Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

Cliff Hudson's childhood was marked by instability. At a young age, he watched his family struggle to recover after his father's roofing business collapsed. So, after college, he was determined to find a safe and stable job. In 1984, Cliff was hired to be a lawyer at Sonic Drive-In. Then, in 1995, he became CEO. How a young man went from a law office to running one of America's most iconic fast-food chains.

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In 1963, Bob Rosenberg became CEO of his father's company, Dunkin' Donuts, at age 25. About a decade later, after an overly-ambitious expansion put the company in jeopardy, the board almost threw him out. But Bob matured into his leadership role, developed Dunkin' Donuts into an international success, and accumulated experience from a career spanning 35 years.

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When the COO of Chase Bank told Jacqueline Novogratz that she had the potential for a high level career at Chase, she knew she had to quit her job. She continued to use the skills she learned from investment banking to change the way the world sees capitalism and philanthropy. Today, Acumen has delivered more than 100 million dollars in loans, grants, and investments to projects and businesses that help low income people around the world.

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Mixing business and social justice isn't a strategy most companies are willing to adopt, which is why Dan Schulman's actions as CEO of PayPal have garnered so much attention. In 2016, he canceled a plan for an operations center in North Carolina after the state passed its infamous "bathroom bill." Schulman champions his "employee first" strategy and has raised wages and benefits for PayPal's workforce. His leadership has proved that activism doesn't have to come at the cost of PayPal's bottom line.

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Jim Perdue wasn't that interested in becoming a third-generation head of the family meat processing business. Still, he became CEO in 1991 and his leadership turned out to be pivotal for building Perdue Farms into a nationwide brand. How Perdue navigated changing consumer habits and corporate management styles to turn a regional poultry producer into a 7 billion dollar company.

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For as long as Diane Hoskins can remember, she wanted to be an architect. It began with Legos as a child, and eventually led her all the way to architecture giant, Gensler— an unusual company with two CEOs. One CEO is based in Los Angeles, and the other CEO, Hoskins, is based in Washington, DC. Together, they've created a unique leadership model where hierarchies don't really matter and internal collaboration— not internal competition— is rewarded.

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Gordon Bethune took an unlikely path to becoming a leader in the airline industry. A self-described "hoodlum," Bethune dropped out of high school, joined the Navy, and became an airplane mechanic. With that experience, he gave Continental Airlines a tune-up, pulling it out of bankruptcy and guiding it through the deep uncertainty that followed the September 11th attacks.

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Josh Silverman built Evite and turned around eBay. Then, in 2017, Etsy came calling. The online marketplace for creative goods was in deep trouble. Growth had plateaued and the company was on the verge of being sold. Josh stepped in as CEO and got the team focused on one simple metric that made all the difference.

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Cisco was growing at breakneck speed when the tech bubble burst in 2001. As an industry veteran, CEO John Chambers knew firsthand that no company was immune to failure. Anticipating the need to transition, and using a '100 year flood' as an opportunity to rise to the top of the market.

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What does it take for a person to change? BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford's Behavior Design Lab, says the key to behavior change isn't what we've always been taught. In Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, Fogg draws upon true experiments — from his lab and his life — to outline a system anyone can use to create good habits or unravel the bad. In this episode: on making change through design and celebration.

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