Cornell lecturer and serial entrepreneur Brad Treat draws on his experience building SightSpeed (acquired by Logitech) and advising 200+ startups to offer founders practical frameworks for transitioning into effective CEOs—emphasizing emotional intelligence, strategic communication, and adaptive leadership as essential skills for navigating growth, stakeholder trust, and organizational change.
As artificial intelligence transforms the business landscape, the challenges facing startup leaders have intensified. While technology can automate many processes, the human elements of leadership — building trust, navigating ambiguity, and inspiring teams through uncertainty — have become more critical than ever. Today's founders must evolve beyond their technical expertise to become adaptive leaders who can guide organizations through rapid change.
Join Cornell faculty expert Brad Treat as he explores the essential leadership competencies required for founders transitioning to CEO roles. Drawing from his experience as a serial entrepreneur and visiting lecturer at the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management, Brad will examine how emotional intelligence, strategic communication, and adaptive leadership have become fundamental capabilities for startup success.
In this session, Brad will guide participants through the critical founder-to-CEO transition, sharing practical frameworks from his journey building and successfully exiting SightSpeed (acquired by Logitech) and his current work supporting more than 200 early-stage companies. He'll address the common pitfalls that derail promising startups and provide actionable strategies for stepping into effective company leadership.
What You’ll Learn:
Intro:
Welcome to Cornell Keynotes. Today, we're joined by Brad Treat, visiting lecturer of management at Cornell's SC Johnson Graduate School of Management and serial entrepreneur. As artificial intelligence transforms the business landscape, Brad
explores how the human elements of leadership have become more critical than ever for startup success.
He'll address common pitfalls that derail promising startups and provide actionable strategies for evolving from technical execution to strategic leadership. Much of what Brad covers connects to leadership and entrepreneurship principles taught in Cornell's online programs for entrepreneurs. Check the episode notes for more details.
And now, here's our interview with Cornell's Brad Treat
Chris Wofford: All right, let's get into it, Brad. I wanna ask you, tell us about the work that you do at Cornell. You work with startups in the [00:01:00] Ithaca area at the Center for Regional Economic Advancement, REV in Ithaca as well, and honestly, throughout New York State. So tell me a little bit about the work that you do at Cornell and without Cornell.
Brad Treat: So a good way to think about it, Chris, is working with active and aspiring entrepreneurs wherever they might be in that journey, and geographically anywhere kind of in the vicinity of Cornell or part of the Cornell community. So I run an organization called the Southern Tier Startup Alliance. This is fully funded by the State of New York, because State of New York does believe in fostering entrepreneurship as a way to create jobs.
Uh, the data shows the net new job growth comes from the new companies, and so one of the most efficient and effective way to support those companies is by providing reliable and experienced mentorship to the entrepreneurs early on in the company's formation. So we help them by educating them, helping them get unstuck, getting connected to resources.
And we bring that same philosophy onto campus, so where we're working with entrepreneurs who have ideas that they're launching, we also work in a theoretical sense on the campus where students are like, "I think I wanna learn about [00:02:00] entrepreneurship. How can I do it?" And by bringing the community and the campus together, it becomes more real.
So at its core is experiential learning, so they get to work with real companies, real CEOs, real founders, and then they can apply those to their own journey. I would also say that, it works on the other end of it, Chris, because, ... So I've been teaching at Cornell for now 12 years, and so one of the things I tell my students is, uh, the class comes with a lifetime warranty.
So it's not uncommon that I talk to s- former students who say... I get an email, "Hey, Brad, I got an idea for a business. Can we chat?" And they can be anywhere in the world, and I'm happy to talk to them.
Chris Wofford: Yeah. Pretty high demand for your courses as well. What, what are, what are some of the course titles that you teach?
What's the, what's your thing?
Brad Treat: Oh, so one of the flagship courses is a course called Entrepreneurship for Scientists and Engineers. That class is where the foundation is I've got some technology- I think it'd be innovation that could go out into the marketplace. How do I get that technology out of the lab and into the world?
