandmother (story about killing a snake)

- find people who will tell you where you’re not doing a good job, but you have to be ready to hear it

- learn when to when to stop talking up

Robert Herbold (moderator): I think business schools focus too much on ‘team work,’ teaching consensus rather than true team work. Students do not learn how to think individually. Your thoughts?

Carol Bartz:

- [Carol gave an example from career] “Share responsibility is not working, let’s go back to command and control.

- [This is the reply she received from Steve] “Sounds great, Carol, except for the fact you’ll have to be right all the time.”

Panel Discussion

• Carol Bartz (CEO, Yahoo)
• Robert Herbold (Managing Director, Herbold Group)
• Dorrit Bern (former CEO, Charming Shoppes)
• Charles Hill (Foster School of Business management professor)

Dorrit Bern: How do you balance strategic and tactical?

Carol Bartz:

- just like anything, the word balance is the problem with that question

- there are times when there is a firestorm, if you’re not working on the firestorm it doesn’t matter what the strategy is

- tempting to get in the moment and not have a path out there to follow

- there will always be people who love the longterm thinking, not perturbed with what’s going around them; find these people, place them in various groups because they will keep you going down the right path

- 5-year plans are hard, I don’t like them

- you have to be able to throw out a plan and adapt to a new one

- longterm plans are especially hard in tech

Charles Hill: You come in as CEO, to a pivotal, highly visible company that is hitting roadblocks – how do you craft vision?

Carol Bartz:

- spent 5 weeks in 45 minute sessions with employees

- [Carol would ask] “What would you do? What would you like me to do?”

- at the end of every meeting, I asked the employe I was meeting with who else in the company they thought I should talk to

- it was a bit presumptuous of me, but you met great people this way

- this helped to find the battles in the organization

- one of the key issues was that decisions were not being made at Yahoo

- I wanted to make a couple quick decisions to shake people up

- started doing a Friday message, kept it going, received amazing feedback

- one of the most important things was to define Yahoo after Microsoft took over search – employees needed to feel good again- did things to raise moral internally

Robert Herbold: Did you do similar things at Autodesk to build employee moral? One of the challenges as a leader is to get the ‘message’ out, especially before others.

Carol Bartz:

- birthday breakfasts and ‘coffee with Carol’ were important

- company meetings- there was much more structured than there is now

- worse today because bloggers are blasting into companies, employees hear those messages

- as a leader, you have to repeat the message until it comes back at you (from employees)

- I have this slogan, “Fail Fast Forward” — failure is acceptable, identify it quickly, and hopefully it’s a forward motion

- “sloganize” things to help people remember

- “The biggest mistakes you make are the things you didn’t do.”

Carol Bartz: Change is a muscle, if you don’t exercise it, then you don’t have it.

- Jerry (former Yahoo CEO) wasn’t married and would constantly reorganize the company (Yahoo) around the holidays

- it’s crucial to determine what has to stay stable and what has to change

Dorrit Bern: Culture is one of my favorite words. As a new CEO you are exposed to a new culture; how do you embrace it, modify, collect it, erase it, etc.?

Carol Bartz:

- it’s like having a teenager, you have to pick your battles

- all the little things that bother you don’t matter- focus on what’s important, making decisions, and moving fast

Charles Hill: What are some tricks to develop talent and confront weak performance?

Carol Bartz:

- strong performers self select – they volunteer, they lead, etc.

- you have to be brutal / direct with under-performers

- when management does not take action with under-performers, it creates dissent with good employees

- one of the things I do well is that I naturally attract people in all levels of the company to come to talk to me; the most amazing people seek me out and I make sure to ask what they would like to tell me

- people who have the moxy to have an idea, come up four levels to me rather than talk to their manager

Q&A: Personal life – what do you do to get past personal issues?

Carol Bartz:

- with work, for example, when the site goes down, I remind people it’s just a site

- ‘work / life balance’ is not balance, balance is being able to adjust- set expectations with family, leave room to surprise them

- don’t put pressure on yourself – oughta, coulda, shoulda, etc.

- don’t be so important with yourself – learn to laugh

Q&A: How much time do you pit into ‘people development’ at work?

Carol Bartz:

- formal is good, but the day-to-day personal development is more important

- I stopped annual reviews at Yahoo – instead, I sent out an email once a quarter asking if people had a meaningful conversation with their manager this quarter

- it’s the ‘everyday’ that makes people feel special

Q&A: What do you do to develop employees who are longterm thinkers?

Carol Bartz:

- start with someone whose thinking is productive

- don’t give longterm thinkers a day-to-day job

- it’s like sales, you have accounts your trying to break into, there is different compensation plan

- you’ll never be happy doing something you hate, everyone needs to find a role that fits

Q&A: What advice do you have for you job-seekers?

Carol Bartz:

- companies are looking for people who are energized by their job, who think, who like to learn

- if your are an interested person you’re an interesting person

I hope you found my notes helpful; as always, if you have any questions please be sure to let me know.

– RP