Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Fixing the Leadership Crisis That's Destroying Companies | Klaus Kleinfeld - Former Fortune 500 CEO

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Lessons - Fixing the Leadership Crisis That's Destroying Companies | Klaus Kleinfeld - Former Fortune 500 CEO · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover how top performers avoid burnout by managing energy instead of time.
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  Learn how small recharge habits like walking or breathing can quickly restore focus.
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  Learn how recognizing your energy zones helps you return from survival mode to peak performance
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  and learn how having a clear purpose turns scattered effort into focused, meaningful action.
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  I mean, you've been working and you've been building for so long. I guess you see a significant
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  difference for me at 34. So I see all the same people burning out, but it just seems like my peers,
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  it seems like almost like a prerequisite for building a successful career. So many of them are
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  doing it. I know it's not, but it just seems to be the norm, right? And if you look at your entire
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  career, nobody can look at you and say that you didn't basically accomplish what most people
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  would dream to accomplish running, running publicly traded Fortune 500 companies is pretty much the
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  the extreme of stress and performance and whatever you want to accomplish. That's that's right up
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  there. But even coming from you, it's interesting you're saying that people are still not
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  the way that people work right now is not a healthy way for people to work, even though you come from
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  an environment of running one of the largest companies in the world. But the interesting thing is
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  many people think, oh, this is great advice, but I don't have the time for it. And what they don't
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  realize is that many of the energy practices do not need much time. You have to have a conceptual
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  understanding. And I give you the extreme example of this. I mean, if you look at top tennis players,
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  you know, the average top games last about one and two hours, you know, so and they cannot just say,
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  I go, I have 20 minutes of time, I recharge, you know, even though it's a hot day and I'm playing
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  in Australia, you know, so the tennis association allows you only 20 seconds between the serves,
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  you know, 20 seconds. That's your kind of relaxation time. But what they have learned is how to
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  condition themselves, you know, in such a way that in these 20 seconds, they can fully recharge,
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  fully recharge. I mean, not fully, but maximum recharge. And there are techniques around how
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  you do that. And what you see it today when you watch a tennis game, they all have their routines
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  and when they get the new ball, they do something with it, something odd. You know, everybody has
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  an odd strange routine. They squeeze it, take three balls with it, throw two away, get another one.
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  Why do they do that? You know, they have a movie going through their hat, you know, that
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  completely recharges them. This is a learned routine. And these are things that pretty much all of the
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  kind of top notch pros, you know, used today, you know, including all so special forces. I mean,
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  everybody uses that, you know, breathing plays a big important role. Yes, you have to have physical
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  fitness. Yes, no doubt, helps, you know, but I think the discovery of saying, if I reach recharge
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  as part of performance, you know, I mean, downtime is productive time, but it doesn't mean that you have
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  to have equal downtime to the productive time. That's not necessary. You have to, you can develop
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  micro habits, you know, a good friend of mine, he works in Hong Kong at a high rise, you know, his
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  micro routine is, he gives his cell phone to his assistant, you know, and then drives down on the
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  elevator, you know, takes a few minutes walk around the block, fresh air goes up again, you know,
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  and if somebody calls him, his assistant is right there and says, wait a second, he will come back
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  in the next 10 minutes, I call you back, you know, that's easy, easy, and everybody can do that,
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  you know, and there's a ton of stuff like that that I also wanted to put out and put into the
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  box very practical things, you know, to recharge. I think that's important to you. I think that
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  even those small things can really help somebody reframe the worst thing you can do is just sit
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  with your thoughts and stress for hours on end and now because of a virtual, I mean,
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  myself included, we don't even leave the house if we don't force ourselves to leave the house.
