Decide, Then Deliver: Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum

13:57Steve Sedgwick:I feel good in the job.

13:58Olivier Blum:It's been an enormously swift learning curve, I would imagine. Have you made some bad decisions during this first year?

14:05Steve Sedgwick:Probably. I've made a lot of bad decisions in my career, for sure. But you know, when you are in those kind of executive positions, unfortunately, it takes a bit of time to realize the bad decision you've made because you don't realize year one. It's more two years after, three years after, four years after. You know, if you ask me what the bad decision I've made in my life, probably I've made wrong acquisition at one point of time in my career at Schneider. I've made wrong people decision, for instance. But you get to know three to four years later that it was a bad decision.

14:33Olivier Blum:Can you give me a great example of when you've made a bad decision and how you've reacted? Not necessarily how the company's reacted or what's happened in the business case thereafter, but I want to know how you respond to making wrong decisions.

14:46Steve Sedgwick:I was appointed to lead Schneider Electric in India in 2008. India is a very demanding country. You know, I have always had admiration, a lot of admiration on the Indian people, how resilient you are. But when you come from the Western world, you don't imagine what comes in front of you. And I can tell you at one point of time, I think I was almost in a kind of burnout situation in India. But I didn't know. I didn't know that I was losing somewhere my way of thinking. I was not rested. But I didn't know. You know, I was waking up. I was a bit tired. but you don't know that you are in that kind of situation.

15:16Steve Sedgwick:And I've made a couple of bad decisions, including one acquisition at one point of time, which was a bad strategic choice. It was a bad fit, but I didn't know. Actually, I knew something was wrong inside me, but I did not have somewhere the clarity of thought at that point of time to say, we should not do it. And I realized that only one or two years later. So my learning and the takeaway, which was the most important for me is again, and why I'm obsessed about being rested, being present in the moment, making sure you still have clarity of thoughts. I think it's important for, it's super important even more when you are a CEO, because again, you don't have a lot of decisions to make.

15:50Steve Sedgwick:Usually they are extremely important, they are impactful for the company, and you don't have a lot of time to make it. So I'm really obsessed to have always this clarity of thoughts.

15:57Olivier Blum:We both know, in my humble way, doing a bit of sport and you in your very elite way, and we'll come to that later as I say. No, no, no, no, no. But we know the importance of cortisol, and we know the importance of stress, and we know the importance of mental and physical mechanisms to lower that cortisol and to de-stress as well. So when you're making bad decisions, you're finding it hard to lower those levels. And when you're making good decisions, you're a lot calmer. Do you believe that?

16:23Steve Sedgwick:It's not about good and bad decision. It's about having the learning mechanism to do post-mortem on a regular basis on what you have done. And then when I do performance review with my direct report, I tell them it's not a performance review. It's about you and I reflecting on what we did well or wrong in the past 12 months, because we will continue to make bad decisions. That's not the point. But the point is more, can you learn from it? And of course, ideally, we would reduce the number of bad decisions and most of the time, great decision for the company.

16:52Olivier Blum:But do you feel you're still on a journey? I feel the most successful people I know never feel that they're finished, never feel that they know it all. In fact, they're always looking to learn.

17:01Steve Sedgwick:I think leadership is the most interesting journey that you can go through. I think it's a permanent learning. The environment is changing around you. The generation expectations are changing. So when I hear a leader who tell me or managers, I know everything, I say, look, I think you got it wrong. Because the higher you go in a company, the less you know, actually. And the more intense has to be the learning journey. At least it's my belief.

17:25Olivier Blum:You've mentioned a few times about Jean-Pascal Truccoir. We should just tell our audience that he was the man who perhaps created the modern Schneider Electric. He believes passionately in sustainability and that culture has followed through into the entire company. But he is such a dominant influence or has been at Schneider for so long. I know he acts as a mentor to you as well and as a very important sounding board. The 18 months of Peter Hervik didn't work. But do you find it difficult working with such an important person in the creation and the culture of Schneider Electric?

17:56Steve Sedgwick:I don't want to discount your question because it's a very valid question, the relationship with the chairman and the board. But I'm privileged. You said it yourself. When you are CEO, it's a lonely job. And having the privilege to have a person that you know with a sparring partner to you. I don't consider Jean-Bascal as a chairman. I consider him as a sparring partner. And the good thing with Jean-Bascal and the two of us are the same. We are absolutely committed for the company. There is no real personal agenda in what we are doing. Really, what we ambition is to do a good job for the company and to make sure Schneider has a positive impact.

