3 More Questions (David Levy) with David Novak and Koula Callahan

0:04David Novak:Happy Monday, everybody, and welcome to another edition of Three More Questions. I'm Koula Callahan here with David Novak. And David, we've got a great episode to debrief on our edition of Three More Questions for today. We're going to be debriefing your conversation with David Levy. He's the co-CEO of Horizon Sports and Experiences, and he's the former president of Turner Networks. And this is the guy who coined the epic term and the epic tournament March Madness. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Brought Turner and CBS together so that all games were broadcasted at the same time so that you could watch whatever game you wanted to watch that was occurring during that time period.

0:48And that was a huge breakthrough and had never been done before. But this is a never been done before kind of guy.

0:55David Novak:Absolutely. I think that deal's in place, he said, until 2032. And we watch March Madness every year and don't really think about all the work that went into making that possible. But if you're a March Madness fan, you have David Levy to thank for being able to stream all your games at once. You know, I remember when I was running marketing at Pizza Hut, you know, we sponsored the whole NCAA tournament and March Madness just when March Madness was coined. And we actually had big promotions every year around these little mini basketballs where the host site, we put the logo of the host site on the balls and sold them at Pete's Hut.

1:33And I remember we'd sell nine million basketballs during that tournament. So it was a lot of fun. You know, so I love Barch Madness.

1:41David Novak:For more reasons than just basketball, it appears. Right. Absolutely. I love it. Well, David, we're going to get your take on some of the concepts that you and David discussed in the full-length episode. If you haven't listened to it, go back in the feed and listen to episode 252 with David Levy. Today, though, with this David, we're going to roll into our questions. Let's go.

2:05David Novak:Question number one. In the episode, David Levy says that the only way to move up as a leader is to make sure you're replaceable and that the people you hire are more capable than you are. If not, he says, your boss and your boss's boss are not going to want to move you out of your role. David, what's your take on that? You have to prove that you're dispensable before people will give you the next opportunity. And the only way to do that is you got to have somebody who's going to be able to take your job and do it at least as well as you can. And the people who are smart enough and secure enough to know that and act upon that and make sure that they're developing their successors and helping them grow to their best ability, God bless them because they really get what growing people is all about.

2:51And you know what? Sometimes you might just help somebody grow that might just be better than you. And you know what? The organization's gonna figure that out sooner or later anyway. And wouldn't you much rather have been the person that helped that guy move up to a job higher up than you or the one that kept him back? Because ultimately, the really great people, they're going to rise to their level, in my experience.

3:17David Novak:I love that he also says that you have to hire people more capable of you. I think, you know, so often when we're hiring people, it's almost like we get really possessive over our job and put off this energy like we're the only person who can do the job that we're doing. But that's just not true. And so when you combine that competence with humility and understand that people are as good as you are and maybe even better than you are, I think, like you said, it just sets the whole organization up for even more success. A lot of times you'll hire people. They're not going to be more capable than you right off the bat.

3:48But you want to hire people that have the potential to achieve the highest levels in the organization. You never want to hire somebody for a job. You know, I always tried to hire somebody that I could see in the next big job and then the next big job. And, you know, if you hire people for jobs and jobs only, you end up with a lot of blockers in your organization. You end up with just average people and everybody wants to have the top talent. And by the way, I don't think there is such a thing as an average person. Every person has dignity. Everybody needs to be treated with respect. But there are such things as average performers, and you don't want to have an average performer.

4:28David Novak:Question number two. In the episode, David Levy says that it's easy to lead your direct reports because they have to listen to you. But great leaders are the ones that have an impact on people across the entire organization. What can emerging leaders do to have an impact not only on the people that report to them, but in any division of their organization? Well, I think you have to think about what you do on two dimensions. Number one, you got to run whatever piece of the company you own with distinction so the people respect you and know that you really have competence and they're going to want to listen to what you have to say.

5:04And then number two, you got to think about the rest of the organization and the success of your company and being tied to their success. You want to be taking on a company view, not just your own view of what you control. And then when you do that, people see that you're into the success of the entire organization, not just your own, and that you're willing to help other people, not just your own team. And I think that's the way how you can really have a lot of influence in an organization. And I've said this before, but I think the best leaders have an uncanny combination of confidence and humility.

5:47And the confidence comes from being competent. And when you're competent, people across the organization will see that. And that leads to confidence that you build not only for yourself, but people have in you because they know that you have this confidence. And people aren't going to follow you off a cliff. They're going to only follow you if they know you know what you're actually doing. And then they have a humility that says, hey, you know, I don't know everything and that I need you to help me and my team. And when, you know, people see that, whether they report to you or they don't, they're going to be behind you and you're going to have a much, much deeper influence.

