A Call to Lead (Jennifer Morgan)

This week, A Call to Lead takes us to São Paolo, Brazil, where I sat down with João Paulo Ferreira, the CEO of Natura, a fast-growing multi-billion-dollar beauty company that is both innovative and purpose-driven. João Paulo, a globetrotting former Unilever executive who goes by JP, drives purpose in so many ways—in the products Natura sells, in the way Natura operates its supply chain and its "social network" of salespeople , and even in the way the company operates its distribution center—highly customizing its facility for differently abled employees workers. JP offers fresh lessons in innovative, mission-driven leadership. Here are five points from our conversation: 

1. Listening makes a great leader. The more senior you get, the more important this skill and discipline becomes.  
2. Embrace topics that you don’t know a lot about. Ignorance on certain topics can be frustrating, but this is also an opportunity to identify new ideas to bring back to the company to share them with the team.
3. If you are not learning as a leader, then you are going to be left behind.
4. Design your team with a mix and cross section of high-performing talent with a culture that allows every individual to flourish.
5. Leading a global in a region undergoing socioeconomic and political change means opportunity for growth - as it builds flexibility and teaches resilience in leaders.

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

This week on A Call to Lead, you'll meet Julie Sweet, who is CEO of Accenture North America. Julie's story is remarkable. She was raised by hard-working parents who told their daughter that she could do anything. Julie ran with that ethos all the way to Columbia Law School and a partner position at law giant Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Then she did something really unconventional: Julie quit Cravath, joined Accenture as general counsel, and rose quickly to head Accenture's North American unit, where she oversees one of Accenture’s largest, most strategically-important businesses. In this podcast, Julie talks about what we all have to do amidst the tech revolution and disruption: learn continuously, develop flexibility, welcome divergent views, and collaborate constantly. Here are five things that Julie said that struck my team as particularly interesting:

1. Focus on learning and be deliberate in building a learning and development plan for yourself. "If learning is strategic and important, then it needs to be treated as a business priority."
2. Think about risk-taking in your career as a positive. "Instead of thinking about fear, which is [inherently a] negative, or "I'm taking risks," start thinking about, Am I pushing myself and the organization far enough to achieve what they can achieve?'"
3. The convergence of industries means experience spanning multiple industries is important and differentiating. "In a world where you have industry convergence, you can't just have people grow in the industry; they need to understand more."
4. Learn communication skills from leaders around you that communicate well. "To become a good communicator, you need to become a student of other good communicators."
5. In moments of stress, the ‘system’ doesn’t need more stress injected into it. It needs calm, stability, and rationality. "As a leader, the most important thing you can do is to put calm into the system, and to have people believe that you believe we can work through it."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

On this episode of A Call to Lead, you'll meet Karlie Kloss, a 26-year-old wonder who is building on her success as one of the world's top fashion models to expand her leadership platform and scale her social impact. She is teaching young women how to code at Kode with Klossy, her tech summer camps across the U.S. She is helping to discover the next generation of fashion designers on Project Runway, where she is the new host and executive producer. And she's constantly looking to hone her own leadership skills. Here are a few highlights from my interview with Karlie:

1. Karlie explained why she learned to code: "I really wanted to understand what all of these tech entrepreneurs, primarily men, knew that I didn't know. That was this kind of mysterious, hidden, secret language that the people who knew it were able to build ideas into billion-dollar enterprises. I felt like I was just seeing the world be transformed by technology and by these technologies built by a small handful of people. I was really inspired but also confused. Why weren't more girls being encouraged to see opportunities in that direction?"
2. Here's why she started Kode with Klossy: "I was really inspired by the idea of being able to problem solve...to use coding to build solutions to problems. And to be able to help other young girls realize that they could learn that, even if you're not a guy in a hoodie."
3. Karlie talked about her summer camps to teach young women to code: "Kode With Klossy is a drop in the bucket, but it's still an important drop. And I hope it inspires more people and particularly young women to realize that they can and should pursue [tech careers]. Even if they don't see as many women as there should be, it doesn't mean they can't be."
4. What is Karlie's favorite coding language—Ruby, JavaScript, HTML, CSS or Swift? "Ruby, because it's very intuitive. It's an easier beginner language and it was the first one I learned, so I think I have a soft spot in my heart for it."
5. Karlie was inspired by Michelle Obama's book, Becoming. "Michelle Obama is the most incredible, classiest, smartest, most just inspiring human being. And yet, she's super vulnerable."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

That’s a wrap! Season 1 of A Call to Lead is in the books.

We pulled together a recap episode for you this week, featuring short clips from some of the great moments in the podcast’s first season. We were fortunate to have incredible leaders from across industries, disciplines, and fields share their stories and perspectives on leadership this season – and we wanted to share them with you as we wrap up Season 1 and look ahead to the second season.

Share your feedback with us at acalltolead@sap.com. We’re hard at work planning Season 2 and would benefit from your feedback and perspective. 

