Meg Whitman
Meg Whitman talks about the importance of being bold, and the value of getting “in the arena,” even if you make mistakes. Well-known as one of the most powerful women in business, she now serves as the United States Ambassador to Kenya.
Transcript
Meg Whitman (00:06):
When I ran for governor, I knew more about the budget of the state of California than probably the sitting governor and certainly my opponent. You know what, no one cared because it is all about the stories that you tell. And I learned that maybe a little late in the process, but I took that to HP.
Ted Roosevelt (00:25):
Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library's content studio. I'm Ted Roosevelt. My guest today is Meg Whitman. Her name is synonymous with innovation, leadership, resilience. She was the CEO of eBay. She was the CEO of Hewlett Packard, turning that company around, and you'll hear it in this conversation with such grace, you wouldn't know that she was facing the unbelievable headwinds of her career, of being the only woman in the room very often, and I think it's a real testament to her leadership skills and the quality of person that she is. This conversation happens in her office in Nairobi where Meg reveals the first steps that she takes when she's rescuing a business. We talk about the critical advice her mother gave her and the unexpected influence of a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt speech. It's a fun conversation. Let's get to it. It's great to have you on the podcast. Welcome.
Meg Whitman (01:33):
Thank you.
Ted Roosevelt (01:34):
I want to start with something you said in a past interview that struck me. You quote the German philosopher Eckhart, who said, the price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. This is a very Rooseveltian concept. TR has a number of quotes on this topic. Maybe most famously, he said, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
Meg Whitman (02:02):
Is do nothing. Yeah.
Ted Roosevelt (02:03):
And I'm intrigued by this because I think the idea of the wrong action actually being better than inaction is something that's rarely internalized or understood by people. Can you explain why that resonates so much with you?
Meg Whitman (02:15):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, a lot of people think that when you're trying to figure out what to do or the strategy, as you said, the price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making mistake. But very few people realize that doing nothing is a strategy, and it's probably a bad strategy because the world is moving really fast. Things are happening and doing nothing is almost certainly a recipe for less than optimal results. And so I think what TR was saying was that if you make a mistake, at least you're pushing the edge of the envelope. You're trying to figure out that there's something other than the status quo, and you learn from your mistakes. And we used to say at eBay and HP, we're going to make mistakes. The key is how fast we figure out that we've made a mistake and how fast we can fix it. And a lot of people stand on ceremony, right? They're like, they're loath to admit a mistake because maybe it says something bad about them or their decision-making capability. My view is the faster you realize you've made a mistake and fix it is super important.
Ted Roosevelt (03:16):
Absolutely. And this is actually a concept that's come up quite a bit on this podcast is this role of acknowledging failure, the role of even vulnerability of a leader, and how, at least in my observation is that that's something that could be very helpful for public leaders and acknowledgement that we have difficult challenges to face, that there are not necessarily clear answers or clear paths forward. And maybe as a country we can be more open to exactly what you just said, that failure is part of the path to success.
Meg Whitman (03:47):
I think that's absolutely true in business, in NGOs, in almost any organization. Politics is a different thing, by the way. I agree with you philosophically. Having run for office, I'm going to tell you how hard that is to do because when you admit a mistake or when you are vulnerable, you get pounced on and the press pounces on you, your opponents pounce is on you. So there's not the degrees of freedom. I can sit at Hewlett Packard at eBay or frankly here, even at the US Embassy, and I can say, oops, wish we hadn't done that. You were right. I was wrong, and we're now going to fix that. That is a very difficult thing to do in the public forum.
Ted Roosevelt (04:31):
From your experiences running for governor of California, were there any systematic fixes to the process of running that you can think of to help bring better people, more people into that arena?
Meg Whitman (04:41):
It's a very tough business. It's the most difficult thing I've ever done. This was far more difficult than turning Hewlett-Packard around because politics is very personal. When you are out there, it's you and your company or you and your NGO or you and your business. When you run for public office, it is a referendum on you. Yes, you have your campaign team around you, but frankly it's all about you and it's a full on combat sport. I think we should be glad that anyone runs for public office. It's a real sacrifice. I encourage people all the time to run for public office because I learned a ton, but it's really, really difficult, particularly if you're not combat ready. The other thing that probably I would have done if I'd known what I, it's always Monday morning quarterback. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do to start my elected political career is running for governor of California, which if it was a country would be the fifth largest country in the world, maybe I should have warmed up by, I don't know, City Council, Board of Education, something like that might've been a smarter, smarter way to go about it.
