Klaus Kleinfeld - CEO of Siemens | Fortune 500 CEO Reveals Why Most Leaders Fail (And How To Avoid Their Mistakes)

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Clouds Christian Kleinfeld is a German businessman known for leading global giants like Siemens, Alkoa and Arconic. As CEO of Siemens, he modernized the company. After Siemens, he took the helmet Alkoa later leading its transformation and spin off into Arconic where he focused on advanced manufacturing and aerospace. My mother always used to say what people don't pay for isn't worth anything. I was thrown into work at an early age. My father died when I was very young. Then I decided this is part of my life and I better do the things that I like and develop this very simple principle. I love it or I don't love it and I can change it. If I come to the conclusion that I can't change it to love it, then I leave it. Always was very clear and that's probably life is not empty. You better use it in a way that you enjoy it. In 2017, he joined Saudi Arabia's Neum project. Later becoming an advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now through his investment firm K2 Elevation, he focuses on technology and biotech innovation. His career is marked by high stakes leadership, transformation and strategic foresight. If you are not energized yourself, you cannot energize others. Many people think this is great advice but I don't have the time for it. Many of the energy practices do not need much time. We charge is part of performance. Down time is productive time. Not everything works well. Everyone take a step. The first step is always the most difficult but in this case it's always the most rewarding. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot not only supports this show but they support entrepreneurs. That's why I'm such a huge fan of HubSpot. I'm very grateful for HubSpot for supporting the show because they help entrepreneurs. And as a fellow entrepreneur, I know it takes a lot to grow your business. A lot of audience attracting. A lot of sales. A lot of marketing. A lot of leads for it. A lot of channel management. A lot of content. A lot of long days. Late nights. A lot of weekends. A lot of wishing. There wasn't easier way. But there is with breeze. This is HubSpot's new collection of AI tools. It's easier than ever for marketers, for entrepreneurs, to attract audiences, to increase leads, to score customers, and to close deals fast. Which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. You titled your book, Leading to Thrive. Explain to me all the other ways that people try and lead. What are the other outcomes of leadership that people get wrong? Oh man, I don't even know where to start. So, I mean, I was born in Germany, race in Germany, you know, so on the end there. And I was born in the North. So a very Prussian tradition. Prussian tradition is about, it's all about discipline, you know. There's no excuse. You plow through your tough, you know, and you get going, you know. And whatever the task is, you know, you don't, don't re-neck on it, you get the task done, you know. So this is my original upbringing, you know. So fortunately, something inside of me was wiser to say, well, you know, you have to know what you can do. And you have to balance that. It's good to push yourself. I'm very much for by growing your boundaries. You know, so then I've also seen some people who believe that when you are a leader, I mean, when you're not only leading yourself, but when you lead others, the best is you put pressure on them, you know. And I remember I had one person, you know, who told me, you know, I look at the people who work for me like lemon, you know. And I press the lemon and there's juice coming out. And I press the lemon again. And there's more juice coming out. Press it again. There's more. And one day I don't get any lemon juice out of it. And then the lemon has to be replaced with a new lemon, you know. So that might have worked in the past, you know, long, long time ago. You're, these days, I mean, talent is one of the hottest commodities that you can think about, you know, and you have to attract people. And there, I think it's not just the stick, you know, that you work, but it's also the carrot. So you want to make sure that people have passion in it, that people grow in the business. So I've always believed in the end. It's the two elements. It's the carrot and the stick, you know. And you have to make things attractive for people. And I have to have something that's in it for them. You know, this can be all kinds of things fun. It can be one, you know, purpose is a big one. If people see that the vision that you have put out as a leader, you know, is something that's worth following beyond just the economic basis of the company. In the delivering better lives to people, you know, which is, fortunately, the case for many businesses, you know, and that's a, that's a big motivator, have a huge motivator, frankly, you know. So those are kind of some, some of these things, you know, you lead to better the individual lives. Now, I mean, you, you've managed and, and led to Fortune 500 companies, which is an incredible feat. But when people look at big corporations, I don't think somebody would look at a big corporation and be like, hey, I'm going to go work there to improve my life. I'm, I'm, I think that a lot of people when they get into the, the nine to five mindset, they're like, this is a job and I want to advance and I want to make more money. And then I'm going to have my life on the side. And I'm going to have this concept of, of work, life balance, which I don't necessarily agree with. I do believe that works should be integrated to your life. But when you look at sort of your peers and even what you've done, who do you think is doing an exceptional job of championing like this idea of leading to thrive, not just leading to extract as much value out of these lemons as possible and deliver back to the shareholders? Well, there's just multiple questions and one, you know? So I, so let's, let's shop the elephant one by one by one, because you mentioned a couple of very, very important points, you know? There's this whole discussion about life work balance, you know? And that's, I mean, you have no idea how often I've had my wife having that conversations with colleagues of mine, you know? During dinner parties or whatever, where she comes back. And somebody whisper into here, your husband is working a lot, you know? So kind of like an accusation, you know? And frankly, for me, I never, I never believed in this work and life thing. I always thought I was thrown into work at an early age, because my father died when I was very young, you know? But then somehow I decided, this is part of my life and I better do the things that I like and develop this very simple principle. I love it and obviously I love it and I stay in it and do more of it or I don't love it and I can change it and I try to change it, you know? And that I love it, you know? And if I come to the conclusion that I can't change it to love it, then I leave it because I always was very clear in that's probably because I was confronted with the death of loved ones at a young age that life is endless, it's ending, I mean, it's not endless. Life is not endless, it has a beginning and an end, you know? So you better use it in a way that you enjoy it, you know? And I actually, the older I get, the more I think that this concept of work