Unlocking Your Power at Work: How to empower others with Hubert Joly

0:00Hi, I'm Molly Graham, host of Work Life, a podcast from TED. The most important lessons about work usually aren't the ones anyone teaches you. They come from experience, from uncertainty, from figuring things out as you go. On this show, my expert guests and I explore how careers really unfold through change, through doubt, through the decisions that shape who we become over time. Because those moments aren't the exception. They are the work. Listen to Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.

0:58for data and trying to figure out how it all fits together. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Perplexity Computer. It connects you to the tools you already use, giving you a complete picture of your business. Before you even wake up, it can send your team daily performance reports, pulling revenue, ad spend, margin, inventory, and more. And it doesn't just tell you what's happening, It gets to work, rebuilding your CRM, creating your next ad campaign, or drafting your creator outreach. Perplexity Computer runs all the leading AI models and chooses the right one for each step of the project.

1:39For a limited time only, our listeners can try Perplexity Computer for free. Head to pplx.ai.tedbiz. That's pplx.ai slash TEDBIZ to try computer today. Most AI tools are still answering questions, while Perplexity Computer is completing full projects. This episode is brought to you by Founders Mentality, a podcast in partnership with Bain & Company. If you listen to Ted Business for conversations about leadership, navigating change, and unlocking innovation, I have another show for your rotation. It's called Founders Mentality, the CEO Sessions. It gets into the real decisions behind some of today's leading executives and companies.

2:33Not just what a CEO should do, but who a CEO has to become to do it. In their recent episode with Laura Burrow, Group CEO of The Economist Group, you hear how she walked into a divided organization and a transformation project that had already cost the company millions and made the call to scrap it. Instead, she pushed for a new approach, one that could fund itself and bring the business back together. She and host Jimmy Allen break down that choice, how customer data reshaped the company's priorities, and how The Economist is thinking about transformation now in the age of AI. Follow Founders Mentality, the CEO sessions from Bain & Company, wherever you get your podcasts.

3:22Hey listeners, we're dropping another playlist this month, and this one is a new series from our friends over at Fixable. It's all about how to unlock your power at work. And if you're looking over your shoulder and thinking, power? Me? Well then, yeah, this series is exactly for you. Anne, Frances, and their esteemed panel of guests talk through all the ways you might be underestimating your own power. And you may be surprised at what they have to say. This playlist is a primer on how to get what you want, how to feel financially empowered, and how to empower others. I'm excited for you to listen.

4:03Anne and Francis are going to take it from here.

4:12Spend time with yourself and decide what kind of leader you want to be. Decide this every day. And then at the end of the day or maybe at the end of the week, reflect on what kind of leader you've truly been. Self-assess. Ask people for feedback. Give yourself grace. By the way, if you've not been the amazing leader you're aspiring to be, there's always tomorrow to the inner journey of leadership is foundational to the outer journey of leadership.

4:44Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Fixable. This is a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove that they're not. I'm Anne Morris. And I'm Frances Frye. We're getting close to the end of our Unlocking Your Power at Work series. In this series, we've talked about how to hold the powerful accountable, how to harness the power you didn't realize you had, and even how to create your own financial power. Today, we're going in another direction. We're heading to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder and the rarefied air of hard power. Francis, throughout this series, I keep coming back to that famous line from Spider-Man when And Uncle Ben says to Peter Parker, remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

5:28Yeah, that responsibility part, it's really important, particularly as you go up these rungs of power. Yeah, we haven't really talked about the responsibility part yet. Like once you get all of this power that we've been unlocking, what are you going to do with it? That's what we want to get after today. How do you use your power wisely, not just for your own benefit, but for the people around you? And is that even the right way to think about it? To help us answer these questions, we have an objectively powerful guest, someone who made it to the very top of corporate America by empowering the people around him.

6:04I'm talking about the celebrated business leader and Harvard Business School professor, Hubert Jolie. Hubert! For anyone who doesn't already know him by name, Hubert is the former chairman and CEO of Best Buy, where he led one of the most celebrated corporate turnarounds of the past decade. He tells that story in his bestselling book, The Heart of Business, Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism. Today, Hubert advises senior leaders and companies around the world and serves on the boards of Johnson & Johnson and S &P Global, among others. Here's what I love about Hubert. Not only is he kind and wise and good looking and handsome and he speaks with a French accent.

