#264: Bracken Darrell, CEO of VF Corporation – Good design can make anything better

21:08David Novak:That's fantastic. And then you did a huge turnaround at Logitech. What did you walk into in that situation? And do you have a playbook that you use or think about when you look at brands and they may be struggling? The situation in VF was very similar to the situation in Logitech. So the business was in decline. The products weren't good enough. and we had kind of underinvested in product development and innovation and we didn't have any designers. So we had literally all of our design was outside. So we didn't have any designers in the room. And I'd come from Braun. I don't know if you know Braun, but Braun shavers and ablators.

21:55And there's this very famous designer named Dieter Roms who I'd gotten to meet with a lot. And Braun was really the closest thing I'd ever experienced to a design company. uh you know Dieter Roms was the inspiration one of the big inspirations for Johnny Ive that Johnny Johnny told me later so so I I fell in love with design there and I and I decided I wanted to create a design company and when I so the the central change that we made was to to really get the company focused around design what is design design is is about creating uh an experience for users around what users really need whether they can express that need or not or what they want.

22:31And so, so I hired my first designer who was, uh, Alistair Curtis, who, who actually I have hired here. So he's works with me at VF again. He worked with me for 10 years there. And we really went, we, we resized the company cause we'd gotten too fat. We really, the company grown just like VF for a long, long, long time. And then when it stopped, we realized, well, for the last few years, we were still really good at growing the company, but only in overhead, not in revenue. And that's a problem. So we, we had to resize the company. And then we really focused on getting great products and building the brand.

23:02And the rest is kind of history. I mean, it was a very great, it was a really exciting story. I think we 10x the value of the company over 10 years. And, you know, we'll see if we can do that at BF.

23:14David Novak:But how do you bring this design, creativity, innovation, how do you bring that to a 125-year-old apparel company? You know, the cool thing is people are hungry for great design. and consumers are hungry for it. Employees are hungry for it. Design extends way beyond the product you've delivered to users. It's also, you can design your benefits programs so that they're built around the users in your company. You can design your accounting and the way you close your books every quarter so that it's designed around the people who need to get that done so they can move on to the next quarter. You can design everything, and you really should be designing everything.

23:51And so I think getting people excited about the concept of design isn't hard because at the end, what you're really saying is, let's all care about the user. Now, some people are closer to the user of our products and what we do to create those products than others in the company, but we all support that somehow. And we're all users inside the company of our own services. So it's early days, just like it was about two years in at Logitech. I certainly don't think we'd transformed Logitech into a design company after two years. But give us five, and I think we can, and we'll do it here to a BF.

24:27David Novak:You know, it seems to me, you know, when you're talking about design, innovation, creativity, you know, obviously the marketing team's going to probably gravitate to it quicker. But you're talking about design across all aspects of the business. You're inculcating that into your culture. How do you do that, Bracken? I mean, how do you get somebody in accounting to think about design? They're further away from the customer, like you say. I think design, the term design can be intimidating because it can sound like the domain of Virgil Abloh or Pharrell, who are great design leaders or designers.

25:09But if you can simplify it into, how do you make this better for users? Which is really what it's all about. How do you make this? So my ideal scenario, okay, this is, I'll dream for a little bit here. My ideal scenario is that no matter what, how you interact with our company, whether you buy our products or you sell to us, or you just walk in the lobby one time and you never come back, somehow we make your life a little better. That's the goal everywhere. And then if you take the people inside the company, my goal is that everybody in the company is growing the entire time they're here and they're, they're positively growing all the time.

25:48So to do that, you've got to care about it. So in our values, we define growth. Really having a growth mindset is one of our core values. And we're building training programs internally that are very much about personal growth and growing yourself and your capability. That connects directly to growing our brands and growing our business and growing our share price and growing everything. And all that can only happen if we do two things well. One, we create products that people want to put on and they feel a little better about themselves when they do. And the second one is we create these clubs that people want to be part of.

