0:00

Because you can't be

0:02

successful in any organization

0:04

unless you're selling to

0:07

others and particularly early

0:09

on your career where

0:11

you don't have any authority.

0:13

It comes from your persuasive

0:16

ability. It's the one role

0:18

everybody has. And whether you

0:20

lead a team or aspire

0:23

to, you can't afford to

0:25

ignore it. And we're going to

0:27

dive into that and so much

0:29

more in today's episode of how

0:31

leaders lead. I'm David Novak and

0:33

every week I have conversations

0:35

with the very best leaders

0:37

in the world to help you

0:40

become the best leader that you can

0:42

be. My guest today is Alan Teagueson,

0:45

the CEO of DocuSign. Before

0:47

that... He led Google's 100

0:49

billion dollar advertising business in

0:51

North and South America. So

0:53

I think it's safe to

0:55

say, Allen's got his finger

0:57

on the pulse of technology.

1:00

And today, he's going to

1:02

share some insights into artificial

1:04

intelligence that every leader needs to

1:06

hear. But he's got some

1:08

old-school wisdom too, especially when

1:10

it comes to sales. Now look, you

1:12

may not have the word sales in

1:14

your title. but you're still

1:17

a salesperson. As Bob Dylan

1:19

used to say, everybody sells

1:21

somebody and everyone is

1:23

a salesperson when you think about

1:26

it. And if that makes you

1:28

a little uncomfortable, don't worry.

1:30

Today, you're going to see

1:33

how to embrace that role and

1:35

why you can't overlook it if

1:37

you want other people to follow

1:39

you. So here's my conversation with

1:41

my good friend and soon

1:43

to be yours, Alan Teagueson.

1:46

I got to start out at

1:48

the top. I was just thinking

1:50

about this, but what would be

1:52

the most important docketine document that

1:54

you've ever signed? Wow, I've signed

1:57

a lot of... docket signs in

1:59

my time. I suppose signing my

2:01

awful letter with docket sign, which

2:03

of course came on docket sign.

2:05

I love it. That is a

2:07

great answer. You know, something that

2:10

I learned in my research is

2:12

that you and I, we both

2:14

have fathers who were in their

2:16

90s. My dad is 95. He'll

2:18

be 96 on May 25th. What

2:20

would you say is the biggest

2:22

lesson you picked up from your

2:25

dad? Yes, my dad just turned

2:27

90. here about a month ago,

2:29

and still going very strong and

2:31

staying very active. And my lesson

2:33

is really that. I grew up

2:35

in Denmark and my parents both

2:38

had big jobs, but at 70,

2:40

big organizations, whether government or private

2:42

sector, you know, make you retire.

2:44

And so my mom really didn't

2:46

have another outlet for her intellectual

2:48

energy. But my dad had this

2:51

connection to international organizations and he

2:53

was able to stay engaged and

2:55

work literally until a month ago.

2:57

And I think that has a

2:59

lot to do with just how

3:01

intellectually and physically Bible he still

3:03

is. And so kudos to him

3:06

and I think we're like sharks.

3:08

But don't keep moving, we sink

3:10

to the bottom. So I told

3:12

my wife, don't expect to retire

3:14

anytime soon. I like it. I

3:16

like to stay busy. I think

3:19

that's a lesson. Yeah, well, that's

3:21

great. I don't know how old

3:23

you are, but I know you're

3:25

older than you look. You look

3:27

great, so I think you're going

3:29

to go a long time, you

3:31

know. And, you know, we're going

3:34

to get into docusine and now

3:36

you're leading this great company. But

3:38

first I want to take you

3:40

back a bit and you just

3:42

talked about your dad. What would

3:44

be a story from your childhood

3:46

that shaped the kind of leader you

3:49

are today? But those were very formative

3:51

years. And I think, you know, my

3:53

parents and Danish society in general, it's

3:56

really built on these concepts of. and

3:58

equal opportunity. And those are very foundational

4:00

values for me. And so I try

4:03

to bring that to every organization that

4:05

I lead. I want to evaluate people

4:07

on merit. I want to give them

4:10

every opportunity, and I recognize people

4:12

have different ways of expressing their

4:14

talents and different ways that they get

4:16

to be successful. And I try to

4:18

look for what that is and then

4:21

help them tap into that. I

4:23

think people have generally regarded me

4:25

as a very fair. leader and manager.

4:27

They know they're gonna, I'm gonna look

4:29

at things, you know, fairly clearly

4:31

and I'm gonna be clear and

4:33

direct to my communication and I'm not

4:36

gonna have any biases or preferences and

4:38

I think that comes from wanting to

4:40

give an equal opportunity to everybody.

4:42

Well that's a great learning from

4:44

your upbringing and you know, I also

4:47

stand, understand that both of your parents

4:49

were economists. They were. And give

4:51

me a taste of what a

4:53

dinner conversation would be like in the

4:56

Teagueson household. You know, they were both,

4:58

yeah, they were both economists. My dad

5:00

was a professor his whole life.

5:02

My mom started out that way

5:04

and then worked in the in the

5:07

government. And so there was just a

5:09

lot of discussion about politics and policy.

5:11

both in Denmark and at the

5:13

European level. One thing that really

5:15

came up a lot was Europe, integration

5:18

of Europe. I was my dad, so

5:20

the life work was working on

5:22

that. And so Denmark joined the

5:24

EU. I think for an American audience,

5:26

maybe a little hard to imagine, but

5:29

imagine that vote to decide to give

5:31

up a lot of your sovereignty

5:33

to this transnational authority and why

5:35

that was a good trade to make,

5:37

I think, the Danes. voted in favor

5:40

of that. And then later, when

5:42

they introduced the euro, decided not

5:44

to join that, right? Those are big

5:46

decisions for society that the US made

5:48

a little long time ago, but there

5:51

were big decisions then, and those

5:53

are the kinds of topics that

5:55

came up all the time. So I

5:57

had a very keen interest in politics

5:59

and policy that I still have. So

6:02

it was just sort of my

6:04

side hustle, I get involved in

6:06

some things at Stanford on that end.

6:08

But my day job is business and,

6:10

you know, in business, I think

6:12

it's best to stay out of

6:14

politics. Yeah, I think you're right about

6:17

that. I think my dinner conversation was

6:19

more like, pass the potatoes, you know.

6:21

So, you know, there was a

6:23

lot of that. So when did,

6:25

when did you first believe that you

6:28

had it in you had it in

6:30

you? to be a leader. You

6:32

know, I, you know, it feels

6:34

sort of self-aggrandizing. When do you feel

6:36

like you're ready to be a leader?

6:39

I, I, I think that that's earned

6:41

over time. And, um, look, I

6:43

was always a natural initiative taker,

6:45

um, and organizer of things. And so

6:47

I suppose those were sort of the

6:50

earliest indications that I, uh, I just

6:52

naturally was somebody who somebody who

6:54

wanted to organize things, who wanted

6:56

to take initiative, who wanted to get

6:59

others to follow, and you know, early

7:01

on, I don't know what I

7:03

was at it, but I think

7:05

I'm hopefully developed over the years. Well,

7:07

you've had an interesting life and you

7:10

grew up in Denmark and you make

7:12

your way to the US. What

7:14

was the biggest lesson you had

7:16

as you worked your way into the

7:18

United States of America? or many lessons.

