Assertion Contradicted
Conant: Most companies no longer report quarterly earnings
“Most people aren't reporting quarterly earnings. They're doing annual, they provide guidance, but they're looking more long-term in nature, which is appropriate.”
Opinion
Conant: Reading books about other great leaders cannot build your leadership
“Reading the books about all these great leaders and how they did it has nothing to do with you.”
Assertion Supported
Conant: Campbell Soup replaced 300 of its top 350 leaders during turnaround
“We turned over 300 of the top 350 leaders in the company. Six out of seven.”
Insight
Conant: Slow initial pacing in turnarounds enables faster subsequent execution
“I find if you go a little slow at first, you can go fast later on because everybody's felt heard and been part of the process. If you go real fast out of the gate, it's your idea and nobody owns it. And you're off leading the team only to turn around and see t…”
Insight
Conant: Most business leaders lack an intentional leadership plan
“Most of the leaders I encounter, they lead by the seat of their pants. They create great business plans, you know, and financial plans, and then you say, what's your leadership plan? I have no idea. And it's like, wait a minute, leading your people is the most…”
Opinion
Conant: Stephen Covey did not manage organizations well
“Stephen Covey never ran anything, and he, and when he did, he didn't do it particularly well, but his thinking enlarged my world.”
Insight
Conant: Leaders must define core convictions before facing high-pressure decisions
“I believe you've got to tend to your own foundation so that when you get put in the thick of thick things and having to make tough decisions about people and performance and every day where you're pushed to the edge,
You have to be incredibly well anchored and…”
Insight
Conant: Taking care of people directly drives corporate performance
“There are two things that matter here in, in all the corporate world. It's performance in people. It's not just performance. It's performance in people. In fact, you take care of the people and they'll take care of the performance.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Conant: Nabisco Foods outperformed every US food company for five years
“Ultimately, we performed well one year, we performed well the next year, and the next year I was made president of Nabisco Foods, and for five years we outperformed any other food company in the United States, which is how I ultimately ended up getting the Cam…”
Insight
Conant: The best leaders balance tough standards with caring for people
“And what I found is, in my opinion, the best leaders that create enduring value have tough standards and care about people. They're not mutually exclusive.”
Insight
Conant: Companies must tangibly value employee agendas before expecting reciprocal commitment
“We cannot expect you to value our agenda until we tangibly demonstrate that we value yours.”
Assertion Supported
Conant: Gallup found Campbell Soup had worst Fortune 500 employee engagement
“We started tracking employee engagement every year with Gallup, and when we first did it, the year one Gallup said, this is the worst we've ever seen in a Fortune 500 company. This is horrible. We had an engagement ratio of Which is how many people are engaged…”
Disclosure
Conant: Campbell Soup leaders lost jobs if failing to inspire trust
“The number one expectation of a leader at Campbell was that you had to inspire trust. If you couldn't inspire trust, how could you inspire performance? And if you weren't inspiring trust, you were at risk. You'd lose your job.”
Insight
Conant: Turnaround leaders have at most three years to succeed
“Look, as a leader at a senior level, at the outside, you've got three years. The first year, it's the other guy's fault. The second year, it's our fault, but we're learning. The third year, you own it.”
Insight
Conant: Turnarounds require 100 days to assess and 100 to operationalize
“My experience, you've got a hundred days to figure it out, a hundred days to operationalize it and get going.”
Insight
Conant: Leaders lacking clear anchor get whipsawed by Wall Street
“If you're not well anchored in the leader you want to be and how you want to lead, You're going to be whipsawed by analysts and Wall Street and boards and activists.”
Insight
Conant: Leaders focused on saving their jobs fail from day one
“If you're worried about saving your job, you're in trouble before you start.”
Insight
Conant: Vigorous boardroom debate protects companies from Wall Street and activist critics
“The key is to create a culture where all points of view can be heard, and where people are comfortable enough to share them, and that's what we had at Campbell when I was there. We had people that we would go toe-to-toe, and we disagreed on some things, but yo…”
Insight
Conant: Board members must focus strictly on oversight rather than management
“I guess the other observation about a good board, in my opinion, a good board member is that they understand their role in the process, and it's one of oversight. It's not one of execution and management. You know, their job is to make sure the organization is…”
Insight
Conant: Pairing planning with simple intervention frameworks solves almost any problem
“Between the planning process and a simple intervention process, what's working, what's not, what's needed. You can find your way through almost anything.”
Insight
Conant: Leadership operates on a mastery model improved through study
“Leaders can be born, but they are most certainly all made better. You know, I think leadership works off a mastery model.”
Insight
Conant: Leaders must operate in the past, present, and future simultaneously
“As a leader, you gotta live in three time zones simultaneously. The past, the present, and the future. Everything you do has gotta honor the past, deliver in the present, set the table for a more prosperous future.”
Insight
Conant: Leaders must maintain positive emotional bank accounts to survive mistakes
“The key to making hard decisions at the top, you have to be in the black with your emotional bank account with the culture. As a leader, you have to build that bank account. You have to be making deposits every day into that account to build trust and to build…”
Disclosure
Conant: Life is managed across five core cylinders anchored by early mornings
“You sort of need to figure out what matters most in my life, and my work was part of it, my family was another part of it, and my own personal well-being. Those are three of my five cylinders. The other two were, ah, my community, And my faith. So I have five …”
