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This interview of Wisdom from the Top was

0:21

recorded in 2019.

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From Luminary Filt'it

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Productions and NPR, it's

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Wisdom from the Top. Stories

0:33

of crisis, failure, turnaround, and

0:35

triumph from some of the greatest leaders

0:37

in the world. I'm

0:40

Guy Raz and on the show today, the story

0:43

of Doug Conant and Campbell Soup.

0:45

How much money was Campbell Soup losing a year

0:47

in 2000, 2001? Well,

0:50

our earnings were basically cut in half,

0:53

which cut our value in half.

0:55

We were being investigated by both the

0:58

SEC and the Justice Department.

1:02

It was just ugly across the

1:04

board and the

1:07

company was largely in freefall.

1:10

How Doug

1:10

Conant saved Campbell Soup from

1:12

freefall and turned diversity and

1:14

inclusion into its secret weapon

1:16

of success.

1:22

So think about Campbell Soup for a second.

1:25

It's about as iconic as any American

1:27

brand like Coca-Cola or Ford

1:30

or Levi's. Andy Warhol's

1:32

painting of a Campbell Soup can is one of the

1:34

most recognized pieces of pop

1:36

art, worth millions of dollars.

1:39

And for much of its history, starting in 1869,

1:43

Campbell's could ride its own coattails. It

1:45

was the American soup brand of choice.

1:47

But somewhere around the late 1990s,

1:50

Campbell Soup hit a wall. Diets

1:53

were changing, lifestyles were

1:54

changing, and people just weren't

1:56

eating canned soup like they did in previous

1:58

decades. And And at that time, Campbell's

2:01

Soup was in big trouble. Consumers

2:04

started to move away from canned soups

2:06

and started moving to fresh, prepared

2:08

meals in the supermarkets. What

2:10

tapped Campbell's propped up were its other

2:12

brands. Things like Pepperidge Farms

2:14

and Prego Spaghetti Sauce, even Godiva

2:17

Chocolates.

2:17

But none of that was enough

2:19

to

2:20

keep Campbell's from sinking and

2:22

fast. So

2:24

in 2001, the company threw a Hail Mary

2:26

and hired Doug Conant to come in

2:28

and save the place. At the time,

2:31

Doug was the president of Nabisco Foods,

2:33

where he launched a game-changing product called

2:35

Snack Wells. It was a product that appealed

2:38

to people who wanted less fat in their diets.

2:41

But Campbell's was going to pose a pretty big challenge

2:43

for Doug, because the magnitude of its

2:45

crisis was even bigger than he

2:48

imagined. Now, the thing to know about

2:50

Doug is that many years before

2:52

he'd become a food executive and crisis manager,

2:54

he learned how to face failure

2:57

and loss in an entirely different

2:59

arena on the tennis court. I

3:02

found that I could actually hit a ball against

3:04

a wall and didn't have to talk to anybody. And

3:07

I got very good at hitting a ball against

3:09

a wall. And

3:12

then ultimately, I learned to hit a ball with people.

3:15

And my tennis career

3:17

somewhat blossomed. I was a very good competitive

3:21

high school tennis player, was recruited to Northwestern

3:23

as a scholarship tennis player,

3:26

and it paid my education. You've been a really

3:28

good tennis player to get recruited

3:31

by Northwestern to play on the team. It

3:33

was a blessing. I was good enough, and

3:36

I was one of the better tennis

3:38

players for my age in the Midwest. And

3:40

again, it paid my education

3:42

at Northwestern, which was an incredible

3:45

blessing. You hear a lot of people talk about

3:47

sports. It's a really important part of their development

3:49

in leadership, right? Particularly

3:52

team sports like baseball or soccer. Tennis

3:54

is an individual game. I mean, all

3:57

of the pressure is on you as an individual.

4:00

You fail or succeed as an individual.

4:04

Obviously, you can become part of a tennis

4:06

team, but most of the time, it's

4:08

just you out there. How did

4:11

that experience sort of inform

4:13

the way you would go on to develop

4:15

as a leader? To

4:17

be honest, I found it was enormously helpful.

4:20

I didn't realize how helpful at the time,

4:23

because leadership is an inside-out

4:25

process, and you sort of have to master

4:28

yourself and how you want to connect with the world

4:31

before you can effectively connect

4:34

with others. In tennis,

4:37

I really had to learn

4:39

to understand myself, what worked,

4:41

what didn't work, and the things I needed to do

4:43

to be more effective and efficient. All

4:47

of that ultimately served me well when

4:49

I went into my corporate career. If

4:52

I was doing a presentation or something, I wasn't

4:54

brilliant, but I was very comfortable being

4:58

in front of others and articulating

5:01

a point of view. Whereas

5:04

I saw other people who hadn't had

5:06

that kind of competitive experience

5:09

of having to be out there performing in front

5:11

of others, wilting

5:13

a little bit under the pressure. But

5:15

it all started with learning

5:19

to be self-sufficient

5:21

on the tennis court without help from anyone else.

5:24

Were you ever an angry tennis player? Did you hate

5:26

losing, or were you pretty good at just dealing

5:29

with failure? No,

5:32

I hated losing, and I

5:35

broke more than my fair share of brackets.

5:38

I think, well, but junior players,

5:41

you know, you've got a lot of emotions, and

5:43

you're out there by yourself. You're not getting any

5:46

coaching. You're not allowed to. And

5:48

so you manage your emotions as best you

5:50

can. And ultimately,

5:53

you had to learn how to process that and

5:55

move on. But

5:58

no, I was not a particularly good loser. But

6:00

you know Roger Federer, who's a quintessential

6:03

person of com demeanor

6:05

now, Roger Federer

6:08

was a poor loser in the juniors.

6:12

And he's he would be

6:14

the first to tell you. And so,

6:16

you know, we all as we were maturing

6:19

as young men had moments

6:21

that we weren't particularly proud of. So,

6:24

all right. So Doug, you go to college on

6:26

a tennis scholarship and then and then

6:28

eventually you'd go into business school at

6:31

Northwestern. Was that was

6:34

that a deliberate decision? Do you think, okay,

6:37

I'm going to go into business because this is what

6:39

I really want to do? Or was it more like

6:41

I'm not really sure what I want to do. So

6:44

I might as well get an MBA. It

6:46

was it was not a calling at that point.

