John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems

The first talk I attended this term is fittingly from the CEO of the company I've worked at for the last 9 years, Cisco Systems. Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, often sends out emails to the company or makes a video-on-demand session for a topic he wants the company to hear about. Also, he holds a "birthday breakfast" every month where employees' whose birthday falls in that month can ask John questions directly. These sessions are also available on video-on-demand and I usually watch them because inevitably someone will ask about the stock, competitors, etc. So I hear John talk about a variety of topics pretty regularly. However, I thought it would be interesting to watch him present to a group of non-Cisco people. CSAIL brought John in as part of their Industry Leaders in Technology and Management Lecture Series.

Based on the 30 or so speakers I saw in the spring, I feel uniquely qualified to assess a presenter's ability to communicate effectively. Even though I've seen John present many times before (usually remotely), I was impressed at how well he came across in person. The talk was fast-paced and you can tell he really knows his stuff. His southern accent makes for a friendly tone unlike many of the corporate suits that speak northeast monotone. He also used powerpoint the right way! He didn't use the slides as a crutch to get through the talk, but instead used them as simple reference points for the audience to look at while he talked. Most good speakers do it this way. I feel proud to be a Cisco employee and have John as our CEO. That's not to say I like everything about Cisco - the company is too big which causes all sorts of problems (politics, stifled innovation, too much process, etc), but at least it is a big company with a good CEO.

Here are my notes from the talk:

He said when he was a student if someone told him he would be a leader of tomorrow he would have said "sell your stock"

Two equalizers in life: Education and Internet

Recommends The World is Flat because the author has it nailed

Future of countries, companies, jobs are going to be based on market transitions/innovation, education, infrastructure, and supportive govn't

He has been growing Cisco's productivity 10%/year - but doing much better because 50% of engineering has been re-orged which decreases productivity

Top 10 competitors from 10 years ago are gone

Top 10 competitors 10 years from now aren't in the top 10 now (and Cisco could be left behind)

If not one of the first 5 in the market, Cisco either acquires or partners. You can't go from 6 to 1.

Key to catch market transitions before it becomes obvious to others. If you wonder what you should be doing in China today, it is too late. Cisco moved in China 10 years ago.

Requires 3 to 5 years foresight in Cisco's industry

CEO/CIO top priorities now: 1. speed, flexibility, change; 2. Revenue growth; 3. Cost/productivity; 4. Customer focus

Not preparing students to be competitive against other countries

Jobs go with the best infrastructure and best educated workforce and supportive govn't; US is 14th in new broadband deployments

High tech companies are not good at research; so we have to fund govn't projects that use universities, but R&D money is going down

Moving from transactions to interactions

Jobs are moving more toward interactions, not transactions;

Technology w/o process change doesn't get the productivity results

Interactions are hard

Takes a min of 5 years to drive any goal through a company

You are not going to be smarter or work harder, you have to figure out how to do things differently

Innovation is not just about doing it yourself

Need the discipline to acquire and partner

5 rules of thumb for acquisitions: Long-term win-win, short-term win-win (people), shared vision, culture, customer driven

You have to think about how you are going to do it differently when others have failed

90% of acquisitions fail and partnerships are even worse

Doesn't surprise him there are unethical CEOs (any population has unethical people), but in each of the recent failed companies (Enron, Tyco, etc), there had to be 300-400 people that knew what the unethical CEO was doing and let it go

The most successful and strongest have an obligation to help the less privileged or weak

Don't penalize failure in a company – just don't make the same mistake twice