And so that class has been very popular. We literally have, uh, 95 students per [00:03:00] semester go through that class. And many students have gone on and set to apply these philosophies in maybe in starting a new company or maybe within a company in a new line of business. So it's a entrepreneurial mindset, uh, class.
Um, I've created a class for Cornell called the Business Idea Factory. Which is where, okay, I don't even know what I wanna do. I j- I know I wanna do something entrepreneurial, but how do I tell if my idea's any good? And so we'll spend seven weeks going through a process of discovering what makes for a business idea.
Where do you get inspiration for ideas? Uh, what are some pitfalls to watch out for? And so we found that when students come out the other end of that, they have some really good ideas that maybe can apply in some other courses. And so it's, it's all flavors of that. We explored business models, and we're seeing how technology and the world- way the world's changing allows for new business models.
yeah, so th- that's kind of the gist of, of what we do it, but it's all on this foundation of experiential. So it's around I'm gonna actually go through this process as if I'm gonna launch this business, and maybe I don't launch this business, but what I do [00:04:00] learn is the process, so when I have my next idea,
I know how to do it. And so one of the things I close with, I just closed the semester, I tell the students, "You may not start this business, but what's gonna happen in the future is you and your friends are gonna be sitting around going, 'Oh, I got an idea for a business.' And you'll talk about why it's a great business, and then they'll say, 'Well, now what do we do?'
And you're gonna be the person who says, 'I know what to do now.'"
Chris Wofford: Yeah. "
Brad Treat: I did this process in this class. We're gonna apply the same process what, with the new business idea."
Chris Wofford: So when, students or anybody that's launching an entrepreneurial venture gets lift off, they're transitioning from a founder.
They're, they're, at this point they're used to doing everything, right? This is their vision. This is their thing. Their hands are getting dirty, and they're transitioning to having to lead everything, is the way you put it in our pregame chat.
Brad Treat: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: Is there a mental shift that has to take place? How do you coach people through that?
Brad Treat: It is. So the, the E in CEO for a startup means everything else. You are the chief everything else officer. And so when your business starts, you are doing everything, and maybe you [00:05:00] have a co-founder and you start sharing duties. Well, as your company grows, you're gonna be going from doing everything to making sure everything gets done, 'cause you're still responsible for getting things done.
It's just you're not the one to do it, and you've gotta be able to, to lead a team of people, to motivate that team of people, to make sure things are getting done, make sure the right things are getting done. And so your approach has to change. You can't be the one doing everything because what ends up happening there, Chris, is you end up getting burned out.
And so you're saying, "How do I get more of my time?" Well, you, you have to look at the priorities and say, " what deserves CEO attention? And then what can I delegate?" And but here's the trick here, Chris, is also figuring out what should not be done at all. So what are the things that we are doing that we shouldn't be doing?
Chris Wofford: How do you arrive at that, uh, at that determination? Is that, is that when you're checking whether the product is minimally viable or otherwise?
Brad Treat: So it actually comes back to having a, uh, a focus of your business. You've got a priority. Here, here are our priorities. [00:06:00] Here's what we're trying to achieve.
And then asking yourself, "Well, what are the activities that we're doing that don't help us achieve that priority?" And this happens a lot in startups because in the early days you're, you're ping-ponging back and forth. You're pivoting. And so I'll give you a concrete example, and I see this a lot with entrepreneurs, is when they get advice from an investor.
Okay? So then the investor says to them, "You should do this." And they're like, "Oh my gosh, the investor said that I should do this." And by the way, oftentimes it's they're not an investor yet, they're a potential investor.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Brad Treat: A potential investor says, "You should do this." And the entrepreneur says, "Well, golly, I, I should do it 'cause the investor says it, and they've got the money, and I wanna get that money into my company, so I should do that thing."
I have to be very careful of that because that's not your customer. You should be listening to your customer, not your investor. 'Cause here's what'll happen. If it works out, if you take the advice from an investor, they'll be like, "Good job, I gave you good advice."
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: If it doesn't work out, they'll be like, "Why'd you do that?"