and life distinction has a classical industrial age concept. Before it didn't exist, you know, we open as I still remember this. We opened a smelter in Iceland, you know? And it was one of the first industrial, actually, we were the first industrial base that came into this fjord, the fjord was all fishermen. And one time, I mean, the head of the plant had issues because people didn't show up and then he went back into the village and said, where are they? I mean, the tons they didn't come. And they said, what do you mean? It's a great day to be out there fishing, you know? So we had to tell them that an industrial environment, particularly when you run large things like a smelter, you have to run it 24 hours, seven days a week, including eight a day, you know? So you can't just say it's a nice day and you go out. So, but a strong reminder that in the end, I mean, in the old days, nobody would have ever had the idea that life and work are two different things. Better integrate that and don't have that understanding when it's too late, you know? So, yeah, so that's one point. And I mean, are there role models who have done that? Yes, and it's not necessarily the famous names, you know? It's more, I mean, there are some famous names, I mean, but it's more also people who I saw in my direct surrounding. I mean, my grandfather, for instance, I mean, still was in his 80s, you know, he was working in kind of civil service, but voluntary, voluntary civil service, you know, and did this and did this with the same passion that he has, has brought to every job, a good friend of mine who just recently died Henry Kissinger, you know? He was over 100 years old and I really got friends with Henry when he was in his late 70s, you know? So, and it was wonderful, wonderful, but even until the last breath that came out of him, he was working on a book that was just published, you know? On AI, I mean, on all things. And I think what he added to the discussion on AI is very, very, very important, very important with the perspectives and what he added to this planet has been very important, but he never saw it as, hey, there's life, there's work, you know? He enjoyed this and let it together. And I would highly recommend to everybody. You know, do it, do it, do it that way. Why do you think, why do you think your view because you mentioned before, so you grew up in, in this very, I wouldn't say like, I say a tough, a relatively tough childhood. I mean, your father passed away young, that's not easy. And there's this culture of work and pushing through these difficult periods and continuing on. And that's sort of the culture that you were raised with. So when did your version of work, of leadership start to understand or start to be in, I guess, bring in more components of balance and of thriving on a personal, professional level and of energy management, something you speak about a lot? When did your view start to change? This never comes like drops from heaven and then is there, you know, it comes and it comes gradually. So at first it was pushed into work, you know, because my, not only did my father die young, but we were refugees from East Germany and East Germany was split. So all of our family was in the East and my mother and father were the only ones who were in the West, really. You know, then later on my grandfather and his wife joined, you know, but we were pretty much on our own. You know, so that was why I was pushed into it. I then realized, okay, I better enjoy it. My mental sense was, you know, money is my gateway to freedom. You know, I want to basically have the personal freedom to do whatever I want to do. And money is my gateway to this, you know. So in a way, I also saw it as a measure of my mother always used to say what people don't pay for has been worth anything. And she, I think she basically tried to instill this as a mindset into myself to not being abused, you know. So it used in a way, I mean, I'm not meaning physically abused, but basically what people are misusing your friendliness, you know, that you are doing something for them. And then in the end, you know, people also don't value that. So there was very helpful. So those kind of things happened, but the very fact that I realized the energy part came relatively late in the game. It was actually one day that a very good friend of mine, who I worked together with came into my office in the late evening, you know, and told me class, you've been, I was a big fan of time management. You've been following the wrong God, so to say time, time, you've been pushing us into that late evening sessions. And what was it good for, you know, it didn't last, you know. And he was right. And then we went into it and he said, it's all about energy. And he quoted a bunch of folks who had just published a book on that. And he he won the one, the argument. And since then, I've been looking into it and what, what really, I mean, tipped me over after this conversation is that I started to look at high performance athletes, because I always thought that my, that my analogy of success in business was ultra-marathons. You run and run and run, which comes from the whole idea of plow through plow through, you know, you just have to be trained enough, trained more, you know. But then changed into life is not about constantly running, but it's about running and taking time to recharge, running, taking time to recharge. So it's basically, you know, time, time to recharge is productive time. You know, so, and then I looked at high performance athletes and realized why it's the old tenure was going down. You know, while when you look at, when you look at the burnout rate, even in young people is going tremendously up, when you look at some of the family lies like divorce, you know, children that don't talk to them, this was getting more and more and more dysfunctional families. Whereas on the high performance athlete side, you saw almost in all sports, and the one that I love most is tennis, you know, so I saw that they are getting older, then they perform on a very top level, you know, at an age that was not even thinkable before and win, you know, so I was wondering what the hell is going on there. I started to look into this and realized, wow, there's a method behind this. Let's learn this method, because I always thought a leader in the end, you know, you have to have energy, because you have to energize others when you want to lead. You know, so I want to learn from this high performance athletes, you know, that started their journey. 