6:50He's got all of those things. And he is just the most lovely colleague. Just the most lovely colleague. I am happier every single time I see him. Well, then let's not deny you or the people. Let's let's bring him in. Hubert Jolie, welcome to Fixable. Anne and Frances, what a pleasure to be with you today. This conversation is part of a series we're doing on power. And we'd love to jump right into your approach to power, which is feeling very countercultural these days. And I'm going to try to sum it up. I understand that you believe that sharing power and empowering other people actually makes a leader more powerful.

7:36Is that a fair summary? and how did you reach this radical conclusion? How much time do you have, Anne? Yes, this is an accurate summary, but this was a journey. So I grew up last century, as you can tell from my great air. And last century, the role model for the successful leader was the leader as the superhero who had all of the answers. So I spent my first 12 years in my career as a consultant at McKinsey. And of course, you had to have all of the answers. And that's how I grew up. You had to be the smartest guy in the room. And I also suffered from a disease, which was the quest for perfection.

8:15I thought I needed to be perfect. My mother gave that to me.

8:21And I have to credit Marshall Goldsmith, a number of people, but one of them is Marshall Goldsmith, who was my coach, for introducing me to Feed Forward and teaching me to say out loud, my name is Hubert and I need help. My name is Hubert and I don't know. Now I can say it super easily. But when I started to work with Marshall in 2009, this was a journey, right? And then so Marshall made me think about what I wanted to work on. And then, you know, he made me sit in front of my team or stay in front of my team and said, thank you for the time you spent with Marshall. thank you for all of the encouragements and these are three things I've decided to work on I've decided to work on and number one, number two, number three and I'm going to follow up with each of you and ask you for advice on how I can get better on each of these things and then in three or four months I'll check in with you and ask you whether I'm making progress and if you have more advice and the reason why I talk about this in connection with power is that if you lead a team You cannot build connection if you're trying to be the perfect person.

9:31You know, people can admire a perfect person. They cannot connect with a perfect person. As human beings, we connect who are imperfections in our vulnerabilities. And of course, as a team, and Francis, you do such a good job of teaching that in our classroom when we're together, is that, you know, if we can rely on everybody's super unique human powers and unique powers, then we're going to be more effective as a team. So, Hubert, you continue on this path from consultant to leading your own companies, and you are known for leading this extraordinary turnaround of Best Buy. What did that part of the ride teach you about sharing power with other people?

10:19Yes. A huge advantage that I had when I became CEO of Best Buy in 2012 is that I knew nothing about retail. I'll tell you the story. I started the first week I spent working in one of the Best Buy stores up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, about 100 miles north of Minneapolis. So this is September 2012. I have a Best Buy blue shirt. I'm wearing my khakis at the time, the pants were khakis. I have a Ubershaw Lee CEO in training badge. And this is not me touring the store or other stores with an entourage. This is about me spending several days there, spending the nights in SunCloud, and spending time with the employees, with the management team, being educated on the different parts of the stores and essentially asking three questions.

11:17What's working? What's not working? What do you need? And what's extraordinary, and we know this, the frontliners, they tend to have all of the answers. My job as the new CEO was super easy. Show up in one of the stores or several of the stores, ask these questions, listen intensively, make notes, and do as I was told. And then I went back to headquarters and, of course, had a lot of intensive listening session with the different members of the team. And then we workshopped, you know, the diagnosis and then the plan. And we indeed co-creating the plan. As a result, you know, we had something that we all believed in.

12:01And it was a very people-centric, people-led approach. One of the things I believe is that CEO stands for chief energizing officer. And so, again, my job was not to be the smartest person in the room, but to create energy. How do you create energy? Co-create the diagnosis, co-create the plan, get going, celebrate the wins. Now, to be clear, in that first phase of the a turnaround, which we called Renew Blue. As the CEO, I was making a lot of the decisions, right? Because if the ship is sinking, yes, I'm going to take inputs, but I'm going to make a lot of the decisions. But what's interesting, back to your power question, Anne, after three or four years of this, you know, we had stabilized the business.

12:46Things were, you know, the share price had gone from 11 to maybe 55 or something. Turnaround was over. One of our board members told me, Hubert, you need to officially decide that the turnaround is over so that you can move to a growth phase, which is a different mindset. In a turnaround, you don't want to miss. You're not taking too many risks, right? You want to stabilize things. In a growth phase, you want to innovate. And I did this with our team. I explicitly decided that my role as a leader was changing. It was less about making a lot of decisions and more about creating the environment for the organization to be able to grow and thrive.

13:23You know, I gave everyone amongst the officers a get out of jail free card so that they could experiment. And then if it didn't work, they could come to me and share their lessons and so forth. Did you literally give them a card? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. I love this. And I want to get into the mechanics of empowerment, because in our experience, people often discover that it's harder than it sounds in some ways. So in this pivot, how did you prepare the people around you to receive power and to start taking up more space? We worked on clarity of decision-making. The team first asked me, Hubert, what decisions are you responsible for?

14:12Well, I said, well, you know, clearly who's on the team, the strategy, of course, in consultation with the board, the culture, and major capital allocation decisions. These are the four main decisions I'm responsible for. So it's okay. You get to keep those. They were kind. But let's talk about the other decisions. Because there was a tendency, sometimes in an organization, there's a tendency for everything to percolate to the top. And we said, no. So let's take an example. The mobile phone strategy, right? Best Buy sells mobile phones. So Jason, who is the merchant at the time for mobile phones, should be the decision maker.

14:53And then we worked on what's going to be the decision-making process. Is it going to be autocratic, where Jason gets to decide on his own? Is it going to be a democracy, where everybody gets a vote? Is it going to need to be unanimous? Or is it going to be more a consultative process, where Jason gets to think about who he'd like to involve in the decision-making process? I can still provide input. Anybody can provide input. By the way, as a senior leader, if you're going to provide input, make sure you underscore its input, not directive, and provide that input early rather than late. Because if you provide late, it derails things.

15:32And then once you've provided that input, let go. Now, of course, Jason, if he needs to spend$500 million back to capital allocation, he needs to come to me. But otherwise, he's good. He can just run with it. And that was such a game changer. It really accelerated things. And that's a very concrete thing that anybody can do. So you made the decision rights very clear. You agreed on a decision-making process. You agreed on which decision rights as the CEO you were going to hold on to. You're in a really interesting role right now because you've had this extraordinary experience of, you know, becoming this very powerful person in the system.

16:17You also advise and observe and study lots of organizations. So when you sample on the companies who are doing this really well, who are distributing power very well, what else are those organizations getting right? Rather than give theory, I'll give another story. So this is Best Buy, and it's 2018. And one day I hear about a story of something that happened in one of our stores down in Florida. One day there's a young woman who comes back to the store with a little boy. The little boy, you know, presumably for the holidays, perhaps Christmas, got a gift, which was a dinosaur toy. Now, the dramatic part of the story is that the dinosaur got sick, really sick.

17:09The way we know the dinosaur got sick is that the head got dismantled from the rest of the body. So really very sick. Catastrophic. Catastrophic. So, you know, on a good day in retail, you would go back to the store, you would be sent to the toy aisle, and with some luck, you would be able to buy a replacement for the dinosaur. But of course, that's not what the little boy wanted. He wanted a cure for the dinosaur. And on that day in that store down in Florida, that Best Buy store, it was two young women associates who understood what was going on. They took the sick dinosaur from the little boy.

17:46They went behind a counter and performed a surgical procedure on the sick dinosaur. And, of course, substituted a new dinosaur, but gave back to the little boy a cured dinosaur. So, of course, the question is not the joy of the little boy and his mother. We know that. But was there a standard operating procedure at Best Buy on how to deal with sick dinosaurs? Of course not. They found it in their heart to do this. And then the freedom and the desire in that it was okay. What we don't know is how much they charge for the surgical procedure. This is the U.S., so it could be very expensive. We don't know.