26:24They feel an affiliation with. They feel ownership of in a way called brands. And I think when we do those two things well, the whole system can work. And that's what we're working on. And I won't pretend that it's easy. And I don't think I ever got all the way there in Logitech. And maybe you do never get all the way there. But it's such an exciting thing to try. And along the way, I think you can make huge impact and value creation.

26:49David Novak:You're leading a portfolio of some of the world's most iconic lifestyle brands. And I'd like to go through a few of the brands and pull out a key story from each one of them. Let's start with North Face. When a product like the puffer jacket suddenly becomes a fashion statement, You know, how do you make sure the brand's purpose, exploration and performance doesn't get lost? Yeah, you know, it's a great question. So Caroline Brown, who runs that brand, and she's got a fantastic team around her. We talk about that a lot because we talk about there are two kinds of people we're really catering to.

27:27And then the bulk of our market is in the middle. On the one end of the spectrum, it's the obsessive explorer. It's the person who's just obsessed. Alex Honnold, who is obsessed with exploring the edge of everything, the guy who did Free Solo. He's going to climb a 101-story office tower in Taipei soon with no ropes. These are the people. We literally develop products for those people to optimize, to perfect their experience because it really is a life-and-death experience when we develop products for them. It's the same thing for a person who's climbing Everest or skiing down Everest. People have skied down Everest, believe it or not.

28:03So we've got all these athletes who really are on the very edge of it. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got people who really love to express who they are. And they're also part of our family. So we do collaborations with Gucci and collaborations with a lot of skims. So being able to express yourself. But they still believe in that. They still like the performance attributes or aspect of the brand. But they have a different need that we've got to deliver. And there's everybody in between. So we try to make sure that every one of our products has this performance dimension that echoes from that Alex Honol experience all the way through to the consumer, even if they're wearing it just to get on the New York subway and stay warm.

28:42David Novak:That's great. And Vans has always been rooted in creativity and a youth culture. What's the leadership takeaway you've drawn from that team about keeping a brand fresh and relevant? You know, we're in the middle of that now, and Sunshay runs that brand, and she's a perfect example of the brand's off-the-wall idea. I mean, I think you've got to get down to the real essence of what the brand's all about. And if you really get down to the essence of what Vans is all about, it's about being off the wall. It's about being a little different, feeling good about yourself, being different. I think you and I probably can relate going back to when we were 13 and 14.

29:19You felt different. I felt different. Everybody feels different. Vans gives you permission to feel different but be part of something. You're off the wall. and the more different you are, the more exciting it is. And so I think we brought back the Warped Tour, which you may or may not know what it is, but it was this big music festival that ran multi-cities around the world for many years and we stopped it in 2018, well before I got there. And with Kevin Lyman, a guy who owns and runs the tour now in partnership with us, we restarted it this year. And it's so exciting, you know, because you really get to see how deeply embedded in the culture this off-the-wall mindset is in all these cities we've been to so far.

30:02We've done it in two cities so far. We're doing it in Orlando in November. 85 ,000 people in two days. It's one of the biggest music festivals there is now. It's so fun.

30:11David Novak:Yeah, I just went to Bourbon and Beyond here in Louisville, so I'll have to hit one of those up. That sounds like a lot of fun. You know, you said something that was really interesting to me, which is, you know, consumers want to feel different and be a part of something. Talk about the, and be a part of something, part of that statement. You know, human beings are social. We're super social, right? Even the least social of us are social. We love people and we love to be a part of a group. And I think that the brands, brands have, each brand has its own soul, you know? And some brands you feel more part of than others.

30:50And I think that's at the heart of brand building in consumer marketing. And it's one of the things I love the most about it, you know, about consumer brands is that you really do feel association with them. And when you look someone in the eyes who's wearing the same thing you are, in our case, you know, another person wearing Vans, you feel a little close to them. There's something there, you know. Timberland boots is another one. I love Timbs because if you go to a basketball game and you get lucky enough to get near the floor, you're going to see people wearing Timberlands on that floor, especially if you're in Madison Square Garden where Timbs represent New York.

31:29They also represent Baltimore and Chicago and Atlanta and Detroit. But there's something about Timbs that everybody wears them when you see other people in them. You feel like, hey, we're part of that group. I'm one of you.