Here are some of the guests and clips featured in this wrap-up episode:

• Arianna Huffington (founder & CEO of Thrive Global) on how allowing for “brilliant jerks” on your team can create a toxic culture.” (2:10)
• Gary Vaynerchuk, on how positivity is a strategy – not a delusion. (4:00)
• Simon Sinek on the responsibility that businesses have to provide their customers and employees with a sense of purpose. (5:50)
• Walter Isaacson (best-selling author) on one of Steve Jobs’ final insights – and why finding the right team is harder than the actual creation of an innovative product. (7:20)
• Bianna Golodryga (award-winning TV journalist) on the importance of leaders setting examples within their organization and the impact it has on the rest of the company. (9:45)
• Bobbi Brown (founder & cosmetics beauty icon) on going for it at any cost. (11:25)
• Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO of Stubhub) on her hiring strategy – and an operating principle that she calls “operating range.” (11:48)
• Sir Richard Branson on why effective leaders have to be good listeners. (12:30)
• Malcolm Gladwell (author, journalist & speaker) on the different kinds of leaders that exist and why it’s important to carefully define your leadership style based on the organization’s culture. (13:30)
• Dr. Jill Biden (professor and former First Lady of the United States) on why teachers are the best example of lifelong learners – because they’re always open to new ideas and ways of learning. (16:10)
• Jen Rubio (Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer of Away) on remembering core values and how they should guide everything a company does. (17:10)
• Laura Dern (actress) on why we need to be willing to be vulnerable – and how it’s time for us to say we’re ready to lead. (19:20)
• Adam Grant (Wharton Professor, Award-Winning Author, & Psychologist) on how leaders should always be comfortable with feedback – and why power and status shouldn’t change that. (20:25)
• Karlie Kloss (supermodel & philanthropist) on what drew her to coding and how she’s using Kode with Klossy to inspire young girls in STEAM. (22:45)
• The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair (former UK Prime Minister) on why people love change in general – but hate it in particular. (24:45)
• Sylvia Acevedo (CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA) on why your first sale always has to be to yourself. (26:20)
• Julie Sweet (CEO of Accenture) on the value of staying calm in crises and how it’s the most important thing a leader can do. (26:45)

In this very first episode of my new podcast A Call to Lead, I talk with Arianna Huffington—serial entrepreneur, Uber board member, author, and leadership expert. Arianna shares her unique perspective on a broad range of subjects, from connecting people (she's a master) to building businesses (she's created many, including Thrive Global) to understanding the zeitgeist. Below are a few highlights from the episode. Enjoy!

6:20 - If we don't continue to learn, we're going to miss where the world is going.

12:18 - To be a risk taker, you can't be looking over your shoulder for approval.

14:30 - Worshipping top performers creates a very toxic culture. No brilliant jerks should be allowed.

26:20 - Human capital is the most important capital of the enterprise.

26:56 - Your job should be challenging and interesting. You must relentlessly prioritize.

If you loved this episode, please leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts! I want your feedback – what you think, what do you want to hear more or less of, and what we can do to improve this podcast. Let me know!

Whether you're a Girl Scout or not (I am—once a Scout, always a Scout), my conversation with Sylvia Acevedo, the CEO of the Girl Scouts, is worth a listen. Sylvia has a remarkable path to success: As a young woman, she was discouraged from pursuing her interest in engineering. So what did she do? She went to school for engineering and became a rocket scientist at NASA. After stops at IBM and Apple and Dell, Sylvia is leading millions of Girl Scouts to places they've never gone before—teaching them to code and about cybersecurity and other need-to-know things in the workplaces of tomorrow. In an episode full of leadership wisdom, here are five points that my team and I found particularly valuable: 

1. Having learned, as a Girl Scout, how to create opportunity and how to sell, Sylvia still to this day follows the advice that her troop leader gave her: "Never walk away from a sale until you've heard 'No' three times."
2. Sylvia has spent her life ignoring naysayers and being her own best champion."The first sale that you make is to yourself. If you believe you can do it, then you can do it. But you have to sell yourself first."
3. Why the Girl Scouts teaches coding and other skills that next-gen workers will need: "If you're prepared, you can be fearless. We want to have that generation of fearless girls."
4. When Sylvia went on a book tour to promote Path to the Stars, her memoir for middle school readers, she found that boys raised their hands much more readily to ask questions. "I had to make sure that I'm only going to take questions if I'm alternating between a boy and a girl. Then girls would feel like they could raise their hands."
5. Increasing the Girl Scout population would have a dramatic impact on the female talent pipeline, Sylvia says. "We're less than 8% of the girl population, but half of all female elected officials in America were Girl Scouts. In the recent class in Congress, 60% were Girl Scouts; 75% of the U.S. Senators are Girl Scouts. All three former Secretaries of State were Girl Scouts. Almost every female astronaut in space was a Girl Scout. And 80% of female tech leaders born in the U.S. were Girl Scouts. So, imagine if we could be not just at 8%, but at 10%. Imagine what that would mean to our talent pipeline."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com. 

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

On this week's episode of A Call to Lead, you'll meet Bob Nardelli, who has an extraordinary breadth of expertise from a series of CEO jobs: GE Power Systems, then Home Depot, and then Chrysler. Bob, who spent three decades at GE, has an incredible perspective on business, operations, and leadership in times of disruption. Here, he shares lots of great advice about building teams and finding opportunity amidst near constant global change. Here are five things that my team and I found particularly insightful:

1. Diversity is most powerful when it’s practiced with its broadest definition. “When I think about diversity, it's not numbers, it's diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, diversity of ideas. Nobody has a corner on that, male or female.”

2. We talked about the need for speed in a business landscape that is constantly shifting. “Change is the only constant. Like my good friend Roger Penske says, "It's like NASCAR. If I slow down, I'll get lapped, and I don't want to get lapped."

3. Don’t let someone else push you to deliver an outcome that you could have achieved without any outside intervention. “It's far better to challenge yourself and win, than to be driven to the same point [by someone else].”

4. Business leaders know what shareholders and employees expect. “Be your own activist. You know what they're looking for, why give them a free throw?”

5. Purpose matters in business - and so does inspiring your team with a mission that matters. “What is prevalent today is having purpose, having mission, having integrity, having compassion and an intellect to improve upon everything you do and your team does. How are you continuing to encourage them to improve every day?”

