Marillyn Hewson | 2021 Lowder Lecture Series

It's really an honor to be with all of you today and I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Well, I would put a global pandemic into the category of a crisis for certain. You know, Jack, that's a great question. I think as a leader you face a lot of different things over the course of your career and crises happen, challenges happen. What's important first and foremost, I think for a leader regardless of what it is, is that you establish stability with your team and optimism. I think those are two really important things that you keep in front of you. On COVID-19, for us at Lockheed Martin, it was a very challenging time as it was for a lot of businesses, but what was different for us is that we are an essential business in the sense that we couldn't stop working. We had to maintain our operations. You know, we do some of the most interesting and important work in the world and the capabilities and technologies we provide to our men and women in uniform. And so we had to keep working. So what we did is, you know, we stepped back and I, you know, being the CEO and I was the CEO at the time in March of last year when the global pandemic was named, I said, you know, what's important is setting out priorities. So I said three priorities. First and foremost, to protect our employees. We had employees that had to be in manufacturing, products had to be in classified spaces, had to be in labs, they could not stop working. And so they had to feel safe and protected and we got all the things in place for that. That was the first priority. We also said the priority of maintaining our operations, as I said, we could not shut down like a lot of other companies could do. We had to keep working, so making sure that we maintain those operations, that we had all the key capabilities on site to continue to produce the important products and technologies that we produce. And then the third priority was for us to help the communities where we live and work because they were facing many, many challenges with COVID-19. So how could we help them in dealing with the challenges they faced and responding to them and recovering from them. So once those priorities were established, then employees could see exactly where we were headed. And I think what's important as a leader is that you outline those priorities and then you make sure that you communicate those priorities to your team. And in a crisis situation, you've got to communicate three or four times as much as you do in a normal business rhythm. And communication is critically important in any environment, but when there's a crisis it's even more so important. And so I told our leaders, you've got to get out and you've got to communicate. You've got to recognize that people are challenged in different ways. Well, I said that about, you know, we have 110,000 employees and about 60,000 of them had to go into work every day. And so what was important was that they had a safe work environment to work and getting in place all of the protocols we needed to so they felt safe was important. But I also told everyone who could stay home to work, stay home. And that was hard for some people because they wanted to be in the workplace. But it was very important to us that we mitigate the risk for those who had to be there as we got the infrastructure in place for them to continue their work and make sure that they had all the safety. And you know, many of their families were worried about them going into the workplace, so assuring their families we were going to take care of them and protect them in the workplace. For those working at home, I told our leaders, you know, you need to be sensitive, to listen and be flexible because many of them were parents and all of a sudden they were faced with children at home who didn't have daycare facilities or the schools were closed, or they had aging parents or others who needed care and there was nowhere for somebody to help them because everybody was, you know, was faced with this pandemic. And so you had to be flexible in allowing them to get their work done at their home but do it while also educating their children or dealing with all the challenges that they had. And then there were others who were isolated. You know, some are singles, people who they got all their social life at work, they miss the connectivity. That isolation can be a great impact on some employees. So making sure that leaders were checking in on them, connecting with them, making sure they had the capability through Zoom or other means to connect with their co-workers. And so it's important for a leader to be flexible and also to be attentive and understanding. And I think also it's important for them to make sure that they are communicating their appreciation for those going into the workplace, for those adhering to the responsibilities of working from home and dealing with all those changes. You know, another thing that's important in a time of crisis is that optimism, as I mentioned at the outset. You've got to outline a sense of optimism, of hope that we're going to get through this current crisis, that we're going to be able to control what we can control, we're going to deal with challenges that we have and helping employees to deal with the challenges they have to help them see on the other side of that what the future looks like. Yes, we will get through this. You know, you look at us as a nation, we've faced a lot of challenges as a nation and the American people are very resilient and we get through these challenges. And the same happens in a company like ours that is value-based. We have core values, we have the full foundation of knowing how important the work is that we do and the purpose of that work, and that we would get through this. And then I think it's also important that you continue to be agile and flexible with the policy changes you need to make, with the infrastructure you have to put in place. I mean, we didn't have all the infrastructure to have 60 or 70,000 people working from home. We had telecommuters but not that many people that telework from home, but not that many. All of a sudden we had a lot, so we had to make sure we got the infrastructure in place, that we had ways of dealing with policies and procedures so that people didn't work 24/7 because they didn't know what the boundaries were. So you had to make sure you had boundaries. I mean, I personally as a CEO, I informed my executive leadership team, these are the work hours going to have. If there's an emergency or there's challenges, then you know, I'll reach out to you just like I did in a normal course. But these are what we're going to work, well, these are the times we're going to work because people need to be refreshed and back at it. You just don't want to burn people out just because you happen to be in a crisis situation. So a lot of those things were really important. So I would say, you know, having compassion for the people that are facing those challenges, making sure that you outline for them the priorities and the optimism that we will get through this. And that stability and that compassion and that hope is what allows leaders to set the tone for their teams in a time of crisis.