31:42David Novak:You say hip-hop owns Timbs. You know, we just shepherded. Say more. You know, I think the Schwartz family who created Timberland would be the first to say, and they have, that when they created the brand, you know, the hip-hop movement really picked it up and ran with it and really created and embedded it in the culture. And it was the yellow boot that was born in the same year hip-hop was born. And so they've grown up together. And I would say no brand is more owned by its culture than Timberland is owned by the hip hop culture. And so we're very aware of that. I'm very aware of that. And I love that aspect of it.

32:25We try to really pay homage to it all the time because it's so important to the brand. You can't really, I don't know. I don't know if you feel this way, David. You've been doing consumer brands your whole life. But in a way, a really strong brand, you don't really own it. the users who own it, especially those who feel most passionate about it. What you can do is contribute to that and support it. And that's what we do.

32:50David Novak:And you've got this notion, which I really love, of having your brands being a part of a club, creating a club that people want to be a part of. I love that. Now, you've really leaned into influencer partnerships at VF. What's a story about one that's been a runaway success and what has taught you? Well, it's so early to call anything a runaway success yet because I've only been here a couple of years. I'm very excited about SZA. SZA has agreed to be an artistic director for us on bands. And that might sound like just a name, but she's literally directly involved in brainstorming where we're going next, what off the wall really is going to mean.

33:30I think for these influencer relationships to work, they have to be real. I mean, you can't just pay money and have somebody put them on and think they're going to work. You know, SZA, I think she actually came to us because she loved Vance. She loved the off-the-wall idea. She feels off the wall. And if you follow her, she is off the wall. And I think she also is a great representative of so many people in this world who, you know, are trying new things on a regular basis and trying out stuff and not afraid to take chances and fail. And so I love that. And I think, although I can't talk about it, we've got several things in the pipeline on influencers that I'm very excited about and always trying to be really true to the brands, but also stretch them.

34:13David Novak:You definitely are doing that. And, you know, can you give me an example of where you have all these brands, they're iconic in their own right. Do you keep them independent or do you ask them to share or what you're thinking about embracing other people's ideas and collaboration? Is this a competitive advantage for you or how do you think about that whole independence of the brands and collaboration? I guess I'll address that two ways. One is independence of the brands within our company. They operate very independently. So each brand has its own teams to build it, work on it. And we do overlap in some areas and where we do, we try to make sure that the brands don't lose any of their soul, you know, the definition of what they're all about.

34:59When you talk about collaborations with other companies, I think they can really, yeah, I've learned this because we didn't do many collaborations in Logitech. I've learned that I think collaborations can be very powerful as long as you respect what each brand's all about. And there's an overlap that is really that connective tissue that can make each brand stronger. We just did a collaboration with Telfar in Timberland. And it's an interesting one where they've got bags that honestly feel very Timberland and were co-designed by us with them. And their boots, which they varied the normal yellow boot to be.

35:36It's not tied. It's kind of like a wrinkled boot. It's really cool. It feels very Timberland. I think it's a very stretching collaboration. I really like it. And we've got several of those. We did another one on Timberland with Louis Vuitton where Pharrell took the boot and turned it into a Louis Vuitton boot. But it feels very elevated for Timberland and right. And yet feels very culture right for Louis Vuitton. I think those are good examples of ones that really work.

36:05David Novak:Yeah, I've got to run out and check those out. I love it. You know, what do you look at in the leaders who run your individual brands? I mean, what are you really looking for? You know, I think the most important thing in a leader is drive. You know, you can, you know, everybody's smart. You know, by the time you get to about age 33 or 35 or something, I think IQ is really, that distribution curve really gets tight. So everybody's smart. And you can develop the social skills you need, you know, every time. but there's something inside some people who have a lot of drive and really want to make a difference and want to have a big impact.

36:42So that's one. I love people who are extremely driven and just want to have a big impact and a positive impact on people and on the business. So that's probably the most important one. I'd say there certainly are others. I admit biased to people who love speed. I'm not a fast car driver. I'm not even into cars. But I do believe that there's a lot of discussion around moats and competitive advantage and all that stuff. But I think in the end, having an orientation to be faster than everybody else is probably as good as any. And so people who just get stuff done very quickly always impress me. And so I notice it in interviews and I really notice it at work.

