Episode 18 - Interview with Ron Carucci
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Ron Carucci is a co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, bestselling author of eight books, frequent contributor to HBR and Forbes, and a two-time TEDx speaker. He has been featured in Fortune, MSNBC, Inc., Fast Company, CEO Magazine, BusinessInsider, Business Week, and Smart Business.
He has helped CEOs, their executive teams, and senior executives tackle some of the most complicated transformations in spaces like Biopharma R&D, Silicon Valley tech startup scaling, global culture change, and food science innovation. He has helped build leadership pipelines for global Fortune 100 companies, and accompanied executives on major career transitions.
With a 30-year track record, Ron is helping some of the world’s most influential executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization, and leadership. From startups to Fortune 10’s, turnarounds to new markets and strategies, overhauling leadership, and culture to re-designing for growth, he has worked in more than 25 countries on four continents.
Ron has led a 10-year longitudinal study on executive transition to find out why more than 50% of leaders fail within their first 18 months of appointment and uncovered the four differentiating capabilities that set successful leaders apart. Those findings are highlighted in his groundbreaking Amazon #1 book “Rising To Power”, co-authored with Eric Hansen. These findings are also summarized by Ron in the popular HBR article that was selected as one of 2016’s “Ideas that mattered most."
Ron is a former faculty member at Fordham University Graduate School as an Associate Professor of organizational behavior. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Creative Leadership. His clients have included Abbvie, Starbucks, Microsoft, Coronal Energy, CitiBank, Corning, Inc., Lamb Weston, The Hershey Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Amgen, Deutsche Bank, Gates Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, and many others.
In this episode, we discuss some of the most important abilities that leaders can demonstrate in times of crisis. He emphasizes the importance of being honest about your vulnerability and listening to the deeper needs of your team. Ron talks about silence as the greatest value that a leader can offer, as opposed to verbosity due to fear of irrelevance. He says if your goal as a leader is to learn and not to win, then it’s better for you to ask for your people’s story and be fascinated with them.
He also notes that during meetings, it is important to be judicious and prudent and make sure that everyone’s voice is heard. He says understanding the bigger story that we’re all in and realizing our greater sense of meaning can be a great way to start overcoming our challenges in the midst of uncertainties.
Watch out for Ron’s forthcoming book “To Be Honest: Lead with the power of truth, justice and purpose” and a 15-year longitudinal study on what conditions predict if people will tell the truth, act fairly and do the right thing, and serve with purpose.
Find out more about Ron’s work on his company’s website: www.navalent.com
Listen to his recent TEDx talk on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v234mvaUQ4o&feature=youtu.be