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And if you are a high-performing individual and a CEO or a founder, and you build this wonderful company, but you don't have relationships with your family and you don't have, you know, your two ex-wives later, but don't worry, you've made a lot of money. It's like, well, people start to look at that, and they're like, well, maybe that's not exactly what I want. So there's some, there's some, there's some lacking. The first thing is you would get that, and on your last day on this planet, I mean, I recently had a conversation with the hair, hair apparent of a very, very successful family, where the father made all the money, multi-billion, multi-billion in one lifetime. And we had a long evening together, and at the end, she said, but you know, Klaus, and I knew him, I knew him relatively well, and she said, you knew Klaus, he wasn't happy, he never was happy, you know, and I agree with that, he never was happy, he was proud of what he's done, and he had all right to be proud, but happy and joy in life, no, he didn't. And then, you know, the last day comes and you can't cause correct anymore. Of course. So that's, you know, to bring it back to what I was, I was mentioning, it's just that when you act a certain way, people mirror you. So if you only focus on time, or if you only focus on like traditional success metrics, that's what other people are going to think is important. So it's very important for a leader that through line is it's very important for a leader to understand how to optimize their life and how to have, how to have the integration between their family and their business and their wealth or whatever, how much money they make. But also, how do you manage your energy? Because if you can manage your energy, then you're going to be able to fulfill all these buckets appropriately. But if you don't, then one of those buckets is going to be severely deficient. And I think it's beautiful, because I don't take a lot of people focused on energy management. A lot of people do focus on time management. Of the high performance athletes all do, they all do, they all do. But it doesn't transcend business as much as it should. It hasn't transcended into business at all. I mean, many of the very good practices, you know, that help you gain energy are today seen as wellness, happiness. Yes, it also leads often to wellness and to more happiness. But in truth, the real measure that you should you have as a business guy is performance. You know, if you are not energized yourself, you cannot energize others. So your performance, I mean, how can you be a leader without energizing others? This is impossible. Unless you have a big stick, you know, and you constantly, you know, chase them around. But then you lose all the talent and it's only a question in midterm, you know, one of the things turns down. So talk to me about sort of the sources of energy that you tap into. So I mean, the simple version is it's body, mind and soul, you know, I split mind into kind of emotional as well as mental, you know. So I mean, body is clear, you know, it's all a lot about movement, you know, so, but what's not so clear in some parts is the role of breathing in this very simple way to control yourself, you know, what's also not so clear to many is how do you get to a good night's sleep, you know, so I mean, those things, those things are not so well understood. Then on the emotional side, I mean, the thing that I always realized people don't realize is when I tell the story about Buddha, you know, how did Buddha manage their his emotion and Buddha is going around India, you know, and comes to a village and one village was really mad with him. He yelled at him and throws crap at him. And after 20 minutes, finally, the guy stopped talking because Buddha has not responded and says, well, what do you say? And Buddha says, let me ask you a question, you know, if somebody comes to present your present and you are not taking the present, who then owns the present? Obviously, the person who wants to give the present hasn't, hasn't gotten rid of the present, so the person arounds it. What he really was saying is, whatever your emotions are, you have no way to put these on me. I control the emotions entirely myself, you know, and you can yell at me, you can jump around, accuse me forever, it doesn't affect me. I'm in charge of my own emotions. I'm not accepting that you give me this presence of your negative emotions. So literally, you're fully in control of your own emotions. You have to train a little bit, you know, but that's, I think that's for many people a huge, huge discovery. And then there are some tricks that are compartmentalizations and stuff like that. And then on the my, on the mental side, I mean, the question is focused. I mean, how many people have I seen, you know, who did not see an opportunity where others saw an opportunity or see only obstacles where others see opportunities, you know, so it's really, really about focus. And then on the spiritual side is the alignment with your own values and that you can't even discuss in business circles, you know, I mean, I actually was wondering whether I should put that into my book originally, you know, and that gives you, that gives you an idea. But it is a big chapter in my book, because from my personal experience, I have to say, the spiritual energy is one of the most important energy sources in very, very tough times. I mean, I wish nobody to have tough times, you know, but when the times are very dire, you know, that is one of the most important sources of energy. When you were leading, when you were leading these massive companies, did you speak openly about energy and even spiritual at like, or were you just going to worry about being laughed out of the room if you brought these concepts up? No, as I said, I mean, the the energy management side came relatively late, you know, into my knowledge, I would say probably about when more than 20, 27, 8 or so, roughly 7, 8, 9, 10 or whatever, you know, so something around that nature, you know, so the people who I worked with, I talked about this, you know, and also tried to teach everybody, you know, through some experts, you know, how to best use that. But I mean, I also didn't think of writing a book. I mean, the motivation to write a book, even if you would have asked me two years ago, what you write a book, I would have said no way. And I'm sitting behind my desk way too many hours anyway, but the motivation of writing the book was a more intense work with CEOs as a mentor. And I realized how important this concept and a deeper understanding of it was for them to chart their course in a more successful performance wise way. And one thing that was most interesting to me to see that even in the very young generation, people who do startups, who founders, you know, how fast they are burning out. I mean, super fast, they are burning out. When you see how many people are even in the media, in the 30s, early 30s, you know, who have burned out as a founder, this is insane, you know, and I thought this is not okay. I mean, this is just not okay. I cannot let that pass. And I also don't have the capacity to to do it all. So I said, I have to find a major player. That's why the book about it, you know. Today's episode is brought to you by Taylor Brands. Now, here's a wild stat. 60% of Americans dream about starting their own business, but let's them 20% actually take the plunge. Now, why is that? Let's face it, building a business feels overwhelming. But what if I told you there's a way to make it simple? This is where Taylor Brands comes in. Your complete business building companion. They've turned the intimidating process of starting a business into something you can actually handle. If you need an LLC done in minutes, if you're trying to protect your personal assets, if got you covered, they'll hook you up with everything from legal documents to licenses, departments, even a personalized business plan. Plus, their business coaching program will guide you through your crucial first 100 days. And the best part is you get all the tools you need to build your brand, manage your invoices, handle your bookkeeping, basically everything you need to launch with confidence. And there's an exclusive deal for all success story podcast listeners. You get 35% off when you visit Taylorbrands.com slash podcast 35. Don't let your business dreams, stay dreams, get started today with Taylor Brands. It is, I'm sure, I mean, you've been you've been working and you've been building for so long. I guess you you see a significant difference for me. I'm 34. So I see all the same people burning out, but it just seems like my peers, it seems like almost like a prerequisite for building a successful career, because so many of them are doing it. I know it's not, but it just seems to be the norm, right? And if you look at your entire career, nobody can look at you and say that you didn't basically accomplish what most people would dream to accomplish running running publicly traded Fortune 500 companies is pretty much the the extreme of stress and performance and whatever you want to accomplish. That's that's right up there. But even, you know, coming from you, it's interesting. You're saying that people are still not the way that people work right now is not a healthy way for people to work, even though you come from an environment of running one of the largest companies in the world. Well, but they don't know the interesting thing is many people think, oh, you know, this is great advice, but I don't have the time for it. And and what they don't realize is that many of the energy practices do not need much time. You know, you have to have a conceptual understanding, and I give you the extreme example of this. I mean, if you look at top tennis players, you know, the average top games last about more than two hours, you know, so and they cannot just say, I go, I have 20 minutes of time, I recharge, you know, even though it's a hot day, and I'm playing in Australia, you know, so the tennis association allows you only 20 seconds between the serves, you know, 20 seconds. That's your kind of relaxation time. But what they have learned is how to condition themselves, you know, in such a way that in these 20 seconds, they can fully recharge, fully recharge. I mean, not fully, but maximum recharge. And there are techniques around how you do that. And and what you see it today, when you watch a tennis game, they all have their routines. And when they get the new balls, they do something with it, something art. You know, everybody has an art strange routine. They squeeze it, take three balls, squeeze it, throw two away, get another one. Why do they do that? You know, they have a movie going through their hat, you know, that completely recharges them. This is a learned routine. And these are things that pretty much all of the kind of top notch pros, you know, used today, you know, including all so special forces. I mean, everybody uses that, you know, breathing plays a big important role. Yes, you have to have physical fitness. Yes, no doubt, helps, you know. But I think the discovery of saying, if I reach recharge is part of performance, you know, I mean, downtime is productive time. But it doesn't mean that you have to have equal downtime to the productive time. That's not that's not necessary. You have to you can develop micro habits, you know, a good friend of mine, he works in Hong Kong at a high rise, you know, his micro routine is he gives his cell phone to his assistant, you know, and then drives down on the elevator, you know, takes a few minutes, walk around the block, fresh air goes up again, you know. And and if somebody calls him, his assistant is right there and says, wait a second, he will come back in the next 10 minutes, I call you back. You know, that's easy, easy, and everybody can do that, you know, and there's a ton of stuff like that that I also want to put out and put into the books, very practical things, you know, to recharge. I think that's important to I think that even those small things can really help somebody reframe the worst thing you can do is just sit with your thoughts and stress for hours on end and now because we're virtual, I mean, myself included, we don't even leave the house if we don't force ourselves to leave the house. So you just end up sitting with your own thoughts. You you have a really good story in the book about the miracle on the Hudson and why this illustrates it. Explain to me why this explain you can walk through the story, but explain why it sort of ties back to this concept. Well, this now comes to the dynamics of energy and what happened, Sadi Salivan is the captain, you know, it's a it's a nice day and cold like like today it's cold, it's sunny, it's blue sky and they are going down south, you know, and they are talking to each other, the copilot and him and then a flock of geese. They hit a flock of geese while they are ascending, you know, and and first one engine goes off and the other engine goes off and those who know, no New York, he comes from LaGuardia, he turns to a left is it's where the the great the George Washington, which is over the George Washington, which both ends and goes off. They have sitting out port right there, he thinks he can get there, you know, but then he realizes it won't get him there, you know, and then he basically turns left and goes and lands in the Hudson, you know. So the likelihood of landing a plane safely on water is close to zero, you know. So the guys kind of crazy, you know, but when you when you see what's been happening as he goes obviously from he's relaxed, he is in basically almost like a relaxation, it's a beautiful day, they're going home, we had a great time in New York, you know, so his colleague is a good friend, blah, blah, blah, they are talking to each other about what's happening in New York, bomb these geese come on, he goes from basically relaxation, you know, and and and to perform a performance zone to survival zone, survival zone, you know, what happens in survival zone, you know, Adrenaline, this beautiful thing of Adrenaline kicks in, you know, hormones, and Adrenaline is extremely good, it makes us super human, you know, so your focus, your focus shifts, you know, all other body functions get reduced, you're completely focused on the task, you know, and you are literally super human, but then if you stay in that too long, you burn out, boom, you know, so, but what he does, he then switches back to performance zone, you know, he basically, you can see it in the in the transcript, you know, he first asks the tower, you know, can I land there in New Jersey, they give him permission to land, then he turns around, doesn't even talk to the tower anymore, picks up the microphone and says, you know, prepare for impact to the cabin, you know, and then he lands, you know, so how can somebody do this, you know, he did it purely in performance zone, you know, and why, why was he able to go with two engines off, you know, learning on ads and to go back into performance zone, because he has trained as an assimilator thousands of times, not only has he trained it in his training, but he was a trainer from the airline, you know, so obviously, obviously experience helps, you know, if you can move into into into a pattern, where you say, I know what's going on here, I know how to handle this, and now we're going to land that plane. So he managed to go back between this patterns, you know, extremely well, extremely well. Thank you, Netsweed for supporting today's episode. Now what does the future hold for business? If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers, bull market, bear market, inflation up, inflation down, honestly, I just need a crystal ball. But until we get one over 41,000 businesses have found the next best thing, they future proof their operations with Netsweed by Oracle, which is the number one cloud ERP. Imagine having your accounting, your financial management, your inventory, your HR, all flowing together in one fluid platform. Here's what makes Netsweed different. It gives you one source of truth for your business. You get the visibility and control to make quick, confident decisions, while others are guessing you're working with real-time data insights, forecasting, you're basically looking into the future of your business with actionable data. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, Netsweed helps you respond to immediate challenges and helps you grab your biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunities, they put together the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at Netsweed.com slash Scott Clary. This is the playbook for understanding how to use AI for your business. The guide is free. Go to Netsweed.com slash Scott Clary. That is Netsweed.com slash Scott Clary. If you're talking to an entrepreneur or somebody's earlier on in their career, what would be the advice to manage these different energy zones for sort of peak performance? Well, the first one is relaxation time is productive time. Don't go into the fog and think of an ultramarathon where you push and push and push and eventually and forget to recharge. Eventually you hit the wall and that's it. No, no. Find a way how you can get into your performance zone and when you feel you know what, do some recharging. Again, recharging can be very short, like my friend in Hong Kong, get down on the elevator, go out, you know, listen to a piece of music, you know, or whatever, whatever you like that gives you energy. You know, there's thousands of things, listen to a painting, you know, or whatever, or call a friend for four, four, five minutes, you know, write a nice email or whatever, whatever gives you energy and then get back in it. Just get back in it or close your eyes to a breathing exercise, you know, boom, you know, gets you, gets you back, gets you back into it. That's one thing. Secondly, you know, whenever you feel you're going from performance zone into survival zone, you know, understand that that has a positive one because you're now superhuman, it has also a positive one because you're expanding your comfort zone. So it's good if you do that once in a while, but the moment this goes on is like you're on a clock, you know, now you have to make sure that you're relatively quickly going back to your performance zone. So in reality, you have to find a way how you how how you frame the situation differently, you know, so that you are able to go back into your performance zone, right? So take an action that gets you out of the survival zone into your performance zone or train this in a controlled environment, you know, like Saudi has done, he's been in a simulator in a controlled environment on smaller, I mean, I've done restructurings many, many times, when we started with small restructurings, and they got big and then they got very big and I got jagged gigantic big, you know, but if I had done the gigantic big one, I probably would have died, you know, so but as I knew going into it, I had a pattern recognition and said, oh, this is happening, oh, this is happening. So, you know, you know, how to handle it, you know, you mentioned something. So I want to move on to I want to move on to some of the restructurings and sort of some transformation, the leadership stories that you've been a part of, because I think that, I mean, you have some, you have some incredible stories, you can pick which ones, I mean, you think are most relevant to the audience, but one that in particular I found interesting was the, I mean, you managed the Siemens X-ray division turnaround, you managed Alkoa from 2008, 2009, there was some crises that you dealt with. So talk to me about, I mean, now we understand sort of the playbook for what is optimal leadership, what is optimal, what is optimal leadership for yourself, for your team, for your company, now, you've applied this very successfully. So let's talk about how a leader operating in the right mind actually sort of executes. Well, I mean, I think it brings us to the pinnacle that connects us because on the end of the side, the one thing we didn't talk about was purpose, you know, we haven't talked about purpose and purpose is what what a laser does to light, you know, when light is normally as diffuse, you know, you put it into laser, it brings it into a beam that can literally go through any material, destroy anything, you know, and that's what purpose does to energy, the energy is diffuse, you have it, but the moment you say, this is my purpose, or these are my purposes, you suddenly have something where the energy goes into tune, you know, so this is important. Now, purpose on the business side, if you want to translate your own purpose or the purpose of the business into the people who work for you, we would need a vision, you know, we need a vision that makes them understand, I'm doing something that has a higher value than just putting together extreme machines, you know, or angiography machines, you know, and the problem there was, at Siemens, it was the longest standing division and medical, super successful, super, super, it was a birthplace of Siemens medical, but it has kind of been put into the shadow by the more modern ones like ultrasound, computer tomography, magnetic resonance, and it was also not making money. So many people had tried to turn it around and then they gave it to me kind of, another guy trying it out, you know, and I asked them to be able to go to hospitals to see how the equipment is used and that was, I was the moment when my aha moment, because I realized when I saw the patient and talked to the doctor, is that we had something that nobody else had, we actually could use the x-ray for not just the diagnosis, but also for the intervention for the cure, and you may remember you're too young, probably too young, but many other might remember, there was a time when surgery was the thing, these days fortunately you can do a lot, you could call it minimally invasive, you know, so we're literally not even in the teacher, it's needed for this, and that needs image guidance in most cases, you know, so you need an extra machine to see where is this thing in your body that they are pushing through, you know, so I had this idea, then I invited a young woman to our all-hands meeting who I knew whose life was saved, you know, by exactly that, the right diagnosis with our equipment and then also treatment, and didn't tell anybody, she told her story, and I gave her in the medical environment, you have stringent regulation, so you have to document who worked on what machines, so I gave her the list of all people who had worked on the machines that she was diagnosed and treated with, she read out this, this names, and brought the people on stage, wow, I mean these are people in the northern part of Bavaria, who cannot easily be moved, you know, they've seen a lot in their lives, you know, but on that day there were a lot of people with tears in their eyes, you know, so now that, and that, I mean in the evening, the head of the labor union, busy, told me, Klaus, you brought our soul back, you know, so because before they saw themselves as a restructuring case, and I completely forgotten, completely forgotten what great things they have been doing, and when I mean, when I told some of the people on the shop floor, you know, who are late with their equipment, I said, do you understand that this equipment goes to the US, you know, to that little village, the village has just taken the old machine out, and now in the radius of about 100 miles, you know, people cannot be diagnosed, are you aware that this is what's happening because we cannot get this machine shipped on time, you know, and the moment people understand this, this is one thing, but the moment they see a patient and realize this could be me, this could be my mother, this could be my sister, you know, that makes all the difference, I mean, so from that on motivational, I don't think we had an issue and business wise, so we did the right things. 