37:24David Novak:That's great. You know, as CEO, you got to make a lot of tough calls. And before you joined VF, the company acquired Supreme for$2.1 billion, only to sell it later for$600 billion loss. You know, I think this was in under four years. Take us inside your head on how you make a decision like that. Yeah, so Supreme is a fantastic brand. And it's a fantastic business. I love the whole storyline of Supreme. It's a very unique business model. It runs differently from all the rest of our brands, runs independently of all the rest of our brands, completely independently or ran independently. It was, now what does that mean?

38:06That means from a marketing, distribution, selling, product creation, supply chain, everything is independent inside Supreme when I arrived. It also is worth, it's a very valuable brand. It's worth$1.5 billion. So the starting point for me was strategically, does this brand fit inside our portfolio? It's much more of a fashion street brand than a performance brand. Many of our brands, as you know, like North Face are very performance oriented. While they sell a lot of lifestyle products, that's a crescendo off of a performance story. That's not the case of Supreme. Supreme's a street story. And it's a business, it's a model story.

38:45So I would say Supreme stood out for being different and independent. in a company of independent brands, it was by far the most independent. So it was, for me, it was a fairly easy decision. We got very fortunate that another company was really interested in Lexotica, who we reached out to behind the scenes, one of my leaders did. And we got a really an excellent price for it, even though it was a loss of$600 million versus the original purchase price. It was well above what anybody thought we would get for it. So it was a great price. It was a great exit. And I think it's in a great home now.

39:18David Novak:You know, you mentioned earlier that AI is impacting your business today. How is it, Bracken? We probably have, I don't think I'm exaggerating, 20 different AI activities going on in the business, ranging from financial reporting to how we create products to how we design products. So there's that and how we market them. So it's really going to touch everything. Most of those are in relatively small scale right now. We've got a few things that we've scaled, like customer service. But I think AI is, I don't want to minimize it because we all know how important it is. But it's another tool that we all have to use.

39:56And we have to figure out how to bring it into our business appropriately. And that's what we're doing.

40:01David Novak:And for you personally, how are you using AI to make you a more effective leader? And what advice can you give to leaders on how to really be able to lead in that area? Because it's going to be so important. You know, I have two comments on that. The first one is I personally use AI tools a lot. So I use ChatGPT. I use lots of different tools, and I use them in my personal life, my work life. For example, I get all my medical information, I put it into ChatGPT, I take my name off of it, and I ask it, you know, give me advice on what I should do. It's a good second test against my doctor, and I've got several doctors.

40:39So it's great. And, you know, I think you can just do that in every part of your life, and I'm sure many of your listeners are. You know, the second thing I'd say is, I think there are two big decisions to make when it comes to any application of AI. One is, am I going to give it to the lowest level person who might be able to use it today so that they can be more productive? Or am I going to give it to the highest level person who can imagine how it can be used today so that they can make the whole company more productive? That might sound like an easy answer or even a little duplicative, but it's not.

41:11You know, sometimes the best application of AI is actually to remove a whole function and replace it. It will probably generate more jobs somewhere else, but for that function, it won't be the... And then many other times, most other times, the best application of AI is to give it to the person who's designing something today so that they can come up with 50 designs and they can filter that, or 500 designs and filter it down to the two they really love. So I just think those are two things that I'm really observing about AI and how to begin to develop it. And they're not easy answers.

41:44David Novak:You know, a lot of people see AI as a big productivity driver. But very few people talk about it on the revenue side. How do you think about that in terms of satisfying customers driving revenue? You know, I don't know yet. You know, I think it will be a revenue driver. It's certainly going to be a productivity driver. and it's hard for me to say yet because I spent so much time at Logitech I'm connected to a lot of Silicon Valley types a lot of startups in the AI space I'm seeing more and more that are super interesting because they are personalizing AI or they're making it part of something that can actually I can imagine can enable growth and I don't want to be too detailed because then I'll point to specific startups but I think that's the That's the next big wave is how do you create new businesses that can improve your life using AI?

