Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Stephen J. Immelt, C.E.O. of Hogan Lovells, an international law firm. “Our parents always encouraged us to think big. There was never a sense that you can’t do this or you can’t do that.”
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Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
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Were you in leadership roles when you were younger?
I was the captain of the football team and president of the student council. I was just always interested in being in the mix, and I felt that I could contribute. Playing a role always appealed to me, but it was more out of curiosity than anything else.
Tell me about your parents.
Both my parents are still alive, and they grew up in families that were profoundly affected by the Depression. It was a struggle, and so stability — having a good job and being able to buy a house — was really important to them. I can still remember when we moved into our first house and what a celebratory event that was.
They were not didactic people, but the lesson from them was, don’t be a victim. You have the opportunity to change what you’re not happy with. If my brother or I would come home with a complaint about something, they would say, “You can fix this.” That was very much the way they raised us.
My father also was always asking us questions to push and provoke us. Whatever you said, you had to be prepared to defend it or explain, and then be prepared to have him come back with outlandish counterstrokes. He was always challenging us in a good way.
Your brother Jeff is the C.E.O. of General Electric. Not every family has two brothers who grew up to be prominent C.E.O.s. Any theories about that?
I don’t have an explanation for it. Maybe it’s just that our parents always encouraged us to think big. There was never a sense that you can’t do this or you can’t do that. And they created in us a huge well of curiosity, and a drive to experience the world.
They also instilled in us the importance of being authentic. I don’t think that word ever left my parents’ mouths, but the worst thing they would say about somebody was that they were a phony. The lesson was to just always be yourself.
Did you have an idea what you wanted to do for a career when you went to college?
I went to Yale, but growing up in Finneytown, Ohio, I had no idea what Yale was at the time. And there was a short window back then when you could afford to go to a school like Yale. The tuition, room and board during my freshman year was something like $3,900.
I was a history major. I’ve always been interested in why people do what they do. I wasn’t really thinking about what I would do next. I think at one point my mother stepped in and said, “You actually need to have a plan.” I graduated in 1974, and the economy was pretty grim at the time, and so I decided that I would try law school.
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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here.
His more recent book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, was also also published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.