The World Wide Technology CEO Talks About What He Learned As A Soccer Player That Helped Him In His Career.
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00:00Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership.
00:07I'm Diane Brady.
00:08Being called a systems integrator is fine, but I would say at the same time, different
00:16people describe us different ways because we do cover a lot of ground.
00:20On one hand, we're a value-added reseller of technology equipment and working with Cisco
00:26for almost 30 years now, worked with John when he was a CEO, and now Chuck with him
00:31being the CEO.
00:32But worldwide, it's evolved from what I would say is a fairly simple value-added reseller
00:39to literally being a value-added reseller, growing not just locally here in St. Louis,
00:45growing domestically, growing globally, but adding services.
00:49And the first services sector that we added was around networking, but then from there,
00:54we expanded that portfolio in a pretty significant way, adding voice, video, networking, compute,
01:01storage, cyber, software development, consulting, advisory services, along with now AI and digital
01:11transformation that is relevant to just about every company in the world.
01:17People forget that Cisco was once the most valuable company on the planet at that point,
01:22by market cap, and then it wasn't.
01:25I think it lost probably about 90% of its value.
01:27So we talk about bubbles now and we talk about bubbles.
01:31We often refer to the dot-com bubble as the bubble that everybody fears will happen again.
01:39What did that teach you?
01:41Well, I would say that being willing to understand that there will be tough times and you need
01:48to roll up your sleeves, and depending on where you are in the life cycle of your company,
01:53you want to try to create a balance sheet or a structure that you don't put everything
01:58at risk every day, that if a domino falls the wrong way, it literally can put you out
02:03of business.
02:04So as much as you can, you want to create, I would say, some reserves and some capacity.
02:10But when you're in the early stages of growing a business, sometimes you don't have that
02:14luxury.
02:15You glossed over very quickly that you were an Olympian.
02:19You played pro soccer for a few years.
02:22Let's pause a second there because that is incredibly cool, obviously, incredible discipline
02:28you get as an athlete.
02:29But can you tell me some of your favorite moments?
02:34This is an Olympics year.
02:35I'm talking to a former Olympian here.
02:38What is it like to compete at that level?
02:40Yeah, the competition is eye-opening.
02:46And as you move from every level and you play and compete with people at different levels,
02:52it was such a great experience.
02:54I grew up, my dad was a bricklayer, my mom really was a stay-at-home mom for most of
03:01our upbringing.
03:02So we came from a pretty modest upbringing.
03:06And then, you know, making the Pan Am and Olympic team back in 83 and telling me, okay,
03:12for that point, I traveled with the team for almost 15 months.
03:15And the experience was just amazing, considering I've never really traveled out of St. Louis.
03:21And at that point, now I'm traveling all over the world.
03:23The first tournament we played in was in Seoul, Korea.
03:26You know, that was a President's Cup.
03:28We had another tournament in Beijing, you know, Great Wall Cup in China.
03:33And then all over Europe, Central America, Pan Am Games in Caracas.
03:38So it was such a great experience of, one, just the people on the team meeting different
03:44people, but then meeting people and competing with just really world-class players around
03:51the world.
03:52How do you lead now versus when you started?
03:56I know there's a size component, but maybe in essence, what I'm really asking is where
04:01do you get the most joy from your job?
04:03You know, the strengths that you play to, because you go deep, but at the same time,
04:09you have to take that big view and connect the dots.
04:14For a leader to be able to go deep and really understand what your business does and really
04:21how the sausage is made, I think it's very important.
04:24But at the same time, it's not your job as a leader to stay in the detail.
04:30It's to understand what you do, have an appreciation for that, but then you need to rise up to
04:36the 30,000-foot level and make sure that you're setting the right vision and mission and direction
04:44for the organization.
04:45So I think there's this ability, I believe, for leaders is to be able to set that vision,
04:53that mission, and the direction, but also have a true understanding, an authentic understanding
05:00of the work that needs to be done to drive the execution, because vision and mission
05:06with no execution is nothing.
05:09And you need to be able to bring those together.
05:12And from my perspective, when you do that and you do that with ambitious, passionate
05:19people, that's where the real excitement.
05:22That's where I get inspired, when I see the amazing teams and the people coming together
05:28that do amazing things.