You know, going from bad to good to great to the greatest of all time requires the ability to take feedback on how I'm performing today and not think about it as a criticism, but think about it as the unlock to get to the next level. That shift in orientation is everything.
Welcome to a special remastered edition of the Corporate Competitor podcast presented by Forbes Books. We're bringing back one of our most popular episodes this time in a brand new way. Originally released as audio only, this conversation is now available on video for the very first time, giving you a fresh perspective on one of our greatest interviews. This is part of a new series we're calling the Corporate Competitor Classics, where we revisit powerful, timeless leadership lessons from the archives and bring them to life on screen. Today's episode features Kate Johnson, CEO of Lumen Technologies, a company that owns and operates one of the world's biggest and most connected fiber networks. Kate has a strong record in business and digital transformation at Fortune 100 companies. She previously led Microsoft's US division and held executive roles at Oracle and GE. In this conversation, you will hear how Kate applies lessons from her tennis background to her leadership today. Enjoy this classic episode and if you like what you hear, subscribe to our channel.
Kate, thanks for joining us.
It's great to be here, Don. Thanks for having me.
You know, one of the things I enjoy about doing this podcast as much as any is actually learning from in preparation to be with people like you, leaders like you, learning from some of the wisdom you've shared before. And you had some insight in an interview that you did with medium.com where you said that true leadership is about the effort to quote get it right instead of just aiming to quote be right, which boy, what I mean, no greater truism ever spoken. But can you elaborate on that concept where you really grew to understand it and why it became so important to you?
Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I mean, I grew up in corporate America where that philosophy was not the case. I grew up in an era where in a boardroom, you had to have your facts straight and you had to be right and you had to know all the answers. And that was kind of ingrained in all of us, you know, through my consulting career and then, you know, in the various commercial roles that I had, it was, you know, all about mastery. But I think that the world is just changing so rapidly and we talk about VUCA and it's kind of an overused term but you know, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, that is the way that is every day and anybody who thinks they have all the answers I think is going to be in a bit of trouble. I think the mindset and the systems that we build have to account for the world around us which changes every second in very unpredictable ways. And so building a culture oriented around leveraging a team to get it right has been the mission and the goal.
Without question. Was there a moment where that became really apparent to you where that idea that the way you had grown up in industry and what was required today was there a, you know, again, I'll overuse the phrase, a VUCA moment for you? Although I'm going to come up with a new one. You said agile, curious, flexible, and you have to have hypothesis.
But I'll toy with it. You know what, instead of one moment, I think there were a bunch of moments. You know, whether I was at Oracle trying to work through the acquisition of Sun Microsystems and the launch of Exadata, being at GE trying to think through how to launch a digital business, and then working for and with Satya Nadella at Microsoft is probably where I put a label on it, codified it, you know, rolling out Dare to Lead at Microsoft, at Lumen with Brené Brown and this orientation around the mindset of if you're not open to other ways of doing and thinking, you know, you're going to get stuck if you're wrong. So it's kind of like a culmination of things, certainly a commitment when I came to Lumen. Okay, you know, the problems in the telco industry are big and they're complex and if they were easy to solve somebody would have solved them by now. So it's not going to be one person that has all the answers. It's going to be the company that figures out how to, you know, tap into the value of these assets the fastest. That's the company that's going to win. And, you know, not knowing exactly what the answer is, you set the whole thing up to discover and capture opportunities as quickly as possible.
You've had the chance to work with some incredible leaders. I love just, you know, Satya, you know, and at GE with so many other great leaders. Is there something, is there one of those leaders who you have really looked at and thought, boy, that is a model for me and my thought process as I bring it to leadership? Or that may be an unfair question but I just as I'm listening to you and I'm thinking about gosh, sitting in the room with some of those leaders, capturing their mindset has to be just, it's like forget the PhD, that's whatever the next level beyond PhD is.
Yeah, front row seat to some pretty amazing moments in industry. You know, I mean, and I've learned something from all of them. You know, Safra Catz, working closely with her at Oracle and Larry Ellison, of course, and you know, learning how to acquire and integrate like a machine that was really formative. Working with Jeff, you know, our vision on digital at GE obviously didn't work out, was premature. I learned a whole lot from that too because it wasn't a major success and how to do that, you know, and think through that with grace and he was an incredible leader and imparted so much wisdom to all of us. But I mean, the one big influencer in my career forever more will be Satya Nadella. I had a front row seat to how he transformed a market, how he transformed a company. Gosh, did I learn a lot from him and I'm incredibly grateful. Very close and in touch still. And I've told him, 'Hey, look, I'm stealing some of your tricks and using your playbook.' And he's like, 'Well, you know, that's a compliment, so thank you.' So, he's been great.
How do you put that in place? How do you get people to start mind shifting with you on that idea?