6:50

My father had been a business person and started

6:52

a small plastic packaging company and

6:55

I was graduating from undergraduate.

6:58

And wasn't sure

7:00

what to do next was interested in tennis,

7:03

but the my outlook was not particularly

7:05

good and for

7:07

being able to compete at a high level. And

7:10

so I applied to business school

7:13

and I was able to

7:15

get into the Northwestern

7:20

Graduate School of Management. And what

7:23

was great was I was able to work for

7:25

the tennis team and get some of

7:28

my graduate

7:30

school paid for as well as

7:33

an assistant coach. So it

7:35

just all seemed to naturally fit

7:38

together. So I guess I mean the

7:41

right out of graduate school you get

7:43

a job offer from General Mills and

7:45

then this begins a lifelong career

7:47

in the food business, which we will get to.

7:51

Was were you sort of attuned to

7:53

working in the food in this industry? Was that

7:55

just the first job that kind of came came to you? It

7:58

was it was a good job. When I

8:00

was in graduate school, I

8:02

had an advisor. His name was Phil Kotler.

8:06

And Phil Kotler wrote the book

8:08

for marketing executives in

8:10

the 20th century. And

8:13

he classically created

8:15

this paradigm of thinking about the four

8:17

P's for marketing. And

8:20

I remember I was in

8:22

a counseling session with him. And

8:25

do you remember the movie The Graduate with Justin

8:27

Hoffman? When he's by the pool

8:30

and the guy pulls him over and puts his

8:32

arm around him and says, I

8:34

have one word for you.

8:36

Plastics.

8:39

And in my case, Phil had

8:41

two words for me. And

8:43

it was brand management, which

8:46

was the new, invoke

8:50

place for marketing leaders,

8:53

where you were responsible for not for

8:55

managing marketing activities, but for creating

8:59

brands and bringing them to life. General

9:02

Mills and Procter & Gamble were two of the first

9:04

companies to champion

9:07

this new way of marketing. So

9:09

I was given an offer to

9:11

go to General Mills and I

9:15

started there. The first day of work I

9:17

showed up, I had an

9:20

afro and a headband, a

9:22

line where a headband had been on my forehead.

9:25

And a fume and choux mustache. This

9:28

is 1976. This

9:31

is 1976. And

9:34

I had brown earth shoes on. And

9:37

I went to work that day and everybody

9:39

was wearing white shirts and pinstripe

9:42

suits. Talk about a

9:44

fish out of water. About

9:46

two months later, I had

9:49

white shirts and pinstripe suits and

9:52

a haircut. And so

9:55

I tried, I worked hard

9:57

to fit in there. By the way, what were the four

9:59

P's? product, place,

10:03

promotion, price. Nice.

10:07

All right, so this this mentor professor says

10:09

go into brand management. That's where it's at.

10:12

In the 70s, this is

10:14

where it's going, right? So you go to

10:16

General Mills to brand

10:18

management and I

10:20

guess, you know, right away you've got to learn about

10:23

the products that they make, right? I mean they're doing what,

10:26

Betty Crocker? They're doing a bunch

10:28

of different things, right? Yeah, yeah.

10:31

It was, we were a large diversified

10:34

food company headquartered in Minneapolis. We

10:36

had General Mills cereals. We also had Betty

10:39

Crocker products which were very popular

10:41

at the time and I started

10:45

my career working on Betty Crocker potato

10:47

buds and specialty potatoes, which

10:50

was hilarious. My mother just couldn't believe

10:52

it because my one of my first jobs was

10:54

to write the back panel copy for the

10:56

package on Betty

10:59

Crocker potato buds and specialty potatoes

11:02

and my mother just got such a

11:04

laugh out of the fact that I was Betty Crocker

11:07

and at any rate, so

11:09

I worked on all kinds of products

11:11

and I must say though, I had

11:13

a, I did not hit the

11:15

ground running because I had never worked in a corporate

11:18

environment before. I was

11:20

initially a fish out of water. I can remember

11:23

my first performance review which was

11:25

six months after I started and

11:28

you know your boss writes his performance review

11:31

and then your boss's boss has to sign

11:33

it with a comment and

11:35

my boss's boss, his

11:37

only comment was, you should be looking

11:40

for another job. So

11:42

when I talk about starting my career with a

11:44

thud, that was it. But

11:48

you know, I'd had adversity

11:50

before and you can, you either wilt

11:54

in the face of it or you stand up

11:56

and you thrive and you meet the challenge head-on

11:58

and you work your way through it. So you're really

12:01

starting to kind of get your feet wet in brand

12:03

management, marketing. And

12:06

what did that mean? I mean, this was a... I mean,

12:08

it sounds crazy now in the

12:10

year 2019 to think of this is

12:12

an innovative thing, but it gets in the late 70s. This

12:15

is a big deal. But companies were like, yeah, brand management.

12:17

This is a new thing. What did that actually

12:19

practically mean? What did you do? Well,

12:22

what it meant was that as

12:24

a brand manager, you worked with everyone

12:27

in the company to help

12:30

an individual brand, whether it's

12:33

Betty Cracker and Dessert

12:35

Mixes, which I was a brand manager for

12:37

my third year there. You

12:40

worked with everyone in the company

12:42

to make sure that Betty Cracker Brownies

12:44

Pudding and Pie Crust were putting their best

12:47

foot forward with the consumer every

12:49

day in terms of the way

12:51

the customers were promoting

12:53

them. And when I say customers, I mean

12:55

people like your

12:57

local grocery store. Right. And

13:00

you were also in charge of developing, overseeing

13:03

the new product development for that category

13:05

that you were managing to keep the category and

13:07

the brand vital. You were the

13:10

conductor, if you will, of the orchestra

13:13

around that piece of business that you managed.

13:16

It became the way to manage consumer

13:18

products in the 70s, 80s,

13:21

90s, and 2000s. You

13:24

must have eaten a lot of powdered potato.

13:28

Well, let me tell you, when I was

13:30

the product manager on Betty Cracker's

13:33

Brownies, Pudding's Cookie Mixes

13:35

and Pie Crust, I gained my freshman 15.