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Don't just dream about your first million, learn how to make it, listen to my first million wherever you get your podcasts, and this is what ended up helping with the turnaround of the whole division. That was major, major for the turnaround, major. I wonder, I wonder how many people listening to this who are working in jobs understand the purpose of the company that they're working for. Yes, they're my upbringing and partially too with two societies has helped me being sensitive to this because it was kind of marks, to criticize capitalism and set the industrialization has really led to a lack of understanding of for the worker what the work is good for. The worker has become an exchangeable, completely exchangeable good and we have to bring meaning to them back and I strongly believe that and I think it's doable in almost all jobs. We did the same thing in Al-Qua with inviting an astronaut and having an astronaut talk to the employees. Is this how you manage the crisis in July 2008? No, 2008, this was not a question of our motivation. Everybody was motivated, big time motivated. This was more a question of the world is coming to an end and we had the price of metal drop to one third drop to in less than six months. So let's say you have a hundred dollars and suddenly the good that you're producing only gets sold for thirty dollars there's no way you know you can adjust to this just none and that was brilliant, brilliant response from the whole organization, but the organization was hugely motivated. I was lucky to have the very very, but you still, but they still had to understand like every single director, every single executive thought to understand the purpose that you were trying to achieve because if not, I mean nothing is keeping them there. They can still go somewhere else and they can jump ship, but they feel like this is not going in the right direction. That is correct. That's correct. The more people you can have, you will never be able to get everybody to passion. Some people are cynics, some people just say, hey, I don't give a damn, I'm just in it for the money, fine, you know, and some of it, yeah, whatever, you know, but that's fine, you know, but the more people you can make understood why they are doing what they are doing and what the impact of that is, the better off you are. I'm curious because obviously this is important to you because it's been impactful in your life. How did you, I mean you had a good relationship with Kissinger, what was his purpose and how did he align that with what your personal goals were because I find that very fascinating as well? Well, I mean Henry would probably be much better suited if he were still alive to say that. I think how I perceived him, he had a very amazing life born in Germany and fled to the US, you know, very humbling experience here in New York, you know, and then when as a universe, he defined himself as a history professor. He never defined himself, I think, as a politician that came probably a little later, but even when his late life, I think his main, main deficit definition was, I'm a history professor and there's this old saying, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, you know, and I think he believed him and he believed in the deeper the understanding you have on historic mechanisms, the better off you are and seeing things around the corner and one of my matters for leaders is I don't want, I don't measure the leader of explaining to me what they've done in the past and why certain things work and why they didn't. I look at a leader of somebody who looks around the corner who can basically tell me, this is most likely what can happen, you know, give me a range of good and bad and say these are the counter-action, or this is how we're going to use it. And Henry, I think saw himself like that, you know, and how can this be used in a way to make the US strong or to be honest, you know, that that was always, I think, his perspective. I think that, I mean, if I look at your work too, you've obviously, I think that, first of all, I agree, I think that it's smart to study the past and to look for patterns and I think that you don't always have to reinvent the wheel, it's have the reason why, I mean, this podcast is trying to tap into the wisdom, not that far in the past, but tap into wisdom, a people that have sort of figured it out. So the listeners don't have to reinvent the wheel and figure things out from scratch, right? That's really the goal of this. And I think that's the goal of his work. And that's what you sort of adopted as well. Because I see, I see again, a pattern like you reference Sun Su, you reference a Klaus Whitt. So you reference historical works that impact how you think and how you strategize. So now that makes a ton of sense. So talk to me about even some of this sort of strategic historical wisdom that you speak about. Well, I mean, in the book, the biggest part, the biggest section on historic wisdom is the part on purpose, because I've always struggled with this concept of purpose. And I thought this is a good thing that I use the time for writing a book to figure it out for myself to sort it out. And then I decided that the best thing is to make this process transparent for the reader, because my assumption was that many are struggling in the same way or have been struggling in the same way that I have. Yet it is a concept that has been relevant for mankind almost as long as mankind exists. That's kind of fascinating. You know, so how is it that there is a concept that is so important? And still, you know, it is when I'm talking about it much. So that's why I call it the right through time and space when you go through the chapter and it starts with fundamental ancient religions and goes into the Greeks as well as the Roman Romans, you know, looks at looks at stoics, you know, looks at also as into Buddhism, you know, and looks into more modern thinkers, you know, like Deepak Chopra was his combination of science and the Eastern philosophy as well as Akartoller, you know, and who I'm a big fan of, you know, a really big fan of, you know, unfortunately, I've never met him. He's German also, but never met him. So I think he's more popular here than he is in Germany. But anyway, so, so, so and and I provide and then I also looked at what what have we learned from people who have died, you know, and in the last last days, you know, and and and and also what have we learned from the research around longevity. And also, I try to provide this so that people can make up their own mind and say, what is it that I care for? You know, because there are