(05:47):
But listen, I think it was a remarkable experience. I learned a lot of things that actually helped me later on at HP, frankly, here at the US Embassy. I don't know that there's anything systematic about it that can be changed. I mean, it kind of is what it is.
Ted Roosevelt (06:03):
I think you've probably said that you're not going to run for office again. Is that still true?
Meg Whitman (06:07):
That's still true.
Ted Roosevelt (06:08):
Without a pause. I like it.
Meg Whitman (06:11):
Without a pause. Actually, it's interesting. I think I might have been quite a good governor, but the job person fit of running for office was probably not the best fit for my skills and capabilities, at least at that time in my life. And I'll tell you a little story about TR. So when I lost the race for governor, I think career politicians feel a little bit differently about it than those of us who were doing it afresh. But I was really quite disappointed. I might've even been depressed. And about two weeks later, a friend delivered to my house, a silver frame with the man in the arena poem in the frame, and it changed my whole outlook. So there you go.
Ted Roosevelt (06:52):
And the message of that, for those who don't know, the message of that speech which he gave in Paris in 1910 is essentially, it's far better to try. Just to tie it back to earlier in the conversation, it's far better to try and fail than to never have tried. And I think that's a very powerful message, particularly today.
Meg Whitman (07:11):
It is. It made a huge difference to me personally. I went, okay, actually getting in the arena is three quarters of the battle.
Ted Roosevelt (07:20):
I know your mother similarly talked about the price of an action encouraging you not to be timid. I want to talk a little bit about her now, and I've read a number of stories about her past. She sounds like an unbelievably interesting woman. One story in particular that popped out was around World War ii when she volunteered for the Red Cross, which brought her to New Guinea. She planned to work in the infirmary, but when she got there, it turned out they had a shortage of mechanics and she ends up volunteering to learn how to be a mechanic. And by the time she finishes her tour, she's a certified truck and airplane mechanic. She sounds like an incredibly interesting person. She must've had a profound influence on you.
Meg Whitman (08:00):
Well, I think she was quite a special person, and I think had she been born in a different time and a different era, she might've done something quite different than what she ended up doing, but always was a very can-do person. And I think in addition to that experience, she also joined Shirley MacLaine on her women's trip to China in 1973. And that also changed her perspective because Shirley MacLaine was filming a movie called Women Hold Up Half the Sky and the role of women was being redefined. And she came back to the United States and told me and my sister, based on her New Guinea experience and her experience in China, she said, you two can do anything you want to do. Don't let anyone tell you you can't. And so she had a tremendous influence, I think, on our willingness to take risk, on our willingness to try things we'd never done before. So she imparted courage to us, I mean, it's funny because we actually believed her and she just gave us a lot of encouragement to go do what we thought was going to be interesting and fun to do.
Ted Roosevelt (09:05):
Well, I think it's interesting to hear you say about your mother, if she grew up in a different generation, she might've had a different career path. And I think one might easily say the same about you in terms of the generation and the time in which you grew up. It was very uncommon to have women CEOs at the time, particularly of large tech companies, and yet despite the environment, you had an unbelievable career. You must have had a sense that you were breaking ground, that you were breaking ceilings as you went through your career.
Meg Whitman (09:32):
I think so. I will say I think my generation had it simpler and easier than my parents' generation, than my mother's generation. I mean, really, there were very, very few women who worked in that generation, or if they did, they did for a while and then obviously stopped. In my generation, I did feel like I was groundbreaking a bit. I was in just the fourth class of women to go to Princeton. Princeton had been all male for 250 years. So that seemed a little groundbreaking to me, but it didn't grab me in a way, it didn't intimidate me. I thought it was sort of interesting and fun. Procter and Gamble, there were of our entering class of brand assistants, there were four women out of a hundred. We learned very early on my generation of women that you needed to really do a good job. That number one, you had to be really good at what you did. You had to work harder, be smarter, be better, and deliver the results. And that was a very early lesson for me at Procter and Gamble.
Ted Roosevelt (10:30):
You've done so much in your career, and I want to move into the present and talk a little bit about your role as ambassador to Kenya. Kenya's not a political post, it's not where CEOs go to retire. It's an extremely important post. It's on the front lines of tensions between China over natural resources. It's a hub for fighting terrorism. It's a growing and important economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. So why are you in Kenya? I mean, why not someplace a little more cushy at this point in your career?
