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 Lisa Gersh, a wellness company. To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
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Tell me about your early years.
I grew up in the Bronx, and my parents both worked. My mom had the greatest impact on me, in terms of always telling me that I could do whatever I wanted to do. You need your parents to tell you that because sometimes when you’re just hanging around in seventh grade, it doesn’t quite feel that way.
We grew up pretty poor. My parents both lost their jobs when I was 11, and I understood at a very early age that I was going to have to make things happen for myself. I realized that babysitting for a dollar an hour was never going to get me anywhere, so I read an ad in the newspaper for umpires for girls’ softball. They didn’t have an age requirement. So I went to five classes, and I got my degree in umpiring girls’ softball. These girls were older than I was, and I made $5 a game.
I was a pretty entrepreneurial kid. I always had a job in high school. I got a job at the Foodtown grocery store, and because it was unionized, I got time and a half on holidays and double time on Sundays. The work could be really boring, so I figured out how to make it more challenging. I memorized all the prices in the store. I was the human scanner. It almost became like a circus show. People would come in my lane just to watch me do it.
And when I was a waitress, I never wrote down anyone’s order. It would really annoy customers because they were sure I would get it wrong, but I never did, even when there were 12 people. To this day, when I go out to dinner, I absolutely know what every single person has ordered. And when the waiter walks over and can’t remember who ordered what, it drives me crazy. Why can’t you remember? You wrote it down.
When you think about your leadership style today, do you see your parents’ influence?
My mom was a great listener, and so much of leadership is about listening and really taking in all the information but ultimately being able to make a decision.
Listening seems like an increasingly rare skill, particularly with all the distractions from technology.
Active listening is hard. I think people do have trouble focusing and concentrating. But active listening is so important for leaders because, often, when people come into your office, they don’t really want to tell you everything. So if you’re not actively listening, you’re going to miss it.
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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
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 of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.