There's, there's no ownership there. But so you should be driven by the voice of the customer. We [00:07:00] say this a lot, it's the voice of the customer. It's not the voice of the investor, even though they're writing the checks. Oftentimes they'll try to put themselves in the position of a customer and go, "I don't get it."
Well, if you're not, if you're not the customer, then you shouldn't be listening to them.
Chris Wofford: You had mentioned also in our pregame chat about, uh, situations, and you just described it, where there's, there are multiple stakeholders involved, uh, investors- Mm-hmm ... people that are working with you, even family members who have probably some stake in it. How do you recommend that founders who have to transition to becoming a CEO ultimately, deal with those scenarios? Any advice? And I have a second part to that question- Okay ... which is, do you offer training on, on how a person should structure a company?
You know what I mean? Yeah. Business training where here's how your team is probably gonna need to look thinking a year ahead. Multiple stakeholders, number one. Two, how to structure a company.
Brad Treat: multiple stakeholders, you should be clear about setting your priorities.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And so that depends on the personality of the person. [00:08:00] Um, but being clear and saying... I'll give you an example. Um, on my phone, it only rings when my wife calls or the school calls.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Brad Treat: They're, they're the priority.
Chris Wofford: Yep.
Brad Treat: And so, one of the people I actually learned this from was Bill Clinton.
So when he was president, if his wife or daughter called, he would stop a meeting. "Hold on, guys. I'm gonna take this call." And so you set the priority right away to say, "Okay, who, who is my priority?" If you make your family your priority, and they know this, they'll actually be more, uh,
um, they'll only use that privilege when they need it.
Chris Wofford: Oh, I understand.
Brad Treat: Yeah. And so if they know that you're gonna be a priority, so set, you know, set your priorities. These are my priorities. My family's are my priority. You know, um, you know, my mother doesn't call me that much, except on Sundays.
I always talk to my mom on Sundays. If she calls me any other time, she's probably the other person. Mm-hmm. I will answer that fa- call 'cause I'm like, "Oh, she doesn't call much. It's Tuesday. What's going on?" And so you s- you set that priority, and let it be known that's gonna be the priority, and people are on board with that.
But similarly, give your people who work for you the same grace to allow them to set priorities, say, [00:09:00] "Okay, hey, I've got family. I've got kids. I've got mothers and others." Mm-hmm. Um, let them s- set that priority and, and be clear about it.
Chris Wofford: Yeah, so investor gets second, second shrift there.
Brad Treat: I would think so.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: Yeah. I would say- if you're gonna do that hierarchy, I'd probably, you know, everybody's gonna be a little different, but you're probably put at the top of that list, um- Yeah ... family.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: Then probably customers.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: Uh, key people in the company. Investors are kinda down here somewhere.
Okay. 'Cause they're not typically involved in the day-to-day operations. The, the very nature of these early stage companies, it's, it's a long-term investment.
Chris Wofford: Sure.
Brad Treat: Right? Right. If you think about venture investing, it's a five, seven, 10-year period.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: I don't need to answer that call right now.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: There's no decisions happening right now.
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: Right? So that's-
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: So you're right, yeah.
Chris Wofford: Okay, so that was a little bit of a bold leap that I took to ask you to combine the two questions regarding structuring your business and how to go about that. How does this happen? Okay, so let's- In your teaching at Johnson, Johnson College of Business.
Brad Treat: Yeah, so there's a phrase, I did not come up [00:10:00] with it, it's, uh, Hire slow, fire fast."
Chris Wofford: Uh-huh.
Brad Treat: And so I don't advise startups for hiring for now what they need a year from now.
Chris Wofford: Uh-huh.
Brad Treat: Hire for now for what you needed probably two days ago or two weeks ago, right? So hire slow, fire fast. And so it's not let's get prepared, it's let's react.
And so what you find oftentimes, Chris, when you're doing early stage hiring, is you're not hiring for a specific skill set, you're hiring for a get things done smart mentality. And so this is actually a great opportunity for my students early on 'cause they say, "Listen, guys." One of the reasons they're gonna hire, hire you is 'cause you, you got the mental horsepower.