some philosophies that say, you want to be a good citizen, you want to do good for, you know, your community, you know, other spaces, you come to say, it's your journey of self-discovery, you know, it's not an endpoint, it's a journey, you know, so there's a lot of ways and you I think in the end should go on this journey yourself and figure out what is it that gives you joy and progress. If you're going to look at sort of your death, your your purpose, as it's evolved, as you've gotten more wise and you've and you've lived more and learned more, how is your how is your purpose changed over your life? Well, first of all, I don't think it's I think I have more than one purpose, you know, and because I think I have more than one rule, you know, I'm a husband, I'm a father, you know, and now even I have grandchildren, you know, so and I have certain purposes in that, that role and then today and I have my own businesses, you know, and also also mentoring CEOs, you know, so in each one, I follow a different, different purpose. I think the overarching thing is, I mean, I try to give give people learnings that hopefully make them happier and more successful life and that they don't have to make all the mistakes that I've made, you know, so so so I never learned learned from that, you know, I think that it's important that that purpose can evolve over time. I think that that and also purpose doesn't have to be just one thing at a time. I think that's very wise because I think that you're right, everyone is trying to figure out what they're put on this earth to do and it's it's confusing and it's difficult. You mentioned another thing too, which I want to understand the similarities and the differences. So you mentioned, you speak about values in the context of performance, but values to me sound very similar or they're adjacent to purpose. So how would you consider or how would you define values in purpose in terms of needing them to impact your performance as an individual? Can you perform without them or do you need to figure those first? Well, first of all, the word values doesn't say positive or negative values, but it's mostly meant as positive values, you know, so that's also how I use it in the book. There are people who say values are for the faint ones, you know, power is just about power and what really matters is that I get more power, you know, and they might see most of the things in life as a zero-sum game, you know, where I see it as, hey, it's about broadening, broadening the pie, and if we work together, we can all get a bigger piece than working against each other, you know, but that's not necessarily the common thought for everybody, I think you can't assume that, you know. So purpose is really something that either you want to directly go in that direction or you want to achieve, you know, so that does not necessarily mean that it is a positive thing, you know. So values is about what does that, if you achieve that, what does that stand for, you know. So if you, let's talk about wonderful Austrian fellow who happened to cause the world a lot of trouble, you know, who failed that his philosophy was a philosophy that he wanted to bring as a gift to the whole world and wanted to basically own it and cause a second world war because of that, you know. So his purpose was very clear, you know, he wanted domination, you know, for this, you know, but values wise, I think most people would agree with me that that was not, that was not typically what we would consider as the right values, you know. No, and values just broader, you know, as broader than that, broader than that. Purpose is about most cases about outcome or going into direction of outcomes, you know. And then the values is whether or not you're doing in the in the right way, yeah, whether in the moral way, in the right way, or it's just something when you achieve it, that makes the world a better place, you know. So, do you can have as a business leader, you can have a high performer that has a purpose, but their values do not align. And in fact, you have that more than you think. I just want to take a second and thank fresh books for supporting today's episode. Now, there are three numbers that you have to know. 30 million, 60 billion, 192 hours. What did these me? Over 30 million people have used fresh books, over 60 million in voices have been paid through fresh books and over 192 hours have been saved annually using fresh books all in one accounting. If you're an entrepreneur, a freelancer, a solo printer, if you are tired of chasing payments and drowning in receipts, fresh books is here to make your life easier. It's the all in one accounting solution that helps you manage everything from creating professional estimates and proposals to tracking time and automatically billing clients. 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I have believed and seen it many times that if you do not eliminate that person from your firm as quickly as possible, you know, you have a cancer. You have a cancer and you will not be able to have an environment for high performer. High performers for a long time. So it works for if somebody just optimizes short-term performance, it works. That's not an issue. Short-term can even be a few years. And if it's about a repetitive business, if it's some business where you don't need intelligence and you don't need people, you can do it as long as you want. So it's kind of comes close to slavery, modern version of slavery. But if you want, if you are in a business where the most of the businesses these days, I mean, I would say 80% of the wisdom's worldwide need the skills of the individuals as the most important competitive advantage, because the world is so much changing and people have to immediately adopt, you know, and this is the ingenuity of humankind that shows us that. So there you have to be attractive for top-notch performers and you have to be able to make them work together. So people who are just in it for themselves and screw over others or kiss up and kick down, that's not what you want. How, I mean, when you obviously, when you're when you're just starting out, it's a little bit easier to figure out if these people have these values, systems that don't align. But talk to somebody who's running a large organization, because there's people in this in this audience who do run large businesses. And I'm sure they know they have a cancer in their company, but it's very hard to find out where it is. When you scale to a certain point, what would be your strategy? When you have thousands of employees? What's the frame? I think that your premise might not be right. And I think that a good leader very often has enough indicators to figure out that that person is not really somebody who works with the team, but it's rather, as I said, kissing up and kicking down, you know, I think the harder thing for most leaders is if this is a top-notch performer, and that performance matters for their performance as a leader, to then say, I'm going to kick that person out, because very often this is the biggest performer. And that makes your bonus, you know, a part of your bonus. The biggest issue is, do I take the leap of faith and kick that person out, even though I know I cannot immediately replace the person with an individual that has the same performance? I've seen that being the most problematic thing, you know. But I also address the first one, how do we find out, you know, as a good leader, you