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

This week on A Call To Lead, I talk with one of my favorite leadership philosophers, Frances Frei. Frances is a TED Talk phenomenon, a professor at Harvard Business School, and a former executive at Uber. She's a fount of wisdom on developing great teams, maximizing your own performance, and building trust in a world that’s devoid of it. Here are just a few choice insights that Frances shared with me:

15:52 - Learn more than you have to so you can describe topics simply, especially if you’re the one tasked with ensuring people understand something difficult. Simplicity is a gift.

17:41 - Want to understand why so many bad things are happening in our world right now? We need to find a way to trust each other again. Most of our challenges stem from a lack of trust. 

23:15 - If companies want to compete against the world's best, they need to look at hiring from a much wider pool of talent. It's the diversity that will unleash our excellence. Until recently, everyone has been fishing in a very narrow pond.

35:00 - Don’t deny your ego. Find out what it needs, be upfront and explicit about those needs, and work with your team to make sure you get what you need. Everyone has an ego that needs to be nourished.

38:07 - Millennials have an incredible threshold for what they will endure. They’re similar to one another, but very different from past generations...and they’re exactly what we need right now. And their time for leadership is not in the distant future, it’s here now. 

We are a new podcast, and that means reviews and ratings mean everything to us. The more ratings, the more likely someone else will tune in. So thank you in advance for leaving one!

Don’t forget to check out Frances’ TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVeq-0dIqpk

Today on A Call to Lead, you'll meet Laura Dern, one of the world's great actors. Laura knows leadership. In films like Jurassic Park and Wildand TV shows like Enlightened and Twin Peaks, she has captured the complexities and vulnerabilities of strong women. In HBO's Big Little Lies, Laura's award-winning performance as Renata Klein is a study of a tech CEO who is also a fierce and frightened mother. Laura and I covered a lot of ground including leadership, parenthood, and gender equity in the workplace. Here are 5 Points that my team and I found most interesting and relevant to what we do to succeed.

1. To portray tightly wound Renata in Big Little Lies, Laura talked with female CEOs who, she says, worked harder than most men "to even get invited into the room." I asked Laura what surprised her about these women. "I think there is a common theme of....how we work with integrity and protect ourselves and find a tribe in order to do the work we need to do."
2. Laura believes that news and social media beat the drum too hard about women alone driving a fairer environment for women. "We should be "us-focused," she says. "It's about community. It's about changing things for the better of everyone. And that's a job that men and women have to do together."
3. On the similarities between leading and parenting: "Great leaders and great parents ask questions constantly, are willing to learn every day, are willing to learn from their child, their followers, their staff—because it's a collaboration."
4. Laura says we're in an era where anyone can step up to lead. "I think it's time for all of us to say, 'I'm ready to be in the position of power'—power meaning willingness to be vulnerable. And a willingness to lead with the strength of an interesting collaboration and insight into doing it differently than it's ever been done."
5. Laura says she's learned about a different kind of leadership from her co-stars and colleagues on Big Little Lies. "One aspect to leadership that I never saw growing up was a kind of leader who can be even-toned and respectful while incredibly strong. Respectful and calm while saying 'No, I don't agree, I need something different from you.'"

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

Today on A Call to Lead, we have a very special guest: Dr. Jill Biden. Dr. Biden’s Memoir, Where the Light Enters, was released earlier this month and I hosted her for a live discussion several months ago at SAP’s North America Headquarters near Philadelphia. During the eight years that Jill served in the Obama White House where her husband, Joe, was Vice President, Jill advocated for military families, women and children, STEM education, and more, while never pausing her career as a teacher. Then and now, Jill teaches English at a community college in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. In this interview, she talks about learning leadership from remarkable people, some famous and many more not famous at all. And she shared her view of the famously close relationship between former Vice President Biden and former President Obama. Here are five points that my team and I found valuable to share with you:

1. When I noted that STEM education is a focus of SAP, and confidence is key to helping students succeed, Jill agreed: "The most important thing that I can teach students, I think, is confidence. Confidence that they can do what they strive to do."
   
   
2. From watching extraordinary leaders up close, Jill says she has learned this: "To be a good leader, you have to be a really good listener and hear what people are saying to you—and be able to accept it, and do better."
   
   
3. I asked if the best leaders continue to be the best students. "Absolutely," Jill replied. "Teachers are really the best example of lifelong learners because they're constantly in their fields learning new things, researching, listening to other people, going to workshops. You know, I don't know what it's like in the corporate environment because I haven't worked there, but teachers are constantly open to new ideas and ways of learning. It's essential."
   
   
4. I asked Jill who, in her global travels, strikes her as a great leader. She named three people: Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege, Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, and Prince Harry. "I've seen him at the Invictus Games, and working with the military," she said about Prince Harry. "People in the military truly have so much respect for him because he's lived their lives. He's walked in their shoes. And he has a really nice rapport with them. So I respect him for that."
   
   
5. Leadership happens when no one is looking. "I've met so many incredible people who figure out how to make things work in their communities," Jill said. "That's the important thing, not the title."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently sat down with me at A Call to Lead in Orlando. And on this week's podcast, we bring you the enlightening conversation. When the Prime Minister, who urged me to call him Tony, talks about the world or recalls his own experience as PM, he dispenses loads of wisdom about leadership. There's plenty in this episode. Here are just 3 points among many that make this show a terrific listen:

1. No matter what field you're in, the mark of a leader is the same, Tony says: "The thing that distinguishes someone who leads is that you step forward and other people step back. If you're going to lead, you've got to understand you're going to step forward."
   
   
2. PM Blair reflected on the inherent contrast between governing and campaigning, saying “One of the things you learn about politics is that running for office and governing are two completely different things. One is about communication and persuasion, the other is about executive capability.”
   
