#278: Hanneke Faber, CEO, Logitech – Co-create with your team

22:21I mean, I had some English in high school, but it wasn't great. So the first section was English and it was opposites. And the example was good. And obviously the answer was bad. I'm like, I got this, the example. And I'll never forget. The first actual question was ruffianism. And I'm like, oh my God, I am so screwed. I have no idea. So I hate to admit this, but I'm like, okay, maybe I start cheating a little bit on this test. So I started copying from the guy next to me. But after five questions, I realized he's doing math. because you know they they don't give you all the same test so this whole thing is like so I walk out of there afterwards I'm like oh I don't know that that was good enough in any case I ended up with like 420 on the English and 790 on the math fortunately European math education is good and that was good enough for Houston but in any case that tells you you know I did not come to Houston, like super preparative.

23:23I compare this to the way my children chose their colleges. I kind of, it was very random. I went there for diving, but I am so thankful to the University of Houston, to the NCAA for giving me the chance to come to America as an 18 year old who didn't speak English well. I initially was going to stay for one year, train really hard and then go to Olympics and come back to Europe. But I loved it in Texas. I adored it. So I ended up graduating, getting an undergrad, then getting an MBA as well there. And that has changed my life. So I would say that, you know, that really, really changed my life.

24:03And I'll be eternally grateful for that opportunity.

24:06David Novak:You know, Hanukkah, I love the fact that you admitted that you took this test and you actually, you know, scoped a few answers there at the beginning, you know, and realized that you were looking at the wrong place. But I am not proud. Yeah, well, you're also a bit vulnerable to do that, you know. And, you know, is that a part of how you lead? Yeah, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone cheats, obviously. But I do think it helps, you know, to in business with your teams, with the people that you work with to ask questions and to share. So that goes both ways. At the University of Houston, here's my hubris again, I decided to be a journalism major, which is, of course, a great choice if you don't really speak English.

24:59But journalism there did teach me to ask questions. If anything, I never became a journalist and journalism unfortunately went way out of style ever since. But I was trained as a newspaper journalist. And the thing I learned apart from writing pretty well, which helps in any career, but it's to ask questions, you know, the five W's and the two H's, who, what, where, why, how. And again, I think that helps in any situation, whether you're trying to decide on strategy, whether you're trying to get better talent, whether you're just trying to have fun, it's helpful in business. Yeah.

25:41David Novak:Well, we're both journalism majors. So there you go. Oh, you were a journalism major too? No way. Absolutely. And I agree with you. Amazing. You know, the writing skill is very helpful. And I think being curious is a trait that a lot of leaders need to get. Yeah. So did you ever work as a journalist? No, but I did start out as an advertising copywriter. But that taught me how to get in the mind of customers and be creative and work with advertising agencies, et cetera. So it worked out fine. And speaking of advertising and marketing, you spent more than two decades at Procter & Gamble, which is one of the greatest brand building companies in the world.

26:23David Novak:Tell me a story from your time there that taught you the most. I learned so much, first of all, at P &G. It really is a school. And I know you were at PepsiCo, which is another great CPG school. So again, super thankful. They sent me around the world. I started in Holland, but I got to work in Greece. I got to work in Cincinnati, of course, Mecca for Procter and in Geneva and Switzerland at their European headquarters. So I learned a lot about working in different countries and with people from all kinds of different cultures. And maybe, yeah, maybe a story actually to illustrate that. So when I was, it was early on.

27:07So I had been with P &G for three or four years and they sent me to Greece for an assignment. I did not speak Greek. In that office, it was me and 200 Greeks. and I became brand manager, well, of a whole bunch of beauty brands, including Head and Shoulders. And I remember in my first week, I didn't speak a word of Greek and we had to do consumer research because that's what you do at Procter. You really listen to the consumers and you build your plans off that. So I went to this focus group with like eight Greek ladies and a translator for me because otherwise it would be kind of useless. And I sit there and she translates the question.

27:47And then literally I sat there for 10 minutes and these Greek women were talking and it was all quite animated. She didn't say anything. After 10 minutes, she goes, they liked it. I'm not really getting the nuance here. So I quickly learned the language actually, because I figured I cannot do my job here if I don't really embed myself in this culture, in this society. So So I'm proud to tell you that my Greek's pretty good. And I think what I take along from that is, again, you have to understand the external world starting from the user of the products you're trying to market and sell.

28:28David Novak:Great story. And then you went on to Unilever where you had a global nutrition and sold a lot of mayonnaise. I don't know if those two things sync up, but maybe you had the fat-free mayonnaise. I don't know. And you were on the executive team at Unilever. How did that experience prepare you for taking on the CEO role, being on the executive team? Yeah. So in between P &G and Unilever, I also spent four years at Ajo Delays, so a retailer, which actually was really helpful to see the other side of the table. And I ran an e-commerce business or their e-commerce business there. So that actually, and that was early on in 20, started there in 2013.

29:07So that actually was a helpful piece also for this job, because that was working with a lot of engineers and software people to build an e-com business. But I would say Procter and Unilever, again, both actually great, great schools. And there's a lot of things that you learn there that are also applicable at Logitech and in technology. You know, it all starts from the consumer and the customer. Sometimes we call them the user here, but you got to understand them and what their needs are. Great brands make a big difference. So and I feel fortunate to have worked on some great brands, Head & Shoulders, Hellman's, Ben & Jerry's, Olay.

29:50And Logitech actually is a great brand. It's a$5 billion brand. There's not that many of those around the world. So we're going to try and make that truly iconic. What does that mean?

30:02David Novak:I mean, how do you make it iconic? I think I know what iconic means, but when will you know you've arrived as an iconic brand? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know that we'll know when we have arrived, but I do know that today we score really well on, I shouldn't call it the boring stuff, but kind of the more functional stuff. So people trust us. People think our products are good. But do they think we're sexy? No. We're a little functional. Do they believe we have charisma that cool people use us? Are we the brand you want to sit next to at a dinner party or better that you want to be seen sitting next to at a dinner party?

30:43Not quite yet. I think when we get there, then we're iconic. And that will take a little while.

30:49David Novak:So how do you make Logitech sexy? I mean, what are you doing? Is there anything going on right now to make it a little sexier? Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's about social first marketing and partnerships and events. So I'll give you a couple of examples. Social first marketing is all about working with influencers who, and those can be small or big, who like our products, who use our products and who talk about our products. Much better for others to talk about your products than you. So we just launched our new flagship mouse, the MX Master 4. And we're so pleased that Marcus Brownlee, who is one of the premier technology influencers, loves it and talks about it on his channels.

31:37So that's social first marketing, which is marketing today and wildly different, by the way, from marketing even five years ago. And then the second thing is partnerships and events. Yes, most of our marketing is online, but there is a real value in doing some live things. So in September, we always have an event or for the last two years, we've had an event called LogiPlay, which takes place in 16 cities around the world. We bring the gaming communities together, the competitive gamers we talked about, gaming influencers, our own gaming experts and our engineers. and we use that event to game, to be together as a community, to have fun, but also to launch our new gaming products and for people to try them.

32:24That's a super popular event with millions and millions of people live streaming it and wanting to be part of that. That is the start of an iconic brand and that is how you market today. And I would say the last thing is partnerships. If I use gaming again, we have a partnership on our simulation driving business, the wheels, with McLaren. And, you know, if you talk about an iconic driving brand, McLaren is absolutely one. So the fact that Lando and Oscar and McLaren drivers use our sim as they train is huge. The fact that we develop products with them is huge. And again, that sim business is on its way to being iconic.

33:06David Novak:That's cool. You know, I did a podcast with Zach Brown. Oh, you did? Yeah. He's a great brand builder and he understands that. So you two linking up and the brands mix, that makes so much sense. And, you know, I was thinking that, you know, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, two packaged goods companies that I know of. I don't know of two that have more process than this one. I mean, Pepsi, we were more gunslingers. You know, we didn't have as much process, you know. How do you think about managing your gut instincts and process? I mean, you know, what do you let rule? Yeah, such a great question. And it's very relevant here for me at Logitech because before the pandemic, this was a smallish company.

34:00It was less than$2 billion in sales. And in the pandemic, it exploded because everyone was home, everyone was online. So post the pandemic, we're now close to a$5 billion company. So it's called as medium-sized. And some of the things that worked in a small company, because everyone knew everyone, just don't work as well in a medium-sized companies. So you do need some, I hate to call it process, but you do need maybe better what we talked about earlier, preparation for things. You can't just gunsling a meeting together and hope you get a good strategy out of that, that people will actually go act on.

34:38You do need to prepare and think about this larger organization, this larger business. How do I use the word process them, but how do I prepare a process that will yield results and that I can measure? And it doesn't have to be, you know, at Ahold, we used to say Ahold was the ministry of retail. I definitely don't want us to be the ministry of technology. And there's still be a lot of entrepreneurialism here at Logitech, but we have implemented a little bit more preparation and planning maybe than there was before.

35:14David Novak:Yeah. And you put process around your strategy, which got all your employees involved, which is great. But then you had to use your gut in the end to decide what you're going to listen to and what you weren't. Totally. There's always, you know, in the end, you have to take some decisions. It's interesting with AI as well. You know, you can ask the models anything and it will spit out fabulous answers. But in the end, a human has to say, OK, based on, you know, all these fabulous answers, we're going to do this. And humans actually have to do things. So and that's often, you know, information based intuition.

35:54David Novak:Do you have a time or story you could tell about, you know, where your gut overruled the process? I mean, maybe even, you know, taking this job, which is, you know, if you look at all my background, you would say this is probably not going to work well. You know, she knows how to sell shampoos and ice cream, and that's what she's done for 30 years, really, in the Silicon Valley. I just felt this was going to be fun, and there was a lot of growth opportunity here. And, you know, again, what's the worst that can happen? I'm definitely not going to hit the board or smack on the water. So let's try it.

36:34David Novak:Well, you're doing well. You got a good run going on, which is fantastic. You know, you mentioned earlier from diving, you learned about the importance of getting coaching and getting feedback. Tell us about a, you know, one-on-one coaching session with you that you provide someone that works for you. What's it look like? How do you structure it? You know, how do you offer up coaching? I would say this is one of the things I learned at Proctor. Coaching and feedback is very much about asking questions. It is not about me lecturing because the person probably is going to remember very little of it.

37:08So it's about asking questions. And then the second piece is timely feedback on things that happened. So there's no point in trying to give someone feedback three months after something happened. Try to pull that person into a little room right away and always try to come up with two or three things that went well and maybe only one where they can improve. That works much better. And if there's one thing I would say to my old Dutch diving coaches, you know, learn from that because they forgot those two or three often.

37:47David Novak:You know, you use the phrase, fill the scrapbook when you talk about building teams. Talk more about that. Yeah, I'm a big believer in that you literally have to fill the scrapbook. You've got to do things together to go beyond sitting in a room together and, you know, looking at PowerPoint slides. So when we get our leadership team together, we really try to do things together. And those can be as simple as, you know, a morning touring media markets and best buys. But they can also be more elaborate where we go visit another company or we all go to Taiwan together to look at different technologies.

38:29You know, I'm not sure I'm a big believer in like these elaborate team building things where we all go to the North Pole together. Those can be a little bit of a waste of money. So that's not what I mean by filling the scrapbook. But in the context of the business, getting yourself out of the office and closer to users, technology, customers together, that can be super fun and very memorable. And I think that's what teams really do need.

38:57David Novak:Yeah, I think what you're talking about there is the power of the shared experience. Yes. Because people can hearken back to it and say, this is what we learned together. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the things I love doing with my team are in-home visits. which I'm sure you've done in your career, going into users' homes and actually seeing how they use our products. I was in Brazil a couple months ago with many members of my team. And just to go into homes in Sao Paulo, I hadn't realized, but like literally everyone in Brazil is an influencer. So their setups were so elaborate and they were all doing content.

39:39And there's so much opportunity there for us. So sometimes you learn so much together that then, you know, provides new sparks for the business. But in-homes are fabulous.

39:49David Novak:Another thing that I've learned that you tell your team is that, in quotes, today is the slowest day of the rest of your life. What do you mean by that? Sometimes we feel like things are moving really fast. It really, this is the slowest day of the rest of our lives because it is only going to get faster. And I don't want to get old Silicon Valley with singularity and AI, but things are exponential. And what felt fast a year ago feels slow today. And I'm sure a year from now, we'll think today is slow.

40:27So getting ahead of things is ever harder, but we have to keep trying and we have to keep getting faster ourselves.

40:34David Novak:You know, you're reputed for having an incredibly high sense of urgency. You know, as a leader, how do you drive that urgency without wearing people out? Or do you even think about it? It's a great question. And that's one of the things I love about the culture here. But really, the culture at all the companies I've worked at, I think I've been very lucky in that, you know, we want to win. But we can't do that by wearing people out. And so caring about people is really key. And we've got this super cute thing that I had never seen here at Logitech, which is called LogiThanks. And it's four times a year where we have a long weekend.

41:14So a Friday and a Monday off. We give it to everyone in the company. It's truly time off. There are no meetings, not for me either, for anyone. And it's a way to say thanks to our people because they do work incredibly hard and they do work fast. But we just give them eight extra days where they're also not pulled into things because there are no meetings. So I love that. And I think you have to balance it somehow because we've got to win. We've got to move fast. But we've also got to take care of ourselves and our people.

41:50David Novak:You mentioned culture and speaking of culture. then what's one thing you think you've brought to the culture of Logitech that might not have been there when you showed up? You know, I think it's actually really hard to change a culture profoundly. It's the same with the culture of a country, you know. It is very hard to change the culture of a country or a company. So one of the reasons I was excited to come to Logitech is that they have a really great and healthy culture with some things that I really care about. So the number one value at Logitech is equality and environment. Well, those are two things I care deeply about, and I think actually are business builders as well.

42:29The second one is hungry but humble. Also really important is that, you know, again, we want to win, but we're not going to be about it. So I don't know that I changed the culture, but I hope that I strengthen it and maybe made it relevant for today. You know, again, I talked about sustainability earlier on, And equality and environment, you know, those are things that are maybe not as popular today in the U.S. as they were a few years ago. But they're part of our culture. They're really important to us. And we make them relevant for today. And when it comes to sustainability and the environment, I deeply believe that doing the right thing for the planet isn't just the right thing to do, but it's actually good for business.

43:14Our customers, especially our B2B customers, want products with lower footprint because they're all trying to get their footprint down. Younger consumers want products that are more sustainable because they care. And often when we develop more sustainable products with lower footprints, they're actually cheaper. So it's good for our shareholders too. So I've tried to make these things relevant for today. And that's not always easy, but they're so deeply embedded in Logitech's culture that I don't think I would ever try and change that.

43:47David Novak:Yeah, you know, I think, you know, for the listeners out there, there's some real power in coming into a company versus thinking the only way you can make your mark is change everything. But take what's already there and strengthen it and make it better. And that seems to be a big part of how you think. No, and I was never prouder, honestly, in that, you know, all the business results are very good and I'm proud of those, but never prouder than when Fortune has its annual list of global top employers and they interview 300 ,000 people out of 750 of the world's biggest companies. We had never been part of that survey because we weren't big enough.

44:28But last year, for the first time we were included, we didn't know that. But in this survey of 750 companies, we came out 25th, which is amazing, right next to Amazon and NVIDIA. It's Forbes, actually, I'm told. Sorry, Forbes, not Fortune. But we came in 25th right with Amazon and NVIDIA, which is insane. But it tells you that our people do love working here, which is great.

44:53David Novak:And you have a very creative group at Logitech, no question about it, because design and innovation is so important to your company. And you put out 30 to 40 new products a year. How do you stay true to what your brand is, Logitech, and all this innovation? How do you keep people focused on what you are? Yeah, my predecessor, Bracken, did a great job at making this a design-led company. So that's very much, you know, it probably already was, but it was one of the things that he really strengthened. And we have 300 in-house designers who work on all that innovation. I think Logic is a brand with really broad shoulders.

45:36You know, we appeal to 15-year-old gamers and to CIOs of the world's biggest companies. So we really can do lots of things. What I think is important and what I try to, you know, keep reminding people of is our our mission is pretty simple. We are about extending human potential in work and play. So we try to make people a little more productive, help you perform better when you play that game, help you connect a little bit more easily. And we do that in two huge spaces, working and gaming. So as long as the innovation fits in that framework, I'm good with it. Now, if you go out of that box and you go off and do something that is really, truly different and is not work and play or doesn't extend human potential, then we're probably not going to spend a lot of resources on that project.

46:29But I think the sandbox is big enough to give people a lot of freedom. And you see that in the products that come out every year.

46:36David Novak:You know, I always like to ask this question. What are you most excited about when you look out in the future? What's coming down the line maybe that you could tell us about? The Superstrike, I mentioned that earlier, the new gaming mouse. Wow, that is like a step-changing gear. That is like, it's like, you remember those swimsuits that are now banned? They really made all the swimmers like fish and like two seconds faster than they were before. This one's not going to be banned, but it is a step change like that. So I'm excited about that for gamers. We also announced just last week, and it won't ship for a little while yet, but new video conferencing cameras.

47:16They're called the Rally AI camera and the Rally AI Pro. I don't know on how many video conferences you are, but the worst experience is you're on the other side of a large room, an auditorium or something. And I mean, you have no idea who's talking on the other side. You just see all these little tiny heads. you can't get a word in because that other room is so big. So these Rally AI cameras are specifically for that instance. And they really produce that meeting for the people on the other side. It's like having Steven Spielberg producing and zooming in on the right person, zooming in on who's talking, going around, not zooming in on the person who is like opening a packet of chips because you don't want that.

48:05So it's really smart and it makes that experience better. And I think it's a great example of really understanding the user and then using AI to provide a great product.

48:16David Novak:You're the first female CEO of Logitech. My daughter, she's in the business world. And I know one of the things that she would like you to share is the obstacles that that you've had to overcome as a female leader to get to where you are today? So thank, please thank your daughter for asking the question. And, and, um, you know, I, well, big believer is you cannot be what you cannot see. So while I dislike being the first female CEO, um, I think it's more important that I'm not the last. So hopefully when she, um, um, sees me, she, she thinks, oh, well, you know, she can do it. I can do it. And I think in, in my career, I've really benefited from seeing other women, uh, doing great.

49:10So at Procter & Gamble, I was lucky enough that, um, there were, there were wonderful female role models. My, my boss's boss's boss, um, you know, Susan Arnold was the vice chair of the company. Jenna Drosos was my boss's boss and then my boss and then my peer for a while as well. You need to see that other women can do this. And I think that's true for any, you know, underrepresented group. And I do feel a big responsibility to, you know, do a good job so that younger women, including my own daughters, see that it can be done. And honestly, obstacles, I think I've been very lucky along the way.