42:40And I think in health care and just in general, I think there are a lot of spaces this is beginning to happen.

42:48David Novak:You mentioned earlier on that early on you really developed a passion for leadership. What's something that you know about leadership now that you wish you'd have known earlier in your career? You know, when I accepted the job at Logitech, I went to see a friend of mine who had been an entrepreneur for about 50 years. And he had sold his company. It was about to sell his company. And so I went to him to ask him what he thought about taking the job at Logitech. And he said, I don't know. I met him for breakfast. And he said, I don't know if I'd do that. It looks like a very difficult thing to turn around to me.

43:22He goes, but I don't know anything about tech. And I said, OK, well, thanks. I've already accepted the job. So it's probably the wrong time to ask him. And then as I got up to leave, he pointed at me and he said, oh, and one more thing, Bracken. I said, yeah, I was like 10 feet from the table. He said, you wash the windows, you clean the floors. And so I said, thank you. You know, I kind of smiled and I walked back and I was like, I wonder why he said that. And it took me probably until I got to the bottom of the stairs to start to really think about that. And the longer I lived it, the more I thought, you know, it's about ownership.

43:56You know, it's an entrepreneur giving me that advice that you really own it. I literally, when I walked into Logitech that first day, I would, I would, I decided I'm going to feel ownership for everything. I want to pick stuff off the floor. I'll clean a window if it's not clean, literally. And I'll feel ownership for everything because I want to feel like this is my company. Just like I want everybody in this company to feel like this is VF is their company. So I wish I'd internalized that earlier in my career because I think it's such a healthy way to think. It makes you feel better about it.

44:25And it also has a bigger impact on everybody else.

44:27David Novak:Yeah, that's a great story. And, you know, looking back, you know, what's one thing you have come to believe about leadership? Maybe that some CEOs might disagree with, or is there anything like that? Look, I won't try to suggest that this is counter to what other CEOs might believe, but there is a chain of command in large companies. And it's important because it's the way information gets passed. But I don't really like to even think about it. I just like to think everybody in the company is my partner. Everybody's got a job to do, whether it's the person who works at the front desk when you walk in the store or me.

45:04And we all have work to do. And you can have a dramatic impact on the company from whatever chair you're in if you want to, if you're smart and you really care about what the company's doing. And I so believe that. So I like having conversations with everybody at all levels of the company. I feel much more in touch that way. I had an old boss who was a smoker and he used to say, I know whether we're having a good quarter or not because I go into the smoking area. And out there, if the people in accounts receivable are nervous because the accounts receivable are getting too high, I know it's because they're selling so much.

45:38And I never forgot that. I thought, you know, it's so true. You know, it's amazing how much you pick up if you talk to people at all levels of the company, not just your direct reports or their direct reports. So I really try to do that.

45:50David Novak:that's great. Now this is an odd question. And so accept it for that. Okay. I've watched a few of your interviews. Okay. I watched one interview. You're dressed in all white. Okay. I mean, I'm looking at you here. You've got this, you know, this great sweater on, you know, and obviously you are into design. How much do you think about what you wear and how you present yourself physically as it relates to driving what you want to drive inside the company? You know, I'm probably more utilitarian. Yeah, I always think, okay, here's how I think about, let's talk about art for a minute because it's related to design, right?

46:32I have this view that everybody is an artist and you really are an artist whether you think about it or not, which means you're a designer whether you think about it or not. And your primary art is your life. It's all of your life. It's every day of your life, every moment of your life. Now, most of the time in your life, you make utilitarian decisions. So you wouldn't think of your life as art. So for example, if you're at a restaurant tonight and you're going to the bathroom, you could just walk across the room to the bathroom like most people do. Now you could, if you wanted to say, no, I'm actually going to express something.

