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Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12

Kevin Sharer has a distinguished career as a successful CEO and Board Member. He is currently a senior lecturer at Harvard University Business School and continues to mentor a select number of senior executives. Either as a Chairman, independent director, or mentor, Sharer has been a part of more than 20 successful CEO-successor transitions. Kevin led Amgen for 20 years, first as President and then as CEO for 12 years. Under Sharer’s leadership, the company achieved annual revenue of $16 billion with operations in 55 countries.

Notes:

"What Operational Excellence Looks Like"
- Must know the details
- Must have a listening system to know where problems brew
- The leaders have a clear agreement with the team on what success is
- A cadence of clear communication
- The leader must embody the behavior... They are the model
- Must have real empathy for people and care about them
The leader needs to assess when things go wrong so that they don't make the same mistake twice...
Kevin spent 110 days underwater in a submarine...
When he left the Navy, he knew he wanted to be a manager. He joined a program at AT&T to become one...
- He had an ambition to rise high in an organization
Kevin's dad - A military aviator. His hero and role model. his dad cared a lot about leadership...
How did Kevin earn the CEO role at Amgen?
- Spent 8 years as the President of the company. And "made it pretty obvious" to hire him for the CEO role
- He consistently delivered results and formed a strong partnership with the CEO
How to sustain what's special about a company as it grows?
- The book Built to Last by Jim Collins was very helpful....
How to create and live your values?
- They are not defined by what's written down, it's the behavior of the people. And that starts at the top...
- Understand what your real values are. If you don't believe in the values, you shouldn't work there...
- You "have to have social data to know that the values are real." Ask others in the organization: "Are the values you experience consistent with the values stated by the company?"
How he got hired as the President at Amgen?
- "I first decided that I wanted to be a General Manager and not a functional specialists." Kevin pursued that through General Electric and got great experience...They hired him in part because of his broad range of experience.
- It was a multi-step interview process. Kevin interviewed with 20 people at the company before getting the offer...
Listening ability: Kevin went from bad to great... "On the way up in my career, I had the view that I was so fast, so smart... It was working. I thought I was being helpful by telling others what I thought, but I was cutting off the full picture."
Kevin had an eye opening moment when he asked the CEO of IBM to talk about leadership with his team...
- "I learned to listen for comprehension. Listen to understand first."
- "You need to listen to the entire eco-system."
Big idea: Pick 10 CEOs who didn't make it: "Seven of them weren't situationally aware."
What are some "must-have" hiring qualities?
- A record of good knowledge
- Great communication skill
- Comfort in their own skin
- Curious - they must ask questions
- Answer the question, "what are your goals?"
- Answer the question, "what have you learned from failure?"
- "If five people were asked about you, what would they say?"
- Their accomplishments speak for themselves. They don't have to overly sell themselves
- They need to "clearly want the job."
- A good sense of humor
Hiring trap: "There is a bias for us to hire people like us. It's overwhelming. We're wired to think, "other is dangerous." We must be aware of that."

412: Kevin Sharer (Former CEO of Amgen) - What Operational Excellence Looks Like

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk