Gray Hairs

Your first job after finishing Harvard Business School was at GM, where at 26 years old, you were promoted to GM's youngest ever VP, leading the company's first Japanese joint venture in robotics. What were the biggest challenges you faced as a young new Vice President at GM at 26 years old? And what advice do you have for new managers when it comes to building team effectiveness?

You know, this is one of those things where not only did I not know anything, I didn't suspect anything. Which by the way, is by the way, assuming positive intent is huge and I actually just did that because I was a little naive. Actually, that's a good strategy.

You mean acknowledge that you're naive or?

Well, I mean, like this. So here, an issue was the average age of a VP was in his 50s. I'm in my mid 20s. I didn't have any gray hair at the time, probably should have dyed my hair gray, never thought about that. But anyway, so dealing with that and to a large extent, I really didn't see it. It was there now that I look back. So that kind of gave me the idea of just, you know, a lot of times just don't acknowledge that, just act, don't react. Don't change your demeanor because somebody's treating you bad.

Looking back, were you getting a lot of that from the older managers, the people with gray hair?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can think of the times, for sure. But I think some of the things that was key about is that I built a real team culture, and especially with older execs, an important thing is to make sure that you're out there giving people credit publicly and put them on a pedestal right where they belong. I mean, who can be mad at you for that, right? And so you look for things that people do right, and you look for opportunities to put them on a pedestal. I think that's a magic thing. I think the other thing, too, is if you're that young and you're a VP, you better get results and you better be working your tail off. But here again, I think the most important thing was building trusted relationships. And the one-on-one time with people is really, really key and really getting to know. But it was a great learning lesson, it was a great experience. I'll always be incredibly thankful and loyal for General Motors for giving me that opportunity.