Meg Whitman (11:00):
The White House called and said, we'd like you to be an ambassador and we want you to go to Kenya. And I said, Kenya. Wow, okay. Tell me a little bit more about that. But there was real method to the madness because the argument was the United States needs to improve our influence in Kenya and in the African continent, China has been here for 20 years. Kenya is a belt and road initiative country like many other countries here. And so I think the White House wanted to send very qualified people to Africa, and Kenya is the tech capital of East Africa, and I have a tech background, and I think they thought that's actually very interesting to help Kenya build silicon Savannah, which is a play on the nomenclature of Silicon Valley was a good fit and that my experience in economic development, job creation could also be a good fit for Kenya. And I said, this is an adventure. And back to my mom, okay, why not? What's the downside here? There really isn't any. So we decided to go. So we arrived on August 1st about nine days before the Kenya's general elections. So it was an auspicious time to arrive and it's, it's been remarkable.
Ted Roosevelt (12:11):
What specifically are you and the United States doing to promote Kenya as a technological hub?
Meg Whitman (12:17):
First things first, I'm a big believer in focus. And so this is the 10th largest embassy in the world. We have 34 different agencies, 34 different government agencies who have a presence in Kenya. And so the question is what to focus on to get everyone kind of on the same page. And one thing was quite tactical, which is the visa challenge. It was a two year wait for a visa interview for Kenyans to come to America. And that was overshadowing all the good work that USAID did here, economic development, because when you talk to Kenyans, they were like, what's up with visas? And so we had to actually do business process re-engineering and get the visa wait down pretty dramatically. So first was that. Second was, you probably know, this is the fourth year or up until the last long rain. This was the fourth year of very severe drought in the horn of Africa.
(13:08):
So actually mission critical was getting food aid and cash to the 4.5 million Kenyans that were on the verge of severe food insecurity. And so we had to make sure we did that right, we did that effectively, and we did it as fast as we could because unlike business, if you're a little late to your product or you're late to market, nothing that bad happens. If you're late to market with food aid people die. And then third was economic growth and development. How could we help change the narrative on the opportunity in Kenya and frankly in Africa as a place to invest, as a place to bring your company? Kenyan companies felt that they could export to the United States. So this notion of bilateral trade, foreign direct investment was one of the things that we've been focused on a lot since I came to post. And I think with good results, we just announced, the president just announced in March that Moderna is coming to Kenya with the first mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility outside of Boston. And so that's a beginning of a hub around pharma because once you get one industry leader, maybe you get more.
Ted Roosevelt (14:15):
Another major issue impacting Kenya is climate change. And the Horn of Africa in particular is really quite threatened. It's got a number of vast dry lands, numerous pastorial communities, multiple border disputes, unresolved trans boundary water rights issues, not to mention a fairly severe food insecurity crisis between Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia. How do you think about the role of climate change as it relates to Kenya and maybe even geopolitics on the whole
Meg Whitman (14:43):
With regard to climate change, at least when I speak about climate change in Kenya-- Kenya's main mission is climate resiliency, climate change resiliency, because Kenya and virtually every other African country have not done much to create the crisis that we face globally. That has been the industrialized world. And so when people talk about, well, Kenya needs to have more green energy and things like that, true, but today Kenya is 93% renewable energy. So really this is for Kenya, how do we cope with what is clearly climate change as evidenced by the drought and many other things. Now, by the way, Kenya has a goal of being a hundred percent green energy by 2030, they will get there, but this for them is much more about resiliency and adaptation because let's say the world all of a sudden got to zero net emissions, it's going to take 50 years to undo the damage. So that notion of resiliency and adaptation is crucial for countries like Kenya.
Ted Roosevelt (15:43):
And I think that's a really important story to tell as it relates particularly to Sub-Saharan African countries is really to keep the emphasis on the fact that they're not major emitters because they've less built infrastructure, they've been able to pivot to a lower carbon economy faster than some industrialized nations. And focusing on that story reminds me of kind of the power of narratives, and it's something that you've talked about in the past, you've said with regard to turning around a company that I think the quote is something to the effect of when you're trying to do a turnaround and lead people, it's not about the facts and figures when you're turning around a company at scale, it's about the stories you tell. And I heard you talking about this in relation to climate change, sort of focusing on the stories which is so important to capturing people's attentions. I'd love to hear why you have found stories to be so impactful or so important, particularly as a leader.
