Take the Journey with Fred Lowery - Great on Purpose ep#2

Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. As a matter of fact, it's a little surreal to have you introduce me and say that it's a podcast on being great on purpose, so I'm excited about having a conversation with you today.

Yeah, I was just thinking this sounds like a skit that we would have done like 30 some odd years ago, versus the reality of our lives. But it's great to be here and I'm excited about talking about the journey, because that's really what it's all about. So maybe I should start. I'll introduce myself. I'm Fred Lowery. I am a Senior Vice President and President of Customer Channels here at Thermo Fisher Scientific. I've been with Thermo Fisher Scientific for the last 16 years, and I've been an officer of the company for seven of those years, almost eight of those years now. I've led multiple businesses here in the company and effectively run probably at least half of the company over that period of time. Prior to being here, I was at the Maytag Corporation, and prior to that, I really started my career at General Motors. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, and I have a master's degree of course in Manufacturing Management. Of course, as my kids would describe me, I am simply a lowly businessman at this point. But I am really passionate about people. I think one of the things about being great is to realize that the output of your work impacts people. And if you can keep that in front of you, and if you have a passion for making things better for people and not just making things better for yourself, then I think you will absolutely achieve great things. So that's one of the threads that hopefully we can talk about as we go through the conversation today.

Yeah, it's definitely a journey. I would say that I've got potential. I've achieved a level of success, and I don't want to walk past that. I'm incredibly grateful for that, but I don't think we should measure our success. Let me say this: I measure my success versus my purpose or versus the opportunity that's ahead, not to become complacent with the fact that I've got a pretty good life right now. It's really about what's the maximum impact I can have. One of the things that I live by is, I don't want to be less than I can be. Think about that for a second. I don't want to be less than I can be. If I can do more, I should do more. I must do more. I'm not going to be satisfied by not doing more. It's not that I don't appreciate where we are today. Part of that is to continue to learn, and part of that is to really enjoy the growing. If I just got to a certain level and just stay there, there's no excitement in that. The excitement is in development, in growing, in continuing to make an impact and really trying to increase that impact, not just for my benefit but for the benefit of others that I started with.

You can use it. We've known each other long enough, you know that's how I really feel. Don't be less than you can be. I think a lot of times we accept less than we can, and I think that really limits us and limits our impact. And not just limits the benefits for us, it limits the benefits of others, because I also believe that what we have is not for us. What we have is for somebody else. And likewise, what we need, somebody else has it.

That's the whole thing. I've got to do my part because somebody else needs that.

Oh man, you know, as far as I always felt like you thought you was my big brother. I don't know why, but I always felt like it. I never thought that way, but I always felt like you felt that way. So we met in college. We both played football. Fonz was here, you're ahead of me, and we both played the same position, both played quarterback at the time. If I could say so humbly, I came in as a freshman. I felt like I was really good, and I thought I was the man coming out of my high school and all these kinds of things. And Fonz just kind of allowed me to feel that way, but he also took me under his wing and helped me modulate a little bit and helped me get settled into the college experience. And then we became close friends and have been friends for I don't know how many years. We had some great times over the years, and it's been a real blessing to see both of our careers grow and just us grow as men, quite frankly. As I think back to who we were and who we are today, I don't think the core of who we are is different at all. I think we always had really good intentions and a real drive for success. It's great to see it pay off in us, but at the same time, I would tell you that we both had great opportunities, and I am incredibly grateful for those opportunities. That's one of the things that it's great to see us both committed to providing those types of opportunities for others, because greatness is about connection and making sure that you're in the right flow. In my career and my life, there have been so many people that have come alongside me and said, 'Hey, no, don't do that, do this,' or 'Hey Fred, you ought to meet this guy over here,' or 'You ought to talk to her,' or 'Have you ever thought about this?' And oftentimes I was just open enough to listen and just do what somebody else asked me to do and thought it would be good for me. I think it takes a lot of that, but it also takes good friendships and people that know you for a long time and know who you are, that can tell you, 'Hey, listen, I think you're doing a great job, keep it up,' or 'Hey, you need to run a little bit harder now, you're not working as hard as you can, tighten up.' And people that you can actually listen to, that you know have your best interest. Fonz, you've been one of those folks in my life. I can't thank you enough.

