Lessons from Venus!

 

I had the chance recently to attend the annual general meeting held by Butterfly Equity, the PE firm that I have worked closely with over the past 5+ years when we bought Bolthouse Farms back from Campbell’s.  I am proud of the Butterfly team and their incredible growth and am very proud to serve on the board of the Butterfly Equity Foundation whose focus is to support non-profits in greater Los Angeles in nutrition security, food as medicine, and increasing healthy food access in underserved communities.  To see more about Butterfly Equity or the foundation, see: https://www.bfly.com)

 

While the meeting this year was primarily focused on the growth and success of Butterfly Equity broadly, and the specific performance of its companies, it was a real treat to get to see the guest speaker, Venus Williams, share her thoughts and learning from across her incredible career in Tennis and in life.  Venus was very gracious and candidly very humble as she spoke to the crowd and as she answered questions that came from the audience.  Here are few specific Q&A “moments” that struck me as deeply true and incredibly applicable in business and life today:

 

Ø  “Challenges”: An early question had to do with the incredible amount and breadth of “challenges” that Venus had to deal with across her youth, her playing career, and today as an entrepreneur.  How did she handle them and what advice would she give for those facing challenges in their businesses today.

 

o   Venus responded, ” you don’t want to ask for fewer challenges… you ask for and work on building more skills.”  She NEVER stopped trying to get better at Tennis, and she worked on that objective every day for decades!  That I idea that we all should focus ourselves and our teams on “building skills” every day for decades is a powerful inspiration!  Our businesses and our companies WILL face more challenges ahead, and we can’t just wish them away.  

 

Ø  “Pressure” : a  question from the audience had to do with how she and her sister Serena handled the pressure of growing up and training so hard from very early ages to excel at tennis and what does she think about the pressure facing on kids today.

 

o   Venus responded that “pressure was a privilege” in her mind and that “kids without pressure won’t be ready for life.”  I won’t focus on the parenting lesson in this comment (though I deeply agree with Venus on this one!!) but we must convert our thinking and the headsets of the key leaders in our organizations to take this idea on… how to think that “pressure is a privilege.”  Every business I know is facing a wide array of pressures every day, and rarely (ok, never!) have I thought about them as a “privilege” personally… but the power of building the strength and grit of an organization is built on that simple idea…and ALL organizations would benefit from building “grit!”

 

 

Ø  “Legacy”: Now this topic is close to home for yours truly… having written a blog

 (“Find Your Legacy”) on this topic since 2009 and have been speaking about this topic since the time my grandmother died in 1998!  

 

o   As Venus was wrapping up her comments, she shared her thoughts about where she was in her life today and what she thought her “Legacy” was as of today.   She commented that “Legacy was about what you can give… not what you take” in life and that she wasn’t done “giving.”  I loved the response to remind all of us that we aren’t done leaving an impact in life … leaving a legacy… and whether you are a world renowned Tennis star, a business leader, or a simple attendee at a great meeting in Southern California ( referring to yours truly) we all have the chance to haven an impact, leave a legacy, on those we connect with today or in the days to come!

 

 

I hope that a few of these ideas/inspirations from Venus’s talk connect with you personally and that you can see ways to apply them in your work ahead.  Work to think about how they may apply to your personally, and then think of applications for your team/teams broadly.

“Someday, with your help…. maybe, just maybe ... we can be bigger than K-mart!”

  

 

Across my almost 40-year career, I have seen quite a few changes in business, industries and technology.  In college, my first computer experience was in an era pre-PC where we used punch cards to “write” out commands for programs to run on a mainframe computer in a city hundreds of miles away… transmitted by analog phones in a cradle.  Equally, I have had the chance to meet, work with, and call on a wide variety of business luminaries across the decades and the quote that is the title of this essay comes from the one and only Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart.

 

It was 1986 and I was working as a Marketing Assistant for Kimberly Clark.  Based at HQ in Neenah Wisconsin, I had the chance to work with a wide variety of the senior execs at KC during those days and was working directly for one of my personal mentors, Bruce Paynter.     Bruce passed away from ALS in 2009, and I have written a number of essays about Bruce, and they are listed in the archive to the left of the home page for this blog.  Take a few minutes and read about the lessons I learned from him over the years.