7:21

So I came here to go

7:23

to graduate school, met my wife.

7:25

We decided to settle in the Bay

7:27

Area, and I worked in the Bay

7:29

Area and in tech ever since. I

7:32

think some early lessons. I determined

7:34

that I wanted to lead people.

7:36

So I sought a management job coming

7:38

out of business school, which is not

7:40

necessarily typical. A lot of people with

7:43

banking and consulting, but I really

7:45

wanted to run something and lead

7:47

people. And I found this to be

7:49

incredibly rewarding, and so I looked for

7:51

that opportunity. over time. I think

7:53

the second thing I learned about

7:55

myself early on was that it was

7:58

good if there was an element of

8:00

sales involved in the job, that I

8:02

had a natural affinity for that.

8:04

Most people don't like that, right?

8:06

And I like it. I think people

8:09

who are uncomfortable with that tend to

8:11

think it means being sort of

8:13

greasy or in some way duplicitous

8:15

or not representing things accurately, and I

8:17

think that couldn't be more wrong. I

8:20

think the more deeply you understand that

8:22

and the more honest and forth

8:24

value are, the more believable and

8:26

trustworthy you are, the more effective you

8:28

are. That is so right. You know,

8:31

and to think that you not ultimately

8:33

don't have to learn that selling

8:35

skill to move up the ladder,

8:37

you're kind of crazy. How'd you learn

8:39

it? I actually got my, I mean,

8:42

you learn it internally in companies

8:44

because you can't be successful in

8:46

any organization unless you're selling to others

8:48

and particularly early on your career where

8:50

you don't have any authority. It comes

8:53

from your persuasive ability. And then

8:55

a few years after grad school,

8:57

I'd been running various parts of the

8:59

customer service organization and a job opened

9:02

up to run the Fortune 500

9:04

sales organization, which of course I

9:06

was utterly unqualified to run. But I'd

9:08

gotten involved in the process and it

9:10

was in the early, you know, still

9:13

in the early days of the

9:15

PC revolution. And I'd seen, you

9:17

know, I think I could do this

9:19

and the company, of course, knew me

9:21

as a leader and a manager and

9:24

they gave me that opportunity. And

9:26

that was my beginning of sales.

9:28

And I've since run almost every part

9:30

of the company. I mean, one of

9:32

my key messages I always tell

9:34

people is, look, you want to

9:36

own and really master your craft and

9:39

whatever you where you just start your

9:41

career and you don't want to move

9:43

on until you've done that. But

9:45

then it becomes very important to

9:47

move on and take the take the

9:50

risk to move sideways and learn other

9:52

functions of the company and so

9:54

over time I've run your practice.

9:56

every functional company and I enjoy all

9:58

of them. I think that really helps

10:01

me be effective because I can empathize

10:03

with the perspective of all the

10:05

leaders in the world. Absolutely. And

10:07

I've heard you say that for 12

10:09

years you wrote what you called the

10:12

Silicon Valley roller coaster. I mean, tell

10:14

me what that was like. You

10:16

know, I really had a full

10:18

range of outcome. It's a bit of

10:20

a cliche, right, that in the Silicon

10:23

Valley is this boom and bus

10:25

thing. But I experienced that very

10:27

directly. I joined a company out of

10:29

business school that was sort of mid-size,

10:31

that just gone public, and we kept

10:33

growing, and so that was a mid-size

10:36

opportunity. And then they ran into a

10:38

lot of competition. I left to join

10:40

my first startup. I was employee

10:42

number 10. And so that had a

10:44

very different feel, right? We got bought

10:46

within a year, and then the acquire

10:48

18 months later went bankrupt.

10:50

So, I mean, within the span

10:53

of five years, I had sort

10:55

of been part of, you know,

10:57

post-IPO, mid-sized growth phase, the very

10:59

early company formation and a bankruptcy.

11:01

And then I, you know, I

11:04

had some, some good success and

11:06

company I joined in 96. We

11:08

ended up being able to take

11:10

public. I was a big success

11:12

and a huge home run. And

11:15

so that, you know, you obviously

11:17

want to have one or more

11:19

of those. those at bats you

11:21

get so I had a mix

11:23

of I'd say strikeouts and singles and

11:25

a home run and and so that

11:28

put me on the map a little

11:30

bit more and gave me the

11:32

credibility to have access to other opportunities.

11:34

You've had a lot of experience building

11:37

things from the ground up. What should

11:39

be a part of every company's foundation

11:42

if they really want to be

11:44

successful? I think the two most... important

11:47

things. You have to have

11:49

a clear idea for a

11:51

differentiated product in a market

11:54

that's large enough to be

11:56

exciting. And second, you have to

11:58

attract a team. that is capable

12:01

of executing. And those are the

12:03

two things. I think everything else

12:05

is noise. My experience is that

12:07

a lot of people who try

12:09

to look around their career, they're

12:11

okay, what title they're gonna give

12:13

me, how much money they're gonna

12:15

give me, or you know, other

12:17

sort of more superficial attributes, but

12:19

ultimately what matters for your ability

12:21

to grow in an organization is.

12:23

is the organization itself well poised

12:25

for growth? Because that is what

12:27

unlocks opportunity. And are you working

12:29

with people you can trust and

12:31

respect and learn from? And so

12:33

that's what I've sought. And whenever

12:35

I've not done that, which I

12:37

have, that has happened a few

12:39

times, I've come to regret it.

12:41

Hey, everyone. It's Kula. We'll get

12:43

back to the interview in just

12:45

a second. Before we do, though,

12:47

I have a question for you.

