working outside the US and in 2009 I
felt like my dream had come alive I’d
been living and working in Paris for a
few years and I loved everything about
it the food the life on the streets the
energy the language and particularly the
culture
I worked hard during the week but on the
weekends people didn’t work they used it
as a time to recharge if you put your
mobile phone on a cafe table people
would kind of look at you like something
was wrong let alone if you took out a
computer and started doing email so you
can imagine my surprise when on a
Saturday night in Paris I got a phone
call and it was a work number I answered
and to me even greater surprise someone
from my company had called and offered
me the opportunity to move to Brazil now
to put it in perspective I had never
been to Brazil I didn’t speak any
Portuguese I didn’t know anyone from
Brazil other than the person who had
called me and I knew even more so that a
lot of the people in our office didn’t
speak much English
and beyond our office most people in the
country didn’t speak much English yet
but again my dream was to live and to
work outside the US and so I jumped into
this opportunity and in 2009 I moved to
South Paulo now this was just before the
Olympics were announced and the economy
was booming everybody was really excited
that things in Brazil were changing and
changing for the better but I realized
that one of the reasons why I was
invited to go to that and take the
opportunity in Brazil was that to team
there needed some fresh perspectives I
remember my first day on the job though
I was in a big meeting it was an all day
review of all the elements of our
business and traditionally the meeting
was done in Portuguese of course I was
the new boss and people wanted to try
and accommodate and be inclusive and so
they tried to speak some English but it
was hard they did and they kind of
struggled to the meeting at one point I
remember even thinking I’m gonna sneak
out and go to the restroom and as soon
as I stood up everyone noticed I was
leaving and they switched back to
Portuguese I realized that wasn’t going
to work I knew that language was going
to be a big issue for my time in Brazil
after a few months or actually even
they’ve even asked over a few weeks I
started to realize that things were
getting better in the office but I was
nervous about going outside the office
was nervous about going out and visiting
customers yet that nervousness didn’t
didn’t last long
suddenly a CEO of a large retail company
located in a really rural part of Brazil
had heard that I had moved to Brazil and
he really wanted to meet of course I
couldn’t refuse I asked my team if he
spoke English and they kind of sort of
laughed at me in the kind of fun way
that Brazilians do to say you know that
that’s definitely not gonna happen so I
took the challenge I went to this really
rural town and there wasn’t much there
but there was a very lively Main Street
and there was a big retail shop that
sold electronics and computers and
that’s the place where I was going I
walked to the back of the shop through
all the different things that they were
selling and it was a little tiny
conference room that was incredibly hot
with no air-conditioning I was in a full
suit and tie there’s a plate of kind of
fresh Brazilian fruits on the table but
it was really hot then the door swung
open and this large gentleman with a big
grey beard came and he was wearing a
short sleeve shirt and he just gave me
this big hug and had this huge smile on
and you could tell that he was really
glad I was there so he sat down and we
started the meeting and he began
explaining mostly in Portuguese but what
was business challenge was and how he
was hoping that technology could maybe
help him in some new ways he was talking
in Portuguese but he was so expressive
and of course I brought someone with me
from my team who I was hoping could help
translate she had promised but quickly
she realized he was speaking so fast
they would be very hard to keep up so I
just sat there and listened I listened
intently I focused on what this person
was saying I focused on their facial
expressions I focused on their body
language and how he was moving and I
couldn’t quite understand all the
content but what I could tell was he was
very frustrated so in fact that’s the
first thing I said and my colleague
consequently translated I said literally
I can feel that you’re frustrated and
immediately his face lit up again he was
so happy he started using a few more
English words and he started expressing
in more and more ways the challenges
that he was facing at the end of the
conversation what I learned was that he
felt that someone had listened to him
even though I didn’t speak the language
I was so focused on trying to understand
what he was saying that he felt I had
listened he said most people that come
to meet with him are there talking a lot
and
trying to sell things but that they’re
not there to listen and as a result of
my listening
he felt respected he felt that we could
build trust together and he felt that we
could have a professional relationship
and that was a successful meeting so I
ran back to the office and I was so
excited and I told my team what had
happened and I said let’s go do more of
these let’s go have more conversations
with different kinds of customers and
see what else we can learn in fact one
of our founder of my company has a very
famous quote on this concept of
listening and that sometimes employees
who are the most unaccustomed sewer the
most unhappy can be some of your
greatest source of learning and that
definitely proved true in this case not
only in that one meeting but in several
meetings like it we learned so much that
we changed our entire strategy for how
we’re going to market in Brazil new
campaigns new advertising new creatives
fun social events and it changed the
perception of what my product line was
and our brand was in the market in fact
it was such a success that we took
Brazil from the 6th to the 3rd largest
market in the world for PCs in two years
we went through hyper growth people
started wanting a car first as they got
some income in Brazil and second they
wanted a PC we were able to ride that
momentum and really help build and grow
a business and I was this hero but all I
really did was listen and sit down and
listen to our customers and what it was
they had to say 2012
I moved to Hong Kong I had always been
fascinated by Hong Kong I love big
cities and one of the most exciting
things about Hong Kong is this mix of
East and West because in some cases
people are speaking English and it’s
very clean the streets and proper kind
of British structured society and the
other side sometimes the other side of
town or even the other side of the
street it’s people are speaking Chinese
and they’re running around and it’s a
lot more hectic and chaotic and a huge
sense of energy I loved that mix of East
and West but I was there for work and
again on my first day on the job it
wasn’t an easy one I remember an email
that came in early that morning that
said country performance in Asia and
Hong Kong was ranked 14 out of 14 out of
all the countries where we have
significant presence in Asia it was the
worst performing business unit in the
world
so I had to begin somewhere and I
started with a listening tour and I went
out and I scheduled filled up my Outlook
calendar with probably close to a
hundred meetings one-on-one meetings
with team members and with colleagues to
sit down and to ask them their opinion
on what could be different this was
incredibly unusual and everybody was