18:27This is what I call the phrase unleashing human magic because I said, oh, my God, what have we done? At scale, we've created an environment where people on their own volition can do extraordinary things. Yeah, beautiful. It's a beautiful point, and it really resonates with our work for sure. That where we started was, well, you're very clear about decision rights. It's, well, no one came together and said, if there is a dinosaur without its head that comes in the store, you know, Hubert, you're the one that's going to fix it. So how do, you know, how do we know what to do in that situation? Well, we get a ton of information from culture and it's this very powerful lever as you've written about so beautifully.

19:11So I want to apply some of these ideas to the challenge of leading today because some of the pushback we get in discussions like this is that this is an approach that worked for a gentler time. But in today's eat or be eaten world, some of these ideas are kind of past their expiration date. What is your reaction to that critique? One of the things I learned from a client many years ago is that 98 % of the questions that are asked as either or are better answered as ands. It's not a continuum with two opposing ends. Of course, it's a matrix. On one dimension, you have performance orientation, and on the other dimension, you have, say, let's say, humanity.

19:58And nobody wants to be in the bottom left corner, right? Nobody wants to be in no performance orientation, and it's all kumbaya, because that's doom. Nobody wants to—I mean, not many people want to be in a very strong performance orientation with no humanity, because that's not sustainable. And of course, the way you achieve great performance is by mobilizing the organization, because a company is a human organization made of individuals working together in support of a goal. A recent case I wrote is about Jensen Huang at NVIDIA. I thought, you know, if there is a$5 trillion company, perhaps, you know, we can learn a couple of things from them.

20:40And so one of my favorite cases to teach, and, you know, on that matrix, is Jensen very intense as a leader? Of course he is. You know, on performance orientation, I mean, they work really hard. They, you know, they want to work at the speed of light. You know, he talks about torturing people into greatness. So there is a lot of intensity. But he's also a very human leader. The turnover at NVIDIA is 2.3%. He knows people individually, not just as a contributor, but their life. And he tells them, I don't want to give up on you. You're too precious. Yeah. And so I think that our responsibility as leader is to, you know, yes, get great performance through humanity.

21:26The other thing I would say, we as leaders get to decide how we want to lead, right? So we don't need to copy, you know, somebody we don't like. and so we need to make up our mind around this. And clearly in a world that's a bit more chaotic and unpredictable and shifting, back to not having all of the answers, as a leader, who has all of the answers? During COVID, of course, that was pretty obvious. Perhaps you, Anne and Francis, you had the COVID manual that nobody had. No, it didn't get sent to us. That's right. So you need to create the right approach.

22:14This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

22:44Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. You have a tiny computer in your pocket putting a world of information at your fingertips, but it's hard to decipher what information is worth consuming when getting lost in the scroll. I'm Elise Hu, and on my podcast, TED Talks Daily, you can count on hearing ideas from experts that feed your brain, not slop that rots it.

23:22Neuroscientists, technologists, world-renowned artists, and more unveil complex ideas to help you make sense of the world. From breakthrough mental health research to advice on navigating tricky relationships to the latest AI innovation. It's a trusted place to get your daily curiosity fix. Listen to TED Talks Daily with new episodes every day, wherever you get your podcasts.

23:50So it's now 2026. The world is moving fast. AI is a character in every play that we're all watching. How have you adapted the Hubert Jolie playbook to this moment? The leadership principles we're talking about are, and many people say this, even more important today with AI. I know what not to do. You know, what not to do as a leader of an organization is to tell the organization, I have some great news. We should be able to run this place with about half of you. And I'd like you to work with me to make sure we do this as quickly as possible. Aren't you excited about it? I'm seeing this in so many organizations, Hubert.

24:34It's incredible. I mean, you state it that way and we can't help but laugh. But then we could just go look at the headlines and I could list you 10 well-known companies that are doing exactly that. People get fascinated by shiny objects and they lose their minds. And when I say they lose their mind, they forget everything they've learned. And so I think that a key lesson is to go back to what we know. And what we know is that, you know, as you lead an organization, if there are some tools, you know, you should use the tools in service of your purpose, in service of the growth and, you know, efficiency of the company.

25:09So point AI to things that are going to be, you know, helpful to your purpose, to your customers and to driving performance. This reality is going to vary greatly across companies. So you need to perhaps first figure out how much of a threat to your strategic mode AI is, and is it to what extent is an enabler, an accelerator, and so forth. But then my view is that to unlock the power of AI, which is the first discussion, what is the power of AI in service of what? To unlock the power of AI, you're going to laugh at me, you have to unleash human magic. And you need to be a leader because back to this point, what is a company?