12:49

Have you downloaded the How Leaders

12:51

Leaders Leaders Lead app on your

12:53

iPhone. If you haven't, take 20

12:56

seconds right now, go to the

12:58

App Store, search for How Leaders

13:00

Lead, and download the How Leaders

13:02

Lead app. In the app every

13:04

day, you'll get a two-minute video

13:06

that'll give you a leadership insight

13:08

from one of our amazing guests

13:10

from our podcast to inspire you

13:12

and to really get your mind

13:14

in the right place before you

13:16

start your workday. So go to

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the App Store. Go to the

13:20

App Store. download the app and

13:22

you'll be able to watch every

13:24

day just like me the leadership

13:26

insight from how leaders lead. Now

13:28

I understand you know you spend

13:30

a lot of time in venture

13:32

capital you know where you really

13:34

leaned in to be in a

13:36

coach which I found to be

13:38

you know very unique from that

13:40

perspective you always think these venture

13:42

capitalists these muddy hungry you know

13:44

grubs that are going after it

13:46

you know but you really leaned

13:48

into being a coach You know,

13:50

what did that experience in that

13:52

world with that kind of desire

13:55

to be a coach? What did

13:57

that teach you? I think that

13:59

that's the aspiration. I think if

14:01

you're a VC, what you should

14:03

want to be is to get

14:05

into a coaching relationship with your

14:07

founders. You're not supposed to be

14:09

running the company. You're supposed to

14:11

be helping them maybe see around

14:13

the corners, anticipate things and maybe

14:15

identify their blind spots, be a

14:17

source of support. I think a

14:19

lot of VCs are either too

14:21

passive or... try to get overly

14:23

involved and there's a very much

14:25

a Goldilocks balance there where you

14:27

want to be involved enough that

14:29

you're helpful but not think that

14:31

you're you're in on the management

14:33

team. The other thing I think

14:35

I learned from being a VC

14:37

is look you see so many

14:39

companies I probably looked at a

14:41

few hundred a year right and

14:43

once you do that you start

14:45

to develop a lot more pattern

14:47

recognition both for what constitutes good

14:49

teams, to constitutes good opportunities, and

14:51

how to differentiate between things that

14:54

are really super early, very informative,

14:56

to that are in the growth

14:58

phase, to things that are more

15:00

in the scale-up phase. And you

15:02

look for different things, depending on

15:04

what size company it is and

15:06

what trajectories it's on. That turns

15:08

out to be, I mean, it's

15:10

obviously essential in the venture business,

15:12

but it turns out to be

15:14

super helpful in most companies because...

15:16

At a place like DocuSign, for

15:18

example, we have a scaled mature

15:20

business in our well-known signature business.

15:22

And that requires a certain skill

15:24

set model to run that well.

15:26

But then we have some new

15:28

initiatives that are much more growthy,

15:30

much more like a venture operation.

15:32

And you need to understand what

15:34

are the signals you should be

15:36

looking for in those businesses that

15:38

are very different. then you might

15:40

see in an existing cash, more

15:42

cash-collar business. So we, I think

15:44

the venture skill set turned out

15:46

to be super useful in my

15:48

many years of Google afterwards and

15:50

now a dog design. And look,

15:53

it's a, if you're intellectually curious,

15:55

how can you not love that?

15:57

You get to work with some

15:59

of the most motivated, exciting people.

16:01

And so I love my. time

16:03

in the venture business. You know,

16:05

speaking of people and speaking of

16:07

coaching, you know, when you look

16:09

back, what's one of your favorite

16:11

stories where you know you really

16:13

brought out the best in one

16:15

of your venture capital partners or

16:17

one of your teammates? Quite a

16:19

bit of that on the on

16:21

the teammate side. Let me use

16:23

the teammate side. So I'll use

16:25

one example. So I was a

16:27

Google for 12 years after being

16:29

a VC. And when I joined,

16:31

I inherited four senior leaders and

16:33

their organizations reporting up to me.

16:35

And several of those leaders were

16:37

incredibly talented, but various sort of

16:39

monochromatic. I mean, I'm sure you've

16:41

had people, they were really good

16:43

at one thing. But they needed

16:45

to develop a broader skill set

16:47

to really become senior executives and

16:49

be able to run something more

16:52

broadly. And so I had a

16:54

guy who was super creative and

16:56

fun, but lacked some of the

16:58

discipline and process. Another person who

17:00

was very much an engineer, very

17:02

analytical, but wouldn't let people in

17:04

and didn't lean as much. He

17:06

had a lot of EQ, but

17:08

he didn't show it, right? And

17:10

so trying to bring that out

17:12

in them so they could become

17:14

well-rounded and be successful. And then

17:16

seeing that they've both of those

17:18

folks been incredibly successful and are

17:20

very, very, very senior roles now,

17:22

and it's just... incredibly gratifying. I

17:24

mean, there's nothing better. I'm sure

17:26

you feel the same when you

17:28

get a note from somebody or

17:30

you ping somebody. You see a

17:32

big progression for them and they

17:34

kind of come back and say,

17:36

you know, that was really formative

17:38

and really helped me develop. And

17:40

big reason why I am where

17:42

I am. So that's really my

17:44

favorite thing in management. How did

17:46

you help them? gain the self-awareness

17:48

that they needed to develop some

17:51

of those skills or they might

17:53

derail or not achieve what they

17:55

had in them. You can't do

17:57

it for people, particularly when they're

17:59

pretty senior. You kind of have

18:01

to throw them in to the

18:03

pond and give them some coaching,

18:05

but a lot of that I

18:07

think is about. opportunities that forced

18:09

them to tap into those sides

18:11

of themselves. So take the person

18:13

who was more of an engineering

18:15

type and very analytical, brilliant, we

18:17

gave him a sales leadership role.

18:19

How did I know that? How

18:21

did I know that? The flip

18:23

side is a game of strategy

18:25

role to the guy who was

18:27

more a creative person and he

18:29

needed more structure. And I think

18:31

for both of them that turned

18:33

out to be really great. Maybe

18:35

another one that comes to mind

18:37

is another senior leader who was

18:39

maybe reluctant to toot her own

18:41

horn as much and wouldn't maybe

18:43

insert herself as much in the

18:45

in the very senior discussions. Absolutely

18:47

brilliant and I really sort of

18:50

pushed her in a couple occasions

18:52

to you know take that seat

18:54

at the table and of course

18:56

you know she's phenomenally successful now.

18:58

But they all need different things.

19:00

That's exciting. You know, you were

19:02

a rock star at Google as

19:04

well. I mean, you run the

19:06

America's business, which is $100 billion

19:08

in advertising, you know, in North

19:10

and South America. You know, what

19:12

was one of the, what would

19:14

you say would be the most

19:16

significant leadership challenge you had, you

19:18

know, in that role? Google, since

19:20

its early days, is very engineering-centric

19:22

company. Right, that's well known. And

19:24

so Google had built the best

19:26

digital advertising engine on the ecosystem

19:28

and had the most reach and

19:30

of course search was an incredibly

19:32

important platform for people to discover

19:34

information. And so there was this

19:36

idea that, well, if we just

19:38

built this, everybody will come. And

19:40

literally all the small customers, Google

19:42

at that time, not only could

19:44

you not, would they never call

19:46

them, you couldn't call Google, you

19:49

could go to the help center.

19:52

It was totally self-service. Well, I

19:54

mean, when people are spending 50,

19:56

100, hundreds of thousands of dollars

19:58

with the company. and it's life

20:00

or death for them because it

20:03

drives their business, chances are

20:05

they probably need a little bit

20:07

more than that, particularly as

20:09

the system got super complicated.

