Hubert Joly
Hubert Joly is chairman and CEO of Best Buy Co. Inc., the leading provider of consumer technology products and services, with approximately 125,000 employees in North America and more than $40 billion in annual revenue. Mr. Joly joined Best Buy in 2012, and led the company through its much publicized Renew Blue transformation. The transformation resulted in improvements in customer satisfaction, market share gains, revenue growth, and improved margins. Now, Mr. Joly is leading Best Buy into its next phase, Best Buy 2020: Building the New Blue. In this new chapter, Best Buy is driven by a clear purpose: to help customers pursue their passions and enrich their lives with the help of technology.
Prior to joining Best Buy, Mr. Joly was CEO of Carlson, a global hospitality and travel company. Before that, he led Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Vivendi Universal Games, and Electronic Data Systems’ business in France. He serves on the board of directors of several nonprofits and corporations, including Ralph Lauren Corp. Mr. Joly was awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian distinction, in 2017.
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I am an avid skier who likes to ski with an instructor; I am an enthusiastic tennis player who regularly works with a tennis coach. I use a coach in both sports not just because I want to get to the front of the lift line or reserve a better court, but because I want to get better at two things I love to do. Oddly, though, it took me a long time to begin working with an executive coach. In fact, if you had told me earlier in my career that a fellow executive was using a coach I might have asked about it, and certainly would have thought, “What is wrong with that guy? What problem does he have?”
My disinterest in personally engaging a coach stemmed from my struggle with feedback. I had sat through the experience many times of receiving three or four examples of what I was doing well, only to have it be followed by areas I needed to work on. I would always appreciate the first bit of feedback and happily agree with it. It was, not surprisingly, the part of the conversation involving personal development opportunities that I didn’t like very much. In fact, my reaction was to be defensive and try to find what was wrong with the people offering such advice. Clearly, these people did not understand me or simply did not agree with me! I was good at rationalizing (and rejecting) their feedback, finding it painful and not fun. It is fair to say that I did not do much with these development opportunities. On the occasion where I did act on the feedback, it was without any joy or real enthusiasm.
All this changed in 2010. I give credit to my then head of HR at Carlson, Elizabeth Bastoni, who introduced me to Marshall Goldsmith. She had worked with him when she was in HR at the Coca-Cola Company. Marshall is, of course, one of the foremost, if not the foremost, executive coaches in the world. One thing that was exciting was that he was actually working with a bunch of other successful executives. In fact, Marshall specializes in helping successful people get even better, a specialty that helped me overcome my disinterest in and distaste for coaching.
Marshall has written a book entitled, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There.1 At the beginning of the book, he lists the 20 quirks of successful people. If I remember correctly, I exhibited 13 out of 20. They included the notion of thinking I had to be the smartest guy in the room or often adding too much value to a particular discussion or meeting. His correct assessment was that I frequently wanted to make sure people understood how smart I was and how much I could add. So, I was clearly ripe for help. What followed this epiphany was my discovery of the amazing process Marshall uses.
It starts with 360-degree feedback. He talks to the people you are working with, the people who report to you, and your board of directors. Marshall does a great job distilling their feedback and gives you two documents that he sends you separately. One document has all of the things you are doing great. He tells you to read this first and appreciate it. He then sends a second document composed of your opportunities. Now, this process does not look very different from the earlier feedback scenarios I described where you hear three things you are doing well and three things you need to work on. The only difference lies in what Marshall tells you to do next: He says, simply, you decide what you want to work on; you make the choice. This framing is brilliant because, in a sense, he makes it not about fixing a problem, but about deciding to get better at something.
In tennis, I decided a long time ago that I wanted to get better at my forehand, and in skiing, I wanted to be better in the deep powder. There is always something you want to get better at and, for me, deciding that I wanted to work on this feedback – as opposed to being told I needed to – made a huge difference.
One of the reasons I was ready to accept this change was that, over the years, I have worked with a friend, Brother Samuel, a monk in the congregation of St. John. He helped me understand that the search for perfection, whether in your personal or professional life, is evil. Though he was referencing the biblical story of the fallen angel who thought he was perfect and did not need anyone’s help, this framework helped me appreciate that I had vulnerabilities and could be loved for them, not in spite of them. As importantly, appreciating and even coming to love my colleagues’ vulnerabilities was a critical component of this spiritual journey for me.
Continuing in Marshall’s process: Once you decide what you want to work on, you then communicate that to your colleagues, either as a group or one-on-one. You start by thanking them for all the great things they have said about you and, importantly, you do not talk about the criticisms. Instead, you say, “Thank you for your feedback and, against that backdrop, these are the things I have decided to work on.”
You then share the three things you are going to work on. In fact, I write them down and give them to my team as a prelude to asking them for their help and/or advice. A few months later, I check in and ask colleagues how I am doing. The obvious benefit of checking in is that you will likely receive more feedback or advice. With this in mind, I will say things like: “So, how am I doing on this?” Or, “Do you have any advice for me?” When you get this additional feedback, listen, shut up, and express gratitude. Don’t be defensive. Remember, the good thing about feedback is that you do not need to do anything with it. You are the decider. In fact, you do not even need to agree with the feedback. You just say, “Thank you.”
Checking in with colleagues has another positive result: Knowing you are going to ask for feedback on your progress is a good incentive to actually do something. As Marshall’s process reflects, human beings need structure. This reminds me of the apocryphal story regarding the difference between a pilot and a surgeon. A pilot always goes through a checklist before taking off or landing. Surgeons may or may not go through a similar checklist, including perhaps not even washing their hands as well as they should. Why do each of these professionals treat a checklist differently? For the pilot, if they do not go through the checklist, they may die. For the doctor, if he or she does not go through the checklist, then the patient may die. That’s a big difference and illustrates why, in the absence of possibly dire consequences, we often need structure. Marshall’s process provides this kind of structure and allows you to rinse and repeat, getting better and better. Remember, there is no such thing as being done with coaching. Just ask tennis champion Roger Federer, who still has a coach help him with his swing!
There is one last benefit of checking in that I learned from Marshall. What he explained was that changing behaviors is actually easier than changing people’s perceptions of your behavior. Let’s imagine I am working on not being rude in meetings. If, over the next six months, I succeed in not being rude and then ask how you think I have been doing, you will probably say something like: “Well, come to think about it, in the last six months I don’t recall you being rude in meetings.” This particular advantage is twofold. First, I get feedback on how I am doing. Second, and as importantly, I remind you that I have changed for the better, as opposed to allowing you to potentially remember only the previous, rude behavior.
So, what are the lessons I have learned from my coaching experience?
I no longer believe my role is to be the smartest person in the room, but instead, I understand that my role is to create an environment in which others can blossom, flourish, and do great things. I have learned to accept my vulnerabilities as well as others’ vulnerabilities.
I have also learned that decisions get made by decision makers and that I should be at peace with the fact that this is not always me. This is a key point because, as a smart, high-charging individual, you want to be in charge of everything. No! Decisions get made by the decision makers. Get used to that and remember that, sometimes, your role is to convince people of your idea or vision. If you are not able to convince them, that is your problem, not theirs.
In summary, learning with the help of an executive coach is something I wish I had discovered sooner. Fortunately, I was already working with one when I joined Best Buy five years ago. Only four months after joining, I told my new team I was going to ask Marshall to come in and talk to them so I could continue being the best leader I could be. I explained that turning around Best Buy would require all of us to be the best leaders we could be, starting with me. It was for that reason that I was asking for their help. Indirectly, of course, what I also signaled to my colleagues was that working on your own development was okay, a lesson it is never too late to learn.