should have your ear on the ground and see very carefully watch. You know, there are methods like Net Promoter Score that you can use as employee engagement, but even there I've seen that leaders like this have a mechanism, you know, to challenge the employees to say it mildly so that the Net Promoter Score looks well. But there are ways. I think for a decent experienced leader, it's not difficult. They sometimes probably have a good self-defense mechanism to feel that they are not sure, and therefore they can't take action, you know, maybe out of their own self-defense to continue to have that acidic performer still there. What would be, I mean, you've ran companies that are in the multi-billions of dollars of revenue. What would be one piece of advice that is applicable when you're running a company that size, that is still applicable to when you're just starting out? There's a ton of those things, you know, but the one thing, let me focus on one that's often probably forgotten or misunderstood. In the end, also, it's not only the strategy that's important. The strategy is very important, but you also have to have the skills of drilling down. And I think this combination of, on the one hand, being able to see where the outside world going and what tendencies are there, what could work, what could not work, looking around the corner, that's extremely important. That is, at the same time, extremely important, to also, if necessary, drill down to the very bottom level, go down to what is really going on there. Because if you only stay on this top level, you might find yourself in an ivory tower isolated and non-understanding that you think that that's the ship that you run and reality, and you think is a pretty nice cruiser, and in reality, the machine looks pretty ugly and they are cranking the engine and the oil is already spilling. And you did that, even, or any other company. Always done that. That's my, that has to be my second nature. I think, you know, and also, because I don't think you have to be an expert in this, you know, I think what people, that's another thing that you learn is, it's not the answers that lead you. It's the questions that you ask. How many times, I mean, people, you can learn a lot through questions, so don't be shy, if you, I mean, one of the, the, the, the red lights that go on for me is if somebody tells me, after I've asked three times, Clouds, this is complicated and we won't have the time. And I say, look, wait a second, I have all the time, I just want to understand what's the issue here, you know, then the person goes in, starts to explain to me, and I still can't understand it. After the third time, I say, look, do you realize that you are talking mumble, jumble to me and language that I don't understand? And I don't understand it, you know, so then the person says, yeah, you know, it's complicated, that we were there before. It's complicated, right? So, so, so, and then it comes to the point where I say, look, just to make it crystal clear, who has a problem with this conversation? You know, me who do not understand that what you're saying, or you who cannot explain it to me, and to be very clear, you know, I am your boss. So, you have the problem, you know, I think it also show, I was going to say, I think it also shows their level of competence, if they can, if they can find a way to simplify it. To be honest, you know, I have the, the privilege to also be an honorary senator, they call it, the Nobel laureates meeting in Lindo. And when you talk to these individuals, highly accomplished and feels that I have foggy side years, but when you ask them, what exactly are you doing? Almost all of them can explain it to you in a language that you say, get it, I get it, I might not get all the details, but I get it. Amazing. I want to, I want to just give a shout out. So, the book leading to thrive, it's available everywhere you want to get book. So, Amazon and, and all the, all the regular bookstores. I have a couple just rapid fire to close it up, but before we finish this out, where else do people connect with you? Where, where do you, where are you most available on social or website, all of that? There's a website leading to thrive, and that is probably the easiest way you can, there's a way to connect, to connect with me. The, the biggest, yes, so that's the way you should, you should, you should leave a message there and, and say, hey, you know, this, this is what I, what I want, you know, yes, I know, I'll put that all in the, I'll put that all in the show notes as well. Do you have any socials that you still keep writing or is it the one that I, the one that I really do myself is linked in, you know, and the others, because I, I mean, it's, it's a professional environment. I mean, I'm not talking to the general audience, I'm talking to people who are leaders, I want to be leaders, you want to learn about leadership, you know, so LinkedIn is the right, is the right medium for that. Just to close this out. First of all, I just want to say thank you for coming on, and I appreciate your time. Was there anything that, you think is an important piece of wisdom to leave the audience with a question that I, maybe I didn't ask you or something that we didn't go into? No, I don't think so. I think we, we touched most of the points and I mean, I would just say, take a look, you know, try some of the things out, I try to keep it as practically as possible, you know, also language wise, you know, I mean, I'm a practitioner, I speak to a practitioner, so it's not that I can't speak to you radically, but I don't think it's interesting to be honest, you know, so I hope, I hope it's enjoyable, it's enjoyable. No, I think we touched on most of the try it out. I mean, in the end, you know, there's a number of things, not everything works for everyone, you know, so take a step, you know, and as it has, you know, the first step is always the most difficult, but in this case, always the most rewarding, you know, I think that's great. I mean, listen, the lessons that you've learned over your career, you don't want somebody to feel like they're drinking from the fire hose, trying to take in ex years of experience and wisdom and applying it into their startup tomorrow, but if they take one idea and they run with it, and it improves their lives by a measurable amount, that's a, that's a win, and then you take the next one. Exactly, exactly, exactly. The last question I always like to ask, because again, you've had a great career, multiple seasons of your life and of what you've built. If you could give one last lesson to not even your younger self, but say you wanted to impart some words of wisdom with your children, what would be some wisdom that you would want to leave them with? Spend some time with yourself to learn who you are and who you want to be, because that's the most difficult thing. Most people very often get carried along, you know, and the path of life brings them somewhere, and then in late point in time they realize that that was not really what they wanted, and don't have fear, you know, don't be fearful, you know, my definition of fear is false expectation that appears real, false expectation appearing real, you know, and that's very often the case, you know, and have the courage, have the courage, and follow the path of love it, change it or leave it, you know, and then I think the scenarios much more likely that you will have a happy, happy, joyful life.