20:12

And so that was the business I

20:14

ran initially at Google and there was

20:16

just so much opportunity to. bring both

20:19

a human factor and intelligence to that

20:21

to run that better. And of course

20:23

it turned out that every business in

20:25

the world wants to advertise and reach

20:28

more customers. It's just historically that most

20:30

media could only really sell to large

20:32

companies, right? If you're a television

20:35

station, you only have a small number

20:37

of ad slots, you can only afford

20:39

to, if you sell, send a salesperson

20:41

to every company. And so you're only

20:43

selling to the large advertisers. But there

20:45

are millions of small businesses that... If

20:48

they could be really targeted, they would

20:50

really like to do that. And so

20:52

we had a good opportunity to do

20:54

that and that was a huge driver,

20:56

remains a huge driver of Google's. I

20:59

want to get the docuestine in a

21:01

minute, but just one more question on

21:03

Google. It is one of the most respected

21:05

companies in the world. You know,

21:08

what's one of your favorite Google

21:10

stories that highlights what makes it

21:12

a special environment to work in? Or

21:15

did you see it that way? Yes,

21:17

I did. And I still do. I mean,

21:19

it was a systematically important

21:21

company, right, where it

21:24

shaped how people consume

21:26

information and media, and

21:28

that was true everywhere in

21:30

the world. And so I

21:32

love that opportunity to have

21:34

impact at that scale, and

21:36

the responsibility, frankly, that came

21:38

with that. So that was fantastic.

21:40

What's the story from Google?

21:42

Well, I'll share one that...

21:44

I think is path less obvious,

21:46

but I think Google, when I

21:49

joined Google, I was a little

21:51

surprised at how somewhat chaotic

21:53

it felt internally. You know,

21:56

there would be multiple projects

21:58

that were, you know, pretty

22:00

overlapping and competing in different organizations and

22:02

it just was sort of happening organically

22:04

bottoms up and at first it sort

22:07

of offended me or if you're sort

22:09

of a manager person you'd be like

22:11

well you know we should be top

22:14

down we should be structuring this and

22:16

put all of our wit behind this

22:18

one one arrow and the reality is

22:20

I think the insight the founders had

22:23

is if you want to have the

22:25

best talent and you want to drive

22:27

innovation that comes from the bottom up.

22:29

And the way you do that is

22:32

by giving people time and opportunity to

22:34

develop their ideas. At some point, sure,

22:36

you're going to win them down and

22:39

you're going to put more resource behind

22:41

one or the other. But you're going

22:43

to be pretty disciplined about that because

22:45

the way you attract the best people,

22:48

which is what's going to drive your

22:50

innovation pace and agenda, is by giving

22:52

them those opportunities. And so I just

22:54

came to realize that that was a

22:57

small tax to pay for the... amazing

22:59

innovation and caliber of people that the

23:01

model enabled. That is a very counterintuitive

23:04

lesson, right? And runs counter to how

23:06

most of corporate America runs the innovation

23:08

agenda, and so people will come to

23:10

Google all the time. Tell us how

23:13

you become more innovative. I'm like, well,

23:15

you actually kind of have to undo

23:17

a lot of the cultural things, because

23:19

that's really what's blocking you from attracting

23:22

or keeping the people who are the

23:24

innovators. That's great. You know, and so

23:26

you had this fantastic job. Well, the

23:29

top companies of the world and why

23:31

leave a trillion dollar business to run

23:33

a much smaller one like like DocuSign?

23:35

My wife asked that question too. That's

23:38

a good question. You need somebody to

23:40

ask for those questions. Look, I love

23:42

my time in Google on us. I

23:45

have so many friends there in respect

23:47

for the company. But I was very

23:49

keen to, instead of having this super

23:51

large violin section, to have the whole

23:54

orchestra. And that wasn't really. going to

23:56

be possible at Google. And the reality

23:58

is Google is a very functionally organized

24:00

company. What I mean by that is,

24:03

with the exception of Google Cloud, which

24:05

is sort of an operating division within

24:07

the company that's somewhat autonomous, everything else

24:10

is functionally organized. You're working in sales

24:12

or you're working in marketing, you're working

24:14

in product, you're working in finance, but

24:16

you don't have that cross-functional responsibility that

24:19

you have as a GM or CEO.

24:21

And I really wanted that. And I've

24:23

been wanting it for a while. And

24:25

look, I had an amazing job and

24:28

I loved it. And I could have

24:30

done it, you know, for a long

24:32

time. But I was eager to try

24:35

my hand at conducting the whole orchestra.

24:37

So you were licking your chops to

24:39

get the company like DocuSign. Exactly. And

24:41

then you're like, well, but it has

24:44

to be something good. You know, and

24:46

I... At that point, my career, even

24:48

though I had obviously a lot of

24:50

start at DNA and experience and appetite

24:53

for that, it didn't really make sense

24:55

for me to go run a 10

24:57

or 100 person company. So I was

25:00

looking for something a little bit more

25:02

sizable, but where there was still a

25:04

big growth and transformation opportunity, and where

25:06

I felt like you were starting with

25:09

enough quality that you could build something

25:11

great, because it's hard to fix something,

25:13

the company, once it's kind of broken.

25:15

And so, Docusan came along, I mean,

25:18

I was literally sitting at my desk,

25:20

sitting at my desk, And I see

25:22

the news in my browser that DocuSign

25:25

has fired their CEO and that the

25:27

chair has stepped in as interim CEO.

25:29

And I knew DocuSign really well. I've

25:31

been using DocuSign for years. Google was

25:34

a big customer. I've been in to

25:36

meet with the management team. New the

25:38

CEO. And to top it all off,

25:40

the interim CEO, the chair. was my

25:43

old boss from over 20 years ago.

25:45

And so I was like, okay, this

25:47

is kind of a sign. I'm just

25:50

going to send her an email right

25:52

now and say, hey, yeah, it looks

25:54

like you're going to be looking for

25:56

full-time CEO at some point. I might

25:59

be interested. wrote back right away and

26:01

said, let me put you in touch

26:03

for it. I think it was hydrate

26:05

running the process and you know, obviously

26:08

there was a lot more to it

26:10

and they did a very rigorous process

26:12

and I was very fortunate to be

26:15

selected and that's how it happened. Here

26:17

we are today. You know, give me

26:19

a snapshot of the docuestine that you

26:21

joined and the business that you lead

26:24

today. Yeah, so. Look, everybody already knows

26:26

DocuSign. So just to, you know, to

26:28

frame it a little bit, so DocuSign

26:31

just started about 20 years ago and

26:33

had pioneered this idea of signing contracts

26:35

electronically, which was an almost radical concept

26:37

when they first started, right? Nobody thought

26:40

either on the sender or the signer

26:42

side or in government that this was

26:44

something one could or should do. And

26:46

to the amazing credit of the founders

26:49

and the early team. You know, Docsone

26:51

really pioneered that and built that category

26:53

and up going public and so on.

26:56

And so, and then COVID happened, which

26:58

took a business that was already public

27:00

was growing nicely at 30% and took

27:02

growth to 60%. I mean, orders were

27:05

coming in from everywhere new use cases

27:07

where, you know, the government needed to

27:09

start lending money, but, you know, they

27:11

had no way of powering, executing the

27:14

agreements. And so, you know, there were

27:16

a lot of one-time use cases also

27:18

that that... plenty of that. And so

27:21

Docusine went through this incredible cycle, you

27:23

know, externally imposed, if you will, very,

27:25

very rapid growth. And then as COVID

27:27

waned, the deceleration that came from sort

27:30

of unwinding some of that external stuff.