Meg Whitman (16:37):
Well, you know where I learned this? This was one of the lessons I learned from running for governor because when you run a company, it is all about the facts and figures in some ways. Your investors, if you're a publicly held company, are interested in revenue growth, return on operating profit, capital allocation. But when you are trying to bring along large groups of people, politicians call it being in the connecting business. And what people remember is the stories you tell. When I ran for governor, I knew more about the budget of the state of California than probably the sitting governor and certainly my opponent. You know what, no one cared because it is all about the stories that you tell. And I learned that maybe a little late in the process, but I took that to HP. We had 400,000 employees--325,000 employees, 80,000 contractors--and we had to enlist them in a vision of what HP could become, and that was not about the facts and figures and return on invest capital and returns to shareholders. That was about the stories around innovation, about giving back to communities, about finding the things that HP did really well and doing more of them. And so I learned that. I learned that when I ran for office. Look at why does the president, when he gives his state of the Union address, why does he have those three or four or five people in the balcony? Because he's going to tell stories and that's what people remember.
Ted Roosevelt (17:56):
Well, but I love that you brought that back to business as well because I do think stories are maybe the most powerful motivator for humans.
Meg Whitman (18:04):
It is. It is. It's absolutely a powerful motivator, particularly with large organizations. When I went to eBay, I saw everyone in the company every single day. Everyone already knew the stories. It was like a tiny little community. But HP was a different scale, anything really over a couple of hundred people, you have to make sure you're telling the stories as effectively as you can.
Ted Roosevelt (18:25):
Before this podcast, I was doing some research on your background, and I hadn't realized how early on you had joined eBay. There were like 30 people there when you joined and maybe had 4 million of revenue. And by the time you left, there were 15,000 people, 8 billion of revenue. You had acquired Skype, you had acquired PayPal. PayPal alone is a 75 billion company in its own right. And these are big, big accomplishments and certainly part of a huge growth trajectory. This is a little bit of an obvious question, but I think it's an important one: were there lessons that you learned from business that you think are applicable to politics and governing?
Meg Whitman (19:08):
I think so. I mean, one of the things that I learned is that government is not a business and will never be run like a business. But some of the ideas around focus, around measuring results, around making sure that you're really trying to deliver in the most efficient and effective way, I think is relevant. But I think government in many ways, I think is a much more difficult, I think being governor or being president is much more difficult frankly than being a CEO because you've got so many different constituencies and so many people who disagree and you don't have the ability to make a decision and then drive that decision without regard to your constituency. At least as a CEO, when you decide what you're going to do, then the whole organization moves with you. That's not true in politics.
Ted Roosevelt (19:54):
You've been described as relentlessly optimistic, which is another concept that's come up a couple times on this podcast with various folks we've talked to. The prototypical CEO move when they come in and take over a companies is they spend a quarter looking over the firm and then they publicly announce that the prior CEO didn't quite tell you how bad it was here. And the patient it turns out, is on life support. But I think I just might be able to save the patient. And you take a very different approach. You talk about focusing on the working parts of the company first, and I'm really interested in where that comes from, your orientation to the positive, because it stands juxtaposed to a lot of other CEOs, and it stands sometimes in contrast to claiming all the credit you could take for being successful as a CEO and a new CEO.
Meg Whitman (20:53):
I think your instinct is when you come to a new job or running a new department or running a new business, that you tend to say, okay, what are the things I'm going to go fix? And I learned that actually that can alienate people quite quickly. No one wants to be told that they haven't done a good job or they're at fault for whatever the situation happens to be. What works a lot better, and this I've tried and true now on many different things I've done is what's going right? Okay, so when I get to eBay, the company is growing at 70% compound monthly growth rate. And so my job is, and what are we doing that's driving that? What is the magic here? And then finding the magic and do more of it. Forget the things we could be doing better. Let's just do more of what we're doing really well.
(21:40):
And then you win over hearts and minds because people then go, okay, she understands what we do really well here, let's do more of that. And then you have license to make the to-do list of things that need to be fixed. And frankly, it's a lot easier to get things done that the company or the organization already does well. Trying to change culture, change things that aren't going well, is a lot more difficult. So it's the line of least resistance and frankly gets you better results faster than trying to make the list of every problem and try to solve it. It doesn't mean you don't get to the challenges--you do, but it's a pacing and sequencing and it's about bringing along the people who have been at these organizations for much longer than the newbie has.
Ted Roosevelt (22:19):
Speaking of organizations that could do some things better, maybe I think you're good friends with Mitt Romney.
Meg Whitman (22:26):
He was my first boss at Bain and Company.
Ted Roosevelt (22:28):
Yeah, that's right.
Meg Whitman (22:29):
I worked for him for 10 years.