 

Getting back to the mid-80’s and my experience with Sam Walton.  I was part of a team of KC managers and execs (led by Ralph Buckingham, the bigger than life President of sales for KC) who went down to Bentonville Arkansas to meet with this relatively small southern retailer… Walmart.  Now by then, Walmart had over 800 discount stores (over 10,000 total stores today) and had not yet opened its first supercenter.  The original discount store was a small discount department store that sold no food, produce, dairy, or traditional grocery items and offered a very limited selection of Kimberly Clark products.  A regional customer for KC for sure, but not in the top 10 list of national accounts (and probably not top 20 either!!)  Regardless of its size, and seemingly insignificant prowess, we went down to Bentonville for my first ever “top-to top” customer meetings.

 

While I don’t remember too many details of the meetings and all the topics covered, the final conversation led by Sam Walton himself is one that will never be forgotten.  He and his team walked us through their future plans to build and expand the brand-new store concept… the Walmart Supercenter. (the first Supercenter was opened in Missouri in 1987) He described it as two stores in one… a discount store on one side and a grocery store on the other… both sides fueled by the  same “everyday low prices” consumer promise.   While an interesting topic, it all seemed pretty fanciful and hard to believe.  Sam Walton finished his pitch by asking KC, just like he was personally asking a number of other prominent CPG companies (P&G, Kraft, General Mills, Coke, Nabisco, to name a few) to put members of THEIR team in Bentonville to work directly with the Walmart team…. so “someday with your help, maybe, just maybe we can be bigger than K-Mart.”

 

I still remember those exact words and the stunned silence of out KC team.  K-mart was one of, if not the largest of Kimberly Clark’s customers in 1986 and it was IMPOSSIBLE to imagine that Sam Walton’s dream (vision/fantasy/mirage/etc.) could ever come to life.  We politely finished the meeting and went out into the parking lot of Walmart’s HQ… which was literally the old Bentonville High School.  I remember the team laughed and was sure that this Arkansas retailer would NEVER be bigger than K-mart and that we could NEVER imagine putting a KC sales exec in that town, dedicated to working with Walmart.  If memory serves, Ralph Buckingham did decide to put a sales exec on Walmart to keep an eye on things but moved them to Memphis (over 300 miles from Bentonville.)

 

I share this story today for a few reasons:  

#1) I was triggered to capture this in writing by the announcement that the last K-mart in America is closing this month…. pictured above.  Not only is Walmart definitively bigger than K-mart, but they are also the largest retailer in the world by a mile!  

#2) Secondly, as a young marketing assistant in 1986, I wasn’t sure who was right in that Arkansas parking lot.  Sam Walton had big ideas and big dreams and was asking for our help…. and I had a sense that we could help him and the folks at Walmart.  The KC execs were so SURE that his vision was nothing more than a pipe dream or a fantasy… but didn’t completely dismiss him or them either.  I learned an early lesson (repeated numerous times across my career, most notably at Blockbuster, see https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gravity-of-blockbuster.html) that while “Change is Certain, Progress is not,” … no one can forecast the moments of massive transformation when “Change” morphs into “Progress”. 

 

#3) Finally, I have learned a ton across my career and am working hard today to keep adding to those important lessons.  In life and in business we operate in the “forward/drive” gear… there is no reverse.  Remember, we have an infinite INABILITY to change yesterday, but an infinite ABILITY to affect tomorrow!  Try hard to take the lessons of your past… or lessons you are learning today… and work hard to apply them to make tomorrow better than yesterday and “maybe, just maybe we can be bigger than K-mart!”

 

 

 

 

Leaders, remember… your “Words” matter!!

 

 

Over the years, I have posted numerous essays that focus on the impact of leaders and leadership across organizations large and small.  I had had the honor to lead small teams (2-3 team members as a brand manager at Kraft Foods) and large companies (3000+ team members as President & COO of Bolthouse Farms) and have learned a ton on that leadership journey.  As I wrote years ago in the essay (“Authenticity, the foundation of leadership”, https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/06/authenticity-foundation-of-leadership.html), the alignment between the “words” and “actions” of a leader are closely watched and deeply important.  The concept of leaders working to stay close to the “rail of authenticity” that I describe in that essay is still a foundational idea that I share with leaders all the time.  The “alignment” (and at times the “misalignment) of a leader’s words & actions can be at the core of an organization running effectively and being led well ... or the opposite.  Additionally, I have written a number of essays (one titled “Our Actions Betray Our Intent,"https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2017/06/our-actions-betray-our-intent.html ) describing how the alignment between “words & actions” are always reviewed or “watched” very carefully by organizations and ultimately a leader’s actions are scrutinized and “tell the tale” of what the leader really thinks is important or where her/his priorities truly lie.

