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 Kristin Muhlner, chief executive of NewBrand Analytics, a social-media-monitoring company. She suggests that there is an upside to being replaceable. “If you leave, someone will replace you, the circle will close and it just doesn’t matter. That lesson has been helpful because it is really easy, as you move up in your career, to think that you’ve got to be involved in everything.”
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
* * *
What were you like when you were younger?
I grew up in Paducah, Ky. I danced a lot, and I was also the nerdy kid who did science fairs and things like that. I graduated early and went to college in Memphis when I was 16. It was interesting because in Paducah I never quite fit in. I started to feel not so odd anymore at college, which was great.
What did you study in college?
I was an economics major, but I also ran the school newspaper. I was soliciting various companies to buy ads, and Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, was interested because they were recruiting. As I was working through the business terms with the local partner, he said, “Why aren’t you interviewing with us?” I didn’t even know what they really did, but one thing led to another, and I wound up working for them.
They were building up a big staff of programmers at the time, and putting everyone through intense programming boot camp. I absolutely loved it, and I became deeply techie without really intending to do so. I spent a few years there and then went to Deloitte.
A big takeaway from that period was that everyone’s replaceable. They run those organizations like they’re armies of soldiers. The wonderful thing is that you cultivate this sense that you are not the center of the universe. If you leave, someone will replace you, the circle will close and it just doesn’t matter. That lesson has been helpful because it is really easy, as you move up in your career, to think that you’ve got to be involved in everything.
Other early lessons about leadership?
At a small start-up I joined, we grew the company so fast that I once hired 50 people in 90 days. I was trying really hard to keep personal connections with everyone. I was asking them to travel all over the world and do all these insane things on behalf of the business, and I needed them to feel this emotional connection. But it was emotionally draining. And when the bubble burst in 2000 and we had to lay a bunch of people off, I had to let a lot of these people go.
For better or worse, I developed a thicker skin. I will continue to be interested in people personally, but I can’t be personally connected anymore. That’s an interesting transition to go through, because you always want to be one of those leaders who care deeply about their staff and look after them, but at some point you have to make the shift and say you’re going to do the right thing for the business.
What about lessons you learned after you became a C.E.O.?
It’s very easy for people, particularly experienced executives, to look at the leader of the company, and say, “We should be doing this or that,” or, “Wow, he’s really messing up,” and not have an appreciation for all the moving parts. As a leader, you walk into a situation and you realize, yes, maybe this is a B-minus person, and maybe you’d like to have someone better. But sometimes the intricacies of these situations are such that you just need to get the most out of this person at this time.
That gave me great patience to let things play out a bit. People often come to you and say, “We’ve got to fix this now.” And it’s very rare that you have to act immediately. You have to have the patience to say, “I’m going to evaluate the situation and the individuals involved, and I might choose to act on this, and I might not choose to act on this right now.”
* * *
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.