Leading People to Pursue the Impossible with Chuck Swoboda
Chuck Swoboda is the Innovator-in-residence at Marquette University, President of Cape Point Advisors, and the retired Chairman and CEO of Cree, Inc. At Cree, Chuck helped lead the company from $6 million in revenue to over $1.6 billion as they started the LED Lighting Revolution that led to the obsolescence of traditional light bulbs. Chuck is a co-inventor on 25 patents covering LED and Lighting related technology. He is the host of the Innovators on Tap podcast and has just released his new book, The Innovator\u2019s Spirit: Discover the Mindset to Pursue the Impossible. \n\nLEADERSHIP INSIGHTS\n\n- Leadership is about showing someone why what you want them to do is in their best interests.\n- People\u2019s behaviors are a function of their beliefs. If you want to help people, you have to understand the belief that is getting in their way and help them to discover it as well.\n- Put yourself in situations where failure or near failure is inevitable to force you to grow.\n- Once you have a culture, hire people to fit that culture (e.g. innovation and risk).\n- Create the focus necessary for innovation by taking advantage of scenarios that naturally force change.\n- Pursuing innovation often means trying for what most others think is impossible.\n- When you\u2019re doing something that\u2019s never been done, you can\u2019t know the answer.\n- No matter what you do today, it can be done better tomorrow.\n- To help your team adopt an innovative mindset, encourage these three things: 1. Becoming comfortable with uncertainty, 2. Learn from your failures, and 3. Promote ownership of things that aren\u2019t fully in people\u2019s control.\n- Leadership is not about having all the ideas; it\u2019s about figuring out how to get the best ideas out there and then focusing on them.\n\nQUESTIONS TO INSPIRE US TO ACTION\n\n\u2013 What is some lesson, saying, or experience that continues to influence your leadership to this day? \u201cManagement is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things\u201d\u2014Peter Drucker\n- Use three descriptors to finish this sentence: \u201cA leader is\u2026\u201d Genuine, passionate, and committed to doing what\u2019s right.\n- What is a question that leaders should be asking either themselves or others? Is anyone following me?\n- What book would you recommend to leaders? The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen\n- If you could get every listener to start doing something THIS week to help them be a better leader, what would it be? Practice leading (i.e. convince other people to do something they wouldn\u2019t otherwise do on their own).\n- As a general life principle, is it better to ask \u201cwhy?\u201d or \u201cwhy not?\u201d \u201cWhy not?\u201d \u201cWhy?\u201d is helpful to give others a reason to follow you, but \u201cwhy not?\u201d is about getting people to do something they wouldn\u2019t otherwise do on their own.\n\nWebsite:\nhttps://www.chuckswoboda.com/\n\nFind Chuck on social media:\nTwitter: https://twitter.com/thechuckswoboda (@thechuckswoboda)\nInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thechuckswoboda/ (@thechuckswoboda)\nLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuck-swoboda/ (in/chuck-swoboda)