In this context, I am currently overwhelmed (and angered) by the widespread mendacity 

mendacity, (noun) 

1.     the quality of being mendacious; untruthfulness; tendency to lie. 

2.    an instance of lying; falsehood. 

of prominent leaders across the business, media, and political landscapes.  This isn’t just a little bit of “spin control” here and there, but the outright disregard of the truth, and the comfort in creating, communicating, and spreading lies… often dangerous and felonious lies… is a trait in our current culture that needs to be called out and stamped out broadly!   For leaders of organizations of any shape, nature or size, this is trait of “public mendacity” is unacceptable and one not to be modeled… it is a trait to be fought!  I have chosen just a few examples that follow to bring this trend into sharp relief.  I will limit the direct quotes to a minimum not to further spread mistruths, but will share enough to illuminate the idea, and you the reader can do further research to validate the content.

 

“Mendacity in Business”

 

While the private sector is unfortunately full of examples of CEO’s (and many other senior leaders) “misrepresenting” the truth, you need to look no further than Elizabeth Holmes and her actions as the CEO of the disgraced firm Theranos.  Her lies about the efficacy of her testing technology, combined with her falsification of key financial records landed her (and other Theranos executives) under criminal investigation that lead to Ms. Holmes being found guilty of numerous felonies, now serving a 9+ yr prison term.  Leaders, remember … YOUR words matter!

 

“Mendacity in Media”

 

Again, as above there are numerous instances where key media leaders create, communicate and knowingly broadly share complete falsehoods to millions and at times billions of readers/listeners/followers.  One current & extreme example is Elon Musk, owner of the platform formally called twitter.  In a recent post, he shared the falsehood that Great Britain was building some type of “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands… a complete falsehood.  While he ultimately took that post down (which he seems to be doing very often recently) it had almost 2 million views before it was taken down; while this instance of 2 million seems huge, the scope and impact of his privately owned media platform regularly generates billions of views of other posts equally untrue.  Leaders, remember … YOUR words matter!

 

 

“Mendacity in Politics”

 

Now this is a complicated and “touchy” space but one that needs to be called out… now more than ever.  Politics and political campaigns have always been an environment of hyperbole, exaggeration and “spin” and the American political landscape has been messy from the beginning.  There are famous allegations in the 1800 presidential race between Adams and Jefferson of one candidate alleging the other was the “devil” and even had a forked tail!  While a bit nutty in hindsight, still a clear falsehood.  In today’s race the falsehoods are uglier, and much more dangerous and I want to specifically reference the lies told by a certain republican V.P. candidate about the citizens of Springfield Ohio.  I am disgusted and offended by his rhetoric about certain legal residents of that city (as is the Republican Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine) the audacity of the candidate knows no bounds.  He recently admitted that his allegations were untrue and suggested that it was fine for political leaders to knowingly share lies in order to get the attention of the media…. incredible!!  In what insane and distorted reality was someone taught that it was ok to spread lies about communities (lies that have led to numerous bomb threats and other public dangers) in order to garner public attention…unacceptable and dangerous traits like these need to be called out and repudiated!  Leaders, remember … YOUR words matter!

 

I will close my “mendacity examples” and refocus us on the important role and impact of leaders.  Leadership is hard, and no leader always makes the right calls.  You try hard, gather the facts, weigh your options and make your decisions the best way you know how… but you do so aligned to the TRUTH!  Leader’s “words & actions” are so closely watched that to treat them unknowingly, or carelessly is dangerous and will have an impact.  Leaders losing the guardrails and framework of truth and knowingly working from and spreading falsehoods is beyond cavalier and unacceptable… it is dangerous and at times criminal.  Reflect on what you see around you today and work hard to NOT follow the path of some of the leaders I shared above, but to be an example to your organizations of a leader who is working hard for their “words & actions” to stay as aligned to truth and reality as possible!

Optimize your resume... and remember "D/P/A" and "ATS"!

 It may seem odd that someone at my career point ( 39+ years of a business career and "retired" as of Feb 2024) would pass along advice about resume building.  While admittedly a bit out of norm, I have had a number of experiences over the past few months that has brought this topic into sharp relief.  A number of "young friends" ( no names in this essay, but all under 30 and all focused intently on job searches) have been working to apply to a myriad of jobs, all posted on line, and working to have their resume cut through the crowded online ( and often Linked In) landscape. 