27:32

You know, that's a, that can be

27:34

a near-death experience for a company, right?

27:36

Because, you know, when that happens, everybody

27:39

sort of forgets how to do their

27:41

day job. And they're just looking at

27:43

the stock. It's at 300. And, and,

27:46

you know, we can't even process all

27:48

the orders we have all the orders

27:50

we have. I think what I saw

27:52

looking at Docsine from the outside was

27:55

an amazing franchise with the trust and

27:57

affinity that people have. for

27:59

the brand, a

28:02

company that could

28:04

be run more efficiently and needed

28:06

to get through that trough and

28:08

address some of the new competition

28:10

that had emerged over the last

28:12

five years. But if that

28:14

was all there was, I don't

28:17

think I would have doubted it, because

28:19

that sounds kind of like a

28:21

low growth, not interesting business, but maybe

28:23

highly profitable. And

28:25

I'm a growth person. When I

28:27

think about contracts or agreements, they

28:31

remain an unsolved problem. They

28:33

are one of the last frontiers

28:35

of digital transformation.

28:38

We've taken contracts and

28:40

we've digitized them, right? Maybe

28:43

we have them in Word now and we send

28:45

them around to email. And hopefully we sign

28:47

them electronically, and other than that, nothing

28:49

has changed. The contracts that

28:51

you and I would sign,

28:53

whether they were sales agreements,

28:55

purchase agreements, employment agreements, are

28:58

still, those processes are just as brittle

29:00

and broken and inefficient as they've

29:02

always been. And so I

29:04

knew that. And I

29:06

thought that is an unsolved problem.

29:09

That is a very large market

29:11

opportunity. And DocuSign is incredibly well

29:13

positioned, the best positioned, to

29:15

try to deliver against that, because

29:17

DocuSign is already in the

29:19

contract flow for so many of

29:22

these companies. And so I didn't

29:24

have a specific roadmap. I mean, I

29:26

sort of have a general idea, but that

29:28

was the leap. And

29:30

so that was status quo

29:33

in October 2022. And

29:36

we've made, I think, really good

29:38

progress in all three of those fronts.

29:40

So we've stabilized the existing signature business.

29:42

It's now, you know, continuing to make

29:44

progress. And we have an amazing franchise.

29:46

It's still, I think, a significant headroom

29:48

there. We've made the company a lot

29:50

more efficient. So it was a lot

29:52

of unnecessary expense. And we, I think, trimmed

29:55

that and refocused and invested

29:57

more in product. And then most

29:59

important. I think we've gotten our innovation

30:01

in Mojo back. And so we've

30:03

articulated and developed this suite for

30:06

what I call intelligent agreement management.

30:08

We launched it earlier in April

30:10

of last year and started shipping

30:12

at the end of May. And

30:14

you know, the early, the early

30:16

progress is really, really good. What

30:18

do you mean by that? Tell

30:20

us what that business is exactly.

30:22

Yeah. So if you think about

30:24

agreements, agreements go through a journey,

30:26

right? Somebody has to draft them.

30:29

If it's a negotiated agreement, then

30:31

there's a negotiation process and editing

30:33

that goes back and forth. Then

30:35

it has to get executed and

30:37

then there can always be a

30:39

series of steps of approvals and

30:41

execution associated with that. And then

30:43

once you have a signed agreement,

30:45

you need to manage that agreement.

30:47

You know, if you're in the

30:49

sales agreement, you may have made

30:52

certain commitments to your customers and

30:54

vice versa if it's a procurement

30:56

agreement agreement. There are no tools

30:58

today that help companies do this.

31:00

And so we took... our existing

31:02

signature franchise, some early efforts we

31:04

had made in in work for

31:06

sort of lawyers and other contract

31:08

specialists, and say we can deliver

31:10

a holistic end-to-end platform for managing

31:12

the workflows associated with that agreement

31:15

journey and layering intelligence on top.

31:17

And sometimes it's good to be

31:19

lucky, right? I joined DocuSign in

31:21

October 22. That was literally a

31:23

month before GPT 3.5 came out.

31:25

I knew obviously that there was

31:27

a lot happening in AI for

31:29

my time at Google and had

31:31

an innate sense that we were

31:33

going to have some transformation opportunity,

31:35

but I think I couldn't even

31:38

have foreseen just how much capability

31:40

is unlocked. If you think about

31:42

agreements today, they're in essence unstructured

31:44

flat files. There might as well

31:46

be documents in an old-style hanging

31:48

folder file cabinet, right? There is

31:50

no visibility into what's actually in

31:52

them. But with AI, we can

31:54

just extract the metadata, the essential

31:56

data from those agreements with very

31:58

high reliability and give you access

32:01

to. all of your agreements. That

32:03

is incredibly valuable, something we can

32:05

do nearly instantly upon execution

32:07

of a license deal. I

32:09

mean, we can deploy this,

32:11

we're deploying that capability faster

32:13

than we deploy in sign,

32:15

which historically it's been very

32:18

easy to adopt horizontal software

32:20

solutions. So I think we

32:22

are, we're onto something. It's very exciting.

32:25

And you know, one thing that you

32:27

might. say, well, okay, isn't that just

32:29

a problem that very big companies

32:32

have? No. We started out with

32:34

the small and missized companies. Companies

32:36

with maybe 50 to 1,000 employees.

32:39

The average number of agreements that

32:41

those companies upload to us is

32:43

over 4,000. That's as amazing. It

32:45

gets interesting. I have a friend

32:47

who's the regional vice president of

32:49

a spinal device company. It's not

32:51

a huge company, but she has

32:53

like over 50 sales people reporting

32:55

into her. And you know, I

32:57

said, well, you know, I said,

32:59

I'm talking to the CEO of

33:02

docusine today. And she goes, wow,

33:04

that is such a great company.

33:06

And I said, I said, do

33:08

you use docusine? She goes all the

33:10

time. And I said, well. Can you

33:12

give me a hardball question that I

33:14

ask him on what's wrong with their

33:16

customer service or what can we do?

33:18

I should, I don't, I don't see

33:21

anything. I think they just do a

33:23

great job. We love that company, you

33:25

know. And so it's, it's, it's, it's

33:27

very interesting. Now, you have the signature

33:29

business. Now you're moving into this intelligent

33:31

agreement. management, you know, which,

33:33

you know, it's got to be a

33:36

much smaller business. It's off to the

33:38

side to a certain extent. Smaller today,

33:40

but I think the total opportunity is

33:42

much larger. Yeah, okay, I got that.

33:44

But it's small and you've got today,

33:47

but you've got this other business that's

33:49

kind of brings home the bacon. How

33:51

do you as a leader, you know,

33:53

really go after that small opportunity that

33:56

can be the big idea and still,

33:58

you know, get the focus? you need

34:00

on the real big revenue opportunity?

34:02

Yeah, I know, look, I mean,

34:04

that is obviously the big tension

34:06

and worry that you have when

34:08

you do something new like this.