They're hiring you for what's going on between your ears, not, what you already know but what you're gonna be able to figure out, especially in a fast-moving environment. 'Cause you're gonna go into this business and they may think this is their need today, but it's gonna shift, and they're gonna need people who can shift with it.
And so you may end up early on with a bunch of generalists where they figure things out, not a bunch of specialists.
Chris Wofford: Good advice. Um, [00:11:00] I had seen your presentation that you shared with me. There are several myths about startup leadership that you address, particularly related to work/life balance and also wealth motivation.
are there myths that you find that, uh, sometimes almost invariably ring true? Are there some that are persistent among entrepreneurs, some that are just hogwash? Tell me a little bit about how you think about this.
Brad Treat: So I think one of the first myths is that it just has to be a sprint all the time. Go, go, go, crushing hours, working all the time.
data shows you can sprint in short periods of time, but you can't, sprint a marathon, right? You've, you gotta take a long view of these things. And so the, one of the myths is that you're just gonna be go, go, go, go all the time, and that's just gonna lead to burnout. And what burnout leads to is making mistakes, and so you need to be able to balance yourself.
One of the things that's true, I, I think it's like 97% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have personal trainers because it's a healthy body, healthy mind. You've gotta have some way [00:12:00] to keep the, keep the machine running, so having a way to step away from the business and, do some exercise or do something that takes your mind off things.
... you know, o- oftentimes, uh, I'm not gonna get political here, but we see government leaders being criticized for playing golf. Mm-hmm. I want them playing golf. Right. I, I want them to- More golf ... decompress-
Chris Wofford: Yeah ...
Brad Treat: and just chase a little ball around a golf course allows them to mentally reset. And people have different, uh, ways of doing it.
I can talk about my personal one. Is, um, I find I do some of my best thinking when I swim.
Chris Wofford: Uh-huh.
Brad Treat: And so swimming's a little bit of a, a sensory deprivation channel.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: I'm not a fast swimmer. I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna be chasing Michael Phelps down or anything like that. But I do some of my best thinking.
Sometimes I get to the pool and say, "What do I wanna think about today?" And, and work that out, and I know other people have different ways of doing that. So just have something and make that... That's important.
Chris Wofford: Um- So, so when you swim, are you, uh, you're working on problems?
Brad Treat: Sometimes.
Chris Wofford: Actively?
Brad Treat: Yeah. Sometimes I'm thinking about the Wordle problem, but sometimes I'm thinking about the- Right
like, what's... So j- you know, this morning, so I s- I swam this morning. I typically do it at 6:00.
Uh, I was [00:13:00] thinking about today's conversation, what are some of the key points that I wanted to make-
for this. And so it's a good way to maybe think about your day or think about something more challenging.
And I'll tell you, there's times I've, gotten in the pool with a problem, and as I'm thinking about it, and then I'm like, 45 minutes has gone by. And I've gotten a workout and solved a problem and it, it felt like a really successful- experience.
Chris Wofford: And you're leaping out of the water ready to take that, that problem on.
Brad Treat: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's a great- It's great ... it's a great way to start the day. Sure. You know, so there's, there's this whole philosophy of, like, uh, I c- I can, I think it was, uh, Admiral McRaven says, "One of the things you should do every day is make your bed." Right? Yes. He's a, he did a famous commencement speech.
Make your bed so that you can start the day having accomplished something.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: Right? So if I can get out of the pool and say, "Okay, I've, I've solved a problem," it's a great way to start the day.
Chris Wofford: Uh, do you have any tips on how to stay motivated all the way through, right?
there's talk about ups and downs. Nothing like a startup venture to bring those. Any tips on that?
Brad Treat: Y- yes. So you wanna feel like it's your work is making a difference, ... It [00:14:00] can be for your customers or for your employees. And maybe if you'll, uh, hear me, I'll tell you two quick stories here.
I started my career in automotive manufacturing.
And so, I remember having this conversation with my, boss and I'm like, "Am I really making the world a better place here 'cause I make car parts? I mean, come on."