13:38

All right. So you were there for,

13:40

I think, at least 10 years at General

13:42

Mills, maybe a little longer. And

13:45

then in the late 80s, you

13:49

get a job offer at Kraft,

13:52

which I'm assuming is a huge competitor.

13:55

Was that a big deal? For people at General

13:57

Mills, like, you're going to Kraft? No,

14:00

actually, it wasn't a big deal

14:02

at all because I worked for General

14:05

Mills for 10 years and

14:08

my first six years I worked in the food group.

14:11

But General Mills developed this strategy

14:14

that said we can do brand management for

14:16

more than just food. So

14:18

they created the General Mills toy group and

14:20

they bought 13 toy companies and

14:23

they said we can do brand management in

14:25

toys and games. They bought specialty

14:28

retail shops like Eddie Bauer

14:31

and Talbotts and said we can do brand management

14:34

in specialty retail. They

14:36

said we can do brand management in

14:39

other areas like fashion

14:42

and they made jewelry

14:45

and eyes out at one point in time. So

14:47

the strategy of brand management

14:50

and being brilliant with the consumer

14:53

was the game plan for General

14:55

Mills at that point in time. And

14:57

so I went, I had an opportunity

15:00

to go be director

15:02

of marketing for Parker Brothers Toys and

15:04

Games in Boston. And

15:07

so, I mean, it was a great

15:10

situation and my wife and I and

15:13

our one son moved out to Boston had another

15:15

son while we were there. We were the most

15:17

popular family on the block because

15:19

the kids would be sitting on the stoop when

15:22

I got home to see what I was bringing home from work.

15:25

So, I mean, you had gone from food

15:27

to toys in the same

15:29

company and I

15:32

mean, it sounds like it was a pretty seamless

15:34

transition. It's just another brand

15:36

that you're managing. In that sense

15:38

it was, but what I, I

15:40

mean, over time I've seen that every

15:43

sector has nuances that you

15:47

can either leverage or can be your undoing. In

15:50

the toy and game business, General

15:53

Mills ultimately decided it wasn't for them

15:55

and they sold off the entire toy unit

15:59

three years later. at which point I

16:03

lost my job. I went into work one day

16:06

and senior vice president

16:08

of marketing asked

16:10

me to come up to his office as I went into

16:13

the front door. The receptionist

16:15

sent me up there and the

16:17

senior vice president of marketing wouldn't

16:19

look at me and he said,

16:22

Doug, your job has been eliminated. You

16:24

need to be out of here by noon. Wow,

16:27

you had no idea this was coming? No.

16:30

No, I was naive, but in 10

16:32

years of my career was over in a snap.

16:35

I

16:38

went home to my wife, my two small children,

16:40

and my one very large mortgage. Devastated.

16:44

And then I was looking for a

16:46

job for a year, which was an incredible,

16:48

humbling, incredibly

16:51

humbling experience. Wow, so you

16:53

were, I mean, you were in your mid-30s,

16:57

I guess. Mm-hmm. Two kids.

17:00

Yeah. Out of a job. Out

17:03

of work. Wow, that must

17:05

have been stressful. And we had just moved

17:07

to Boston three years earlier to the North

17:09

Shore of Boston, old town Marblehead,

17:12

Massachusetts. We loved

17:14

it there, but I didn't really know anybody

17:17

and all of a sudden I was out of work there from

17:19

the Midwest trying to find

17:22

my way. Wow. And an

17:24

introvert and not a very good interviewer.

17:27

So it took me about a year

17:29

and then I landed the job

17:32

with Kraft going

17:34

back to Chicago, going back to the food business,

17:37

which I knew pretty well, and

17:39

had a good run there. During that year, I mean,

17:42

from the time you lost your job to the time

17:44

you found a new job at Kraft, did

17:46

you ever get down? I mean, that must

17:48

have been a hard year. I was

17:51

devastated. I mean, I was probably

17:53

the most devastating moment

17:55

of my career was losing my job. Really,

18:02

it was a crucible

18:04

moment in my career where I realized

18:07

I needed to, if I wanted

18:09

to change the outcome of my career

18:12

work, I needed to change my behavior

18:15

and I needed to become a real student

18:17

of leadership and of

18:21

the work I was doing. Stay

18:27

with us. We're going to take a quick break. I'm

18:29

Guy Raz and you're listening to Wisdom from

18:31

the Top.

18:32

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works. That's why Spectrum Business provides

18:42

internet, phone, and mobile services

18:44

that are made to work as hard as you

18:46

do. Learn more at Spectrum.com

18:49

slash work.

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19:46

Welcome back to Wisdom from the Top. I'm

19:49

Guy Raz. So a

19:51

year after losing your job, you

19:54

get an offer from Kraft. You

19:56

move the family to Chicago. Same

19:59

kind of... job, brand management at Kraft

20:02

back into the food business? Back

20:04

into the food business, I took a little

20:07

less than lateral job, but

20:10

they kept me whole on salary. It

20:13

was a job I knew I could do. I love

20:16

working with the people in the food industry. The

20:18

food industry is not

20:20

the meteoric category

20:23

where, you know, you're not

20:25

flying by the seat of your pants. It's

20:27

a sort of, it's a reap what you

20:29

sow kind of industry. Yeah. So

20:32

I went back to Kraft. I took

20:34

this job as a category manager

20:37

of a category, horrible salad

20:39

dressings. And I managed

20:41

that and had a good run there.

20:43

And, you know, I had gotten

20:46

a car. I mean, I got a

20:48

great parking spot. I had

20:50

people working for me. And

20:53

things were looking up, but I was

20:55

working for a very demanding boss. And

20:57

I was talking to the fellow

20:59

who was the head of corporate strategy at

21:01

the time over lunch. And I said, you

21:03

know, if there's ever an opportunity for me to

21:06

come work in the corporate strategy

21:08

group, I'd be happy to do it because he knew I

21:10

was a little frustrated where I was.

21:12

Less than a month later, he

21:14

was promoted to being president of Kraft.

21:17

And then I get a call from him two weeks later.

21:20

And he says, you know that, you know, you

21:22

told me you'd be willing to do anything. And

21:25

I said, yeah, he said, well,

21:29

I don't have anything at your level, but I have a director

21:31

of strategy opening. But

21:34

it's a very different kind of job.

21:38

And you lose your parking

21:40

spot, you lose your staff,

21:43

and all of the optics. And he

21:45

said, but you'll learn a lot. I

21:47

really couldn't say no, I took the job. And

21:50

it was a another

21:52

blessing because I learned so much in that

21:54

job. But again, it was like a lateral.

21:56

Yeah, it wasn't I did not

21:59

have this meteor. I guess

22:01

I'm slow. I just kept plodding

22:03

along. So, okay. I

22:05

guess after a few years at Kraft,

22:08

you went over to Nabisco coming

22:10

to Makes Cookies. And

22:12

that's when your career like goes to the

22:15

next level. How did that

22:17

happen? Well, yeah. I started

22:19

out as a general manager of

22:22

a small division, their refrigerator

22:24

products division. And then I was only there for

22:27

a year, but we had a really good year. And

22:29

then they asked me to go be the senior vice

22:32

president of marketing for the

22:35

Nabisco Biscuit Company, which was the cookies

22:38

and crackers and the largest part of Nabisco

22:41

by far. And I really

22:43

didn't want to go. I wanted to be the general

22:45

manager, not ahead of marketing. But

22:49

the CEO at Nabisco prevailed

22:51

upon me to win one

22:53

for the Gipper. And so

22:55

I went there for two years and

22:58

we had a

23:00

really good run in terms of

23:02

our performance in cookies

23:05

and crackers. And Fig

23:07

Newtons were good, but Oreos, Chips

23:10

Ahoy, Ritz Crackers. We

23:14

really had a formidable portfolio

23:18

of brands. And we had

23:20

a great run while I was there. All

23:23

right. So you had

23:25

gone from General Mills to

23:29

Kraft to Nabisco.

23:32

You get to Nabisco around 92. By 95,

23:36

you become the president of

23:38

Nabisco. By

23:40

that point, I'm imagining you

23:42

must have started to think of yourself as a leader.

23:45

You must have thought, okay, I'm a

23:48

leader now. Like this is where I'm

23:50

headed. I don't know about

23:52

that. I was just trying to do the best I could

23:54

at the time. And everything in

23:56

front of me, I thought, you know, I can

23:59

do this. circumstances

26:01

and the outlook was quite

26:04

good for the next five. And so

26:07

we were acquired, actually by

26:09

Kraft, the company I had left, and

26:12

then I was recruited to Campbell's food company.

26:15

So you, you're

26:18

president of the Bisco food company for about five

26:20

years and then you get recruited

26:22

by Campbell's to become

26:25

their CEO. You accept

26:27

this job and you go there in 2001, set

26:30

the scene for me. What was it going on at

26:32

the Campbell's food company in 2001 when

26:35

you got there? Well the first, the

26:37

first piece of this is before

26:39

I got there, I was being recruited.

26:42

I'm quite sure I was not the first person

26:44

they were looking for because I was

26:46

just focused on doing my job. I wasn't ever

26:49

looking for the next job and there were people

26:51

in our industry who were looking for the next job

26:54

and were higher profile and

26:56

I'm sure were considered for this job but they

26:59

ultimately tracked me down. And

27:03

I went for an interview, I, and they

27:08

were very anxious to to

27:10

meet me. So I went for an interview in New York

27:12

and I had lunch with six directors

27:15

at once. They interviewed me and

27:17

before I could finish answering one question,

27:19

another question came at me. Over

27:22

two hours it must have been a hundred questions

27:24

and I answered them as best I could but I was

27:27

exhausted afterwards

27:29

and didn't feel it had gone very well and I was

27:31

thinking well that was a nice interview

27:33

but I'll just, I'll

27:36

see where the next one leads. And

27:38

two days later I get a call back and the

27:41

executive search person says that went great.

27:44

They want to do it again and I'm

27:47

thinking oh I don't want to go through another two

27:49

hours like that. So the

27:52

weekend before I was meeting with them I called

27:54

together a few of my friends and

27:56

we spent the weekend tearing apart all

27:58

the publicly available materials. for the Campbell

28:00

Soup Company and did a Campbell

28:03

Soup Company revitalization framework.

28:06

Put it in a PowerPoint presentation, said,

28:08

here's, and this was my framework. I

28:11

said, here's what I think the problem is, and here's

28:13

what I think the solution is, and here's how I

28:15

would lead this effort. And I went back with

28:18

a canvas bag full of PowerPoint

28:21

presentations for my next interview with

28:23

the same six directors, and

28:26

they started shooting questions at me again.

28:29

And I, at that point, said, you know, I've been

28:31

thinking about the hundred questions we covered in the last

28:33

meeting, and I think this

28:35

would be helpful to you to see how

28:38

I would respond to the situation the company's

28:40

facing. And I presented

28:42

the revitalization framework to them.

28:45

We covered it for a few hours. It

28:48

was very clear what I would do and how I would do it, and

28:52

ultimately I received an offer

28:55

to actually bring that plan to life. Well,

28:58

before that, what did you know

29:00

about Campbell Soup? Like, Campbell Soup was

29:02

in trouble, right? It was like major trouble. Campbell

29:04

Soup was highly troubled, and

29:07

what we knew about the company was

29:10

that it lost half its market value in

29:12

one year, and that's

29:14

hard to do for an established

29:16

food company. This is the biggest

29:18

soup company in the world. Oh,

29:20

yeah, and other products, too. We

29:23

also owned Pepperidge Farm, Godiva,

29:26

V8, Prago Pasta Sauce. It

29:28

was a large, diversified food company

29:31

at the time, 24,000 employees. How

29:35

much money was Campbell Soup losing a year

29:37

in 2000 and 2001? Well,

29:40

we weren't losing money.

29:42

We were making money, but our earnings

29:44

were basically cut in half, which

29:46

cut our value in half. So

29:49

it was just not a healthy situation. We

29:52

had had some bad business practices before

29:54

I got there, and we were being investigated

29:57

by both the SEC and the government.

30:00

the Justice Department. It

30:02

was just ugly across the

30:04

board and the

30:06

company was largely in freefall.

30:09

I read that, I read, Doug, that of

30:11

all the major food companies in the world that Campbell's

30:13

was the rock bottom performer.