Well, why I do it is because I love the work that our company does. I mean, we have some of the most important and interesting work in the world. And I would encourage you as you take a position with a company that you go to a company that you align with the values of that company and the purpose of that company because that's what attracts people to Lockheed Martin today is because they want to be a part of a company that is doing something larger than themselves, that they can make a difference, that's supporting our men and women in uniform, that's working on some of the most incredible technologies in the world for, you know, building satellites or fifth-generation aircraft, just a range of really incredibly important work that we do and innovative work. That's what attracts people to our company and it's important as a leader to make sure that you live the values of that company and that you identify with people that come about how important the work is that they do. I mean, our tagline is 'Your Mission is Ours' because we are very much focused on the mission of our customers. That's what attracted me to Lockheed Martin so many years ago. But you're right, as a leader, as any one of you will face in the course of your careers, you're going to face choices. And sometimes those choices affect your family, they affect you. You have to make choices, call them sacrifices, call them choices, whatever you might do. But in my case, my husband James and I were married very young, well, we were still, I was actually still a student at the university and he had just graduated. So we've been married from, I married my clearly my college sweetheart because I was even still in college when we got married. But we both agreed early on as the two of us that we would both have careers but whosever career had the greatest opportunities and the best for our family, that's the one we would pursue. So we're both in the corporate world and our boys were three and six and I was offered a promotion to move from Georgia. I started in Marietta, Georgia as an industrial engineer and James was also working at Lockheed at the time. And I was offered a promotion in Fort Worth, Texas which meant moving the family. And we talked about it, we always talked about every choice. The choices were always about what was best for our family and this was best for our family. It was also the indicator that I would be the one that would take the lead, that the stability and growth of my career was the one we were going to pursue. And so we decided to try James working from home for a year. You know, our boys were young and he left his corporate career and started a business from home, but he mainly became the at-home parent who then was the coach for their sports teams, was the Cub Scout leader and Scout leader. He was, you know, the one that went on all of the field trips with them. And what it allowed for me, my job required travel as well as more demands on me in the new role. But what it allowed for me was when I was home with the family, I wasn't doing what I used to call my second shift, all those other errands and all the things that he could do during the day while the kids were in school. And it allowed me to have the special time with the family and for me to take the time to really focus on the family as one of the parents. So we both gave the parenting to our children but it was in different ways and it's something we agreed on. This doesn't work for every family, you know, a family has to decide what's best for them. That happened to be best for us and we're frankly pretty unique back then. I think he was the only dad at home in the neighborhood and, you know, it just was unusual to have the male parent at home. But you know, I say you have to figure out what makes sense for you and your partner, your spouse, you know, whatever your arrangement is, your significant other, what is best for you. That was best for us and I don't think I could have ever done it if it had not been for him. I, you know, often tell people that, you know, I made some really great choices in my life and one of them was marrying James Houston because he has been my, you know, he has been by my side throughout my career and helped. And we have, you know, great sons that we both are so proud of and it's because we work together as a team on that. And my other great choice was joining Lockheed Martin, I'll tell you, because from coming in as an industrial engineer to rising to the CEO, it's something I never would have dreamed of but I had the opportunities with the company, the experiences and things that prepared me for that next big job. And so I think the balancing of the full support of family and particularly James but also our sons. I mean, when they were old enough to have a say in it, you know, we talk about the next move. And I have to tell you, I moved to eight different locations over the course of my 38 years of the company and they were a part of, you know, several of those and it was always about that next adventure, what was best for our family. And then we made the move. So those are some of the choices that I made, that we made as a family. And as I said, you know, people talk about work-life balance, I call it work-life integration. You probably heard that term in your business school studies because it is at different phases in your work life require different choices you have to make. Maybe you're going back to school to get your grad degree. I taught, you know, I taught in grad school and then after I left the university I taught in colleges while I was working full-time. You know, you make choices because you have an ill parent or a child, a new child, or you're going back to school or whatever. And all those things are important that you recognize that not everything is centered, your whole self-esteem is centered on the job that you're doing every day. It's not just that, it's got to be the whole life experience that you're dealing with. And so you have to make choices along the way and you have to be comfortable with those choices. And once you make them, don't look back, don't second-guess yourself. I mean, just go for it because those choices lead to other opportunities. And you know, I look at my career and I look at others' careers and I couldn't have mapped out what I did in my career. There's not a straight line up to CEO by any stretch. There's not a straight line to different career paths that you have. You have to be open to opportunities and make and take those choices and include those that are in your life, your significant others, your family or others that are significant to you in those choices that you make so you feel good about what your next step is.

