How They Achieved: Stories of Personal Achievement and Business Success

241 Pages·2001·0.75 MB·English

by  Lucinda Watson

B u s i n e s s C u l i n a r y A r c h i t e c t u r e
C o m p u t e r G e n e r a l I n t e r e s t
C h i l d r e n L i f e S c i e n c e s B i o g r a p h y
A c c o u n t i n g F i n a n c e M a t h e m a t i c s
H i s t o r y S e l f - I m p r o v e m e n t H e a l t h
E n g i n e e r i n g G r a p h i c D e s i g n
A p p l i e d S c i e n c e s P s y c h o l o g y
I n t e r i o r D e s i g n B i o l o g y C h e m i s t r y
e
WILEY
B O O K
WILEY
JOSSEY-BASS
PFEIFFER
J.K.LASSER
CAPSTONE
WILEY-LISS
WILEY-VCH
WILEY-INTERSCIENCE
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HOW THEY
ACHIEVED
Stories of Personal Achievement
and Business Success
Lucinda Watson
edited by Joanne Parrent
John Wiley & Sons,Inc.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
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Copyright © 2001 by Lucinda Watson. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of
the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission
of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee
to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923,
[phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission
should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605
Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone],
E-Mail: PERMREQ @ WILEY.COM.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in
regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the pub-
lisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or
other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person
should be sought.
This title is also available in print as ISBN 0-471-38820-3.
For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
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For my three muses,
Christina, Annabel, and Alexander
and for my best mentor, Felipe Korzenny
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CONTENTS
Introduction vii
CEOS
Frank Cary,Former President and Chairman,IBM 3
Dan Case,CEO,Hambrecht and Quist 11
John Chen,CEO,Sybase 17
Donald M.Kendall,Former CEO,PepsiCo 28
Jane Cahill Pfeiffer,Former CEO,NBC;Former Vice President,IBM 35
ENTREPRENEURS
Wilkes Bashford,Owner,Wilkes Bashford Retail Clothier 47
Ted Bell,Former Vice Chairman and Worldwide Creative Director,
Young & Rubicam 57
Susie Tompkins Buell,Founder/Former Owner,Esprit Clothing
Company 68
Bob Cohn,Former CEO,Octel and Lucent Technologies 77
Ray Kassar,Former CEO,Atari 93
Howard Lester,CEO,Williams Sonoma 103
Nick Nickolas,Venture Capitalist 115
Bradley Ogden,Restaurateur 123
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CONTENTS
VISIONARIES
Allen Grossman,Former Director,Outward Bound;Professor,
Harvard Business School 139
Jack Kornfield,Buddhist Monk 150
Robert Mondavi,Founder,Mondavi Vineyards 164
Faith Popcorn,Futurist 175
John Sculley,Former CEO,Apple Computer 184
Alice Waters,Founder/Owner,Chez Panisse Restaurant 194
Faye Wattleton,Former President,Planned Parenthood;
Founder/Executive Director,Center for Gender Equality 206
EPILOGUE
Thomas J.Watson Jr.,Former Chairman,IBM Corporation 219
Index 225
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INTRODUCTION
For the past 10 years I have been teaching people how to sell them-
selves. What I’ve learned over these years is that you cannot sell your-
self unless you believe in yourself. My philosophy and approach
initially grew out of my graduate work in communications. My thesis
involved interviewing CEOs about their communication habits within
the corporate structure. I now teach at the University of California at
Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where I developed a program in
business communications and job interviewing techniques.
I often speak with my students about their plans for the future. I
hear their dreams and wonder who among them will achieve their
goals—maybe even surpass them—and who will not. I encourage
my students to believe in themselves, take risks, and follow their pas-
sions. Some do this with ease, while others falter and settle for jobs
in which they feel safe but ultimately find unsatisfying. As I watch
them, I ask myself, What are the qualities that enable people to tran-
scend self-doubt and stiff competition to become CEOs of major
corporations or to create visionary endeavors or small businesses
that become household names? The search for the answer to that
question led to the interviews contained in this book.
There is no doubt that self-confidence and self-esteem are two
ingredients necessary for success. The young people I teach are
invariably talented and intelligent, but some have self-confidence
while others do not. After many years of working with students, I
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INTRODUCTION