34:10

The good news is we're not

34:12

asking our sellers or our customers

34:14

to buy something auxiliary and standalone

34:16

and separate from our core. We're

34:19

really sort of reinventing the plumbing

34:21

on which that signature sits on

34:23

top up and extending. It's a

34:25

very seamless add-on. So we're, I

34:27

mean, my pitch to you would

34:29

be, let's say you run a

34:31

small business and you have all

34:33

your sales agreements done with DocuSign.

34:35

I don't like your friend. I

34:37

would say to you, keep doing

34:39

what you're doing and send the

34:41

agreements out with DocuSign and get

34:43

them executed that way. And now

34:45

I can seamlessly give you insight

34:47

to all the agreements you've ever

34:49

signed with DocuSign and everyone ever

34:51

agreement you signed in the future.

34:53

and compare them and give you,

34:55

you know, how do these deviate

34:57

from what you might offer as

34:59

a standard term? What should you

35:01

be looking at renegotiating next time

35:03

your, that that opportunity comes around?

35:05

Which agreements are coming up for

35:07

renewal? Those are things that nobody

35:09

knows today, and we can give

35:11

it to you out of the

35:13

box. So it's a very nice

35:16

upgrade story, if you will, as

35:18

opposed to, oh, I'm asking you

35:20

to buy something completely separate and

35:22

distinct and distinct. So it's not

35:24

like you're going after light users

35:26

or non-users, you're basically got a

35:28

way to take your heavy user

35:30

and get them to buy one

35:32

more time, you know, which is

35:34

always, that is, that's, that's paid

35:36

her from any time I've ever

35:38

looked at anything. That's right. Well,

35:40

I mean, we have, we have

35:42

1.6 million businesses that pay us

35:44

monthly for our signature product. That's

35:46

an astounding number, right. I mean,

35:48

most software companies have. thousands or

35:50

tens of thousands of clients. Very

35:52

rare company, you know, might have

35:54

more than that. And so the

35:56

breath of opportunity that we have

35:58

to then go and pitch this.

36:00

This expanded story too is good.

36:02

And to me, I don't think

36:04

we could take this on if

36:06

we didn't have that. Because the

36:08

cost of sales and marketing would

36:11

just be too high. We'll be

36:13

back with the rest of my

36:15

conversation with Alan Tiegison in just

36:17

a moment. Well, it's Valentine's Day

36:19

tomorrow, and because love is in

36:21

the air, I've got to talk

36:23

about this fantastic insight from Jesse

36:25

Cole. The owner of the wacky

36:27

and wonderful Savannah Bananas baseball team.

36:29

Love your customers more than you

36:31

love your product. We all love

36:33

our product. We talk about what

36:35

we sell, but how often you

36:37

talk about who you serve? And

36:39

so we started loving our customers,

36:41

and I'll tell you, the name

36:43

of our company is Fans First

36:45

Entertainment. Our missions fans first entertain

36:47

always. Every decision we make is,

36:49

is it fans first? So like,

36:51

for instance, when someone buys a

36:53

ticket from us. They get a

36:55

video of us celebrating. Say congrats.

36:57

You just made the best decision

36:59

in your day. Right now is

37:01

you bought tickets. We all celebrated.

37:03

We grabbed your tickets. A banana,

37:06

nana. Put your ticket on a

37:08

silk pillow. We put it up

37:10

in the air. We had a

37:12

sayons around your tickets. And then

37:14

we now put them in maximum

37:16

security in our vault. They're ready

37:18

for you to go bananas. That's

37:20

the first touch point. And then

37:22

every single person that buys a

37:24

ticket gets a thank you. You

37:26

have to map the experience and

37:28

love them and how do you

37:30

want your customers to feel. Now

37:32

go back and listen to my

37:34

entire conversation with Jesse, episode 32

37:36

here on How Leaders League. So,

37:38

you know, AI. You know, it's

37:40

such a buzzword today. You're into

37:42

it. You know, what advice would

37:44

you give a leader today on

37:46

on how to really understand AI

37:48

and more importantly use it to

37:50

grow your business? I mean... How

37:52

do you get up to speed

37:54

on this as a leader? Look,

37:56

it's hard, right? We're all incredibly

37:58

strapped for time. It's not like

38:00

I suddenly have four hours of

38:03

my day to go, you know,

38:05

take some class on it. I

38:07

think what I would push on

38:09

teams is really look for credible

38:11

opportunities to get started in ways

38:13

that are tangible and real, not

38:15

super exotic or futuristic. So as

38:17

an example, I think one of

38:19

the things we're looking at, and

38:21

a lot of companies looking at,

38:23

how can I augment my customer

38:25

service with AI? right, by providing,

38:27

take all the existing answer base

38:29

that I have and make that

38:31

available in a self-serve way. And

38:33

that's relatively straightforward to do and

38:35

gives, of course, immediate return in

38:37

terms of customers being able to

38:39

get a better experience. Maybe you

38:41

can shift some of your labor

38:43

resources to higher quality, higher opportunity

38:45

tasks. And I think that that's

38:47

an easy, an easy, an easy

38:49

win. Another place is you can

38:51

make your engineers a lot more

38:53

productive. There are very mature, proven

38:55

tools where your software developers can

38:58

become more efficient. Those are not

39:00

pie-in-the-sky things. There are not things

39:02

that require you to completely reimagine

39:04

how your company operates. That's not

39:06

to say that they're not, that

39:08

as always, you know, with any

39:10

type of changes to how people

39:12

work. The human factors are always

39:14

the most important. So that's why

39:16

I say rather than say, oh.

39:18

I'm just going to offer this

39:20

new broad AI capability to everybody.

39:22

I'm going to buy a GPT

39:24

license or whatever it might be

39:26

for everybody. You know, chances are,

39:28

you know, 5 or 10% of

39:30

your employees take advantage of the

39:32

rest of them I'm going to

39:34

ignore. So picking something that is

39:36

a high value use case where

39:38

you can put a lot of

39:40

wood behind the arrow and you

39:42

can, there's very credible and near

39:44

term ways to get value, I

39:46

think is. is the place I

39:48

would start. And obviously I'm biased,

39:50

but contracts would be another area.