49:52I've had great mentors, great sponsors, and a great family. Maybe I'll say that, you know, very important. Who's your partner? Can you drag your kids around the world, which I have done, for different jobs? That support is really, really critical.

50:10David Novak:So what advice would you give to other female leaders who are watching this? The same advice I would give to all leaders. I don't think there's anything specific for females. But, you know, this morning, actually, here at Logic, we had a presentation of our ERGs, our employee resource groups. And so there's women's groups and all kinds of other groups. I would say to women, those have been helpful to me over the years. Because sometimes we don't network quite as well as the guys. but almost every company has a women's ERG. I've led those at Procter in Europe, at Unilever globally, and they're fun.

50:56And I'm proud actually at Unilever, it's called LEAD. We had 30 % males on the women's ERG who acted as allies. But these groups can give you a community, can help you solve some practical things. Like I got babysitters out of the group at Procter. but also allow you to show yourself outside of your, you know, your lane, your day-to-day role. You get to know more people. And that kind of networking is maybe something that doesn't come so naturally to women as to men. So that's one way to network. But, you know, becoming part of groups that are outside your day-to-day job, maybe don't think of that as networking.

51:41Women often don't like that word, but becoming part of other groups is really helpful. You learn and you can be seen.

51:49David Novak:How about just the mindset that you mentioned, that you don't see a differentiation between men and female leaders? You'd have to be a leader. How about that mindset? Yeah, I think that's a good mindset. I really don't think that there's great female leaders that are wildly different from great male leader characteristics. You mentioned AI a little bit earlier. You know, what are you doing personally in the world of AI that is making you a better leader? Personally, in business here, overlap. Because at Logitech, you know, AI has to be a big tailwind for us because we build products that are AI enabled that have AI all over them.

52:33So, And I'm really proud that, you know, we're talking about it this morning. Two years ago when we did our strategy, actually the word AI wasn't in our strategy because Chad GPT had just launched and no one like really knew what was going on. So we've just refreshed the strategy and AI is now a bit more prominent. But I'm proud that we've gone from, you know, many companies are still like experimenting and doing proofs of concept. we are now at a stage where we are shipping AI-enabled products globally at scale. So whether that's our video cameras that I just mentioned, or spot sensors, which are AI sensors for meeting rooms, or new headsets that are two-way noise cancellation, which you can only do if it's machine learning and AI-enabled, we are shipping those products at scale, which is super cool.

53:26And we can only do that because our people are using AI at scale and really extending their own potential through AI. So we do track it, anonymized, and we know that 85 % of our engineers and designers and 75 % of our total employees are heavy AI users. Wow. So we are, you know, we're all extending our own potential by using agents. We've also built internally more than 1 ,500 AI agents in the last year. So our processes really are getting better and faster. And we're doing more with the same resources. So I'm actually really optimistic on AI helping us grow faster without having to add an army of people.

54:15David Novak:That's great. You know, Annika, it's been so much fun. And I want to have a little bit more with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? I shall try. The three words that best describe you? Mom, Dutch, nice. If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be? Oh, my husband. Your biggest pet peeve? Clutter. Who would play you in a movie? Uma Thurman. What's something about Holland you'd only know if you're from there? Chocolate sprinkles on bread. We love them. What's your favorite language to speak? An answer in that language. Oh, Netherlands, of course.

54:53No, I'm coming from that. That's the best.

54:56David Novak:What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work? I have been reading an interesting book called The Good Soldier's Spike, which is a classic, but I had never read it. It's a classic by a Czech writer about World War I. And I realized I don't know enough about World War I and what happened, especially in Middle Europe. and I'm going to read more and maybe do some more traveling in that area. What's the one thing you do just for you? I'm a big fan of quick exercise. So I love MadFit, the app. 10 minutes, great workout. Do those for me. Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?

55:41I'm not big into things. I don't even have a car. We moved back to America two years ago. And my husband said, you cannot live in America without a car. I'm like, watch me. And I'm doing it. So no, it really is my, you know, my husband, my kids, my family, my friends. I think I can almost live without anything else.

56:02David Novak:So you don't have a car? Nope. So my next question is, if I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Nothing. There is no radio. There is no car. What's something about you a few people would know besides the fact you don't have a radio and you don't have a car. I'm really not very technical. So I like struggle to turn on our television, which I'm ashamed of. And I have to do better, especially as a tech CEO. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never miss? Breakfast. Most important meal of the day. All right. That's terrific. Lightning round's over. You did great. And I'm going to just ask you a couple more questions, let you get back to work here.