47:09You could dance across the room. You could waltz across the room. You could dance hip hop across that room. There are a lot of that you could take all your clothes off and do there are people who do that performance art so there's a lot of things you could do to make that that striding across that room an expression of who you are and so and yet most people simply walk across the room and it's utilitarian when it comes to what i wear to work every day i am surprisingly utilitarian um probably because i've just made a choice that's not where my art will be or my design uh i'll put my design thinking to work.

47:43Once in a while, I do something special, but usually not.

47:47David Novak:I love it. You know, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with this lightning round of questions that I always do. Are you ready for them? I'm ready. The three words that best describe you? Basketball, family, design. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? My kids. Your biggest pet peeve? Injustice. What city has had the greatest impact on you? Owensboro, Kentucky. lucky. You've led both tech and fashion brands. Which industry has tougher critics? I would say fashion. What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?

48:24Gravity.

48:25David Novak:What's the one thing you do just for you? Basketball. Besides your family, what's your most prized possession? You know, I'm really not into possessions. So I would say, You use family, though, so I would say my friends. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? NPR. What's something about you few people would know? That I was exceptionally shy when I was younger. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you'd never miss? Working out. We're out of the light, you're right. Now, just a couple more questions. We'll wrap this up. You mentioned your family as your prized possession.

48:59David Novak:What have you learned about leading at home? Like, I think one of the things I love about families is that, you know, anybody who's listening to those young families might not realize this, but your family just becomes deeper and richer as you get older. And they never stop needing you, and you never stop needing them. And so the cool thing is my kids are adults now, and I've got a granddaughter, and my ex-wife and I are very close. All three of my kids and I are very close. My son-in-law and I are very close. It's just a super good thing. And it becomes more and more important to me with time, not less and less.

49:34I think everything goes in cycles, but this one just seems to never stop getting more important to me.

49:40David Novak:What do you see as your unfinished business, Bracken, both for VF and you personally? Well, for VF, I want to turn this into a strong, sustainable, long-term, high-growth engine. And I want it to humbly be the best company in this industry. I think it can be. for me as a person, I'll never be finished. You know, I'll never stop working. I won't get to work at VF forever, but I'll never stop working. I'll never stop trying to learn new things. I'm always, I pick a new topic every five years to go deep in and I really read everything I possibly can on it. So I'll never stop trying to learn and grow.

50:19You know, it's just so inherent to what I'm all about. And I'll never stop trying to be that good point guard who did have the handles.

50:27David Novak:what's that what's that topic you're going deep on now uh it's it's been for the last years i've been going deep on uh quantum mechanics and gravity and the relationship between the two and how difficult that is to figure out and why uh it's a puzzle you know i like puzzles and there's a lot of math in it and i just think it's fascinating the one before that was art i really got into art history and then into what makes art and then i started going down that path So I did art for a while. I did World War II for a while. So I just picked these topics kind of just, I'm interested in everything. So it'd be easy for me to pick another topic, but I try to stay with it long enough to where I get some mastery.

51:05David Novak:That's great. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? Just focus on growing everything around you, not including yourself. But if you focus on growing everything, making everything better, everything, every person, every process, every experience, if you're just focused all the time on trying to make everything better and growing everything, uh, you'll, you'll de facto be a good leader. You'll, you'll have to listen more. You'll have to have more empathy. You'll have to, uh, work harder because you want to, because you'll, it's so fulfilling when you make things better, when you feel like things are growing, your growth is growth is the big, the most important thing, you know, in life.

51:45I mean, if you think about there's growth and there's death, and you're either growing or you're on your way to death. And so you might as well choose growth. And I think that as a leader, it's amazing how inspiring and engaging growth is.

52:01David Novak:You know, Bracken, I had heard a lot about you before we had this conversation, and I knew you were a great leader. I knew you came at the world in a fresh way. And I can't tell you how impressed I am with our conversation and having the opportunity to meet you has been a real treat thank you so much for being on this show thank you david and we got to get the other david david cody all right he's gonna call together yeah and you guys were both at ge oh yeah i worked for dave i learned a ton from dave i always wonder i'll ask you this one question i'll let you go you know the ge washing machine i i recommended him that you come up with a new washing machine and you call it the sock saver because it seems like every washing machine, you lose your socks.