30:16

What's the problem? Were people just not buying

30:19

soup? What was going

30:21

on? Well,

30:24

basically, it had been a great

30:26

value proposition. Soup had been a terrific

30:29

value proposition. Because it's cheap to make

30:31

and you can sell it for a

30:33

reasonable profit. Yeah. And

30:36

we owned, largely, you could say,

30:38

we controlled the market in soup. And

30:40

soup had happened to be a very

30:43

large and prosperous category. So

30:46

what happened was we became very aggressive with

30:48

our pricing. We took our prices up dramatically,

30:52

which helped our earnings, but then our volume

30:54

started to fall because we had priced so aggressively.

30:58

And as our earnings started to fall, we

31:01

started to bolster the earnings.

31:03

We cut the spending that

31:05

supported the brand and artificially

31:08

inflated earnings for a little while. But then

31:10

as spending was cut, the brand continued

31:13

to decline. And

31:16

then we said, well, we've got to implement

31:18

more productivity to

31:21

offset, to keep earnings up.

31:23

So we

31:25

have to be even more efficient. And

31:28

we got to a point where we were basically

31:30

taking the chicken out of chicken noodle soup.

31:34

And so we ran out of productivity rooms.

31:37

So the products were compromised. We weren't

31:39

supporting them and they were high price. And

31:42

then we got to a point where we said, well, how

31:44

can we can't afford to have all these people working

31:46

on this business because it's

31:49

in freefall. And so then they started firing

31:51

people. And then in one

31:54

day they fired about

31:56

half of the R&D organization

31:58

in the food industry. The

32:01

R&D organization is the lifeblood of

32:04

your future growth. And so

32:07

we had just, we were in what my

32:09

friend Jim Kiltz called the circle of doom.

32:12

We were promising to do better and everything

32:14

we were doing was compromising

32:17

our ability to do better. That

32:19

was the situation that I

32:21

was encountering when I got there.

32:25

All right, let's put this in the context. You became

32:27

in 2001 the 11th

32:30

person to hold the title of President

32:32

and CEO of Campbell's. It's

32:34

132-year history. It's like a Supreme Court justice. That's

32:37

like very few people hold that job, right? I

32:43

mean, presumably you have to

32:45

kind of just listen for the first couple months. What

32:47

do you notice when you get there? What do you actually

32:49

notice that you didn't realize before you walked into

32:52

the door? First of all,

32:54

I was relatively young.

32:56

I was 49 at the time to be running

32:58

a large company like that. And

33:01

so I started with

33:04

this theme,

33:07

day one. And the

33:09

theme was expect action because that's

33:11

what they expected. But

33:13

I also made it clear it was going to be very thoughtful

33:16

action. And I also made it

33:18

clear that it was going to be while

33:20

we had to be in touch with meeting

33:22

the needs of the market, in

33:25

my opinion, we needed to be more in

33:27

touch with meeting the needs of the employees.

33:30

And so, you know, my

33:32

first day, first hour, first day

33:35

when I met with the company and when

33:37

I was introduced to the company, I said, you know,

33:40

we have to work together in this endeavor.

33:43

And we can't expect you to

33:46

honor our evolving agenda as

33:48

a company until we demonstrate to you

33:50

tangibly that we're going to honor your

33:52

evolving agenda as a contributor.

33:56

So we have to show up

33:58

for you. to

36:00

be able to do that. You essentially said

36:02

to the board, listen, the next three years are

36:04

going to be rough. We're going

36:06

to continue to probably lose

36:09

money or earnings will continue

36:11

to decline. But while we

36:14

do that, I've got a plan to help us get

36:16

out of it by year three. So just be patient

36:19

because it's going to be rough. And

36:21

you go to the company, you become the CEO,

36:23

you discover this toxic culture. I

36:26

have to imagine that as a new CEO

36:29

of this company, people are looking at you and

36:31

thinking, okay, this is a turnaround

36:33

guy. He's going to fire me. He's going to fire

36:35

all of us. Well,

36:37

I think some of that was, I mean,

36:40

they could have expected that. Look,

36:44

as a leader, my experience, you've

36:46

got three years to be on track.

36:48

Three years. Three years. You always have

36:50

three years. The first year, it's the other guy's

36:52

fault. Right. The second

36:54

year, look, we're doing the best we can. We're learning

36:57

and we have little green shoots that are suggesting

36:59

we're going to do well. And by

37:01

year three, you own it. I don't

37:03

care. In your line of work or

37:06

my line of work, you've got three years. So

37:08

I was very

37:10

clear with the board. And I also,

37:13

this will sound funny, but I

37:16

didn't need this job. I wanted to do

37:18

it. But I told the board when

37:20

they hired me, if there's somebody better to

37:23

do this job, you ought to hire them.

37:26

This is going to be a challenging

37:28

situation. I think I can

37:30

do it. I think it's going to take time. And

37:33

here's how I think this will ultimately play

37:35

out. And I maintained at that point

37:37

of view the whole decade I was there

37:40

because I wanted to see Campbell

37:42

thrive. Right. And that's

37:45

all I cared about. And I was going to be just fine.

37:48

I wanted a win for the company. And

37:50

I assumed it would be a win for me

37:52

in the fullness of time. But that

37:55

was the approach I took. The board supported

37:59

that.

37:59

supported me for a decade and

38:02

we had a very good

38:04

run. All right. So it sounds like there

38:06

were obviously some challenges with brand

38:08

management. That had to be reimagined,

38:12

right? You had to kind of think about the brand and how

38:14

to revive the soup and the different –

38:16

the goldfish crackers and whatever it is. But

38:18

it sounds like the other huge challenge was

38:20

just the management of the company, this

38:23

toxic work environment, people who were disengaged.

38:28

How did you – what

38:29

was your plan to get people

38:32

excited and reengage? How do you get people –

38:34

if people are coming to work and they're not

38:36

committed to their work, how

38:38

do you – what was your

38:40

playbook for inspiring them? Well,

38:43

look, to be honest, I had never been a CEO

38:46

before. Yeah. So in

38:48

many ways, I didn't know my ass from my

38:50

elbow as a

38:52

CEO. I knew as much as you could know

38:55

without being a CEO, I

38:57

did know that if the people weren't actively

38:59

engaged in their work, we didn't stand

39:02

a chance. And so

39:04

we had to have people that were fully

39:07

engaged, that were competent, had high character

39:09

and liked working together. And

39:12

so we said, look, this

39:15

is the kind of culture we want

39:17

to create, people that are

39:20

high character, high competence and where there's good

39:22

chemistry. We hope that's

39:24

you. And over the next

39:26

three years, we're going to rebuild the

39:28

culture to be pointed in that direction.