25:46a company is a human organization made of individuals working together, people are afraid and they are anxious. Some of them are angry. We live in an angry world. So connecting with your team, and maybe that's the first thing I should have mentioned, is where are you at? And what's the narrative you have? Back to the narrative we don't want, right? I think people like Doug McMillan at Walmart when he was there or Jamie Dimon at J.P. Morgan do a great job of saying, look, let's be clear, probably every job is going to be impacted in one way, shape, or form. But my responsibility is twofold. It's to, one, work with everyone to make sure we find enough growth opportunities.

26:28And it supports all of our transition to this new world so that perhaps five years from now, the company is 50 or 100 % bigger. Perhaps we have the same headcount. But I'm going to do my best to work on these two things, the growth orientation and then the organizational orientation. Yeah. What I love about that, Hubert, is that we see companies with record performance cutting employees. They've essentially failed your test, which is their growth opportunities weren't to support the transition. It's not clear what they were for, but they were not unleashing human magic. And so when you say it, I just find myself nodding along.

27:09Yes, yes, yes. And I really want to bottle it and go and distribute those bottles to many tech company leaders today. Because I would say that the central tendency is to not receive this wisdom. And of course, we need efficiency. I mean, at Best Buy, we took$2 billion of cost out. We always need to drive efficiencies. But you don't make it the main play. I think that in the case, Christophe Beck, the CEO of Ecolab, who is a great friend and a great leader, explicitly says, I'm going to orient 99 % of my comments on growth because that's where I want us to go in strategy enablement. And of course, we're going to drive efficiency.

27:55We have to do this all the time. And in any organization, there's ways to drive this. And then you can take some of it to your bottom line, but you can also use that to reinvest in the future. And so leaders have a big responsibility. A challenge for any leader at any level is that it's easy to become afraid and fearful about the future. There's so many reasons to be concerned about the future. But as a leader, don't convey your anxiety to your organization. Oh, we talk about this all the time. Yeah. It seems to contradict the principle of vulnerability and being open. There's different circles.

28:35With your team, you can say, I'm concerned. I don't see enough growth opportunities. As the CEO of the organization, if you convey this big anxiety about, you know, maybe we're going to have to have half of the people go, I think that's irresponsible. So you need to work on yourself, be centered, and then figure out how you want to drive, you know, performance. We had the wonderful Deb Grunfeld onto the show as part of this series. So one thing that she's observed in her work is that the human animal doesn't always want power or doesn't always want the top job in a hierarchy. We sometimes prefer the number two spot where you get most of the status, but a lot more security, a lot less pressure.

29:23Um, how do you work with a leader who has mixed feelings about power? Ah. And have you ever experienced that ambivalence yourself? So I want to tell the story of Corey Barry, who's been my successor at Best Buy as the CEO. And he's now herself passing the baton to Jason Bonfitt, the Jason I talked about earlier. because I think there's partly, and both of you can correct me if you don't agree, there's potentially a gender nuance to be introduced here. So I'm relying on the work that Sally Hilgerson has done with Marshall Goldsmith, publishing a book called How Women Rise. And one of the things that Sally talks about in her book is the fact that, And so if there is a promotion opportunity, more power, we the boys, even if we're only 80 % ready, we're going to say, I want it.

30:28Give it to me. I got it. Oh, 80 % is generous, sir. Okay. 50%. If you're 50 % of the way there, hand is up. What Sally says, and you're going to share with me whether that lines up with your experience. If a woman is 125 % ready for the job, oftentimes that woman is, I'm not sure I'm ready. I'm not sure I want the limelight or the spotlights. Plus, I'm not done with the job I currently have and so on and so forth. Does that align with your observations? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we see that pattern all the time. And so in the case of Corey, Corey became the CFO. And I told her, look, this may not be your last stop.