39:52

But didn't want to start with

39:55

that. One of the guys I

39:57

know that I learned a great

39:59

deal. from was Warren Buffett and

40:01

and he taught me the importance

40:03

of sober selling to investors you know because

40:05

I didn't I was more in sales and operations

40:07

and you know so I went to him and

40:09

he said you know David how often do you

40:11

talk about What goes wrong in your business? And

40:13

I said, well, not very often. I'm always, you

40:16

know, talking about what's right. And he says, well,

40:18

you know, why don't you talk about the things

40:20

that could go wrong and you might even gain

40:22

more credibility with investors. And, you know, I think

40:24

it was like a great example of like sober

40:26

selling, you know, when you look at, when you

40:28

look at the docusine, you know, do you ever

40:31

talk to investors about the thing, the, the, the,

40:33

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

40:35

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

40:37

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

40:39

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

40:41

the, the, the, risk that, Look, I mean, hopefully

40:43

you've gotten a taste for this,

40:45

but I try to be a

40:47

very balanced assessment of anything, I

40:49

think, or on occasion investor relations

40:51

wishes. I was saying more optimistic,

40:53

but I think your point, I

40:55

think long-term credibility is built by

40:57

giving people a balanced perspective and

40:59

recognizing it. I think as a

41:01

leader, you want people to come

41:03

in and point out to you

41:05

what's not going well. I don't

41:08

want to hear the... happy talk

41:10

about what's already going well. I

41:12

probably know that already. So what are

41:14

the warning signs with oxide? Well, I

41:16

think in my first two years, the

41:18

big ones were, well, what about the

41:20

health of the Corps? Look, I hear

41:22

you about the innovation agenda, but

41:24

you've got more competition, you've got decelerating

41:26

revenue growth. Why should we believe that

41:28

that is that those trends aren't just

41:31

going to continue and that you have

41:33

a business that's also may kind of

41:35

shrink. And I think the good news

41:37

is that, you know, that's the kind

41:39

of thing you can talk about, you

41:41

can't, but at the end of that

41:44

you just got to prove it through

41:46

actions. And we have shown that our

41:48

net potential rate or our churn rate,

41:50

you know, has now stabilized and we're now

41:52

starting to, you know, pick up a little

41:54

bit. And, you know, that's a very positive

41:57

story, because that takes away the sort of

41:59

the downsides. scenario that people are

42:01

worried about. I think the next

42:03

one is, okay, okay, so I

42:05

hear you on all this opportunity,

42:08

but are the customers going to

42:10

eat this dog food? And, you

42:12

know, how likely are they to

42:14

adopt this? And are they going

42:17

to want to let you run

42:19

their AI on their agreements and

42:21

so on? And again, I don't,

42:23

I think you can articulate reasons

42:25

why they should believe, but at

42:28

the end of the day, there's

42:30

nothing that speaks like like, like

42:32

the dogs actually, even the dog

42:34

food. The biggest development area for

42:37

DocuSign now is to become a

42:39

real enterprise company. We sell to

42:41

Enterprises Day. Over 85% of the

42:43

4,500 use DocuSign today and it's

42:46

the same in other big markets

42:48

around the world. But you know

42:50

we are a little bit more

42:52

of a departmental level buy. It's

42:54

not like we're a CIO level

42:57

priority or have visibility in that

42:59

way. But this broader story that

43:01

we're now articulating, that's very much

43:03

an enterprise-wide C-c-c-sweet story. And there's

43:06

a lot of maturing that we

43:08

have to do as a company

43:10

to be able to fully service

43:12

that. And so I'd say to

43:14

me, that's my biggest risk going

43:17

forward is how well can we

43:19

execute on that. And you know,

43:21

the early signs are really good,

43:23

but I, years of building to

43:26

do that. I could tell you're

43:28

a salesman. It's like, you know,

43:30

one of the biggest risks we

43:32

have is being able to execute

43:34

up against the huge opportunity that

43:37

we have. There you go. Your

43:39

version of sober selling. There we

43:41

go. I love it. You know,

43:43

you do identify the issues. It's

43:46

obvious. And you don't shy away

43:48

from them. And you tell it

43:50

the way out is. You know,

43:52

when you think of yourself as

43:55

a leader, Allen, you know, how

43:57

are you, what are you pushing

43:59

yourself to do? I mean, what

44:01

are you, how are you sharpening

44:03

your acts? And what process do

44:06

you use to get it, what

44:08

you need to get better at?

44:10

Well, you know, that's a tough

44:12

question. would like to be more

44:15

introspective. I like to think of

44:17

myself as a lifelong learner and

44:19

I do think I push myself

44:21

on that but it tends to

44:23

be on the easy stuff like

44:26

you know I'm good at assimilating

44:28

new content so I'm not but

44:30

like how do I hover less

44:32

get get less involved in the

44:35

details I think if you were

44:37

to ask my team you know

44:39

I go pretty deep. And I

44:41

think, look, there's a balance there.

44:44

You want to use your time

44:46

effectively. Now, I don't think just

44:48

flying super high at 50,000 feet

44:50

is an effective leadership style. I

44:52

think you have to have the

44:55

ability to dive down deep to

44:57

really address the problem and recourse

44:59

when that's necessary. But learning to

45:01

pull back and not stay there

45:04

or not rely on or over

45:06

use that mode is. That's something

45:08

I'm still working on. I think

45:10

we all do. I mean, it

45:12

is the art of management. It

45:15

is the toughest thing of all,

45:17

you know, but I think that's

45:19

great. You know, I tell you,

45:21

Alan, this has been so much

45:24

fun and I want to have

45:26

some more with my lightning round

45:28

of questions. Are you ready for

45:30

this? Yeah, I know. All right.

45:32

What three words best describe you?

45:35

Optimistic, energetic, easy laugh. If you

45:37

could be one person for a

45:39

day beside yourself, who would it.

45:41

Probably Winston Churchill. Your biggest pet

45:44

peeve? Obfusication. Who would play you

45:46

in a movie? Well, you know,

45:48

if you're gonna be aspirational, wouldn't

45:50

we all like to be Ryan

45:53

Reynolds? What's something most people don't

45:55

know about Denmark? Well, I think

45:57

more people know it now, but

45:59

Greenland is a danger. territory. What's

46:01

a traditional Danish food that everyone

46:04

should try? The Danish pork roast

46:06

is unbelievable. I mean, Danes do

46:08

an amazing job with pork and

46:10

the Danish pork roast, they literally

46:13

leave, they crackling on top and

46:15

they cook it in the oven

46:17

and it gets all crinkly and

46:19

it's amazing. I love it. What's

46:21

the one thing you do just

46:24

for you? Look, I swim, but

46:26

that's more to stay healthy than

46:28

for enjoyment. Probably my favorite leisure

46:30

activity is play golf. I don't get

46:32

to do it very often, but I

46:35

love it. So bad, bad, but enthusiastic

46:37

golf. I look forward to playing golf

46:39

with you. Okay. What's your most prized

46:41

possession? Don't know that I, that there

46:44

are material possessions that I care

46:46

much about. Right now, probably the

46:48

most important thing to me would

46:50

be my grandson. If I turned on the

46:52

radio in the car, what would I hear? You

46:54

might hear some 70 and

46:57

70s and 80s, rhythm and

46:59

blues, soul. Like I'm a

47:01

huge Stevie Wonder fan. What's

47:03

something about you few

47:06

people would know? I

47:08

sound very American, but

47:10

I actually grew up

47:12

Denmark, but the part

47:14

that's interesting is I

47:16

originally learned to speak

47:18

British English. So we lived in

47:21

Malaysia for a year when I was

47:23

seven. So that's where I first like

47:25

to speak English. But my experience with

47:27

the American accent is that It's like

47:29

a virus. I came here when I

47:31

was 12 for three and a

47:33

half weeks stayed with some friends

47:35

of my parents and when I

47:38

left that American accent, and it's

47:40

never left me. You definitely have

47:42

an American accent, which is basically

47:44

not under the script or random

47:47

script. Okay, what's one of your

47:49

daily rituals, something that you never

47:51

miss? You mean besides checking email

47:53

and stuff? Let's see, I'm a

47:55

big news consumer. I am

47:58

compulsively checking. the

48:01

news, whether I'm on vacation or

48:03

working, I try to be engaged

48:05

in the world. That's fantastic. Now

48:08

we're out of the lighting around.