56:44You know, you're a mom of three,

56:46David Novak:You know, how do you lead at home? Yeah. So our kids are 26, 23 and 21. So they've all left home. And I miss them terribly, honestly. It's been absolutely the joy of our lives to watch them grow up and to, you know, have the honor of being their parents. I'll tell you, today I lead them like I lead my business. I ask lots of questions. are actually quite helpful. So our oldest is an electrical engineer who's now getting his MBA. He's very techie and he's a gamer. So when I first joined Logitech, I spent literally 48 hours straight at his apartment gaming because I didn't know anything about gaming.

57:33So he's taught me a lot and he continues to be a wealth of insights. And then my youngest actually works at Procter and Gamble. So that's been fun. She just started there last summer and she's a great marketeer and a young marketeer. So that's fun when it comes to social. I learn a lot from her. And in the middle one was a college golfer, now is working, but she is so Zen. I am so impressed with competitive golfers, how they can just get up, hit a bad shot and then get on. And sometimes I don't do that well. And I just think of her and talk to her and she is so calm. So they're all inspirations.

58:14David Novak:What do you see as your unfinished business, both for Logitech and personally? This business at Logitech has still so much opportunity. So there's a lot of unfinished business here. We'll keep doing what we do well, well. But for example, there's a few things in our strategy that are definitely unfinished. Doubling down on B2B, that's only 40 % of our business today. It can be more than half. And we have to build a lot of capabilities in B2B. And And I want to do that. China for China, that was a big intervention that I made when I got here. It's going really well. Last quarter, again, double-digit growth in China.

58:55But China, you can never rest on your laurels. The competition is so fierce. The pace of innovation is so high. So to really embed that and have a sustainable growth path in the world's biggest gaming market, that's unfinished business as well. And then I'll say climate again. Before I got here, the company made big climate commitments, 50 % carbon reduction by 2030. That ambition has stayed. That is really hard to do. We are reducing. Last year, we were down 13 % versus our baseline. But that's definitely unfinished business. And I would love for us to show the world of tech and electronics that it can be done.

59:39David Novak:Fantastic. Well, if anybody can do it, I'm sure you will. And last question here, what's one piece of advice that you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? You know, I'll use a piece of advice that I got when I first became a general manager at P &G. So this is a while ago, and it maybe links to your daughter's question again, too. So, you know, I first became a general manager when I had just had my third child. So I had three children under five, and I was to be a GM at Proctor. And, you know, honestly, I don't remember very much. All blurred those days. and your children are little and you have a big job.

1:00:15And one of the more senior women said to me, listen, there's only four things in life. There's you, your husband, your children, and your job. I was like, okay. And then she said, you can only do two of them well. And I was like, oh, that's really depressing. So I'd like to do all of those well. And then she gave me a great piece of advice. She said, at least rotate. And this is so true in life. Life is long. Yes, on a given day, maybe you're only going to do your job and your children well and you and your husband are forgotten and there might be more than four things in life actually as well.

1:00:54And there will be times like that time. In fact, when I was a new general manager and I had three kids, I really was only doing the kids and work well and everything else fell by the wayside. But I'm at a different stage now and now there is actually time for me and my husband sometimes. And so this is true on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, but it's also true over careers. Don't try to do everything perfectly all the time. It is not possible. But if you rotate, you know, you'll make a good life and a good career.

1:01:24David Novak:That's fantastic advice. Yeah, Anika, I've enjoyed this so much. I appreciate your enthusiasm that you have for your business, your people, and just the future ahead. So thank you very much for taking the time to be with me. Thank you so much. I learned a few things too. I loved it. Thank you.

1:01:48David Novak:David, I feel so honored to have just witnessed that conversation between you and Hanukkah because as I am looking at you through my computer right now, I am looking through a Logitech camera on my computer. I'm surprised, Kula, because I thought you would be playing some eSports right now. I thought you'd be late and I'd have to wait for you until the game was over. So thank you very much for being on time. So wild that you actually have to train to be a great eSports competitor. I mean, I kind of chuckled when she said that at first, like you have to train as much as, you know, Olympic athlete has to train.

1:02:21David Novak:But I mean, I guess you actually do. I think that you ought to take it up because you might have a chance to be an elite athlete at that. Is that my only chance of being an elite athlete? It's your only chance. It's your only chance. Well, David, I absolutely love this conversation between you and Hanukkah, and I'm excited to give our listeners some really practical takeaways that they can use and apply to their own leadership and to their own life. And I want to start by talking about sports. Hanukkah talked in the episode about how she was a competitive diver, and that's how she ended up coming to the States because the University of Houston offered her a full scholarship.