It's such a great question. It's really hard. There's no one right answer. You have to be committed. You have to be clear. You know, our operating principles as a company are team, trust, and transparency. And you know, I talk about the common denominators of companies that successfully go through transformation. They have courage. They have a growth mindset. They have great communication. They're customer obsessed. And so we talk about all of these attributes. We talk about all these things and we've mapped them against who we are versus who we need to be and how we need to behave. That's the first thing is you're not going to say take the hill and then just run towards the hill. You've got to be very specific about what hill. You got to give everybody the tools to get up the hill, you know, etc. But I think from a learn-it-all perspective, Carol Dweck wrote an incredible book, Mindset: A New Psychology for Success. I've read it a bunch of times. She talks about business leaders, sports leaders, politicians, etc. all being oriented around being open to feedback and improvement. And that's the key, Don, right? It's, you know, going from bad to good to great to the greatest of all time. That requires the ability to take feedback on how I'm performing today and not think about it as a criticism, but think about it as the unlock to get to the next level. That shift in orientation is everything. And you know, the old corporate America structure: be the smartest one in the room, have all the answers, have mastery over your business, be able to answer every single question as if you've always known the answer instead of being curious and thinking through it collaboratively. That is the difference between know-it-all and learn-it-all. Satya really infused a sense of learn-it-all, deep curiosity in every moment of every day, whether he's with a customer asking about their business and their outcomes, whether he's with an employee asking about their work. And that orientation is critical to every person at Lumen now, right? We want to create a learning culture where, you know, it's okay not to have all the answers. You know, it's funny in our little company, we have a sign on the wall out here that says, 'Feedback is the breakfast of champions.' We absolutely believe it.
So, I love that. You know, you delivered a commencement at the University of California in which you had a quote, you said, 'Look both ways before you cross the street.' And you called it the best advice you ever received.
Can you talk to me about that? Like, yeah, I mean, obviously it's advice we all got as kids but why would you offer that during a commencement address to a bunch of University of California graduates, right? To a bunch of smarty pants.
Because it ties to everything we just talked about. It ties to growth mindset. It ties to this notion of getting it right. It's like look at every problem from both sides, period. And that different perspectives are critical and we learn that as, you know, kids, toddlers, and kindergarteners. But I found that a lot of times we forget it. And of course we're having this conversation during a time where not a lot of people are willing to look at both sides of anything, right? And so I like to boil it down to really simple lessons and I think that that's one that will apply and I actually wrote one of my college essays about that.
Back in college, you were writing about this concept already. That is, you know, this idea of constant learning, curiosity. You're hitting on all the absolutes when you're starting to think about what it takes, but all this absolute, it also translates into athletics as well. And I know you grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family. Your parents were teachers. You were on the track team, the tennis team. We love the pictures that we were able to find in your high school yearbook. How did participating in sports, specifically those that you did, help shape the way you think about teamwork, about leadership? What did sports give you as a young woman as you were preparing for this incredible career?
I mean, I think number one it kept me out of trouble and focused on something other than just academics, right? Which was always a nice balance. I still, you know, athletics, sports, physical activity is still a huge part of my life because it's about balance and...
You still love to ski, right?
Oh yeah, I love to ski. I love to play golf. You know, basically anything outside. I love to hike. But you know, as a kid growing up, I loved to compete. I loved to win. I hated to lose. I needed to learn how to lose in a more graceful manner. My parents were very good at imparting that kind of feedback. But I really came from a very competitive family. My mother and aunt were national champion swimmers and everybody in my family had to join the swim team and, you know, wasn't a choice and preferably you would join it and win your age group. And that kind of orientation I think served me well in my career. It set a context for thinking, I think, in the right way. Now I had a heck of a lot to learn and, you know, I let go of athletics when I went into college. I wasn't good enough at anything in order to carry it forward but always sort of stayed with the mindset of what a great break from academia or from my job is to immerse myself in sport.
Wow. And is there a moment from the court or the track that really stands out to you that something that you remember, an achievement or a loss? I mean, I love that you find that out that you had to learn how to lose gracefully. Is there a moment that you can think of maybe a coach or someone from that window who poured into you in a way not quite like Satya, but certainly in a way that probably was formative.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, if we're talking about coaching and the ability to receive feedback, I would sort of hearken back to my days of throwing the javelin where I was good, but I was not great and my coach was incredibly frustrated. He found it difficult to give me feedback and to have me internalize it and use it. I was kind of, you know, all about the muscle, the grit, the effort, and not nearly as, you know, sort of, I didn't really think about form and the art and which is interesting because I love physics, you know, and so I probably should have spent more time making the connection. But he didn't. And that always sort of stuck with me that I was kind of disappointing him and I didn't really get it. And then there was this moment, Don, about I don't know, seven or eight years ago. I was a good skier. I was not a great skier. And my husband is a great skier. And we were, I was just limiting where we could go together on the mountain based on my skill or lack thereof. And I asked him, I said, 'Hey, will you teach me how to level up because I'm ready.' And he was like, 'Absolutely not.' I said, 'Oh, wow. Wasn't expecting you to say that.' And he said, no, you know, the complexities of marriage, you can imagine, feedback, husband, wife, he wasn't really up for it or whatever. And I said, 'Hey, hang on a second, this is really important to me. Number one, I want to be a better skier for us. Number two, you know, I want to be better at taking feedback in a way that is constructive so help me with this.' And I was kind of in the middle of it, you know, at GE, it was around the GE era and he was like, 'Okay, but there got to be rules. Like I'm out if there's any sort of emotional baggage that comes along with this.' I was like, 'Perfect. That's great. That's your boundary.' And my boundary is you can give me no more than three things to work on at any one time.
