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Lessons - $14 Billion Leadership Lessons | Lisa Lutoff-Perlo - CEO at Celebrity Cruises · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover the power of leading with heart and reshaping company culture.
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  Learn how to build high-performing teams by nurturing respect at every level,
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  balancing empathy with business metrics and making tough decisions to align actions with values.
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  Explore why authentic leadership creates lasting organizational success.
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  When people look at your career, incredible career, you've, I mean, what you've achieved,
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  phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal, and people would look at you and they would say,
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  oh, she's shattered the glass ceiling. She's done the thing. But what you just said to me
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  was actually very interesting. So even when you're in those roles and you're leading people,
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  you've, you've had senior roles, not just with as CEO right now, but with pass,
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  with pass organizations as well. So you still get pushback. You still get people that question your
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  leadership, even though how many years have you been in this industry? I think you said
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  39. 39 years. Yeah. Yeah.
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  So you still get people that pushback and question why you are in the role that you're in?
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  Not anymore, thankfully. And I guess 39 years of proving people were all, or maybe 30 by the time,
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  no, I even think 39. I'm going to say 39. And what's interesting to me and, you know,
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  I'm hoping at some point in time, either now or in another in a future conversation is,
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  I've decided to exit this industry after 39 years. What I'm finding is the body of work
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  and all the time I've spent proving people wrong is serving me really well in my future.
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  And I still am trying to figure out why throughout my entire career in the company that I'm in,
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  I had to do it so many times. It's actually, it's sad and it's disheartening. Like,
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  so when you look at celebrity, obviously you've made massive changes to who they are as an
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  organization. Do you think celebrity is very similar to the rest of the cruise industry? Do you
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  think it's like an outlier in terms of the type of like cultural and organizational changes that
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  you had to implement over your career? Do you think it's like if you're going to, if you're going
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  to rank it in terms of like experience, would it be positive, negative, middle of the road,
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  when you were coming up? Well, what I will say is that I had an amazing career. I've accomplished
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  more than I ever would have imagined or actually more than I ever did imagine. So as that is the
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  back job, what I will say about leading celebrity is it was probably harder to lead celebrity
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  than it would be to lead any other of, especially the larger cruise lines that have been around
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  for a much longer period of time, more established brands, more differentiated brands. Celebrity,
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  I always looked at as the challenger brand trying to find its place. And when, you know,
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  what I came into the role as president and CEO of that was what I was charged with. Celebrity needs
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  to find its place. It needs to solidify its position, pick the position and solidify it in the
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  market and significantly improve the financial performance of the brand. And that was a heavy lift.
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  And when I was acquainted to the role, one of the other things I say all the time is be careful
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  what you wish for because once you get to see out, you know, it's great getting the seat, but
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  it's not easy being in the chair. That's for sure. And no, no, no kidding at all. So, you know,
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  the other point is you mentioned all the traditional metrics that a president CEO should focus on.
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  But you are very outspoken about, and this is where I want to challenge a bit. You are a heart
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  centered leader. You're a heart focused leader. And if somebody just sort of glosses over that as a
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  that's like wish you watch you. It's like it's whatever. Yes, everyone's a good person, right?
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  It's a girl. It's a girly thing. Is that what they say? I'm not saying that.
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  No, I know you're not, but you're saying what other people say. Sometimes that people say,
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  oh, that's a girly thing. Anyway, got it? No, no, the point is the point is, okay. So,
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  you're not an idiot. You're a very smart person. When you put that out into the world, how do you
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  reconcile that against business KPIs? Because we're going to we're going to paint a picture of like
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  what leadership should be. That's what I want to get to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I think leading
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  work heart lit what I learned. Here's what I learned by leading with heart because it was really
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  important to me to lead with heart, especially when I entered operations in 2005. I saw, you know,
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  over a dozen ships with 1,500 to 2,000 crew members from all over the world. These
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  lovely beautiful people who left their homes and their families to make a better life
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  like for themselves. And I saw a hierarchy, somewhat militaristic type of an environment
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  where it was led by stripes. However many stripes you had, you thought you you got respect for
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  that. I came from sales and marketing, a gentle culture. And I, you know, I called BS. And I said,
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  no, this is not what what this culture should be. We're going to invert the pyramid. And the
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  cleaners are more important than the captain. And we're going to get respect because we give respect.