1:02:59David Novak:And she talks a lot about the lessons that she learned through diving, how she could overcome her fears and things like that. And I want to get your perspective, David, on the role of sports in shaping leaders. Is there a story from when you played sports that had an impact in how you viewed leadership? Well, you know, I came up as a child thinking that I was going to end up as a major league baseball player. And my dad was my coach. Maybe in eSports. You know, no, no, I'm talking about the real deal. But I lived in all these little small towns. I lived in these small towns of under a thousand people.

1:03:34David Novak:And, but my dad was my coach and, you know, I could hit three home runs and make three great plays. And he'd talk about the ground ball that I let get by, you know, but he always raised the bar. So he kind of taught me this whole, you know, you know, have a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo. You know, thank God I had my mother because she'd give me all kinds of accolades and tell me how great I was. My dad would bring me back, you know, and dad had a great way of making me stay humble and hungry as Hanukkah really, really talked about. But I think my big learning was is that, you know, once I moved to the big city, I moved to Kansas City, I realized I was not a superstar.

1:04:18David Novak:I wasn't going to the major leagues and I better get good at something else besides sports if I was going to be successful. So I actually became the sports editor of my newspaper. The editor of my newspaper really found a great desire to be more creative and learn how to write. And it took me to journalism and ultimately to advertising and ultimately to advertising and marketing. And somehow I ended up being a CEO. But I think the fact that I wasn't going to be a major leaguer, the fact that I wasn't going to be a superstar athlete, and that I was now in this competitive realm where I realized that.

1:04:53David Novak:You know, I could play, but I wasn't going to be at the top of the top. I think that gave me the drive to move beyond and find something else that I could be world class at. Not that I ever became world class at anything. But also, Cole, I thought it was very interesting that she is such a great athlete herself. You know, because, you know, I read recently in Fast Company that 94 % of women that are in C-suite positions, okay, played competitive sports and half of them did it while they were in college. So I think the competitive drive that you pick up, that the ability to take the coaching and the feedback you need to get better, all of these things that Hanukkah talked about in her conversation with me, I think help people that have played sports do well in the business world.

1:05:53Because frankly, you know, it's another hobby.

1:05:55David Novak:If you love what you do, it becomes a hobby just like sports. You know, you're no longer playing football. You're no longer playing baseball like you used to or basketball or whatever. Now the game of life, the game of sport is business. And I think that's what sports does for you. I love that you pointed out that you have to get good at accepting coaching and feedback from a young age if you grow up playing sports and if you continue to play sports at the collegiate or even professional level. And that feedback piece is something that I want to talk about next, David. I loved in the episode when Hanukkah talks about how she created the MVP of their strategy.

1:06:30David Novak:And she actually circulated that strategy to all 7 ,000 Logitech employees. She gave everybody 24 hours to view it and to come back and present to her three things I liked about it and three things that they didn't love about it. And I thought that was so interesting. You even said in the episode you've never heard anybody do that. What stood out to you about that process, and what learning from that process would you take and teach other leaders? Well, one of the things I always talk about is the importance of recognizing that if you have no involvement, you have no commitment. And what really stood out to this process is that she got everybody in the company involved, or at least gave everybody in the company an opportunity to chime in.

1:07:12David Novak:The other thing that I really liked was how she talked about she wanted three things that people really appreciated, and then three things that they could build on, you know, and not three things that were wrong necessarily. And I like that because it's very similar to a coaching model that Larry Sin, you know, taught me. And Larry Sin was the father of culture and taught me so much about how to lead. And I mean, literally, Larry Sin was the father of culture. He's the guy that created the word when he was at Stanford. I mean, this guy, you know, and then he put together all these processes and games and tools that you could use to get better as a leader.

1:07:54David Novak:But he said, when you're giving feedback, and I use this all the time, he said, start out with like, what do I appreciate about what you've just done? Okay, start out with appreciation. And then don't say, but you could be a lot better if you did this. Say, and you could be even more effective if you thought about this or you did this or whatever. And because what happens, you know, when you, people, I've seen research on this, and I know it's true in my own case, you could get the most glowing review in the world, but you're always looking for the but, okay? And the but's the only thing that stands out, you know?

1:08:34David Novak:But if you put that but in the context of and, so that it's more positive, and that this is how you can even elevate your game, I think that's powerful. So, you know, the advice I always give to everybody is the advice I got, you know, start out with what do I appreciate about what I just saw? And you can always find something. Even if it's not that good, you can say, I appreciate the fact that you took the time to share it with me. Okay. But it sucked. No, just kidding. And it could be a lot better if you would have taken more time to make it this way or that way or whatever. Okay. But the but's like an anvil that you drop on people.

1:09:13David Novak:Okay. And I think the and is a powerful thing. And it's sort of like Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great. He talks about the magic of the and. You know, be good at sales and driving profits. And I think that's kind of the same way you should give your feedback. Use that magic of the and. It's so true. When you hear the word but, it just sucks the air out of the room and completely kills any positivity that you might have been feeling after receiving that glowing report. What do they say? It's a zapper or it saps you or whatever it is, you know, but it doesn't doesn't elevate you. But the most important thing is, is you want to get feedback.