Give me only three things to work on at any one time.
Only three things. It's like, you know, have you ever been coached by somebody and they give you 72 things and you're like, I can't change the way that I swing the bat, the way that I swing the tennis racket, the way that I move on the court. You got to tell me just three basics. And he gave me three things and long story short, I can ski anywhere on the mountain. We can do the double blacks together now. And he really helped me break through, not just skiing, but also understanding that taking feedback needs to be easy for the person giving it to you and if you can create that safety and those boundaries of what are the rules for this, it can be extremely impactful.
Do you apply those three things rule? Do you apply that three things rule when you're giving feedback in business as well? Because that's genius. Like I'm looking, I'm thinking that's gold in what I'm learning from you right now.
Yeah. As a matter of fact, I never do a development plan with somebody that has more than three. I don't think you can work on more than three. Now, that said, if my senior leadership team were here, they'd be like, 'Well, then why are we working on five priorities?' And it's a good question. It's fair, but we need to do those five things. So yeah, I think three is the magic number for changing your own game. I think if you take five or seven priorities, whatever the number is, and you sprinkle them around the company, I hope that nobody's working on more than three of those individually.
I love it. I actually think that there's, but the idea that in your conversation with your husband, you had the presence to recognize that that was the limit. Like he's saying, 'Here's my boundary. Like if we go beyond here, I'm no longer your coach.' Saying, 'Okay, that's good. But here's my boundary. Don't go beyond here. I can't be your student.' You know, that's pretty powerful ability to articulate the limits.
Yeah, we have been married for almost 34 years. So, we've learned a couple things.
You figured limits out. Is there a story? You mentioned you when I said a story maybe from a loss, you went uh-huh. Is there a story from a loss specifically in athletics that you might remember? I'd love to... This is a place where I think we gain so much knowledge, especially from people like you and maybe a lesson that you learned from that.
Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a match in high school, tennis. I was playing doubles. We were up in the third set, five games to nothing. And we lost, right? And we lost 7-5. And, you know, I can literally remember most of the match. And I've tried to put it out of my head, you know, 64 million times. But I had an unlock. Roger Federer just did Dartmouth's graduation speech. It was fabulous. And one of the things he talked about was being in the moment, being present during every point. It's just a point. Stop thinking about the match. It's about a point. And then he shared that he's won 54.1% of the points that he's played and he's one of the greatest of all times. That kind of got me thinking, you got 300, you're in the Hall of Fame, right? So if I were to go back and think about it, you know, I kind of lost sight of momentum as soon as we lost a couple of points. I forgot about our winning momentum and went right into this losing momentum story in my head and kept thinking about winning the match. My partner, you know, we were sort of at the high level thinking about the win versus the loss instead of I got to win this point right now and this is the best way to go about that. And that anchoring in winning one point at a time is deeply relevant to business as is this notion of momentum and inertia.
You know what's so fascinating about that is you think that's such a simple concept, right? Be in the point, not the match. And yet for all those who play tennis, Roger Federer kind of was able to maybe not just do it best but also articulate it best. So it's not as easy as it sounds.
It really isn't. And you know, I mean, the emotional dynamics, especially, look, we're transforming a company and we're disrupting an industry. It's a battleground. We're competing with some of the biggest and best companies in the world to try and take share and change outcomes for customers. And it's not just the strategy, it's not just the operating plan and the execution. It's not just the talent or the skills or the systems or the process. It's managing the emotional dynamics of a battleground and staying focused on what's going to make the biggest impact. That's the job. And it's really hard.
You know, I want to jump ahead to a question that I actually had, but you've used the word three times in the last minute and a half about momentum. Momentum is a fascinating subject to me. I'm actually writing a book on the science of momentum, studying the art and science of how to navigate it organizationally in sports and other things. First off, do you believe in momentum? You've used it enough that I'm going to guess your answer is yes.
That would be a hard yes. Yeah.
Hard yes. Okay. Because there are some people who don't, some people who think it's just a random set of circumstances and, you know, don't give it more credit than it deserves.