3. The hardest thing about leadership is making change, Tony says: "What I've found about change is that everyone loves it in general. They just hate it in particular. And when you first propose it, people tell you it's a bad idea. When you're doing it, it's hell. And when you've done it, you wish you had done more of it. So it's important to have people around you who are good and capable, but also prepared to challenge you, to make you think innovatively. Because keeping that spark of creativity around, whatever you do, is incredibly important."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

This new episode of A Call to Lead has me in Singapore, sitting down in front of a live audience with one of the world’s most respected and popular global movie stars. Michelle Yeoh grew up in Malaysia and England, gained her early fame in Hong Kong action films, and went on to star in mega-hits such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha, Star Trek: Discovery, and Crazy Rich Asians. Michelle played family matriarch Eleanor Young in that blockbuster romantic comedy. As a master of her craft, Michelle shared great advice that applies to leadership in business and life. Here are 5 Points that my team and I found particularly valuable. 

1. Like every good leader, Michelle fuels her work with empathy. “Empathy plays a big role for all of us. If you can't empathize, how can you lead?That is how I approach the different characters they I played, like a geisha. I don't know anything about that world. It’s one of the most beautiful cultures, from Japan, and out of respect to that culture, I have to get it right.”
2. Michelle speaks my language: lead with humility and vulnerability: “As a leader, a lot of the times you are personified in a certain way—be eloquent and give good advice and lead. God, that must be so tiring. Isn't it much more interesting if you can communicate and empathize and be able to have that moment of vulnerability? If I feel that you care for me—that you're vulnerable and you understand a loss of a child or a close family member—then I believe you will begin to understand me.”
3. Never fear failure, Michelle says: “The more you fear that you're going to fail, you've already failed. Because you're just going to conform to something that you are comfortable with and probably just do it the same old way and regurgitate the same things. And there will never be an improvement.”
4. Ask for help, she adds. “I'm never afraid to ask for help. I believe that I don't know enough. One of the reasons why I didn't use to come to these talks, apart from stage fright, was, ‘Oh my God, they're going to discover that I know nothing." And then I thought: It's okay to know nothing.’ If I knew everything, it's only downhill from there because then I would be so arrogant.”

5. Practice self-control: “I was a squash player, and I had one of the best teachers. Once, when I lost a match and threw my racket across the room, he said quietly, "What was the point of that?" I never threw another fit again. To be a really good player, learn self-control. Respect when you fail. That's when you can get better.

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com. 

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

On this new episode of A Call to Lead, you'll meet Dana Perino. Dana has seen leadership from some very interesting and unique vantage points. She served as the first female White House press secretary in a Republican administration for President George W. Bush. Today, Dana is a bestselling author, mentor, podcast host, anchor of Fox News' The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino, and co-host of Fox News' The Five. In our conversation, Dana shares lessons learned from her career journey including time in one of the most high pressure, public jobs there is: White House Press Secretary. Here are five things that my team and I found particularly insightful:

1. "I give three pieces of advice to young women: Don't be afraid to move. Find your strong voice. And choosing to be loved is not a career-limiting decision."
2. "Listening is probably the most important leadership quality that you can have."
3. "Choosing not to make a decision is a decision. It's not waffling and it's not weak."
4. To learn from smart bosses, be willing to "take the deputy job or the second-in-charge job."
5. "Find a way to be grateful every day and to express that gratitude."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

In this week's A Call to Lead I talk with Simon Sinek. You may know Simon from his TED Talks, which are viral phenoms, or his best-selling books. Start With Why, his first book, is a guide to discovering and honing purpose to help build extraordinary teams. In his upcoming and fifth book, The Infinite Game, Simon explains how to lead in a world where the competition comes and goes, where rules are changeable, and where there is neither a finish line nor definite winners. Simon spoke about playing "the infinite game" as part of a keynote I gave kicking off the year for SAP last month, and in this podcast he talks about that and much more. Here are our team's five takeaways from the episode of A Call to Lead with Simon:

17:39 - To play the infinite game is really hard. Among all the important leadership traits, courage is No. 1. To do the right thing in the face of pressure is hard.

17:39 - Empathy is another critical leadership trait. Our common humanity matters. Whether they're customers or vendors or employees, we're dealing with human beings.

20:55 - Annual evaluations are a thing of the past, and it's not so much what the evaluation says, it's what the trend lines say. If you had a bad evaluation first and second quarter, but third and fourth quarter start to show signs of looking up, that's a good person. You’ll want to give that person a shot to keep improving.

24:10 - It's the responsibility of businesses to provide their people and their customers and their vendors a sense of purpose and a cause that we're all advancing - something that’s bigger than ourselves, and that's why all of life’s blood, sweat, and tears are worth it.

24:48 - Metrics are very important. Metrics help us measure speed and distance. But they don't indicate the end of the game.

Today on A Call to Lead, I talk with Jen Rubio, the inspiring co-founder, president, and chief brand officer of Away. Jen co-founded Away on the notion that luggage—holding many of life's most important things when we travel—had become commoditized. Away injects style and community into travel. Jen and I talked about building great brands and thriving cultures, and about leveraging mistakes to learn and grow. Here are 5 Points that my team and I found particularly useful as we all work to build our own businesses:

1. Having worked at Warby Parker earlier in her career, Jen knew that core values are key to building successful startups. She and her colleagues crafted Away's core values bottom-up: "We waited til we had maybe 30 or 40 employees. We were on a fun team trip in Nicaragua, and we split up into groups and asked people to describe what they thought our core values were. That set the stage. Our core values include being thoughtful, being iterative, being customer-obsessed, being empowered, being accessible in terms of having all the context that you need."
2. Now that Away has nearly 300 employees, Jen and her senior team constantly reevaluate: "Core values are very precious and they should guide what you do. But it's important to take a step back and say 'hey, the company's growing really quickly, do these still ring true? If they don't, what are the things we can be doing to make it feel true? And if we don't want to do any of those things, should this still exist as one of our values?'"
3. Jen and I believe in creating workplaces where it's okay to fail and make mistakes. Jen tells her team: "If you don't do it because you're scared, you're for sure not going to get it."
4. And learn from each other's mistakes: "We encourage everyone to publicly share what they've learned from mistakes or failures. And we're constantly iterating. So we say, 'If you aren't making any mistakes, then you're not thinking big enough or moving fast enough."
5. Jen smartly notes that brand-building happens from the customer's perspective: "When you're building a brand, it's so easy for people to be like: 'This is our brand book, this is who we are, this is what we're doing.' But nobody really cares what a brand says about itself."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Our new episode of A Call to Lead is my interview with Stacey Cunningham. Stacey started at the New York Stock Exchange as an intern, quit to go to culinary school, did a stint at rival NASDAQ, returned—and rose through the ranks to become the NYSE’s first-ever female president. That’s an unconventional path to the top job (yes, “president” is the top position at the NYSE), and Stacey is leading the 227-year-old company in unconventional and new ways. She’s full of career advice and leadership wisdom.

Here are five things that Stacey said and my team and I found particularly valuable:

1. Leadership and management are not the same thing. So being able to contribute to the path forward doesn't mean I have to have X number of people reporting in to me, so my organization is bigger. 16:43

2. Be yourself. If I can do my job in my own skin, that’s much easier. I think society is becoming a little more welcoming to that. 20:20

3. Never waste a hire. Always hire the best player you can get—and someone better than you. 21:21

4. When I think about the skills you have to have as a leader, you don’t have to have them all within yourself. You have to have them within your team. 20:52

5. Make sure that you're not such a key critical person that I can't give you an opportunity to go do something new because I can't take you out of the job you're in. 21:55

Make sure you tune into the NYSE’s very own podcast, Inside the Ice House! It’s full of great conversations with inspiring leaders and I know you’ll love it: https://www.theice.com/insights/conversations/inside-the-ice-house

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

I hope you enjoy Part 2 of my conversation with Malcolm Gladwell recorded during a recent live podcast taping. Celebrated journalist, best-selling author, and keen observer of the ways that people lead and succeed, Malcolm continues, in this Q&A portion of our discussion, to talk about how leaders, in every profession, should think about changing how and where we find talent. Here are two interesting points from Malcolm to add to the five points that I shared with you from Part 1 of the interview. 

Malcolm shared his view on building a truly diverse team, pointing out that getting this right starts with the right definition of what it means to have a diverse team. “A lot of what we're seeing in the diversity problem is an artifact of the way we choose to look.... building a diverse workforce is made infinitely easier once you change your definition of who you're looking for.”

Malcolm also talked about how institutional cultures can harden over time – and that change agents and leaders, particularly those in long-established organizations, have to look for openings and opportunity to drive change. “Institutional cultures are enormously durable. They come with a set of expectations, assumptions, patterns, and practices that persist long past their sell-by date and long past their usefulness. The trick for companies that want to change is to exploit moments of opportunities for transformation.”

On this week's episode of A Call to Lead, I talk with Malcolm Gladwell, renowned journalist and best-selling author who is one of the world's foremost observers of how we live and work and lead. Malcolm has plenty to say, and it's all incredibly thoughtful, different, and relevant. He expounds on how people and businesses function amidst tech revolutions and demographic booms. He riffs on how perhaps arbitrary rules change outcomes of chess championships, LSAT scores, and potential careers. And he explains why we may need "a major re-evaluation, in every profession, of where we find talent." Malcolm and I cover that and much more. It was such a great conversation that we’ll release it in two parts with the second episode dropping in the coming days. Here are five nuggets that my team and I find particularly intriguing from part 1. 

1. Despite the speed of technological change we are living through, Malcolm wondered whether we underestimate the degree to which we sometimes actually struggle to explain or rationalize a technological advancement until long after it appears in the marketplace or in our lives. “I’m really struck by how long it takes us, all of us, to figure out what change means…we come to these conclusions about what something means, but way too quickly. We are sort of fooled by the pace of technological change into thinking that just because technology is moving really quickly, our explanations should have to keep pace. But in fact, what’s really striking about technology is how often the technical side outruns the explanatory side.” 

2. Malcolm talked about how leadership styles are shaped and molded by the culture of the organization in which they lead. "The definition of a leader changes from culture to culture. There are probably a hundred different kinds of leaders. [You] need to define carefully what [you want] in terms of our own institution.”  

3. We discussed the gap that can exist between the type and caliber of talent an institution wants to hire and who they actually hire. “You may know what you want, but unless, in a very systematic focused way, you make a connection between what you want and what you actually go out and find, you won't do a good job. You'll fall back on old habits, and just hire.
4. Malcolm reaffirmed what I’ve heard from almost every leader that I’ve talked to – on the podcast or not – that one of the single most important leadership traits today is humility. "What I'm drawn to, overwhelmingly more and more now, is humility. As the environments that we're working in get more complicated, we need to have leaders who respect that complication—who understand that they cannot know everything." 

5. I asked Malcolm about the root cause behind some of the change we are seeing in the world today, and he wondered whether the demographics and age of our society might have something to do with some of the movements that we see shaping the world. "I wonder whether we are at this moment in our history, getting very fearful in ways that would be consistent with an aging society."  

 You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group. 