6:25David Novak:It reminds me, David, of a concept that you've shared on the show before of having an enterprise mindset and outlook on the company, regardless of what your functional role is. And I think what you explained there helps you do that. Having the humility to say, hey, tech guys, I'm not super techie, but I want to understand what you all do so that we hit our goals and move the business forward. And then you're able to kind of support them, maybe not with technical skills, but maybe with some of those soft skills so that they can rise to the occasion and do an even better job at what they're doing.

7:00David Novak:So this enterprise mindset of I do my functional role and I succeed in it. And also I take stake in what other people are doing as well is a great way to do that leadership vertically and also horizontally. Absolutely. And, you know, I love the enterprise mindset and I love the line that Jack Welch gave me once, you know, when he was trying to get everybody in all the different divisions to work together and collaborate. And he says, I want everybody to know that, you know, nobody makes it to shore unless the Queen Mary does. Okay. And the Queen Mary was General Electric and all the other divisions were just divisions, but it was the Queen Mary was the corporation.

7:41Question number three.

7:43David Novak:I love in the interview when David Levy talks about the importance of trusting your gut. When he was at Turner Networks, he said Ted Turner used to tell him all the time that you have to have a golden gut. David Novak, for leaders who may not be in touch with their intuition, how can they learn to really trust their gut? Well, I think you got to realize whether you have one or not. A lot of times people don't have a gut. I mean, they might have an instinct to what they think they're right, but it's not something that they can just reach into and say, hey, this is what we ought to do because this is how I feel.

8:16And I think it depends on what kind of person you are. You know, very creative people. People have a lot of common sense, a lot of intuition, whatever. they have a tendency to really trust their guts because they can be 85 % right just by following their gut. But then there are other types of people, it requires more analysis, more study before they really make a decision. And they want to take the time to process all of that before they do, because they don't necessarily have the confidence in their intuition. They want to do the work. They want to go through all the tough sledding it takes to really understand, you know, situation before they make a call.

8:54Now, my opinion is that the best leaders have a really good gut. They are creative. And that creativity and their gut is based on all this experience that they've accumulated over time. I mean, Jamie Dimon once said, you know, it's that experience that you're picking up and that you gained. That's what gives you a good gut. And because you've been there, done that and you can make the call. But then you combine that gut with analysis, with the process of really trying to understand the totality of the issue at hand. That's when I think you make your best judgments.

9:32David Novak:We talk a lot, David, about the importance of being self-aware as a leader, having a high EQ. What do you think self-awareness has to do in terms of someone being able to trust their gut? Well, I know my self-awareness was that I knew I was very creative, very judgmental. I could come to conclusions really quick. But then I realized my self-awareness was I realized I wasn't always right. And if I would have just sought out more input, done a little bit more analysis, I would have been more right more times. So that's the self-awareness I created was that, hey, just don't rely on your gut, even though it's good.

10:14It's better than most, but it's not as good as it could be if you put a little bit more facts behind everything. So I really, really focused on making sure that I saw the total picture before I made decisions.

10:25David Novak:I love it. Well, David Levy is a leader who takes a lot of risks, and I think that he is able to do that and achieve success after taking that risk because he is so in tune with his golden gut and because he leans on the experiences that he's had to convince him to trust his gut even more. And if you haven't listened to this episode and if you're a sports fan, it's so fun to hear David Levy talk about the experiences that he's had doing these deals with these huge sports media networks. They're doing incredibly cool, innovative stuff over at Horizon Sports and Experiences. So definitely give the episode a listen.

11:01David Novak:If you haven't already, David Levy is such a fun guy and I know you'll learn a lot from him. Hey, cool. Well, one other thing is that, you know, when it comes to your gut, I think it's important to remember what kind of business are you in? Some businesses just require creativity. They require the gut instinct. You know, you're never going to have all the facts to really buy into a big idea or make a big idea happen. You know, like when you're in the media world or you're in the advertising world or you're in the marketing world, if you don't have a good gut, you better find a different line. You know, and you know what?

11:33if you're in a different business, you know, where you run a financial company and, you know, it's so important, you're making these huge financial bets that you got to really do the analysis to make sure you're right. Your company is going to lose billions of dollars or trillion, you know, you know, you better have that skill. And if you don't have that skill, you're not going to rise to the highest levels or ultimately you'll get blocked. But I think the best leaders find a combination of those two things. So true. I love it.

12:06David Novak:Well, David Novak, that does it for our episode of three more questions for today. Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead. We're on a mission to make the world a better place by developing better leaders. And if you carve out a little time with us each and every week, we'll help you build the confidence you need to lead well. And coming up next on How Leaders Lead is my conversation with Roger Crandall, the chairman, president, and CEO of MassMutual. plus in in in Good