31:09And she said, Hubert, I don't want the top job. Exactly your point. And then the board told me, Hubert, please stop bothering her. You've just, you know, she just became CFO. You don't need to talk to her after the next hour. But when I felt that the time had come for me to consider passing the baton of CEO, I felt that Corey was the best internal candidate. And so a few weeks before I spoke with the board, I went back to Corey and said, Corey, I know what you told me, you know, three years ago, but this is now real. And in a few weeks, in five weeks, I'll speak with the board about, you know, my intention, my timeline and so forth.

31:51And I'm not asking you to say yes. I'm asking you to consider it. And then she said, oh, but I have all of these objections. I said, that's okay. Write them down. and she wrote a beautiful seven-page memo with the first six pages being all of the reasons why she didn't want the job. The last page was, ah, perhaps. I said, oh, okay, this is good. Then we had dinner and we talked about all of the objections. Some of them had to do with, she couldn't see how she could do the job like I had done it. I said, nobody wants you to do it the way I did it. Then it was - That's right, this is great. We talked about each of these things.

32:33She was able to consult with her family. I also connected her with Marilyn Carlson Nelson, who in the 90s had been the CEO of a big company, Carlson, which I subsequently led. And Marilyn told her, look, if you don't do it, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. And so five weeks later, Corey came back and said, I'll throw my hat in the rain. I said, oh, thank you. And so one implication for any leader is we need to invent and disseminate an exchange rate for what boys and girls are saying. So I gave Sally Hilgerson's book to every people leader at Best Buy in an attempt to do this. And then as leaders, we need to be able to invite them to stretch themselves.

33:25It's their decision. If she had come back and said, no, I confirm I don't want it, I would say, that's your decision. Decisions get made by the decision makers. And we have to respect the fact, to go back to your original question, the fact that not everybody's going to want to go all the way to the top. And frankly, the CEO job, I don't think anybody's going to cry over CEOs. But the job has become more challenging. And so I can imagine that some people are not going to be interested in whether it's the CEO job or other senior jobs. But we have to be careful about this gender difference, at least in my mind.

34:01Yeah. I first saw this at looking at who applied to the Harvard Business School. And because we saw at the surface the unusual statistic, which was that we admitted a higher percentage of female students than male students. And so everybody got up in arms saying, oh, my gosh, we're lowering the bar and we're doing all of these things. And it turned out exactly what you said. It's astonishing. The men that would apply and and no such equivalent of a woman would apply. Right. And so the whole bottom quartile, maybe even bottom 50 percent, there were no equivalents for women and men. And so you had to sort of weed that out first.

34:43And then the and then the acceptance rates were identical, but you just had to lower it. And so I do think I think you called it an exchange rate. That's a nice phrase. We just need that.

35:02This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

35:32Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Hey, this is Penn and Kim Holderness from Laugh Lines. Some travelers want the charm of an independent hotel. Others want the confidence of a trusted global brand. With Series by Marriott, you get both. Each property is uniquely connected to its destination, delivering local experiences and memorable stays while being backed by the quality, reliability, and Marriott Bonvoy benefits that travelers know and trust.

36:14Experience the destination without the compromise. Series by Marriott is part of Marriott Bonvoy, book direct at Marriott.com or on the Marriott Bonvoy app.

36:50From breakthrough mental health research to advice on navigating tricky relationships to the latest AI innovation, it's a trusted place to get your daily curiosity fix. Listen to TED Talks Daily with new episodes every day, wherever you get your podcasts.

37:11Well, Hubert, our audience was very excited you were coming on the show. And this is a show called Fixable. So we like to fix things and solve problems. And so our audience sent in some questions for you if you're up for a little coaching. Okay. Channeling your inner Marshall. Okay. So here's the first one. I manage a pretty experienced team, but they still come to me for almost every decision. How do I get them to take more ownership without making them feel like I'm leaving them out on their own? Huh. The thought that comes to mind is actually something I've learned in the classroom in some way.

37:50So we practice in the classroom. When a student asks a question to the professor, right, Francis? They would love the professor to provide the answer. And my typical answer to them, what would be your answer to your own question? And so I think coaching is a lot about asking questions, a big risk. And I'm coaching or mentoring a senior executive today. His view is that his role is to remove obstacles. And so you want to fix everything. And I think that what we need to do in this case is reframe things. No, your job is to focus on the big, you know, things you're responsible for and create an environment for others to be successful and including grow.