We got a lot smarter after talking with Adam Grant on this new episode of A Call to Lead. You may know Adam from his best-selling books including Give and Take and Originals, and his hit podcast, WorkLife. Professor Grant's classes at Wharton are also wildly popular, which isn't surprising because he is one of today's smartest, freshest, and, yes, most original thinkers on leadership and success. Adam and I tackled these topics from all angles. Here are 5 Points from this show that my team found especially compelling:

1. On a recent episode of WorkLife, Adam talked about how to remember things. I asked him about that. "If you want to remember specific things, I think there are three things [you should do]: The first one is, you should not reread stuff, or highlight it, or do any of the things that probably you did in college. What you want to do actually is quiz yourself on it, and what that forces you to do is practice retrieving the information. Second, you should summarize it and share it with somebody else. The third is, it's much easier to remember anything if you can connect it to experiences you've previously had."

2. The best leaders solicit feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. "Early in your career, your biggest challenge is to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and figure out how you can help people work most effectively with you. There's a practice I love that a growing number of leaders are using, which is to go to the five to 10 people who work closely with you and have them write a manual for how to work better with you for."

3. The problem is, veteran leaders tend to stop soliciting feedback: "When leaders are new, they seek a ton of feedback because they're orienting themselves to the role. They want to figure out whether they're meeting people's expectations. Then, as they get comfortable, feedback seeking starts to wane. And that's when they start needing it the most, because the less they ask for it, the fewer signals they're sending out to people around them that they're open to it. And then they gain more power and status, and people become more and more fearful of speaking truth to power."

4. The best team-builders nurture givers: "The higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful. This is one of the reasons I think it's so important to train people to think like givers early. By the time you get into a leadership role, if you don't understand how to help other people succeed, then your accomplishments are totally dependent on the amount of time you have available in the day."

5. Culture wins, especially when it’s practiced and modeled when no one is looking. "It's really valuable for a leader to be clear about what the culture is and tell the stories about it from day one. If you're not clear, your firm's performance suffers. And if at some point you realize, 'Gosh, we have the wrong cultural blueprint' and try to change it, you're even more likely to fail. It creates cultural upheaval. There's some evidence that the best stories are junior employees upholding the culture without anyone having to tell them what to do, and the worst stories are senior leaders violating the culture."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

On this week's episode of A Call to Lead, my guest is Bianna Golodryga. Bianna is the co-anchor of CBS This Morning—and a woman with a fascinating path to success. Bianna was born in Russia, grew up in Texas, and spent her early career as a business news journalist, telling stories about CEOs and world-changing entrepreneurs. Over the years at CNBC, ABC, and now CBS, Bianna has interviewed some of the world's most prominent leaders in government as well as business. She's also a mother of two young children— figuring out, like the rest of us, how to juggle work and family.

Here are five key highlights from this episode of A Call to Lead with Bianna:

 4:35 - You have very little to lose when you're 21 or 22. Even if people describe you as annoying, you still might be memorable.

17:06 - Guilt is a useless emotion unless you use it to force change. If you're not going to change anything, let go of the guilt.

22:46 - Doing your homework and being prepared can get you much further than a resume or credentials. You might have graduated from whatever college and received whatever award, but it's the people that are most prepared and work the hardest that most often go the farthest.

26:23 - Seeing a leader set that example—saying "Listen I've got to leave at 3:30 to pick up my kids"—changes everything in the workforce. People want to contribute even more. They’re driven to work harder because they appreciate that you're human and share the same challenges as they do.

32:30 - You can be interviewing the CEO of a Fortune 100, the President of the United States, or anyone from any walk of life— but one topic that will get just about anyone to open up is by engaging them as a parent and talking about the dreams they have for their children and how they want their children to view them.

This latest episode features one of the smartest women in retail. Mercedes Abramo is the President and CEO of Cartier North America, and I had the opportunity to sit down with her at Cartier’s Hudson Yards boutique in New York City this past April. Growing up in a retail household (her dad was a senior executive at Lord & Taylor), Mercedes had her sights set on becoming a lawyer. She majored in political science, worked at a law firm, couldn’t stand it, got a job in a hotel—and found her calling. After graduating from business school in Paris, where she focused on luxury brand management, it was a natural leap to high-end retail. In this podcast, Mercedes shares plenty of career advice (“you really have to be flexible”) and business-building insights. Here are five of our favorite takeaways:

1. I asked Mercedes what she learned as she rose through the hotel and luxury goods industries. Her answer is terrific and very wise: “Learning how to listen, learning how to hear what is being said, and picking up on both the verbal and the nonverbal cues is important. Because the first thing you're really doing is building a relationship with that person in front of you. It's not about what can I sell them right now; it's about how do I build a connection.”
2. Leading a luxury brand company is about giving customers experiences as well as products. In her previous life as a hotel executive, Mercedes learned how to create extraordinary experiences: “There is so much similarity to retail. With a hotel or a spa or a vacation, you don't leave with a product—you don't leave with anything physical. You only leave with the memories that you created when you were there.”
3. Mercedes gives great advice on changing a career path: “People struggle with wanting to find the perfect decision. There is no perfect decision. It’s about taking that leap and deciding what's a challenge that you want to embrace right now.”
4. Get comfortable being uncomfortable, Mercedes says. “Embracing the unknown is where you grow and where you learn. There are going to be things around the corner every day that are going to challenge you, and the more that you exercise that muscle and you push through it, the more prepared you're going to be the next time.”
5. How to become an authentic leader: “You can't copy yourself after somebody else, so I think you really need to learn the good parts of each person that you want to emulate and then figure out how to evolve your own style. 

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com. 