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  And we're going to lead with heart. And we're going to value show these crew members how much
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  they're valued and how much we appreciate them. And you know, when I learned through that,
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  Scott, and I really built that muscle when I went into operations, I really, you know,
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  I've always had a big heart, maybe somewhere today, a bleeding heart. But I learned how to lead
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  with heart when I went into operations. And I feel like it got me so much discretionary effort.
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  And these crew members had a quilted me as a main part of the success I was able to achieve.
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  And this amazing brand I was able to build. And I think the leaders over time realized it was
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  a great formula as well. So accomplishing business goals through heart is I believe one of the best
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  ways to do that. How do you, so how do you actually translate empathy into action? Like, so you said,
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  yes, everybody is respecting each other. We got rid of, and by the way, it's so interesting because
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  even like traditional corporate culture is very, it's derived from military to a degree.
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  I mean, even like chief executive this, it's a very, but I was assuming like a nautical environment
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  is probably even further because there's literally ranks. And it's so, it's so closely tied to
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  like military ranks. And so it's not even that removed, right? No, it's not right. So, okay, so how do
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  you? Okay, so if you're saying lead lead with heart, someone's listening, they're like, yes,
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  I understand. Everybody wants to treat everybody. Well, what do you actually do in your organization?
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  How do you get that capped in? Or, or is it, this could be a hard conversation to do? Is it like,
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  you get rid of the people that aren't on board, pardon the pun, with that, that's so bad,
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  all that jokes keep them. Yeah, but there's so many. I mean, they're so, it's okay. I use them all
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  the time. But yeah, so, okay, so we want people to respect, we want people to respect the, you know,
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  the, the, the cleaners and the, and the, the, the weight staff and the people that are running the
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  entertainment on board to the same degree as they respect the captain, easier said than done,
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  especially when people are entrenched in an industry and they're entrenched in their idea of what a
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  role is. And I think that's probably what most people come up against, because it's nice to say,
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  but then you're dealing with people, you're dealing with egos and you're dealing with caniering,
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  you're dealing with experience. So what do you do? How do you actually execute? Culture, culture,
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  culture, right? First of all, it starts at the top. No doubt, no question. But I believe in
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  trickle-down culture. And so what happens is, it might start with me, but it certainly can't end
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  with me. And the team that, and, and lead by a set of values, I hold a team accountable, they hold
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  me accountable, we hold each other accountable. They very much revolve around nurturing people,
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  playing as a team, communicating, doing the right thing, because we have our business
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  vectors. Every day, you're looking at traffic lights. Are they red, green, or yellow? Are you doing
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  well? Are you, are you not? What's your offing cop? How much is it increased? What's your yield? How
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  many cruises are you selling? How many need to sell? We do that all day long. But then there's
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  you have to overlay some set of values that transens the numbers to figure out how are you achieving
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  those numbers? So are you doing it the right way? Your question was, you know, what if people
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  aren't on board? You know, you're pun, you're bad pun, then they ultimately aren't going to stay.
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  They're either going to self-select out because the environment isn't for them anymore,
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  or we're going to have to tell them this isn't the right place for you because what I learned
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  is your culture is only as strong as your weakest link. If you, as a leader, say, this is what we
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  stand for, and this is what we believe in, and then you put up with it at some, in some, you know,
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  on some link of the chain, then like credibility is shot, I've got nothing. And so believe me,
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  I have to make some tough decisions regarding the culture that that we were needing to create and
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  live by for people that were highly confident in what they did. At the end of the day,
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  every decision you make either validating or invalidates who you say you are and what you stand for.
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  You think people have a hard time with that? I mean, you work with probably tons of business leaders
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  now after 39 years in the industry and people probably come to you for advice. Do you feel that
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  people have a hard time pulling the trigger on on letting people go that are highly technically
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  proficient, but do not support the company culture? Is this something that you see at, I don't know,
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  at the level that you play at and at Fortune 500 Fortune 1000? Yeah, I do. I think that's, I think
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  it's hard war. It's hard to make those decisions. I struggled with them. And I even struggled with
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  people sitting with me telling me what a situation was and presenting pros and cons. But at the end
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  of the day, as hard as it was, I had to make that decision because it was related to culture.
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  But I do just see that. I've seen that numerous times, either throughout like rear and certainly
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  in other companies. Even when you see what you see and you know about different companies,
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  you think why do they do that or how do they do that? Because the bottom line is really important.
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  The links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.