18:28Steve Sedgwick:So when you are with someone in front of you who is in good intention, in good faith, will challenge you sometime, will ask you some difficult questions. But, you know, the outcome is really for the good of the company. That's great. And we always say, you know, I always say personally, when you have two or three people in the room and we all agree, there is a problem. I love to have Jean Pascal sometime disagreeing with me, having a different perspective and you have so much experience. So that's great. And I think we have that relationship where we can make it simple. Sometimes it can be very direct and transactional.

19:00Steve Sedgwick:Sometimes it can be different, but we trust each other. And when there is trust, I mean, it's very easy to disagree. And I prefer this kind of management style or relationship where you are challenged. You put things on the table, but at the end of the day, you are in charge, which means you are accountable.

19:14Olivier Blum:You are the CEO. You are the final decision maker at Schneider Electric. But when the board asked you on day one, what do you have in mind? And you talked about, well, actually, there are a lot of things you want to do. You want more regionalization. You want to restructure the company as well. Big decision. How did you go about deciding so early on that you had a slightly different vision from what was already there?

19:33Steve Sedgwick:You know, I had the privilege to be in the company for so long, number one. So it's not that I come into the job and I just discover. And I was operating from inside. So for me, it was very obvious one. We need to put this new direction in place. In a world, you know, where AI is everywhere. AI needs compute. Compute needs energy. And energy can be made available thanks to energy intelligence. It's also very obvious that when you look at really the macro trend, you take the energy topic, the AI topic, the geopolitics, everything is changing around us. So that was a perfect time if you want to set up this new direction, this new mission for the company.

20:10Steve Sedgwick:And then it was up to me to define what type of leadership I would like to have in the company. So I was clear about all of that fairly early. And then we worked hard with my executive committee in 25 to make sure that by the end of September last year, we'd be ready to launch this new cycle.

20:24Olivier Blum:But what is the biggest thematic in the world, perhaps the biggest this century and perhaps even longer than that, is the advent of AI. You mentioned the words energy tech, and I think that's probably how most people describe you now. That's made you potentially a much more volatile company in terms of your share price performance, in terms of your sales.

20:42Steve Sedgwick:You know, you have the two faces of the con. And I hear your question because you know it and a lot of people know that Schneider Electric is a worldwide company in providing really solution for data center. But for us, if you look at where we come from, we said the only way to manage energy properly in the world will come through electrification, automation and digitalization. AI brings to the digital layer from a technology standpoint what was not available before. So on one side, you're right. It can maybe create some question mark, you know, on this data center market. But on the other side of the coin, we have now the technology that make our solution really even better for you in your home.

21:21Steve Sedgwick:Maybe tomorrow we can connect your electrical panel. We can extract data. We can automate. We bring an AI agent. And that will decide on your behalf how you can save 20 to 30 percent of energy in your home. It was not possible just three years ago. So I'm more excited by that part. Of course, I love the other part, but that helped me to transform the entire positioning of the company. And that's why we say advancing energy tech, bringing energy intelligence to the world, because it's now possible with all the latest technology. So that's super exciting.

21:49Olivier Blum:Has that decision to push energy tech and to go so heavily into supporting the AI industry and the data industry, has that been something that you actually find really exciting or nerve wracking or both? Because it's such a big decision.

22:05Steve Sedgwick:I knew we had to build this new cycle and redefine the positioning of Schneider. And it's very interesting because, as you know, the Schneider Act 3, actually, this year we are celebrating 190 years of history, of innovation, mainly in product, in hardware. But at every step, you know, of industrial revolution, we were there. I said industrial revolution. But what we did not realize, we started to migrate in the past 10 years from an industrial company to a tech company. But by and large, we are still behaving like an industrial company. So the signal really to the market, to our customers, to our employees, our partners going to EnergyTech, show that Schneider Electric will be this kind of hybrid company leveraging the past, the largest industrial company in the electrification world, but a company which will leverage more and more digital.

22:50Steve Sedgwick:And that's why I'm super excited by this migration or by this hybrid positioning. And EnergyTech is a strong declaration to the world.