52:46David Novak:And I think if you could solve that problem, wouldn't that be a home run? Well, I think it could have been, David. And I tried that because I ran the washing machine business at GE, but I finally abandoned it. And I went to a company that makes socks because I figure if they're losing all those socks, we'll sell a lot more. See, you're a smart guy.

53:09David Novak:David, what an interview. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. You know, what's your definition of design after hearing that interview? Cool. Well, it's certainly changed after hearing it. Now I think of design as anything that revolves around how a consumer engages with your product. Not just the way it looks, but how they engage with your people, what it feels like to walk into your retail store, what it feels like to be on the phone with someone to customer support. I mean, everything, design touches everything. Yeah. But you know, how does somebody in accounting think about their job as design? Okay. Now you're interviewing me, David.

53:44David Novak:Yeah. Well, I want to see if you, I want to see if you got any, any info out of that podcast. One takeaway that I am pulling from this episode is that, you know, design, like I just said, it really is the entire experience that anybody has engaging with you or your brand. So like for the accountant, David, if they can make something more seamless for the person on the other end of what they're delivering, someone asking for a report or auditing their books, if they can make that experience more seamless, then that is how they can apply great design to their process. Absolutely. I love that answer and you're right.

54:21You know, and I always said at Yum!

54:25David Novak:Brads, if you do your piece of Yum! right, It all adds up to a great customer experience. So like if you can be more productive in supply chain, you save money. We were able to give the customer war. And you do that by having the right design, the right process and discipline to get it done. You know, that's how you can be successful. And I just love, you know, how we talked about how everybody can participate in that process of that total customer experience. Totally. You know, one other thing I really loved that Bracken talked about, obviously, he's very focused on design. But I love the way he thinks about brands.

55:03David Novak:Obviously, VF is the parent company of several iconic brands. And one thing that really stood out with me was when he said, you know, in consumer brands, you don't really own the brand. The customer owns the brand. And you really just contribute to it. David, unpack that for me a little bit and for the listeners. What does that really look like? Well, you know, the customer owns the brand. The customers can really define what the brand is based on what you do. So, you know, the customer is going to position you the way how you really are. If you really have a lot of substance and you really have something that makes people feel cool when they wear it or, you know, makes people feel great when they drive it, you know, then, you know, man, you know, So that only comes from the customer telling you how they feel about you.

55:54David Novak:So the customer really owns the whole process. I love in the episode when he talks about Timberland's, the shoes, he says, you know, hip hop really made Timberland, Timberland. They didn't do that. So I just love the fact that they are continuing to let the hip hop culture define what Tim's really are. I think one of the great things in marketing and I guess we can call it design now is that when that customer takes over, you know, you don't really have to do much, but just watch the momentum that goes forward. Now, it's hard to get that to begin with, and it only comes from everybody doing the job they need to do it.

56:32David Novak:But once it starts to roll, I'm telling you, it just grows and it grows and it grows. You know, we struggled at Taco Bell for years, but man, you know, once we figured out that this was an irreverent brand and that, you know, we needed to have a lot more fun and we need to have products that, you know, really solve the customer's issues, that the momentum has just piled on and piled on and piled on. And that brand is just a rocket ship and just continues to have leading same-store sales growth. So, you know, it only comes, though, from a real understanding of the customer and then the customer loving you and talking about you.

57:15David Novak:That's what happened in Timberland. It's like, hey, the customer, the word of mouth is what's driving it. When you got people talking to people about how much they love your brand and you give them so much value with not that much money and, you know, boy, their products are really cool. Man, I can't believe how good the food is, even though it doesn't cost that much. I'm telling you, that's when you really, really have a great, great thing happening. I'd love to give the people listening, David, just a real practical way that they can let their consumers define their brand. So what's one thing you would say to folks if they really don't have a grasp on what their brand is or what consumers say it is, what would you tell them to do?