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

In this week's episode of A Call to Lead, I sit down with Bobbi Brown, who started a cosmetics business in her home three decades ago, sold it to Estee Lauder, and stayed on board to build Bobbi Brown Essentials into a billion-dollar global brand. So Bobbi knows how to lead inside a giant corporation and, since she left Estee Lauder and is now back on her own, she is a serial entrepreneur. These days, Bobbi is innovating in the wellness space, with her startup called JustBOBBI, and in the hotel business. Bobbi Brown is a model of constant innovation and reinvention. Here are five key things that my team and I took away from our conversation:

1. I like to be able to have an open dialogue. I would call people in and I'd say, “Okay, tell me the truth. What's going on? Why is this not happening the way it's supposed to?...No one's ever gonna get fired over “my bad." They're gonna get fired if they don't tell the truth and they try to cover it up.

2. I watch women trying to be heard, and sometimes they're sitting on the edge of their seat and they're talking over. I see the men pushing back and just talking when they need to say something. If the women could visualize that, you could say whatever you need to say, but you need to say it from a sign of strength. Less words, calm down, and just say it. Just don't let those men in suits intimidate you.

3. It's the best time to create a business, and now is the time for reinvention.

4. When I started the cosmetics company so many years ago, people said, “Why does the world need another cosmetics company?” There's a white space if you have a different idea.

5. Stop thinking about it, stop planning for it, stop writing it down, just do it. And if you can't afford it, figure out a way you can.

On this new episode of A Call to Lead, I sit down with someone out of my world, and probably out of your world too. Sarah Hauser is a champion windsurfer who knows a lot about leadership and navigating your ideal career. Sarah talks about how a missed deadline forced her to delay her plan to pursue a math degree and gave her an unplanned year off to pursue windsurfing, which turned out to be her true calling. There are plenty of lessons here—such as, control what you can, embrace the moment, and adapt. Here are 5 points that my team and I found inspiring:

1. Sarah describes windsurfing as "a finesse sport" where, as in life, it's best to go with the flow. She explains: "You have to play with the forces of the elements—the wind, the current, the waves. So all of that can be against you, and you can try and force yourself and your equipment to make it through, or you can use it if you understand how to place your sail. I can windsurf without holding my sail."
2. When she missed the deadline to apply to school for a math degree, possibilities opened. "I went from seeing life as those rails for your train to drive on, and you have to pick one path or the other, and suddenly they all exploded and there was no track. It was just an open ocean. I felt a sense of freedom and all right, I guess I can try anything." 
3. Success happens when you are present, aware, and flexible. "Look at what's thrown at you and use it, not try to impose. And with the wind, you use whatever is happening at that moment to learn some things."
4. Like a wave, life is unpredictable. "The wave is going to last a certain time, and you're going to do different turns on this wave. Obviously you want the whole ride to be satisfying, to be what you're dreaming of. But you don't know what's coming on the third or fourth section of the wave. You're only seeing how it's shaping. You've got to stay think true to yourself."
5. And as we accept the ocean for what it is, we should accept life with all its challenges. "The ocean is a good analogy, I think, because you cannot get mad at the ocean. You cannot just be like, "Why me? It's just the way it is. Shift your perspective and see this challenge as a new opportunity to use the powers that you have.

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com. 

Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.

On this week's episode of A Call To Lead, I talk with Gary Vaynerchuk, digital marketing expert, social media guru, and one of the most energetic and candid leaders I know. Gary and I talked about everything from staying current in an app world to embracing your shortcomings in order to advance your career—and of course, we talked about building great businesses. Fair warning: Gary’s known for using colorful language and this podcast episode was no exception (though tame by his standards!) Here are just a few of the key takeaways:

18:00 - True leadership means: You work for everybody else.

20:00 - A lot of people think positivity is a delusion. Positivity is a strategy.

21:15 - People are grossly underestimating what voice is about to do in our society.

45:00 - Become a practitioner.

49:48 - Truth is on the rise. You can't hide because the Internet won't let you.

We are a new podcast, and that means reviews and ratings mean everything to us. The more ratings, the more likely someone else will tune in. Would mean so much to me if you left one.

On this week’s episode of A Call to Lead, you'll meet Van Le, Co-Founder of Xinja. I sat down with Van on a recent trip to Australia, where Xinja is the country's first "neobank," empowering customers to bank 100% digitally, via a mobile app. Van is an expert on mobile technology and customer experience. She also has an inspiring personal story. She arrived in Australia as an 11-month-old refugee from Vietnam, grew up in Perth, got a law degree, and later traded law for entrepreneurship. I sat down with Van in Sydney, Australia. We shared ideas about technology, team-building, and the parallels between parenthood and leadership. Here are some highlights from what Van told me:

1. There are many commonalities between being a parent and being a leader, including how you deal with the unexpected. Van noted that "the way in which you deal with the unpredictable teaches your kids about what to accept and how to respond."
2. Expectations matter. Van: "One of the easiest ways to erode a leadership relationship is to not be aware of the expectations people have of you as a leader."
3. It’s more important than ever to acknowledge great performers and great performances by your people. Van made the point that, “the absence of acknowledging that someone did something [great] can leave people feeling like they're invisible."
4. Customer experience matters now more than ever. Disruptors and new entrants to market are filling gaps in the customer experience. Van noted that in the experience economy, your customers must love you: "We need to think about what makes our customers feel loved."
5. Embrace your curiosity and remember that if you think have all the answers, it’s even more likely that you don’t. Van: "Knowing all the answers upfront is a very fragile place to be."

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Announcing a brand new leadership podcast from Jennifer Morgan, President and Executive Board Member at SAP. 