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  So you just end up sitting with your own thoughts, you have a really good story in the book about
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  the miracle on the Hudson and why this illustrates it. Explain to me why this, you can walk through
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  the story, but explain why it sort of ties back to this concept. Well, this now comes to the dynamics
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  of energy and what happened, Sadi Sullivan is the captain, you know, it's a nice day and cold,
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  like today it's cold, it's sunny, it's blue sky, and they are going down south, you know, and
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  they are talking to each other, the copilot and him and then a flock of geese. They hit a flock
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  of geese while they are ascending, you know, and first one engine goes off, then the other engine
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  goes off and those who know, known New York, he comes from LaGuardia, he turns to the left, it's
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  where the great, the George Washington, which is over the George Washington, which goes
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  off. There's an airport right there, he thinks he can get there, you know, but then he realizes it
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  won't get him there, you know, and then he basically turns left and goes and lands in the Hudson, you
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  know. So the likelihood of landing a plane safely on water is close to zero, you know, so the guys
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  kind of crazy, you know, but when you when you see what's been happening as he goes obviously from
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  he's relaxed, he's in basic almost like in relaxation, it's a beautiful day, they're going home,
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  we had a great time in New York, you know, so his colleague is a good friend, blah, blah, blah,
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  they are talking to each other about what's happening in New York, bomb these geese come on, he goes
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  from basically redexation, you know, and and and to perform a performance zone to survival zone,
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  chup, survival zone, you know, what happens in survival zone, you know, Adrenaline, this beautiful
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  thing of Adrenaline kicks in, you know, hormones and Adrenaline is apt, extremely good, it makes
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  us superhuman, you know, so you are focused, your focus shifts, you know, all other body functions
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  get reduced, you're completely focused on the task, you know, and you are literally superhuman,
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  but then if you stay in that too long, you burn out, boom, you know, so but what he does, he then
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  switches back to performance zone, you know, he basically, you can see it in the transcript,
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  you know, he first asks the tower, you know, can I land there in New Jersey, they give him permission
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  to land, then he turns around, doesn't even talk to the tower anymore, picks up the microphone
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  and says, you know, prepare for impact to the cabin, you know, and then he lands, you know,
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  so how can somebody do this, you know, he did it purely in performance zone, you know, and
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  why, why was he able to go with two engines off, you know, landing on that and to go back into
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  performance zone, because he has trained as an assimilator thousands of times, not only has he
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  traded in his training, but he was a trainer from the airline, you know, so obviously, obviously
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  experience helps, you know, if you can move into into into a pattern where you say, I know what's
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  going on here, I know how to handle this, and now we're going to land that plane. So he managed to
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  go back between those patterns, you know, extremely well, extremely well, you know, that's it's
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  interesting and you're if you're talking to an entrepreneur or somebody's earlier on in their
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  career, what would be the advice to manage these different energy zones for sort of peak performance,
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  you don't burn out? Well, the first one is, I mean, relaxation time is productive time. I mean,
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  you don't go into the fall and think of an ultra marathon, you know, where you push,
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  you push, you push, you push, and eventually, and forget to recharge, you know, eventually,
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  you hit the wall, and that's it, no, no, find a way how you can, you know, get into your performance
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  zone and when you feel, yeah, you know, what, do some recharging, again, recharging can be very
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  short, like my friend in Hong Kong, get down on the elevator, go out, you know, do, listen to a piece
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  of music, you know, or whatever, whatever you like that gives you energy, you know, there's thousands
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  of things, listen to a painting, you know, or whatever, or call a friend for four, four, five minutes,
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  you know, write a nice email or whatever, whatever gives you energy, and then get back in it,
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  just get back in it or close your eyes to a breathing exercise, you know, you know, gets you,
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  gets you back, gets you back into it, that's one thing. Secondly, you know, whenever you feel
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  you're going from performance zone into survival zone, you know, understand that that has a
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  positive one because you're now a superhuman, it has also a positive one because you're expanding
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  your comfort zone. So it's good if you do that once in a while, but the moment this goes on is
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  like you're on a clock, you know, now you have to make sure that you are relatively quickly going
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  back to your performance zone. So in reality, you have to find a way how you, how you frame the
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  situation differently, you know, so that you are able to go back into your performance zone,
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  right? So take an action that gets you out of the survival zone into your performance zone,
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  or train this in a controlled environment, you know, like study has done, he's been in a simulator,
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  in a controlled environment, on smaller, I mean, I've done restructurings many, many times,
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  when we started with small restructurings, and they got big, and then they got very big, and I got
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  giant, giant, gigantic, big, you know, but if I had done the gigantic, big one, I probably would
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  have died, you know, so, but as I knew going into it, I had a pattern recognition and said,
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  oh, this is happening, oh, this is happening. So, you know, you know, how to handle it, you know?