I'm a student of leadership from the time that I was at Culverhouse to today. I continue to study leadership because I always want to be a better leader in whatever role I'm in and it's something that I've studied over the years. And you know, I have certain things about leadership that I think are important, but I would say the one lesson that I would share with you and I think you should focus on, and that is the capacity to listen. And often people say communication, well, listening is one of the key elements of communication. So most every business problem that I've ever dealt with turned out to be either a lack of communication, a lack of listening, a miscommunication or something like that. But the capacity to listen to me is one of the most critical things that you can do as a leader. And I'll just, you know, I'll give you an example. When I stepped in the role as CEO, I went on what I call a listening tour. I think every time you take a new role as a leader, it's an opportunity, you're sort of in a period where you can go speak to your customers, whether they're internal company customers in your company or whether they're external customers. In my case, it was being the leader of the company, it was external customers, but you go talk to them. You will learn more in that first time of talking, I mean, you'll ever learn after that about what they're happy with and what they're not happy with. And so I went on a listening tour to customers just to understand what their challenges were, what they were trying, what their needs were. I would ask them outright, how are we doing? What can we do better? You know, what's working, what's not working? And I learned some things in very short order that we needed to fix some things, that we needed to improve on. And in my very first leadership team meeting, which I brought the top 300 leaders in the corporation, vice presidents and up in the corporation in a meeting, basically to set the tone, the vision for the company, where we're heading for the annual operating plan, all those things, but also to talk about what I learned in this listening tour. And that was that we weren't listening like we should be. You know, we do some of the most incredible things, like I said, I mean, really innovative solutions. We think we know what the customer needs, so we have leaders go in and just run down exactly what they thought they needed and they were failing to listen or we would second-guess, you know, not even really hearing the whole story. So I had a conversation with those leaders and then I had a customer relations summit where I brought together the leaders that were on the front lines, those in business development, those in dealing with the customer on a day-to-day basis. And I said, we are going to be a company where the customer is at the center of everything we do. And if we do that, all the rest will come together. The investors will be happy, the employees will be happy, the community will be happy. Because if you don't have a customer at the center of everything you do, you're not going to have a successful business. You're not going to have a satisfied customer who's going to come back to you and want to buy more. You're not going to be able to grow the company, which helps your employees with their opportunities for jobs and professional growth. The communities rely on the economics that you bring in those communities. So they want you to be growing and certainly your investors expect you to perform and to grow and to innovate. So all of those things come with putting the customer at the center of everything that you do. And so we outlined an action plan and we walked through that action plan. And I would tell you, four months into my job as CEO, I had a very, very senior customer call me unsolicited out of the blue to tell me that he noticed what a difference Lockheed Martin had in the way we were listening to the customer. And he called to commend me for whatever I was doing in the company to change that culture. And when you, you know, culture is important in a company, but to get a culture where you're focused on the customer with the center of everything that you do, knowing that they need innovative, affordable solutions. And once people are focused on that and they're responding quickly to the needs of today, the needs of tomorrow, I mean, you've got to be thinking beyond today for that customer as well. And so I say listening, it's not just the customer, but I would say that's the most important element, but also listening to your employees. Like I told you earlier on COVID-19, being able to listen to what are the challenges the employees were having or even on a day-to-day basis, understanding from them what are the hassles in the workplace, what are the barriers for you doing your best work, what can we do to get those things out of your way so that you can be more productive every day. What is it do you want in the way of training? Are you getting the access to the online tools, to the online training, to the things that you need, the tools that you need? And so all of those things I think are important. And then, you know, listening to your investors as a CEO, obviously I was talking to investors on a regular basis and knowing what are they looking for. And they are often looking at what they may not write about, the sell-side analysts might not write about it, but they're looking at leadership, they're looking at management. How is management managing this company? How are they growing the company? Where are their priorities? What are they focused on? Because you know, what they put in their models today are where they're looking at well beyond today. I mean, that's what's driving their models of where your company is going and things of that nature. So they do look at the quality of leadership, they look at the technology and the innovation in a company. And being able to listen to all of those stakeholders, I believe, is one of the most important leadership traits that you can possibly employ.