You my brother, you know that. But I think you make a good point around doing the work. You've got to do the work. I tell people that I'll do what you love because you'll be better at it and you'll love doing work. But the thing is, you've got to do the work with nobody. You've got to love the work more than you love the reward. I'm gonna let that sink in. You've gotta love the work more than you love the reward. And if you do that, the reward is gonna absolutely happen. And you've gotta do the work when nobody knows you're doing the work. On Tuesday night when it's late and nobody knows that you're doing it, you've got to do it anyway. I think that's the thing that does separate people often times. And it has to become a part of who you are. That's really the opportunity all of us have.

Yeah, I think the first thing is just I was raised well. I have to start with that. My parents are very different. I learned different things from them. But I learned work ethic. I learned flexibility and nuance. My mother taught me how to make sure you can deal with everybody. And that's just a point of continuously being better. So I think that upbringing forced me to do something. I can't say that I always knew what it was that I was going to do. How could you know? We met each other. I thought I was going to be a pro football player. That was the whole thing. Didn't quite pan out. But I think it started with that. Then when I got into school, I'm a little competitive, as you might know. That competitiveness really kicked in and said, 'Hey, what do I need to do to be better? What do I need to do to compete? What do I need to do to be recognized as a player?' As I moved into the corporate world, I think I took that with me. Along with that, it was how do you make things better? That's one of the things that's inside of me. If I go into a fast food restaurant and it takes more than three minutes, I've already identified 30 things they could have done differently to actually make it better. It's just a part of who I am. I want to make things better. As a young professional, I had a lot of ideas and was willing and smart enough to share those ideas. It really helped me distinguish myself early on in my career as someone who was actually gonna make a difference. At that point, it was not just about 'Hey, I've got to succeed.' It was like, 'Hey, you guys are paying me to do this. I have these ideas. I have to tell you.' Then the other thing that's really helped me was just the connections that I have. People call it networking, but I'm more of an introvert. I'm not a huge networker. But I was really blessed to be connected with some people who have really big networks. I always tell people today, people always say, 'It's who you know that matters, not what you know.' I would frame it a little differently. I say it's not who you know, it's actually who knows you and what they think about you. That's way more important than who you know. It's who actually knows you and actually has a positive impression of you. Those are the people who really pushed me forward. A few folks said early on, 'This guy is going to be successful. This guy we should take a look at. Make sure that you keep an eye on this guy.' It kind of put me on the right track from a career perspective. So those are some of the things that early on helped me a lot. The last one is just really being prepared. My philosophy around preparation was that I didn't want to fail. I wanted to make sure people knew I could do it. Just like when I came to Tennessee Tech to play football, I remember somebody saying when I was in high school my senior year, 'Hey, when you go to college, it's going to be a lot harder than it was in high school.' So I trained like I never trained before. I was in better shape than I ever have. As soon as I got there, I felt like I could do anything. That's the way I have tried to prepare in my career, to really make sure that I'm ready for the opportunity before I get the opportunity. I'm really ready for it, and I know that I can do it. I think if you keep those things in mind, for me keeping those two things in mind really helped me in time.

The other thing I would just say is, nobody remembers. You know, people see you now and they go, 'Man, you're really doing great.' But nobody remembers the years when I didn't know that I was doing great, when I was grinding it out. I think it's really important to become good at something. I see people starting out in their careers today, and I'm like, 'Become good at something. Become the expert on something.' It's gonna do what you just said. It's gonna attract people to you. People are going to be like, 'Oh, Fonz knows everything about X. He's really good at Y.' So once you become good at something, it's an attraction factor, but it also builds confidence in you so that you can go and do something else because you know, 'No, no, no, I know this thing hands down.' Oftentimes we get started in our careers and we want to take over Rome in a day. I'm saying do the work. Do the work and become a go-to person. Then you'll be surprised how you end up blossoming. That may take a couple years. It may take more than a couple years for someone. For me, it took more than a couple years. But you've got to think long game and don't think short term. Make steady progress, and I think it makes a huge difference.