Ted Roosevelt (22:31):
It seems like there's less and less space for folks like you and Mitt Romney, and I'm going to say frankly folks in my family as well. And I'm wondering what you think the future is for the Republican party and are there ways that they might expand the tent for more moderate, more centrist folks that had previously identified as Republican?
Meg Whitman (22:51):
Well, probably as ambassador to Kenya, I should stay away from the politics.
Ted Roosevelt (22:57):
It was worth a try. I mean, it was really worth a try.
Meg Whitman (22:59):
Yeah, it was a good effort, Teddy. It was a very good effort. What I will say is I think a robust two-party democracy is absolutely essential to great democracies, whether it's Kenya or the United States or wherever. And so I think it's incumbent on both parties to lay out the vision of what they think the future of America can be and should be, and give people a real chance to test which way they think the country ought to go. It's the magic of democracy. The people are actually, for the most part, not always, but for the most part actually figure it out.
Ted Roosevelt (23:33):
There's a little question that two party democracy is better than a one party democracy, and frankly, there may be some question about the value of a third party. We've certainly seen those in the past.
Meg Whitman (23:42):
Yeah,
Ted Roosevelt (23:43):
They can play an important role. But we have to wrap up unfortunately because your time is unbelievably important. But there are two questions I want to ask before we conclude. And the first one is, what is an action or thing that people can do to engage more? And this is specific for Americans.
Meg Whitman (24:00):
Well, first of all, and I am guilty of this during certain parts of my life, everyone needs to vote. I know that sounds like motherhood and apple pie, but when I was young, married and had a number of kids, there were a number of years that I did not vote, and I regret it to this day. But that's the most important thing that can do. And what's the voting? What is like 60% of Americans vote in a major presidential election? And in minor elections it can be as low as 35%. This is the most important thing people can do, I think. And some of these elections are decided by a couple of thousand votes. So if another 5% of the people in even a county or whatever vote that can make the difference. I think the other thing is find something that you are passionate about.
(24:46):
At some point in my adult life, I said, what is it that I really am passionate about? And I actually decided it was K through 12 education. We used to have the public education system that was the envy of the world. Just to take California as an example, in 1956, the year I was born, California had the number one public school system in America. Today, it's 48 out of 50. And I said, let me see what I could do. So I looked around and said, probably not going to start my own nonprofit. Who could I join? And I joined Teach for America. The change that they make in children's lives in underserved communities is truly remarkable. And so I ended up being the chairman of the National Board of Teach for America, and it was one of the most gratifying and fun things that I've had the privilege of doing. So the lesson learned is find something you love and go try to make a difference.
Ted Roosevelt (25:35):
Well, teach for America is one of the great organizations out there. And for our listeners, because our second question is what is an organization you would encourage people to check out? We can just jump right ahead to the punchline, which is, it sounds like Teach for America, but I strongly encourage you to take a look. Can you give us a little bit more information on Teach for America?
Meg Whitman (25:58):
Teach for America was founded 25 years ago, and the theory was in fact by a woman who went to Princeton and her senior thesis was this idea of Teach for America, of which I think she got a C on her thesis. But the theory was how do you really get the very best and brightest children out of undergraduate or graduate school students, not children, students who may have headed off into a different career, maybe they were going to be a lawyer or business or medicine or something else, and get them to come into the most underserved public school systems in America and teach for two years. And what we found out very early on is that people came thinking they'd stay two years. They fell in love with their kids. They learned every child could learn. They realized the difference they would make. And something now like 70% of these Teach for America students who join Teach for America still work in the public sector. 40% of them are still teachers and they were headed in a completely different direction. And if you look at the results of the K through 12 education in the communities in which Teach For America has teachers, it's remarkable increase in reading and math that is almost unparalleled.
Ted Roosevelt (27:11):
I love it. Well, ambassador Whitman, thank you so much for joining us today. There have been some real pearls of wisdom in here, and I really appreciate you taking the time to join us.
Meg Whitman (27:21):
Thank you.
Ted Roosevelt (27:25):
I'm so grateful to Ambassador Whitman for generously sharing her time with me amidst the demanding and important schedule. She's seven time zones away, so it was not easy for her to find time to chat with us. I really appreciate her taking the time. If you're interested in her, let me tell you, she's got a great book called The Power of Many: Values For Success in Business and in Life. I'm very much inspired by her willingness to embrace trial and error and to glean wisdom from missteps and just to chat with her to hear about her history of success. If you enjoyed hearing this episode, there are more like it. Please rate us on Good Citizen today. Leave a review really helps us reach new listeners. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts and Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.