How do you get people to buy into your vision?
You better have a clear rationale. You have to lay it out. And you better be willing to say it until you’re ready to throw up. You say it so many times, the last time you say it you can barely get it out of your mouth.
You can’t repeat yourself enough in business. You can’t change the mission every 15 minutes. You’ve got to make the case, rally the troops and then excite them to want to do it and then reward them for getting there — in their soul with the job and in their pocketbook for doing it.
What skills do you need to be a successful CEO?
An ability to get great people. To excite people. This is no different than a sports team. If you get lousy players, you are going to lose. If you get great players, you win.
When you chose people for your management team, what traits were you looking for?
You really want people that can turn people on. You assume people have high integrity; that’s sort of a ticket to the game. But you really want to have an incredible team of high-energy people that want to win, are excited by it and will be able to excite armies of others to do the same thing.
How do you measure success?
By setting some goals, a vision and the degree to which you achieve it. For me, long ago, it stopped being about money. It’s about the team winning.
The big kick for me for years has been how many others won. Watching others get stock options, watching others grow, watching them change their lives.