39:32

And we started to lean into

39:34

this notion at the time, which was fairly

39:36

new with the Gallup organization, employee

39:39

engagement. Now it's – You hire

39:41

the Gallup polling firm to come in

39:43

and do some – Yeah. They were the

39:46

leaders and still are, in my opinion, in

39:48

evaluating how engaged employees

39:51

are. And there was all kinds of leading

39:53

indicators that suggest that the more engaged

39:55

people were, the better the company

39:58

performed. You

40:00

can't manage a culture change unless

40:02

you can measure it. I mean, culture

40:05

is viewed as this amorphous thing,

40:08

and I'll know it when I see it kind of thing.

40:10

But I found that it was important

40:13

to be able to measure it and

40:16

promote discussion around things

40:18

that were working and things that weren't working. So

40:21

we did an employee engagement

40:23

survey, and the first one in 2001, we found out that

40:27

we had the lowest employee engagement

40:30

anecdotally in the Fortune 500.

40:33

How did you, I mean, when you saw that,

40:35

I mean, that's rough. I mean,

40:38

is that, do people just not feel valued

40:40

or did they not feel like their ideas were heard

40:43

or did they just feel like there were cogs in the

40:45

system? Was that what you were saying?

40:47

Yes, all, it was, it was, this is

40:49

a complex undertaking, but

40:52

look, there are four things in

40:55

employee engagement that matter. It's

40:58

about living, loving, learning, and leaving a legacy.

41:01

First of all, you have to have good living conditions,

41:03

and the hygiene in the place has to be

41:06

adequate,

41:08

and we didn't have good, adequate

41:10

facilities. Then loving,

41:12

you have to feel valued for

41:14

your work, and there are specific things that you have

41:17

to evidence so that people feel

41:19

valued. And then learning, opportunities

41:22

to learn and grow. And ultimately,

41:24

in terms of employee engagement, the highest

41:26

level is leaving a legacy,

41:29

and that's about doing something that transcends

41:32

the ordinary. Look, we all spend

41:34

more time either working

41:36

or thinking about doing our work than any other

41:39

thing we do, including being with our families.

41:42

So our focus on employee engagement

41:44

was about getting the living, loving, learning,

41:46

and leaving a legacy piece in place. We

41:49

did it for three years. We focused maniacally

41:52

on it, the whole deck idea was there, but the first three

41:54

years, it was a heavy lift. Yeah. We

41:57

had managers who were not leading

41:59

in an experience. way, however. They were keeping

42:01

their heads down and sort

42:03

of it's like the game of whack-a-mole. Yeah.

42:06

They were afraid to lift their heads up because

42:08

if they screwed up, they'd lose their job. Right. That

42:11

wasn't good enough. So we started

42:13

getting feedback on how the top 350 leaders

42:15

were doing. And I

42:18

said, year one, I'm not even going to look at your

42:20

individual results. Year

42:23

two, I'm going to see the trends. And

42:25

year three, I'm going to pay attention to your specific

42:28

results. And

42:32

I did. And in the first three years,

42:34

we turned over 300 of the top 350 leaders in the company. Wow.

42:38

You turned over 300 of 350. I

42:42

think it's the most in Fortune 500

42:44

history in three years. You had

42:47

to replace 300 people of

42:49

the top 350 leaders. Yeah. But 150

42:51

were promoted from within. So

42:55

we had young folks or more

42:58

junior folks who were hungering to

43:00

lead in a more inspired way. Right.

43:02

And they had leaders who were just trying

43:05

to go along to get along. Yeah.

43:07

Which wasn't going to cut it. So

43:10

we promoted 150 from within. But

43:12

we also did hire 150 from outside

43:15

the company, from blue chip packaged

43:18

goods companies who knew what

43:20

it looked like to win. And I, again,

43:22

I didn't know my ass from my elbow. And I'm thinking,

43:25

is this crazy? Am I going too

43:27

fast here? But I couldn't imagine what

43:30

would happen if we didn't do it. So

43:33

we just kept going along. And

43:35

what was interesting to me was as

43:38

we did this, employee engagement

43:40

for the whole company began to

43:42

soar. Because, you

43:45

know, while I was worried about the top 350,

43:47

which was sort of my job as a CEO, there

43:50

were 19,650 people

43:53

out there waiting to see if I was going to deal

43:55

with the real issue, which was the leadership of

43:57

the company. And as soon as we.

44:00

we started to methodically and in a caring

44:02

way deal with these folks,

44:06

everyone else became more engaged. And we

44:08

went from the worst engagement

44:10

in the Fortune 500 to

44:12

the best engagement in the Fortune 500. You

44:16

are a self-described introvert.

44:19

You're 49, you get to the company, you

44:22

didn't even wanna go to sales in Nabisco because you're

44:24

not a glad handler, you're not a

44:26

golfer, you're not, you're a networker. Well,

44:30

now you've gotta be the cheerleader in

44:32

chief for a company that is struggling.

44:36

Did you, when you became the president

44:38

and CEO of Campbell's, did you just kinda

44:40

naturally find your charisma or did you

44:42

have to work really hard to

44:45

find charisma? Because you have to be charismatic

44:48

to inspire people, right? I don't

44:50

think you need to be flamboyant to get their

44:52

attention. They're

44:54

paying attention. And, but

44:57

what you need to do is you need to declare yourself

44:59

say, here's where we're going and here's what we're

45:01

doing and here's how we're gonna do it. And

45:04

then you need to work the plan. And

45:06

if you screw up, you need to acknowledge I screwed

45:09

up. With all

45:11

sincerity and great

45:13

authenticity, you need to course correct

45:15

and you need to move on. And

45:18

I think I found that people appreciated

45:20

that at Campbell. I'm

45:23

Guy Raz and you're listening to Wisdom From the

45:25

Top. We'll be right back.