38:38So if you're like in a parent-child relationship, it's not going to work. So I think if we see our role as leaders to be a coach, I think that provides an avenue to answer your question. Yeah, I love that. I love the metaphor of how do you move from adult to child to an adult to adult relationship? with your colleagues because, and it also comes from a beautiful place of wanting to protect people and absorb pain on their behalf, but it's getting in the way of somebody else's growth and development and impact on the team. You didn't, you know, you, you hired them to go and do a job and do it better tomorrow than you did today.

39:20And you are in the way of that evolution in this, in this moment. One more, and then we have a few, just a few final questions. So I lead a frontline team and I'm constantly struck by how much they know that senior leaders never hear. How can I help their ideas and insights travel further up the organization? Read your book, first of all, is what I would say. And my upcoming book, which is exactly on this, on frontline magic. I think that the key responsibilities for senior leaders to spend more time on the front lines. So my message to every senior leader listening to this call is go spend time, set up standards for yourself and spend time on the front lines, asking your front liners what's working, what's not working, what you need.

40:05I love it. All right, we're going to do one more. And we see this a lot, so I really want to get your take on it. I work in an organization where people are encouraged to take initiative, but mistakes are remembered for a long time. What can I do as a manager to help my team take smart risks when the larger culture doesn't always reward it? So the first thing to consider is that as a manager, as a leader, you actually set the culture for your part of the organization. Yeah. You don't need to feel that, you know, the organization sets the culture. You get to set the way. I knew that at Best Buy, the store general manager had a huge impact on the culture of the store.

40:44And so, you know, be this leader that fosters psychological safety in your part of the organization and create that mindset that failures, you know, can be a source of learning and role model this. Admit your own failures. I think going back to role modeling is so important on that front. I love that. And the culture lives at the level of team. So if you want to change the rules for your team, change them. And the way you change behaviors is by changing behavior. You can do that. Great. So, yes, don't remember mistakes for a very long time. Change it up. I love it. Okay. What is one thing our listeners can do tomorrow to start using the power they have more skillfully at work?

41:31Oh, one thing. You only get one. You have so much wisdom, Hubert, but we're only going to give you one shot at this. spend time with yourself and decide what kind of leader you want to be. Decide this every day. And then at the end of the day, or maybe at the end of the week, reflect on what kind of leader you've truly been. Self-assess, ask people for feedback. Give yourself grace. By the way, if you've not been the amazing leader you're aspiring to be, there's always tomorrow. But I think it's really leadership from the inside out. The inner journey of leadership is foundational to the outer journey of leadership.

42:08Yeah, beautiful. It's interesting to me that in this series on power, the word grace has come up in almost every conversation. So true. All right, last question that we ask all our guests. What is one thing you are fixated on right now outside of work? Oh, being the best husband I can be. Marshall told us Marshall knows both of us Clearly you could not have found better Clearly And then he talks to a ton He looks at me and said Perhaps you could have found worse And so I remember this every day And I try to earn the right To continue to be in our life And I think listeners You now understand why I adore Hubert Jolie I feel like a kindred spirit And we are Your name comes up a lot around our kitchen table there.

43:02You are also a great role model to us. And I'm so grateful to have both of you in my life. Thank you. The great Hubert Jolie. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everybody. If you're enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out. Fixable is a podcast brought to you by Ted and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris. And me, Frances Frye. This episode was produced by Trina Menino. Video editing by Connor Titsworth. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Valoresso, and Roxanne Heilash. Our show is mixed by Louis at Story Yard.

43:59This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

44:29Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. BJ's 42 % off thank you celebration is how we say thanks for 42 years. Get 42 % off ground beef, chicken drumsticks, potatoes, and more through October 31st at BJ's Wholesale Club. Terms apply. Visit BJ's.com for details. Not a member? Join today.

45:03Hi, I'm Molly Graham, host of Work Life, a podcast from TED. The most important lessons about work usually aren't the ones anyone teaches you. They come from experience, from uncertainty, from figuring things out as you go. On this show, my expert guests and I explore how careers really unfold. through change, through doubt, through the decisions that shape who we become over time. Because those moments aren't the exception. They are the work. Listen to Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.