firmly believe that self-confidence and self-esteem can be learned.
It isn’t always easy to teach these qualities—or to learn them—but I
feel part of my job is to encourage students and show them how to
build these qualities on their own. The goal of this book is to provide
the same kind of instruction for its readers. Through the voices of
the diverse leaders in this book—people who learned to believe in
themselves—readers will hear the philosophies and practices that
made these subjects so successful.
Success is the goal of most people—in their careers, their rela-
tionships, and in their lives overall. My definition of success is
achievement in a field, as defined by peers within the field. The suc-
cess stories included here come from many fields of endeavor, and
all the individuals reached the peaks of their careers. In my inter-
views with them, I asked a variety of questions: How did you dis-
cover your passion? Who are your heroes, your mentors? How did
you achieve all that you have? What role does fear play in your life?
What were your toughest decisions? How are today’s ambitious
young people different from those of other generations?
I discovered that, for each of them, success seems to stem from
a single variable: They trust their passion for something beyond
themselves and follow it with a full dedication. Almost everyone I
interviewed said that to find their passion, they simply remained vig-
ilant in their search. Nearly all the leaders did find their passion, and
then followed it with great intensity throughout their lives. Most suf-
fered difficult times but managed to stay on their paths, demonstrat-
ing high levels of self-confidence and resilience. They handled
conflict and criticism in a positive manner. They used their struggles
as opportunities for creativity and finding new ways to approach
their endeavors and themselves. All share an inner knowledge that
their passion in something beyond themselves is so strong they can
only succeed.
Initially my interviewees consisted of up-and-coming, current, or
former CEOs—all from major corporations. I then widened the cir-
cle to include leaders in creative and nonprofit fields. I met with
people who were great chefs and restaurateurs, leaders of large non-
profit organizations, and small business owners who managed to
turn their companies into household names. From conversations
with this group, I grew to recognize the subtle differences between
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Introduction
a CEO, a nonprofit leader, and an entrepreneur. I found that people
involved in running large corporations are different from entrepre-
neurs insofar as their lives must conform more readily to external
standards. The people themselves, however, share similar defini-
tions of achievement and comparable visions of success, though the
desires that fuel their work may be somewhat different.
The relationship between passion and success is interesting. I
repeatedly asked my subjects how they found their passion. Most
had no clear explanation beyond the persistence of their search. Yet
all found success by believing in and following their strongest
desires. Chef and restaurateur Alice Waters remembers going to
Paris as a young girl and being swept away by French culture. She
later studied cooking and opened the world-renowned California
restaurant, Chez Panisse. Faye Wattleton found her passion after
college through her desire to improve the status of women. Eventu-
ally, she became head of Planned Parenthood, an organization she
ran with great success for 14 years before starting her own nonprofit
organization, the Center for Gender Equality. Others, like John
Sculley of Apple and Donald Kendall of PepsiCo, ran very large cor-
porations for many years. Don remained at PepsiCo for his entire
40-year career; John left Apple and created a new life as a venture
capitalist.
The leaders I spoke with were well aware success cannot be
achieved in a vacuum. They needed support along the way—finan-
cially, psychologically, or otherwise. They found this support through
the intensity of their convictions and their awareness of the impres-
sions they made on others. They became effective leaders because
people believed in them, and people believed in them because they
believed in themselves.
At the end of my interview with men’s retail clothier Wilkes
Bashford, he asked me, “How many of the people you interviewed
told you whether their work or their personal lives come first?” I
hadn’t asked this question in my interviews because I assumed being
immensely passionate about one’s work often precludes a rich family
life. Yet many of today’s businesspeople are concerned with striking
a balance between their work and personal lives. It will be interest-
ing to see how this desire for balance affects business leaders and
corporate cultures in the future.
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