57:55David Novak:Understand how the customer's defining your brand. You know, understand it. You know, understand reality. See the world the way how it really is, not the way you want it to be. And then start working with the customers. By that, I mean listening to the customer, hearing what they have to say and then start responding to what they have to say. And then sooner or later, they're going to feel the empathy you have for them. And that's going to drive performance. Another thing that is very clear after listening to this interview with Brackett is that he's really is a master at turning brands around.

58:30David Novak:I mean, he did it with Old Spice, which I think is so iconic. He did it at Logitech. And, you know, with turnaround comes change management. So for people listening who might be in a place where their company is changing a lot or they might be in the midst of a turnaround, how do you as a leader navigate the fatigue that might come with a bunch of changes? Oh, I think, you know, it's that old burning platform story. You know, you're on the ship, okay? It's burning down. And the only way you're going to survive is you're going to have to jump into the water. And you got to create a burning platform.

59:08David Novak:And so I think the way you do that is you paint the reality of what your customers are telling you. You paint the reality of what your financial situation is telling you. You paint the reality of how your employees are thinking about you. But it all comes down to defining reality. And you've got to create, in a turnaround situation, you've got to create a burning platform. It reminds me, I feel like I always think about your interview with Alan Mulally, But he, you know, when he first got to Ford, they're about to post a$17 billion loss. And he went into one of their meetings with his leaders and no one really talked about anything that was going wrong.

59:51David Novak:So he made it a point to celebrate when leaders came to meetings reporting on things that were going wrong or things that needed fixing because they had gotten to that point because no one had defined reality. Therefore, no one was operating within it. Yeah, absolutely. And he knew the only way, the only way he's going to turn that business around was to get people to understand the reality. Hey, we just lost$17 billion. How can everybody be in here presenting their project and telling me it's a green? How can we have 100 % greens when we just lost$17 billion? What kind of fool do you think I am?

1:00:30David Novak:I wasn't born yesterday. I'm from Kansas. I'm a Jayhawk fan. That's Alan Molle. I mean, he's a common sense guy and he just told it like it is. But he constantly got people to understand what the reality was. And then more importantly, do something about it. David, one more question here to wrap up our debrief. And this will really speak to like the CEO type of leader who might be listening. And the episode with Bracken, he talks about the importance of recognition, of course, and how no one ever recognizes people enough. So he tries to incorporate it into his every day. He says that, you know, when really great things happen, you recognize the folks that do it.

1:01:07David Novak:But when really bad things happen, it's the job of the CEO to take responsibility for it, even if it's not your fault. So I'm curious from your perspective as a CEO, how do you get comfortable with being the person who always takes credit for the failure? Because it's your show. You're the leader. And if it's happening on your dime, there's something you could have done differently to make sure it wouldn't have happened. That's the mindset you have to have. And it's climbing all the way up that accountability ladder. You don't blame others. When you're at the bottom of the accountability ladder, you blame others and come up with excuses.

1:01:47When you're at the top, you get on with it and you accept the challenge and you take accountability for it and say, now we've got to move on.

1:01:58David Novak:But, you know, I think that's so important. And once people know that you own the joint, you act like you own the joint. I don't care whether you're a frontline employee or you're the CEO. If you act like you own the joint, that means you take accountability for anything that happens on your dime. I love it. Well, Bracken certainly has done that. And it's a big reason why he's been so successful throughout his career. And, you know, he's only been at VF for a couple of years, two years, I think. But with him at the helm, I have no doubt that they're just going to continue to rise. And it's getting colder outside, which means it's time to put on my North Face puffer jacket, which I just feel like has been such a staple in the closets of people everywhere for years.

1:02:43David Novak:Well, that puffer jacket, you know, we talked to him about that. People need to, you know, I hope they picked up the insight there too. It's that, you know, that's what people want to wear. They found out how to do it in the North Face brand. and it fits within their character because of the way how they designed it. And by the way, speaking of design, I've interviewed a lot of leaders. This guy, he's one of the coolest dressers I've seen on video. And he says he doesn't think about it, but that's just because he's naturally cool. I like the guy a lot. He's super. I do too. I do too. I do too.

1:03:16David Novak:Well, David, that does it for our episode of How Leaders Lead for today. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next week. AirPods 2