Name: J&J CEO: Different Perspectives Are Crucial When Making Decisions
Uploaded: 2019-04-17
Duration: 3 min 51 s
Description: Alex Gorsky said his time in the military gave him a 'huge appreciation for diversity'.

[ MUSIC ] Alex, you talk frequently about your years of working in the army and lessons that you learned. And of course you were also a Westpoint graduate, how did they impact the way you lead? Well, they impact everything that I do as a leader. For example, one of the things I always tend to see The glass half full. You know, the military are frequently giving really challenging missions, and I think what's really important is you look at things realistically. You assess them, but then frankly, it's up to you then to motivate a team to figure out a solution to keep going ahead. And that's something that I have always tried to do. Number two, a huge appreciation for diversity. When I entered the academy so many of the soldiers that I worked with did look like me came from very different background. When you are making a decision when you are bringing people together having different points of view, having different perspective is very very important .>> Actually when most people think about the military they think about. Very autocratic leadership command and control but what I hear about you is basically the opposite. You delegate a lot, you give a lot of autonomy to your people, why do you think that that's an effective way? Well, I think you're right, a lot of people had that stereotype [ INAUDIBLE ] that was not my experience at all. What I found is that working with soldiers, getting a lot of different opinions, people with tremendous amount of experience, the most important thing you could do as a leader is listen. And make sure That you are accessible. That people felt comfortable and confident in coming up to you, providing you with the right kind of information. And when I walk around Johnson & Johnson, I try to bring those very same skills to work, that same kind of attitude. Because I know, ultimately, then, that's when you're really gonna be able to complete your mission. You have been credited for modernizing Johnson & Johnson when you became CEO six years ago. Are you rethinking innovation for Johnson & Johnson now. This company is 132 years old. Absolutely. We've got to be innovating every day. And what we want to be is the world's largest, most diverse, and most established healthcare company. But, we want to be a start up company every day. And in keeping that spirit alive you don't get bureaucratic, you don't get slow. But, everybody, frankly, has that same sense of ambition and that same sense of urgency. We spent a lot of time talking about what do we need to do with our culture? What do we need to do with our processes, our systems? What do we need to do with the people that we're actually hiring that we're appointing to lead the organization? All those kind of things are critical to make sure that you don't become complacent. So you talk about not becoming complacent and having that startup mentality, but Can J & J really do that? I mean, here you are $ 76 billion in revenues. You've got employees of a 134, 000 people in operations all around the world. I mean, is it really possible for J & J to be kind of nimble and agile? Absolutely. We're reinventing things like digital surgery. Relaunching our baby brands to make them even more relevant going forward. We've got to basically be reinventing ourselves starting over each and everyday. You mentioned about hiring and the people that you bring in. Do you find that in this reinvention period that you're going through they can meet different kinds of people, maybe more entrepreneural? What we find is wanna blend. We want a diverse group of people. WWe want some people that have been at Johnson and Johnson for 25 or 30 years. the same time, we like to bring in a lot of people from the outside. We like to bring in different global inputs. And the beauty about J & J is, we can take somebody, for example, from our consumer sector. Bring them to our medical device sector. Our medical device sector to our pharmeceutical sector. And add a completely new perspective and way of thinking about the business So that's exactly the way that we tend to approach our thinking about talent and development and how it directly relates to our business. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

J&J CEO: Different Perspectives Are Crucial When Making Decisions

Leadership

Alex Gorsky said his time in the military gave him a "huge appreciation for diversity". 