48:10

Ryan Reynolds, you did a hell

48:13

of a good job there. You

48:15

know, I've got to hear about

48:17

that from my family. They're going

48:20

to be like, you are such

48:22

a doface. You know, now you

48:24

and your wife, speaking to your

48:27

family. I believe you have four

48:29

kids, right? Or you have four

48:32

kids. And what's a best practice.

48:34

you'd share about leading at home?

48:36

Well, first of all, I'm not

48:39

sure I am leaving at home,

48:41

but to the extent that I

48:44

do, I am the family sort

48:46

of organizer and initiative taker and

48:48

those kinds of things, vagations and

48:51

so on. I try to, I

48:53

do try to lean in hard

48:56

to create memorable moments. Fantastic. And

48:58

Ellen, I mean, your big time

49:00

in the docusine now, you have

49:03

so many things that you're working

49:05

on. So, but I'll ask you

49:08

this anyway. When you look at

49:10

your life, what do you see

49:12

as your most significant unfinished business?

49:15

I mean, look, I've taken on

49:17

a big project here. I'm very

49:19

happy with the progress, but it's

49:22

definitely not a finished project. So,

49:24

um, I, look, my kids are

49:27

grown now. You know, you never

49:29

see as being a parent, but

49:31

my ability to influence their trajectory

49:34

is greatly reduced. Probably no longer

49:36

desired. So I would have said

49:39

that earlier in my life. Like

49:41

I think probably figuring out how

49:43

my wife and I are going

49:46

to spend the next 20, 25

49:48

years. quality years in a meaningful

49:51

way, that's probably the most important.

49:53

Fantastic. And last question here. What's

49:55

one piece of advice you give

49:58

to anyone who wants to be

50:00

a better leader? I think people

50:02

who sit in the ivory tower

50:05

and don't get out and people

50:07

don't see you putting yourself out

50:10

there in ways where you're taking

50:12

risk and experiencing those ups and

50:14

downs, you can't expect them to

50:17

do it for you. So I

50:19

really try to. be available and

50:22

present and engaged in risk-taking so

50:24

as to give permission and cover

50:26

to others. You know, I've done

50:29

well over 200 podcasts. I've heard

50:31

a lot of answers, but that's

50:34

the first time I've ever heard

50:36

that one. And I've heard maybe

50:38

articulate in different ways, like stay

50:41

in touch with the front line,

50:43

but being a leader that basically...

50:46

projects and emulates what you want

50:48

to have with everybody else taking

50:50

the risk and being visible in

50:53

how you do it. You know,

50:55

how do you stay visible, Alan?

50:57

What do you do to, what

51:00

do you do to lead from

51:02

the front? It gets hard. The

51:05

team gets larger, right? More dispersed.

51:07

I don't think there's, you know,

51:09

one thing, so we're doing this

51:12

over video, right, virtual. And there's

51:14

a lot you can do that

51:17

way. But... I don't think there's

51:19

any substitute for engaging in person.

51:21

And so I put a lot

51:24

of time and energy into traveling,

51:26

seeing the teams. I've been five

51:29

continents this year or this last

51:31

year here several of them many

51:33

times. And I do that not

51:36

just because I want to be

51:38

out meeting with customers and partners,

51:40

but because I feel it's important

51:43

to engage with the teams in

51:45

person and that they see you

51:48

and feel you. So that would

51:50

be my. That's fantastic Alan. And

51:52

you know, I've always believed that,

51:55

you know, people always say, who

51:57

do you invest in? And

52:00

I've always believed that you invest in

52:02

people. You invest in the people that

52:04

you think can build a business and

52:06

grow it. And this is my first

52:09

time I've ever had a chance to

52:11

talk to you. And I have to

52:13

tell you, I mean, I would invest in

52:15

a leader like you. And I

52:17

thank you very much for taking

52:19

the time to be on this

52:21

podcast. It was a lot of

52:24

fun. There was a lot of

52:26

fun and David I think you

52:28

have an amazing format and just

52:30

engaging and the fact that you're

52:32

a former CEO yourself and I

52:34

can just tell just that it

52:36

just informs your perspective and super

52:39

what a great conversation. Now

52:41

like I said you may

52:43

not think of yourself as

52:45

a salesperson but you better

52:47

put your sales cap on

52:49

because let me tell you

52:52

something. Everybody needs to learn

52:54

how to sell, especially leaders.

52:56

If you want to build

52:58

internal consensus or create a

53:00

partnership or secure funding, then

53:02

you need those persuasive skills.

53:04

And like Alan points out,

53:06

that doesn't have to mean

53:09

being inauthentic. In fact, it's

53:11

the opposite. Nobody's going to buy

53:13

anything from a phony. Sales follows

53:15

trust, which is why the most

53:18

effective sales people. are the ones

53:20

who are honest and up front

53:22

and absolutely genuine and stay true

53:24

to who they are. If you

53:26

want to level up your sales

53:29

skills, here's an idea. Grab coffee

53:31

or lunch with someone you trust

53:33

who sells for a living. Ask them

53:35

to share their advice with you. Or

53:38

better yet, watch them in action

53:40

and see what you can learn.

53:42

And I got another idea for

53:44

you. You gotta read Dale Carnegie's

53:46

book. how to win friends and

53:48

influence people. It's one of the

53:50

best selling books of all time

53:52

because believe me, Dale Carnegie knows

53:54

how to sell. So do you

53:56

want to know how leaders lead? What

53:59

we learned today. is that great leaders

54:01

know that everyone's a salesperson. Coming

54:03

up next on How Lead Is

54:05

Lead is Ken Bacon, co -founder

54:07

and managing partner at Railfield Partners,

54:09

a multi -family investment and asset management

54:11

firm. I always say they're trading

54:13

relationships but then they're real partner

54:15

relationships. A trading relationship is just

54:18

very transactional. You really don't know

54:20

the other person, it's just a

54:22

trade. But a real relationship, a

54:24

partnership is that we know each

54:26

other, yeah, we got contracts, we

54:28

have agreements, but

54:30

we trust each other. So be sure

54:32

to come back again next week to

54:34

hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for

54:36

tuning in to another episode of How

54:38

Lead Is Lead where every Thursday you

54:40

get to listen in while I interview

54:42

some of the very best leaders in

54:44

the world. I make it a point

54:46

to give you something simple on each

54:48

episode that you can apply to your

54:50

business so that you will become the

54:53

best leader that you can be.