Existential purpose, such as Elon Musk and SpaceX’s crazy commitment to making our species interplanetary; Customer Obsession, such as Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s crazy dedication to intuitive, user friendly interfaces; a Startup Mindset, such as ‘dinosaur’ IBM exhibited when it moved quickly into the emerging internet; Managing Tempo, such as Amazon going slow in preparing to innovate before moving fast; and Boldness, such as Microsoft partnering with outside companies to leapfrog in artificial intelligence.
We are living in the Renaissance of Work. Just like great artists know that an empty canvas can become anything, great leaders know that an entire organization — and the people inside it — can become anything, too. Master Artists and Mastering the Art of Leadership draw from the same source: creation. In this series, we’ll meet masters who are creating the future of work and painting a portrait of lasting leadership. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Behnam Tabrizi.
Behnam Tabrizi is known as a transformation guru with over 25 years of teaching experience at Stanford University and its executive programs, where he has won two teachings and the most prestigious management scholarly awards. He has authored ten books on transformation and innovation, including the international bestseller The Inside-Out Effect and the Harvard Business-published Rapid Transformation, ranked as the №1 book on leadership by getAbstract, covering 25,000 books. He has served as a venture capitalist and board member for companies such as Clever Sense, which was acquired by Google, and has consulted for major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, Intel, Netflix, Tesla, and Microsoft. He has served as the faculty on the Doctoral Program at the Harvard Business School and has advised the US president, the Vatican, and the European Union on digital transformation.
Thank you for joining us. Our readers would enjoy discovering something interesting about you. What are you in the middle of right now that you’re excited about personally or professionally?
I am in the middle of sharing with the world my new book, Going on Offense: A Leader’s Playbook for Perpetual Innovation, a labor of love. I am grateful that it just made it to the Bestseller list (#2) in the Wall Street Journal.
I am also thrilled to have already published five articles based on Going On Offense:
Two HBR articles, one on Jobs & AI and another on Microsoft & AI;
Fortune article on Tesla (Aug. 3rd);
Last week’s Fast Company piece on How to Build a Bold Organization.
And the second piece on Fast Company: Why the Performance Review is Dead.
And, during the week of Sept 18, Big Think, which publishes bold ideas, will be publishing “The War on Talent is Overrated; Focus on Unleashing Your Current Talent.”
We all get by with a little help from our friends. Who is the leader that has influenced you the most, and how?
My dad. He was a super athlete, played two NCAA sports, football and soccer, in college in Utah, and subsequently received a scholarship to Harvard Business School. He had high integrity, was always there for others, especially the vulnerable, and worked extremely hard. Those aspirational values were ingrained in me from a young age.
Sometimes our biggest mistakes lead to our biggest discoveries. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made as a leader, and what did you discover as a result?
My biggest mistake, early in my career was that I underestimated myself and played small. This changed after I wrote my book, Rapid Transformation. Its parallel and fast approach to transformation was counter to the prevailing understanding of transformation, which was serial and slow. Once well-known figures in the transformation field started adopting my ideas, it compelled me to rely on my instincts and double down on my next book, The Inside Out Effect, which is about personal transformation. This new book, Going on Offense, on perpetual innovation completes the trilogy of transformation and innovation essentials.
How has your definition of leadership changed or evolved over time? What does it mean to be a leader now?
The leaders of the most innovative companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla and Starbucks, were predominantly generous toward their commitments, and ferocious in terms of the tempo and energy brought to work and to their teams. They knew when to slow down. Finally, they were courageous in terms of collaborating regardless of hierarchy and titles and also taking bold but calculated risks.
Success is as often as much about what we stop as what we start. What is one legacy leadership behavior you stopped because you discovered it was no longer valuable or relevant?
Earlier I gave a lot of significance to outcomes, which created an attachment that often led to disappointment when I did not quite reach my goals. Now, I have a general vision, and I’m flexible about ways of achieving it. I also focus on possibilities rather than expectations and significance, so I am happier and less attached to the outcome per se.
What is one lasting leadership behavior you started or are cultivating because you believe it is valuable or relevant?
Recently, I realized the secret sauce to my energy and my work is that I genuinely love what I do. Sometimes, I cannot believe I get what I do on a daily basis. Almost all our favorite songs are about love, yet the leadership literature holds back when it comes to the concept of love. But, I have adopted this concept, and I’m in the early stages of expressing it to people around me, including family, friends, students, and clients. I have also decided to surround myself with people I love and admire.
What advice would you offer to other leaders who are stuck in past playbooks and patterns and may be having a hard time letting go of what made them successful in the past?
My advice is to focus on the future and on your deep commitments, which I call existential purpose in the new book. The world is changing quickly, and leaders must adapt to what’s coming.
Many of our readers can relate to the challenge of leading people for the first time. What advice would you offer to new and emerging leaders?
Likewise, I advise new leaders to focus on existential purpose and be courageous enough to be vulnerable in following that purpose. I have been surprised by how many younger and newer people in management have told me that my new book led them to show up with power, self-expression, and vitality at work. As an executive at Apple told me, “Don’t be afraid to Go On Offense and get your hands dirty!”
Based on your experience or research, what are the top five traits effective leaders exemplify now?
The five traits are: Existential purpose, such as Elon Musk and SpaceX’s crazy commitment to making our species interplanetary; Customer Obsession, such as Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s crazy dedication to intuitive, user friendly interfaces; a Startup Mindset, such as ‘dinosaur’ IBM exhibited when it moved quickly into the emerging internet; Managing Tempo, such as Amazon going slow in preparing to innovate before moving fast; and Boldness, such as Microsoft partnering with outside companies to leapfrog in artificial intelligence.
American Basketball Coach John Wooden said, “Make each day your masterpiece.” How do you embody that quote?
I go to bed early and wake up really early, sometimes at 3 a.m., and go for a walk. It’s my meditation and contemplation time, and some of my best ideas come then. Morning overall is my most productive time when I make most of my tough decisions. Afternoons are usually about doing grunt work or work I don’t usually enjoy.
What is the legacy you aspire to leave as a leader?
Legacy is determined by others. But my dream scenario is that people who came in contact with me: my students, clients, and others, say that I truly cared and was all in. I guess an epitaph would be: “he aspired to be a sculptor of human and organizational potential.”
How can our readers connect with you to continue the conversation?
Please reach out to me on Linkedin. I am still figuring out X/Twitter.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to experience a leadership master at work. We wish you continued success and good health!