23:03Olivier Blum:tell me about the decision to step back sometimes and create that space for yourself and create that headspace as well i know so many ceos who work stunningly hard and say well we want good balance for our employees and then i ask them do you have good balance do you actually draw boundaries. That decision is not easy for a CEO because you have to be on board early in the morning for Asia and then you're around for Europe and then you've got the US in the evenings and what have you as well. Are you good at making the decision to set boundaries?

23:38Steve Sedgwick:I do believe I have a lot of weaknesses, but I think that's probably my best skill. So my answer is yes. I'm pretty good and I told you briefly about my example in India where I touched somewhere how burnout could look like. It was not probably a burnout at that point of time, but I knew I had to do something different. And since then, I put a lot of discipline in planning my calendar, saving time. I told you I run every day. It does not come by chance, which means that I need to carve out time every single day wherever I am in the world to do it. I carve out time for my family. And I know that this recipe has worked for me, so I'm extremely disciplined at managing my time and keeping that balance.

24:16Steve Sedgwick:It doesn't mean that I don't work hard at the end of the day. I travel everywhere and so on and so forth. But I know it helps me to go through those difficulties.

24:23Olivier Blum:Olivier, I know you're an excellent runner and I know you've done the Olympics of mountain running, which is the UTMB, which if you know, you know. I know your family is very important to you. I know nature is very important to you. And I know you're a very passionate leader. How important is your sport to you?

24:40Steve Sedgwick:For me, it's again, beside the family, which is the most important part.

24:46Olivier Blum:When your wife watches this, she will hear that moment. Yeah, no, no.

24:49Steve Sedgwick:The family is the most important for me because that gives you the state of mind. You know, when you feel good, you can feel that your family is doing well, your wife, your kids. That's the most important. What the running and the ultra trail is giving me is, first of all, a space for me. I call it my meditation. And why I've selected those long distance running? Because it's a very long meditation, which I don't get when I go for two, three, four hours races. when you spend 10 hours, 15, two days actually for UTMB in the mountain, it's like a meditation for me. I can tell you, it put me in a positive mood for the next 6-12 months and you have time to reflect on your life, on everything, on your job.

25:29Steve Sedgwick:I don't know if it means something to you, but the most important business decision that I take, I take them when I run, when I practice, when I'm in the mountain. And the last point, which is very, very important for me, teach you on how to be resilient you know you have this very famous runner american runner courtney doltwater in ultra trade she said you have to learn to how to survive in the pain cave and how to enjoy the pain

25:52Olivier Blum:cave i've never seen a runner smile as much as her exactly when she's doing the utmb she's smiling she's stopping for photos absolutely she looks like she's absolutely loving it and she is a top

26:03Steve Sedgwick:top athlete absolutely and when you listen to her for and i read a lot of book about that but basically what she's telling you, learn how to be uncomfortable in any kind of situation. And when you start to practice more in running and so on and so on, actually you have a lot to apply in your professional work. Because when you're CEO of a company, every single day, there will be something that will not happen. You will have a resignation, you will have a problem, you have geopolitics, and learning how to live in this uncomfortable situation where sometimes, by the way, you are a bit tired, which you explained.

26:34Olivier Blum:A bit tired on a two-day race with 8 ,000 meters of climb. Okay, that's an understatement.

26:39Steve Sedgwick:Actually, I told to Jean-Pascal and my wife, you know, I have the feeling sometimes I'm doing a UTMB every week now. So to tell you that it's quite useful to train outside for your job.

26:48Olivier Blum:Yeah. You said something really interesting. You said, I make my best decisions or I make my key business decisions when I'm running. Can you just expand upon that?

26:56Steve Sedgwick:Yeah, because for me, it's a moment where I can think about a lot of stuff. I used to do marathon, all those kind of stuff. I'm not a very good runner, but marathon, you know, flat marathon. You are a very good partner, Olivier. No, no, no, no, I'm just an amateur.

27:08Olivier Blum:Olivier, less than 1 % of the world's population will ever do a marathon. That's okay, yeah. And of that 1%, a very small percentage will break three hours. So, come on.