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  You know, you mentioned something, so I want to move on to, I want to move on to some of the
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  restructurings and sort of some transformation, the leadership stories that you've been a part of,
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  because I think that, I mean, you have some, you have some incredible stories, you can pick which ones,
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  I mean, you think are most relevant to the audience, but one that in particular I found interesting
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  was the, I mean, you manage the, the Siemens X-Rated Vision turnaround, you managed Alkoa from
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  2008, 2009, there were some crises that you dealt with. So, talk to me about, I mean, now we
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  understand sort of the playbook for what is optimal leadership, what is optimal,
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  what is optimal leadership for yourself, for your team, for your company, now you apply this
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  very successfully. So, let's talk about how a leader operating in the right mind actually sort of
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  executes. Well, I mean, I think it brings us to the pinnacle that connects us, because on the
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  energy side, the one thing we didn't talk about was purpose, you know, we haven't talked about
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  purpose and purpose is what, what a laser does to light, you know, when, when light is normally
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  as diffuse, you know, you put it, you turn it into laser, it brings it into a beam that can literally
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  go through any material, destroy anything, you know, and that's what purpose does to energy,
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  energy is diffuse, you have it, but the moment you say, this is my purpose or these are my
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  purposes, you suddenly have something where the energy goes into tune, you know, so, so this is
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  important. Now, purpose on the business side, if you want to translate your own purpose or the
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  purpose of the business into the people who work for you, we would need a vision, you know, we
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  need a vision that makes them understand, I'm doing something that has a higher value than just
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  putting together extreme machines, you know, and, or angiography machines, you know, and the problem
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  there was at Siemens, it was the longest standing division and medical super successful, super,
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  super simple birthplace of Siemens medical, but it has kind of been put into the shadow by the
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  more modern ones like ultrasound, computer tomography, magnetic resonance, and, and it was also not
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  making money, so many people had tried to turn it around and then they, they gave it to me kind of,
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  another guy trying it out, you know, and I asked them, asked them to be able to go to hospitals to
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  see how the equipment is used and that was, I was the moment when my aha moment, because I realized
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  when I saw the patient and talked to the doctor, is that we had something that nobody else had,
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  we actually could use the x-ray for not just a diagnosis, but also for the intervention for the
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  cure, and you may remember your two young brothers, remember, but many other might remember,
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  there was a time when surgery was the thing, these days, fortunately, you can do a lot,
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  you could call it minimally invasive, you know, so we're literally not even in a teacher,
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  it's needed for this, and that needs image guidance in most cases, you know, so you need an
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  extra machine to see where is this thing in your body that they are pushing through, you know,
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  so I had this idea, then I invited, I invited a young woman to our all-hands meeting,
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  who I knew whose life was safe, you know, by, by exactly that, the right diagnosis with our equipment
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  and then also treatment, and didn't tell anybody, she told her story, and I gave her in the medical
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  environment, you have stringent regulation, so you have to document who worked on what
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  machines, so I gave her the list of all people who had worked on the machines that she was diagnosed,
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  and treated with, she read out this, this names, and brought the people on stage.
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  Wow, I mean, these are people in the northern part of Bavaria, who cannot easily be moved,
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  you know, they've seen a lot in their lives, you know, but on that day, there were a lot of people
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  with tears in their eyes, you know, so now that, and that, I mean, in the evening, the,
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  the head of the labor union basically told me, Klaus, you brought our soul back, you know, so,
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  because before they saw themselves as a restructuring case, and I completely forgotten,
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  it's completely forgotten what great things they have been doing, and when I mean, when,
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  I mean, I told some of the people on the shop floor, you know, who are late with their equipment,
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  I said, do you understand that this equipment goes to the US, you know, to that little village,
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  the village has just taken the old machine out, and now in the radius of about 100 miles,
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  you know, people cannot be diagnosed, are you aware that this is what's happening because
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  we cannot get this machine shipped on time, you know, and the moment people understand this,
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  this is one thing, but the moment they see a patient and realize, this could be me, this could be
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  my mother, this could be my sister, you know, that makes all the difference. I mean, so from that
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  on, motivational, I don't think we had it, we had an issue, and business wise, we did the right
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  things. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button
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  so you never miss an episode, and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.