 A few of these "friends" have applied to roles where there are literally hundreds of others who have applied for the same job on-line... think about it... trying to have your resume "fight" its way to the top of that list.... no small feat!  I am proud to say that a number of these "friends" have actually worked their way through that crazy landscape and have landed offers, roles, and key interviews for some very exciting companies/roles... and all have worked hard to make their resumes really work hard in that challenging competitive world.  With these examples in mind, I want to pass along two thoughts that may be helpful as you work to "optimize your resume."

"Remember "D/P/A:

A number of years ago I posted an essay focused on branding and brand differentiation.  This essay, titled "D/P/A:  a model for Marketplace Differentiation," ( you can find it by typing "Differentiation" into the search function at the left on homepage of this blog) was focused on the three key principles of brand differentiation that I was taught in my early marketing roles at The Coca Cola Company.  For a brand to compete, thrive and grow in a competitive marketplace, a marketer needed to remember the following three concepts, captured in the acronym "D/P/A:"

D: “Distinctive:” the job of the marketer was to work ceaselessly to find “distinctive” insights/concepts/messages/images to break through that clutter and create a “distinctive” spot in the landscape.  Your job with your brand was to ensure that you were NOT the same as other offerings ... you were competing against "sameness," not just Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc.  This concept must be translated to you and your resume in the same way... how are you distinctive ...what parts of your backgound, education or work experiences make you truly unique?? Your job is to ensure that those elements come to life in your resume as job #1.

P: “Preferred.” When I say, “preferred”, I mean that we need to be “preferred” vs. competitive alternatives by the “core user” and the “primary shopper/purchaser” for our business/brand.  Put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes and ask yourself... what are they looking for?? what do they need?? what candidate/resume would be preferred by them??  All of these questions are key as you think about your resume and your need to "tailor" it to each new role.  Each resume you post for each job needs to be edited/adjusted/optimized to try to be "preferred" for the role in question.

A: Advantaged. This final element pushes us to look at then entire “value chain” for a brand/business, to insure that we have a brand that is “advantaged” vs. competition.  How are you and your resume "advantaged" vs the other folks (potentially hundreds) also competing for that same role

Use the "D/P/A" model as you work to optimize your resumes ... I know it will help you be a stronger candidate and cut thought the competitive clutter.  While I recommend this model as a key foundation for stronger resumes, it means nothing if it fails to get through the "ATS" filter!

"Remember ATS"

ATS, or "Applicant Tracking System" is a AI powered tool used by a growing majority of hiring companies to manage the interview/hiring process. A recent post on "Jobscan" described it as:

What is an ATS?

An ATS is a computer software program that manages the hiring process. It does this by collecting and sorting thousands of resumes. Hiring managers can then screen candidates using the ATS, as well as track their progress through the hiring process. By digitizing the hiring process in this way, an ATS saves employers time and money. 

Here is link to a video that gives some great advice in this space:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jQwXfsOds4.  This reality that an "ATS" AI powered tool will do the first screening of your resume REQUIRES you to ensure that your resume not only works in ATS, but tells YOUR "D/P/A" story in the ATS landscape.  I had an unusual experience personally in this area that brought this idea to life.

Now that I am "retired" from Bolthouse Farms, I am getting calls to do some consulting...which on the whole is great!  For one client, a global consulting firm, I had to upload my bio into their portal as part of their onboarding process.  I didn't think much about that process until I was asked to "check" to see if their "ATS" tool had captured my bio accurately.  To my shock and concern, it was ALL WRONG!  I didn't receive my MBA from The College of Wooster ( that was a BA from Wooster, and an MBA from Vanderbilt) and my last job WASN'T as Chief Customer Officer for Kimberly Clark ( where I worked as a Marketing Assistant from 1985-1987, and I am proud to say that my last role was as  President and Chief Operating Officer of Bolthouse Farms! ) The reality is that it didn't matter what my bio was TRYING to show, all that mattered was what the ATS tool did in reality show.  Use the advice in the video above, or one of the tools (below)that were featured in a May 2024 blog essay on "Zapier" to help you build a strong, "D/P/A" driven resume that ROCKS through an ATS portal!!