Well, it's a great question and I know that, you know, there's a lot of things you'll hear from a commencement speaker or faculty or whatever. But I'll tell you something that I think maybe held me back a little bit early on in my work life that if I tell you about it now maybe you won't do the same thing. And that is, you know, I'm a high achiever, every one of you are high achievers and so you put a lot of pressure on yourself. I mean, you always want to be the best at what you do. I know you worked hard on your studies, you worked hard in the community activities you do, everything that you do, you want to be the best at it. You know, I wanted to be the best manager, the best mom, the best wife, the best. But in the workplace, I found early on in my career that I had this little inner voice in my head that was a bit of self-doubt, like you're not quite ready for that. I mean, I would always, when an opportunity came along, I'd always think, gosh, you know, I've never done that before. I might not have all the skills, I'm an industrial engineer but I don't have an engineering degree, I mean, things of that nature that I should not have listened to. And after a while, after I started building my track record and really performing, I quieted that voice. But I wish I had quieted it sooner because I think, you know, what you should do is take those opportunities, perform your best on today's job, whatever job you get into, do your best. But also be open to opportunities, be open to more training, be open to taking on a special assignment or joining a special team, be open to the next job. It doesn't have to be a promotion, it might be another opportunity, another department or another part of the country because you're building this collection of experiences that prepares you for the next big job. And sometimes people, even people I would interview or get ready to promote, they would come to me and say, well, but Marillyn, I've never done that before. And I said, guess what, the last person that took that job had never done it before either. So don't listen to that little voice in your head, get out of your comfort zone and just go for it. I mean, I found that, you know, as I built that confidence that, yeah, sure, as you move into new jobs, I mean, you've got a whole cast of things that are new to you, but you just get to know the business. And in the case of if it's a department you're going to run or a business team, understand that business and bring your skills to it and drive through that. But don't hold yourself back. Just be, I mean, the person that's putting you in the job sees you've got the capability, so recognize you're ready. Those of you leaving Culverhouse or leaving the University of Alabama, frankly, in most any capacity, it's a prestigious university. It's a very rigorous curriculum, you have performed well. Just know you are ready for that next job and go in with that sense of confidence. And if it's a job like I said, you know, I was a senior industrial engineer and you heard my background, I mean, I have a business degree and a master's in economics, you didn't hear industrial engineering. But my skills matched and I moved into that. Before long I was running all of industrial engineering and up through operations control. So that just tells you that, you know, don't put these boundaries that, well, I've only studied this or I have this degree or whatever. Be open to opportunities, look for what you can bring to match those skills and get out of your comfort zone and just go for it.

I love Alabama football games, all aspects of it. I would say from the time I was a student in the student section all the way to just this past season. I'm looking forward to the upcoming season, in fact, I'll be there for the A-Day game this month, well, in April. And you know, I just love everything about it. You know, there's so many things today where people are all about differences and you hear a lot of that, but when you're in an Alabama football game, Alabama fans are one community, they're one spirit, one sense of tradition, one sense of pulling for that team. And it's just one of the most joyful and fun things, even when it gets a little tight on the scoreboard or something like that. I just love it. These days I love it because I attend with my family and so I have a chance with our family to be together, whether it's nieces and nephews or brothers and sisters, our sons and my husband. And so we try to go with a group, a lot of friends and of course a lot of our colleagues there at the university and the business school as well as on the President's Cabinet. I mean, all of those, having a chance to interact with people. But what pulls us together is just the game. I love football and I've never been as much an NFL follower as I am of college football. I love college football and particularly SEC football games. And most importantly when Alabama's playing. And I can assure you, I have already marked every home game on my calendar and I intend to be at every home game this year, which I can't say I was able to do as a CEO. But now that I've stepped out of my important role, I've got it booked and I'm hoping that, you know, somebody didn't come up with something silly to do on a Saturday besides going to an Alabama football game because that's where I'm going to be. So, Roll Tide!

Great, Roll Tide! Enjoyed it with all of you. Thank you.