In the latest episode of A Call to Lead, I sat down with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who has seen it all in the tech and startup worlds. Sukhinder was an early leader at Google, where she headed Asia-Pacific and Latin America operations. She went on to run startups that merged tech and fashion (Polyvore and Joyus) before taking the helm of StubHub, the online ticket exchange company owned by eBay. On the side (because Sukhinder is a master multitasker, as we all aspire to be), she founded and has continued to build theBoardlist (an online platform to help women get on corporate boards) while she serves on the board of Urban Outfitters. I could give you a dozen pieces of leadership wisdom from this conversation with Sukhinder, but I'll keep the list to five points and hope you'll listen to the entire podcast to hear the rest.

1. Sukhinder talked about what she called “operating range,” what she defines as one’s ability to stay strategic or operate at a tactical level when needed. "One thing I look for in [people I hire] is a principle I call operating range—the ability to think about something at 30,000 feet and at 300 feet. The ability to roll your sleeves up and be at 30 feet if that's what it takes to get the job done."

2. We discussed how important it is as a people leader to let go of trying to manage everything and instead, try to build a team that will help manage your energy and focus. "When you're operating through other people, you have to decide whether you're managing everything or you're happy to let people manage you."

3. It’s important to embrace being in situations where you’re uncomfortable - it’s those situations, and sometimes moments of failure when you learn the most. "Don't be intimidated by the thing you don't know. Try it. I guarantee you're going to come out of it having learned something you don't know today. And by the way, failure is quite okay."

4. Sukhinder and I both serve on the boards of large companies and we talked about the fact that the results are clear on diversity in the c suite and the boardroom - companies with more diversity (of all types) at the top drive better bottom lines and better results. "If you want to modernize the boardroom, you need to modernize who's in the boardroom - who brings perspectives that are relevant to these new challenges.

5. We discussed what a challenging operating environment it is for CEOs and executives today - the sheer number of stakeholders, variables, and risks, sometimes unforeseen, seem to grow each day. And you have to operate with your head up as a result. "If I'm just heads down and I'm not aware of all the forces going on around me, my ability to do my job is fundamentally altered because out of left field is going to come something at me, which I thought I was in control of—and lo and behold, I'm not. You have to know when to be heads up. You have to know when to be heads down.

You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

Today we're bringing you a A Call to Lead Classic—one of my favorite interviews that I've done at Call to Lead at SAP's annual Sapphire Now conference. My guest is Walter Isaacson. Talking with Walter is always head-spinning and enlightening because he is the foremost expert on leaders who also happen to be the world's smartest people. Walter's specialty is geniuses. He's written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Leonardo da Vinci. He's also a very smart leader himself, having headed CNN, TIME Magazine, and the Aspen Institute. Here are 5 things that Walter said and my team and I found interesting and relatable to all of us as ever-improving leaders:

5:43 - "If you're going to be a disruptor, you have to do like Steve Jobs and occasionally let your reach exceed your grasp." 

19:07 - "Making a great product innovation is hard, but what's really hard and important is making the right team who can continue to do innovation." (Steve Jobs, when he was dying, said this to Walter Isaacson.)

25:03 - "The most important talent you need is the ability to see patterns."

25:03 - "If I were talking to somebody coming into a company now, I'd say what are your passions? And I'd hope there'd be three or four or five diverse passions. And then I would say, 'What is the pattern that you've seen by being interested in so many different things?'"

26:49 "Whatever business you're in, you've got to say I'm not in the business of moving lettuce or moving packages or flying metal, [but rather] I'm in the business of applying technology to customer needs."

On this week's A Call to Lead, we bring you one of the greatest entrepreneurs and business builders the world has ever seen: Sir Richard Branson. I had the pleasure of talking with Sir Richard at a recent event hosted by SAP Qualtrics. We discussed what makes a great, creative leader and the gaps in consumer experience he saw and exploited in building the iconic Virgin brand and disrupting industries ranging from music to airlines to telecom to space travel. Sir Richard’s team was kind enough to let us take a few of the highlights from our conversation and create a short episode of A Call to Lead. Here are five points that the team felt stood out from my conversation with this one of a kind businessman, adventurer, philanthropist, and global icon. 

Balance and wellness start with the individual but scale with a global mindset. Sir Richard noted that at Virgin, “We have a something…where the first thing you do is draw a circle around yourself. You make sure that you're looking after yourself, that you find time to keep fit, to keep healthy. You get the right balance...Then increase the circle a bit bigger, around your family, around your friends...around your town, your country, and ultimately when you have a global brand, you can draw a circle around the world.”

We’ve heard this from other guests before, but Sir Richard talked (again) about the importance of leaders stepping outside their opinions to listen, learn, and challenge their assumptions: “You've got to be a good listener. If you're running a company, or if you're running a department, you know what you think. You don't need to hear your own voice speaking.”

Loyalty matters. But loyalty is earned by the small things. Sir Richard talked about how important it is to put a spotlight on the all-stars that come up with great ideas. “If somebody comes up with a good idea, write it down. Thank the person. Give them credit for the idea, and they will stay with your company. They'll be very loyal.”

Culture matters and so does having an engaged workforce. Sir Richard talked about how that focus is pervasive at Virgin. “Everyday, you've got to be able to go into work feeling great about it. And if you feel that your company is not behaving in the right way, try to force change within your company. Ask the company to experiment.”

Building a performance-driven culture means offering great experiences to your people. Sir Richard talked about how he encourages all the Virgin companies to offer unrestricted vacation time to all employees. “At Virgin, we encourage all our companies to give indefinite holiday time. Paid. People get the work done, and they give back 100% in return. So in treating people as adults, the company will get everything back from those people.” 

We hope you enjoy this episode! You can learn more by visiting: www.sap.com/acalltolead. And you can subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher. We welcome your feedback on the pod! Tweet me @JenniferBMorgan and use the hashtag #acalltolead or e-mail us at acalltolead@sap.com.

 Where to Listen: Subscribe and listen to episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of SAP’s Cloud Business Group.