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46:41

This is Wisdom From the Top. I'm

46:43

Guy Raz. So Doug,

46:46

as you kind of implemented this

46:49

turnaround strategy, when you gave yourself three

46:51

years, how did you... You

46:54

would come from this job in Nabisco,

46:56

now you're in this new position, and

46:59

you've got to be the leader. How did

47:01

you begin to kind of develop a leadership

47:04

philosophy, something that actually you could

47:07

go back to and say, okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing

47:09

this, I'm doing this? How did that process begin?

47:12

Well, I actually started with... When

47:16

Stephen Covey first wrote the book, Seven

47:19

Habits of Highly Effective People, I

47:21

was taken with that book, and I actually went out

47:24

to Sundance, Utah, and took

47:26

a course with him. And

47:30

in that course, the

47:34

first habit is all

47:36

about be proactive, and

47:39

then the second habit is begin with the end

47:41

in mind. And

47:43

so on a personal

47:45

basis, I was trying to sort of be

47:47

more intentional and be proactive and

47:50

figure out kind of what end do I

47:52

have in mind for my life. And

47:55

then when I started running Nabisco,

47:57

I found that it wasn't only

47:59

important... to me

48:02

on a personal level, it also had profound

48:04

impact on how I led the organization. And

48:07

so I started at Nabisco.

48:10

We had a great run there. I just basically

48:12

took that philosophy of be proactive,

48:15

begin with the end in mind, and

48:17

then start to cultivate a cadre

48:20

of leaders who have that kind

48:22

of approach to life. And

48:25

I also happened to be a student of the craft of

48:27

leadership. And it all sort of

48:29

fed into my Nabisco

48:31

experience and then my Campbell experience. As

48:34

you started to kind of work

48:38

on improving employee engagement

48:40

and morale, there was the other side,

48:42

which was you had to sell soup. You had to

48:44

sell products. How do you...

48:47

I mean, Campbell's Soup, iconic Andy Warhol

48:49

product. But I can imagine in the early 2000s,

48:52

people are thinking, eh, canned soup. That's

48:55

not my thing. You know, there's a lot of

48:57

fresh cold

48:59

and the cold refrigerated aisle soups

49:01

and coming. How are you going to sell... How

49:03

did you... How were you able to kind

49:06

of come up with a plan to sell more soup? Well,

49:09

first of all, we had a lot of other products, which

49:12

helped. We

49:15

were also the world's largest vegetable

49:17

juice purveyor with

49:19

V8 and other brands. We were

49:21

also the third largest baked

49:23

snack company in the world. And here you would

49:26

know that as Pepperidge Farms. So

49:29

we had other core businesses in addition

49:31

to North American soup. And

49:35

so those were also... Both

49:37

of those large categories

49:41

were on a pretty good growth trajectory. So

49:43

we leaned into innovating in

49:45

vegetable-based juices and into

49:48

baked snacks. So we started to grow faster

49:50

there. And then we had

49:53

a plan to grow the soup

49:55

business. And it was very

49:58

much focused on meeting the consumer. needs.

50:01

And it turned out that soup

50:04

was being consumed differently and

50:08

as we were a victim of what

50:11

I'll call now meal simplification, it used

50:13

to be you would have soup and then you would

50:15

have dinner. Right. And there

50:17

was this meal simplification going on

50:19

where it was just dinner. And

50:21

so we were being eliminated

50:23

out of a lot of meal

50:27

occasions because they were, it

50:29

was too complex. It was a two-step

50:31

process. And the

50:35

number one reason people

50:38

would report that they didn't have

50:41

soup was they didn't think of it.

50:44

And the time, because they have it in their

50:46

home. But the

50:49

only time they thought about it was when there was

50:51

inclement weather or when

50:53

they were sick. And so

50:55

on a cold snowy day they thought

50:57

of soup. Right. If someone had

50:59

a cold they thought of Campbell's

51:02

Chicken Noodle Soup. Right. So

51:04

we had to get into the everyday

51:06

consumption mode. And there were certain

51:08

consumer issues. I'll

51:12

just pick one or pick a couple

51:14

of them. One was it

51:17

was the hardest, the soup aisle,

51:20

actually we had three of the top ten items

51:23

in the entire grocery store were soup

51:25

items. It was Campbell's Chicken Noodle, Campbell

51:27

Tomato Soup, and Campbell Cream of Mushroom.

51:31

And but when

51:33

you went into the soup section you couldn't find

51:35

the soups that you

51:37

were looking for because they all looked the same

51:40

and the sections were a mess. Right.

51:43

And people were not particularly patient.

51:45

We were the hardest section to shop other

51:47

than cough and cold remedies in

51:49

the entire store. So what

51:52

we found was we could create

51:54

this what we called an IQ shelf maximizer

51:56

where we made it easier

51:58

to shop the aisle. with this gravity-fed

52:01

shelving system that we put

52:03

in all the large stores, which made

52:05

it much easier to find the products you were looking

52:07

for. What's a gravity-fed system? The

52:11

cans would be put on their sides and they'd

52:13

be put in these sleeves, which had pictures

52:16

of, large pictures,

52:19

of the particular variety

52:21

that you were looking for. And so

52:23

you could actually see what it was. You

52:26

didn't have to read all the red and white labels and

52:28

try and decipher. Which one was which? Yeah.

52:31

And it would roll down this gravity-fed vehicle. It

52:33

would roll down and you would take it out. And

52:36

it also was easier for people to

52:38

stock in the store. So it worked

52:40

for the customer. It also worked for the

52:42

consumer. One other thing, you

52:45

know, the microwave

52:48

was invented in 1947. Yeah.

52:51

And this is now 2001. And

52:55

all the world had innovated

52:58

in microwave technology for all kinds

53:00

of products. But we were so

53:02

good at making canned soup that would run

53:04

so fast on our equipment that

53:06

we, you know, if we went to a microwavable

53:09

container, it would slow us down and we couldn't

53:11

make it as efficiently. Meanwhile,

53:15

microwavable containers were what

53:17

was selling. So we started

53:20

putting some of our products in microwavable

53:22

containers that people could have for lunch or take

53:24

to work or have for a snack at

53:26

home. And the

53:30

IQ shelf maximizer and the microwavable platform

53:34

breathed new life into the category. We

53:36

acquired some organic brands, Wolfgang

53:38

Puck organic soups. We

53:41

started innovating around soup formats

53:44

with refrigerated soups and with

53:47

other kinds of soups that were more

53:50

in tune with what consumers

53:52

were looking for. And we grew soup

53:54

sales for eight straight years. So

53:56

by the time you left, what? What

54:00

was the state of the company? Well,

54:03

we had built a

54:05

terrific continuous improvement machine.