The 5 best AI resume builders

• Teal for tracking multiple job applications

• Enhancv for building with an AI assistant

• Kickresume for generating a resume from scratch

• Resume Worded for leveraging your LinkedIn profile

• ResumeNerd for adapting your resume as you browse jobs

“Momentum”: a powerful dynamic in business and politics

 

 

 

Let’s start by saying that we are living in a moment of a real shift in “momentum.”  Wherever your politics may lie (and mine lie in the landscape where I am VERY excited about the current “momentum” shift of the democratic ticket) it is clear that something big has happened to change the momentum of the Harris/Walz ticket since President Biden chose to not run for office again on 7/21/24…. literally just 25 days ago!  Regardless of my excitement and enthusiasm, this moment has caused me to reflect on the nature of “momentum” and different approaches we could take to understand it and to take action to affect it not solely in the political landscape. 

 

The formula is age-old and pretty simple… an entity at rest has a certain size or mass…and when it is put into motion at a certain velocity… that combination of mass*velocity produces momentum.  While the formula is simple and straightforward, a little decomposition is helpful.  The size/mass of an entity is a bid deal in this equation.  An “entity’s” size, scale, or mass really matters here… think about a small object (pebble) vs a large object ( a car)… or to go farther think about a very small object ( grain of sand) vs a very large object ( Boeing 757) the size matter to what energy is requires to get the entity moving.  This is an important idea to consider when YOU may want/need to change the momentum of something you are dealing with.  In our current political landscape, the momentum was declining for the democrats coming into the summer and a major action…. a big burst of energy was needed to change the momentum of the race… President Biden’s announcement on 7/21/24 was just that sort of bombshell… it was a big “velocity” driver that began moving the mass of the electorate and in less than 4 weeks has dramatically changed the momentum of the upcoming election.

 

The current political landscape is quite a case study, this also aligns well to my experience in business.  In 2019, I was fortunate to be part of a small team that had the chance to buy Bolthouse Farms “back” from the Campbell Soup Company.  I had been part of the team that sold it to them in 2012, and after leaving in 2015, the business went into a dramatic decline.  By 2019, the business was a mess… topline sales declining by double digit rates, bottom-line profitability declining even faster.  Bolthouse Farms is a large company with thousands of employees, numerous facilities and at that moment in early 2019 quite a mess.  We KNEW that by “buying it back”, it would take an incredible amount of energy to “turn the ship” and rebuild positive momentum.  What we didn’t know at that moment in June of 2019 when we closed on the deal was that Covid-19 was around the corner.  That global pandemic provided more unexpected challenges but pushed us to put even more effort and energy into the business of regaining positive topline and bottom-line momentum!  The business today is very strong and has a lot of momentum across the board… but the energy and effort to move that “mass” was incredible in reflection.

 

I think its pretty clear how the idea of “momentum” comes to life in politics and business, and the significant effort it can take to “change” the momentum of a situation going in the wrong direction… when the momentum of something is negative and possibly worsening, it is vital to act immediately and apply maximum effort to change the trajectory of the entity in motion… one must act immediately with maximum effort.  What is not so clear is what to do when the momentum is good/strong and going in the right direction.  What is the key to keeping the business/ political situation on the right path and maybe even gaining “more” momentum?  Let’s look back at the formula above for some insights here.  In my experience, “P” (Momentum) is not static… it is not a steady/constant/guaranteed idea. 

 “P” is a dynamic reality always moving and as a business or political reality grows and gains success, it actually increases its mass (“M”) and without an increase in velocity (“V”), momentum (“P”) actually reduces.  This reality reminds us that the better we do, and the larger we grow… the MORE energy we need to exert to keep that growth and success going.  

 

It may seem exhausting, but across my career, the moment I have seen business/political leaders celebrate success (often assuming it would continue on its own) and stop investing in the people/ ideas/technology NEEDED for future growth, momentum would begin to erode and start heading in the wrong direction.  The reality is you can NEVER stop putting energy into a good situation with good momentum, and if it’s a bad situation with negative momentum, you need to take action immediately and deploy maximum energy/effort to get that momentum to shift!  Don’t forget the simple formula above… it may seem like a high school physics tool, but it is deeply true and applicable all around us today!

postscript: the current presidential political campaign is an incredible example of the dynamics of "momentum" and the polling chart below shows it dramatically.  With less than 3 months to election day, this is going to be an incredible "case study" !