27:16Steve Sedgwick:But, you know, the marathon is very different because it's very intense. You know, when you train and you run fast, it's very intense. That does not work for me. What I like in running in the mountain, you run at your own pace. You walk sometimes, you climb. And when I say it's a meditation, that helps you, you know, to be in a state where you can think about a lot of things. And you have really time to think through, to wait what will be the pros and cons of some decision. And sometimes, you know, for me, it works very well. Sometimes this is where I find the solution, which I did not find maybe for three months before.

27:46I just want a couple of quick fire questions.

27:49Olivier Blum:What are your best qualities and what are your worst qualities as a leader?

27:53Steve Sedgwick:I think I've built over time this capacity to be a better listener, which I was not when I was younger. I think I was just speaking too much and taking too much space. And I've learned how to differentiate when as a leader, I need to speak and give the direction. And those moments where, for instance, where I'm with my executive committee and it's for them to speak. And you realize that the more you listen, the more you learn. If you cut someone after one minute, you don't have enough time to go to really the deepness. So being a better listener, definitely something that I've cultivated over time and where I can still do a better job.

28:31Steve Sedgwick:I'm still very impatient, impatient and passionate. And sometimes it's bad because you just want to do too many things, you know, and priorities, prioritizing probably a little bit more, sometimes being a little bit less impatient. Now in the world of today, I still believe that there is a premium for people who move fast, who make fast decisions. So I cannot commit that I will do a better job on being impatient because speed is an obsession for me. But prioritizing a little bit more, yeah, I think I can progress.

28:59Olivier Blum:You mentioned to us earlier that it's been a tsunami since November 2024. Do you like making decisions in that tsunami?

29:09Steve Sedgwick:Since I took over the job, the topic number one that I'm pushing at Schneider since November 24 is to make faster decisions. And it's not only because the world is getting more fragmented, but I've learned that by spending 20 years plus of my life in Asia. You know, I grew up in France where you go through a very rational education where you are teach to make decisions where you are 90 percent sure. And then I spent 20 years between China, India, where you realize that there is always a premium for people who make fast decisions. And then you can correct, move fast, then correct. And then I also learned that you have to make the difference between the irreversible decision versus the reversible decision.

29:49Steve Sedgwick:But you realize that 99 percent of the decisions you make are reversible. You know, I used to take a lot of time to buy something, to buy a car, even at the personal level. But even in business, most of the decisions you make are reversible. And I do believe that there is a premium to move fast and correct rather than waiting for six months, one year or two years. So that's really somewhere a skill that I would like Schneider to be the best at, because I think that will make us very, very different.

30:15Olivier Blum:And the final, final question. If you had to say what you think the next big decision you have to make in your career, what do you think it'll be?

30:24Steve Sedgwick:In my career? I don't know. For the time being, the next step is to make Schneider Electric successful, to do a good job. And then we have time for the next one.

30:34Olivier Blum:Do you think you'll ever work for anyone else?

30:36Steve Sedgwick:I don't know. I don't know. It would be difficult. I think so. It's a good question, but look, I still have a bit of time in front of me and then I'm going to push that question to a later date.

30:47Olivier Blum:Olivier, it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you. Karen enjoying your running, Karen enjoying your family and Karen enjoying Schneider Electric and the tsunami that is being the CEO. Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. Olivier Bloom is an extraordinary individual. The only CEO I've interviewed for this podcast who's only ever worked at one company over three decades so far at Schneider Electric. And when the offer of a CEO role at Schneider came up just over a year ago, it came up unexpectedly. What did he do? He didn't make the decision on his own. He convened a family board. His wife and children were pivotal in him accepting the role that he says has been like a tsunami over the last year.

31:28Olivier Blum:How does he find balance in his life? Well, he does find balance from working, his family and the time he spends running on mountains. He is an extraordinary athlete. And this is really interesting. He says he makes his most important business decisions when he's out running in the mountains. That's when he has the headspace to make the key and pivotal decisions. Thank you very much indeed for joining me on Executive Decisions. I would love to hear your feedback. Drop your thoughts in the comments or a review. And please hit that follow or subscribe button. You won't want to miss the next episode of the podcast dropping on Tuesday.

32:07Olivier Blum:where I speak to the CEO of Novartis, Baz Narasimhan. I think the idea of becoming a CEO only fully occurred to me six months before I became CEO of Novartis. Genuinely? Genuinely.