54:09

We had delivered earnings growth for 10

54:12

straight years. We had record high return on

54:14

invested capital, record high cash flow,

54:17

and also record high employee engagement.

54:20

So we were hitting

54:23

on all cylinders. You

54:27

know, one of the things that I've seen

54:29

you quoted saying, and I guess it's kind of become

54:31

your motto, which is you

54:33

said, to win in the marketplace, you

54:35

must first win in the workplace. And

54:38

the thing I love about that is that

54:40

so many companies, so many CEOs, they

54:43

answer first and foremost to their

54:46

board and their shareholders at

54:48

the expense of their employees. But

54:51

that motto, to win in the marketplace,

54:53

you must first win in the workplace, is exactly

54:56

right. If you don't have committed,

54:58

engaged employees who feel valued,

55:01

who feel like they're the

55:03

center of this thing, then nothing else

55:05

is going to work. Well,

55:07

you know, it's interesting. As a CEO,

55:10

you know there are a thousand decisions made every

55:12

hour. And you realize

55:15

that 999 of them are made when you're not in the

55:17

room. Right.

55:20

So you are totally dependent on

55:22

others for your performance. Totally. And

55:26

so if you're totally dependent

55:28

on others for your performance, you better take

55:30

care of the others. So when

55:32

I talk about leadership now and even then, I

55:35

would talk about, look, it's all about the people.

55:38

I always found if I took care of the

55:40

people that I worked with, they took care of

55:42

me. And they took care of the agenda of the

55:44

enterprise. In my opinion,

55:46

it's naive to think any other way, at

55:49

least if you're trying to build an enduring proposition.

55:51

I gave a speech in Italy

55:54

last year, and I talked

55:57

about the big measure when I started as

55:59

a CEO was that I was a CEO.

55:59

was total shareholder returns, TSR.

56:02

And it was basically the return

56:04

on the shareholders' investment was what you

56:06

lived and died by. And my

56:09

observation is that in

56:11

today's world, society

56:14

is looking for more than that, and I

56:17

would call it total stakeholder returns.

56:20

Like all the people that have a vested

56:23

interest in the enterprise. And of all

56:25

of them, there's only one group that touches

56:27

everyone, and that's the employee. In

56:30

my opinion, if you want to take care of all stakeholders,

56:33

you've got to take care of employees first. And

56:35

you've got to make sure they're the very best at what

56:37

they do, and that they're committed

56:39

to doing with distinction. And by that,

56:41

I mean that they're competent and they do it in a

56:43

high character fashion.

56:45

I mean,

56:46

as a, I mean, you can be a great

56:48

leader and have an

56:50

amazing strategic mind, right?

56:53

An amazing sort of brand management

56:55

perspective. You can cut,

56:57

you can shed businesses, you

57:00

can, there's lots of tools you have

57:02

in your toolbox. But it sounds to me

57:04

that your approach really is focus

57:07

on employee morale,

57:10

focus on the people in the company first,

57:12

and then worry about the other stuff

57:14

next. Is that right?

57:20

I bring more of an

57:22

abundance mindset to

57:24

that work. I do focus, I mean, you've

57:26

got to do, you've got to focus on the strategy

57:28

and the people, and you've got to do it in

57:31

a highly iterative

57:33

way. So it's not like you can just focus

57:36

on one and then focus on another. It's

57:39

a complex operating environment.

57:42

But I do believe that

57:45

to create a leadership

57:47

culture, a highly

57:49

competent culture, I've

57:52

written about this, I think you need to have

57:54

three things and then have the wisdom to

57:57

leverage them at the right time. I

57:59

do think you need, IQ, EQ,

58:01

and something I call FQ. You've

58:03

got to have this ability to process

58:05

information quickly and think

58:08

clearly. You

58:10

need IQ. But you also

58:12

need to be able to process information

58:15

about individuals and groups and

58:17

nuances effectively too. And

58:20

then you need what I would call FQ, which

58:22

is this functional quotient,

58:24

like if you're running a sales organization, you

58:26

better damn well figure out how to run a sales

58:28

organization. You need to know sales. And

58:31

so it's this IQ, EQ,

58:33

and FQ. And then it's the

58:35

nuanced, the wisdom you

58:37

develop over time of how do you find

58:40

ways to leverage all that to

58:43

bring your sense of vision

58:46

and your purpose to life. So

58:48

it's a messy process. And

58:52

I think you have to look at it all simultaneously.

58:55

Doug,

58:59

what do you think about, and I think I know the answer

59:01

to this, what do you think about the trajectory of your

59:04

career? Do you think you were born a leader

59:06

or do you think you learned how to become a leader

59:09

over the course of your career? I

59:11

get this, I'm involved in this conversation

59:14

a lot in the leadership discussion.

59:17

People can be born with

59:20

certain gifts

59:23

for leadership, but I think leaders

59:25

are made. And I think you've got to work

59:28

at it, especially today. You've

59:30

got to be intentional. You've got to have

59:33

your act together before you hit the ground running.

59:35

When I started, and a lot

59:38

of the people you've interviewed, I respect

59:41

them. But I would say they largely

59:43

practice seat of the pants leadership

59:47

and based on experience and that

59:50

was good enough. But I think

59:52

today things are moving so fast.

59:55

The seat of the pants leadership does not serve

59:57

the enterprise well. I think you have to be

59:59

more. intentional. I think you

1:00:01

have to be more planful and

1:00:04

in a way that allows you to move and

1:00:06

shake and maneuver on a dime

1:00:09

because of all the things coming

1:00:11

at the organization. So

1:00:14

I my vote is that great

1:00:16

leaders are made.

1:00:23

Doug Conant, the former

1:00:25

CEO of Campbell's Soup Company. He

1:00:27

stepped down as CEO in 2011

1:00:30

and since Doug left the company continued

1:00:32

its upward trajectory. Thanks

1:00:41

for listening to the show this week. The music

1:00:43

for this episode was composed and performed

1:00:46

by Drop Electric. I'm Guy Raz

1:00:48

and you've been listening to Wisdom from the Top

1:00:50

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