talking about the new boss for a few
reasons one I was breaking hierarchy I
was sometimes going to different people
in the organization without even
speaking to their manager first second
when I sat down I wasn’t telling in my
opinion on what we should be doing but I
was asking about them I was asking about
their careers and what they had learned
and their observations and what I
learned was that there were so many
great ideas but often there were people
who weren’t in the right role or they
weren’t set up to contribute in the
right way or perhaps sometimes the
hierarchy limited people hearing their
voices but when I sat down to listen I
learned enough great ideas to build a
plan for how to go fix the business when
I didn’t fully appreciate it at that
time also was they just by listening I
was earning the respect and eventually
the trust of the people that I would
work with to help make the plan
successful
I used this image because during the
time that I was in Hong Kong there were
also large protest movement of the
students who were challenging the
government because they felt that the
government wasn’t listening to them and
they put these post-its on a part of the
city with their opinions and beliefs to
try and encourage the government to
listen to them very well connected later
I moved to Beijing now Beijing and
mainland China as we call it in Hong
Kong had always seemed like the ultimate
adventure and in Beijing I loved the
culture and so much that was happening
the traditional nature of what was going
on there but I was assigned a very big
task I was assigned to create a separate
new division for my company in a world
that was very different from what we had
been doing and selling otherwise so far
in China and I got to build my own team
of sales and marketing and product
management a customer support and
engineering and all the different
functions and treat it kind of like an
incubated business unit to see if that
we could do things differently it was
hard but my second challenge was a
little bit even more challenging and in
some ways more fun and it was to be a
sponsor for a millennial work force we
hiring and retaining so many great fresh
talents coming from University and MBA
programs but the question was how could
we make that experience better how could
we help encourage them to stay even
longer and to make sure that they had
the skills to be really successful and
contribute to the company I took both
jobs very seriously and both of them
helped really inform my experience in
China I still remember my first meeting
on that first day and it was to a large
manufacturing customer now in China you
can imagine there are a lot of
manufacturing companies this one was
located in a pretty big city and they
had very big plant and I sat down with
CEO of this company and she was so
excited to meet and so excited to meet
someone who maybe had some perspectives
different than the people she met with
in China and she told me about this
situation she was facing she said you
know business has been good in China we
have a lot of demand for our
manufactured products but increasingly
there’s more and more competition and as
a result of the competition our
customers aren’t coming back to us
they’re going to our competition and
buying from them and what worried her
more was that she was losing the
feedback from our customers about what
it would take to make products that were
good for the long-term and how to evolve
for product portfolio what I realized
was that she needed customer loyalty she
needs to find a way to create engagement
with her customers so that they would
come back the second big situation she
talked about was and her employees she
said she had a great work force but that
she would train and invest in them and
then they would often go and work for
someone else
sometimes just even for a little bit
more money and she said all her great
investment in training but sometimes
just walk out the door and as I’ve
reflected on that I reflected on the
same importance of loyalty and that
loyalty was what she needed to create
with her customers as well as with her
employees it was very clear that there
was a connection between the two but if
that’s what she needed what I didn’t yet
know was how would I help her make it
happen
listening was what I reflected on as a
possible solution and as I started
talking and were thinking about my own
experiment writing notes about those
meetings and I reflected on my
experience in Brazil and in Hong Kong
and other places I realized that Brazil
helped teach me how to listen to
customers Hong Kong helped teach me how
to listen to employees and in China I
was starting
find that I was teaching other
businesses and other business leaders
how to do both that there’s a strong
connection because when you deeply
listen to someone you hopefully earn
their respect and they feel that you
understand them and when you earn their
respect you can earn trust and Trust is
the foundation of a relationship and
that’s how you can build an ongoing
relationship with anyone that you’re
working with or that you’re spending
time with China it worked it worked for
us in a big way we found a way to
connect between customers and employees
as I reflected so much of the
conversations I was having I was writing
and we started writing some articles and
notes and eventually I wrote a whole
book about what was happening in China
and the connection between employees and
customers when I looked around the world
at examples where there was good
engagement for companies of one or the
other I found that they were often
linked that there was strong engagement
with employees that when costant when
companies created a culture where they
listened to employees those employees
are motivated to go out and listen to
customers because if a customer has a
good idea or feedback or suggestion then
you’re eager to go run and tell your
manager about what you heard from the
customer but if you don’t feel like
there’s that culture of listening in
your company like your managers aren’t
going to listen to the feedback that
you’re hearing from customers they don’t
work so there’s this very strong
connection between creating a culture of
listening both for employees and for
customers and it worked in China in our
first year alone we became the fastest
growing division for my company and
continued from there we were hiring
great people they wanted to stay on the
team and our customers in the market saw
we were doing saw how we were using
technology and they wanted to learn from
us sometimes people ask me the
difference between hearing and listening
and to me it’s very clear hearing is
something that we do so often in our
lives we might listen to headphones and
we’re hearing music we’re hearing sounds
around us we might overhear voices on a
train or on the streets but it’s a
passive exercise listening is something
that’s active it requires focus it
requires attention and so I encourage
all of you whether you’re speaking to a
a team member or a colleague coach a
manager a friend a family member a
teacher
it’s an opportunity to step back and to
close your laptop to put your phone away
and to look at the person you’re
speaking to and to intently and actively
listen I believe that there’s an
incredible opportunity in the world for
better listeners that in a world where
people are better listeners we can have
deeper understanding even when people
disagree a world where people understand
different perspectives is a world I want
to live in and I hope you’ll agree it
can lead to a better world thank you [Applause]