1:09:51The other thing that I appreciate about what Hanukkah says is don't wait until the annual review.

1:09:58David Novak:She didn't say this, but she said when you when you you see somebody do something that you can help them with and give some feedback could be helpful, either positive or something that you could do better at, do it directly. Find a way to get that person off in the corner, off in their office, out in the hallway or whatever, or give them that coaching real time. And because I think real time helps you make improvement faster. I think that's the way you drive urgency in an organization. You provide real time feedback and you give real time direction. It creates that forward momentum and really eliminates any sort of sense of feeling stagnant, too, because you're just constantly being able to be agile and move and adjust as you continue moving forward, trying to get done what you're trying to get done.

1:10:50David Novak:David, that brings me to this final concept that I want to get your take on. In the episode, Hanukkah talks about how she tells her team that today is the slowest day of the rest of your life. And really what she's getting at is things are never going to be as slow as they are right now. A year from now, where we are today is going to seem like light years ago. And I'm curious, as you think about creating that sense of urgency among your people, how do you do that in a way that doesn't burn people out? Well, I think, first of all, you got to let everybody know that there's a reason for it. It's a competitive sense of urgency.

1:11:23David Novak:You know, you've got to have a sense of urgency to be competitive in today's world. And what Hanukkah is saying is the world's not going to get any slower. It's only going to get faster. So, you know, I think you've got to build the mindset in the organization that a competitive sense of urgency is something that we all have to have to protect what we have and grow what we have. And that's how you get to keep your job. You know, you don't get to keep your job by staying stagnant. You got to keep moving forward. You know, one thing I always did, Kula, was I always put things up in my office that reminded people what was really important.

1:12:01David Novak:And, you know, mine were like I had three things framed among many things besides all the people that I have framed in my office that I'd recognized. And one of them was the statement framed in bold type, what's new? Okay. Because, you know, what's new? You know, you got to innovate if you're going to win. The other one is what's next? Okay. We might just had a great presentation, but, you know, what's next? And then I had win framed with a big question mark. Okay. When's it going to happen? You know, and, you know, I think that those things really, really drive action. You know, if you think about what's new, what's next, and when?

1:12:48David Novak:When's it going to happen? And then you follow up on the win. That drives the right kind of urgency. And I also remember Andy Pearson, who co-founded Yum Brands with me. He was just a great, great leader, great friend of mine. You know, anytime anybody made a presentation, he would always say, so what? So what in the hell are you going to do about it? You know, and I think that drives it. He had a great sense of urgency. What's the so what? Okay, you present all this data, all this stuff, all these charts look really great. So what? So what are you going to do? So what's it mean? So what are you going to do about it?

1:13:30David Novak:And I always thought about that in those terms as well. You say a lot, David, nobody wants to wake up and go be part of something mediocre. I think in addition to that, nobody wants to wake up and be part of something that's stagnant. People want momentum. They want progress. They want energy. They want inertia. And so I think, you know, the sense of urgency, it can be created, like you said, by defining it as that competitive sense of urgency. But it's also just kind of vital to a healthy, living, active organization that's moving forward. Yeah. And no matter how large your team is, remember this.

1:14:05David Novak:Wipe out bureaucracy. Declare war on it. Don't allow bureaucracy to creep in because that's what just saps the hell out of everybody. is that when you have to waste time on things that don't really matter, oh, my God, you know, that just takes everybody down. So, you know, that's all part of your environment, okay, that you need to create the culture that you need to create as a leader of your team or your company. And this is not something you need to start doing when you're a CEO. Start doing it right now, okay? You know, you can do what's new, what's next, when, so what, now what? You know, you can start having that mindset from the beginning.

1:14:50David Novak:And anytime you see bureaucracy, bring it up. Let your boss know. Let people know that this is a waste of time. And you know what? You're not going to be seen as a whiner. You're going to be seen as someone that really wants to do the right thing. And there's a way to do it. But I think that comes with what do you appreciate about what's right in your company? and here's how we can be more effective. Get rid of all this bureaucracy. Yeah, exactly. Well, the folks who just listened to this episode with Hanukkah certainly have some really practical ways to not only declare war on bureaucracy, but create a healthy, thriving environment that's always moving forward and moving faster because like she said, it's never going to get any slower.

1:15:30David Novak:And that's true, Kula. And you know what's really great? Is you can now go back to working on your e-sport athletic ability and, you know, because golf, I can tell you, my friend, is not in your future. That is such a burn. I probably deserved it, but maybe I should take up esports. That's great. You're a good athlete. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak, and we will see you next week.

1:16:08.