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: And he i- great guy, uh, his name's John Connor, I still am in touch with him, and, uh, he says to me, "It's, it's not about the car parts, Brad.
Don't for- the, the car parts are just a thing. What you're doing here is you're actually impacting the lives of these people here." So there's, I had engineering responsibilities in one section of a factory, made parts for, like, the Ford Explorer, and 45 people there, I was the primary engineer. And he said, "The work you're doing is making sure those people are gainfully employed and can feed their family and send their kids to college, and all those, those things, you're enabling them."
And so by finding that motivation, it wasn't, like, the paycheck or the parts. Hmm. It was the f- way that you were influencing and making those people's lives better, and then it became really [00:15:00] meaningful. I'm like, "Okay, this is, this is good work I'm doing." The, the car parts are a mechanism. A, a second is I'll tell you my first company, uh, was a video conferencing software company called SiteSpeed, founded on Cornell technology.
Okay. Very full circle with the class I was talking about. So research by, uh, Professor Toby Berger, the late Toby Berger, and Aaron Rosenberg, who was the student, they had invented the technology, and I worked with them to bring it out of the lab into the world as one of the first broadband video conferencing software companies.
But day to day it was software and bugs and cameras that don't work and updates to operating systems that crashed our system. All that stuff's really frustrating. But what made it meaningful is the impact we had on our users. So we got, letters from people who said, "Hey, this is the first time I've been able to do sign language over long distance."
Or, one of the letters actually hung up in our office. We got a letter from somebody who said, "SiteSpeed saved my marriage." . And they told us a story about how this- as a newlywed couple, [00:16:00] they'd been separated because of some visa issue. One of them had to leave the country. They'd just been married, they're very much in love, now one of them gets sent away.
Well, they did something that might be seem very normal now, but 20 years ago when we started the company, it was pretty novel. They would have dinner together every day at the computer, and they would talk about their day. And, uh, then after that they would watch TV together. They'd just have their laptop next to them.
And maybe they're watching different shows, and maybe they're not even talking, but they felt like the person was right there. And then after a couple months they got their visa situation worked out, and so when they were back together, they felt like they'd never missed a beat. And so we thought, "Well, we're, we're positively impacting people's lives.
We're saving marriages and connecting people to communicate like they would if they were across the room with another." And yes, we're dealing day to day with bug fixes and crashes and all that silliness, but that's how you find motivation. So finding the motivation i- is key, because if you just focus on the day to day, it'll grind you down.
Chris Wofford: Uh, I want to think about motivation internally within the company. You know, there's obviously the customer, the customer testimonials, and great, beautiful stories and [00:17:00] marketing going probably presumably crazy over that particular story.
But a leader has to, has to understand what motivates people. Yeah. And this can come in many forms. Internal recognition, with- within the organization, security- ... uh, job security, safety- uh, a mission that one, one can believe in, and so on. Do you have a process or can you describe a process, if there is one, for identifying what truly motivates people and how leaders can apply this?
The, the, there's a methodology behind this?
Brad Treat: The, the, here's a simple thing you guys can do. The simple thing you can do is talk to your employees one on one, oftentimes over, over a meal. So, I was raised in an Episcopal household.
And so one of the tenets of Christianity is, "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you."
So the, the golden rule from Christianity. That is a great philosophy for life, but I'm gonna encourage people to tweak that just a little bit for management, which is do as to others as how they would like to be. So treat others as they wanna be treated, not how you wanna be treated. What that means in a management [00:18:00] context here, Chris, is what motivates me may be different than motivates the other people who work there.
Mm-hmm. And so I should not assume my motivations are their motivations. Mm. And so the only way I can find out what their motivations are is talking to them, but more importantly, listening to them. And so a great way to do that is breaking bread. So let's, let's go have lunch. Let's have a coffee and a conversation.
Learn about them. So you as a manager, if you are talking to your employees and listening to your employees, it may seem like that's not work, but it's actually very important work. Because now you're gonna understand what motivates that person and adjust accordingly. So one of the very first employees we had at SiteSpeed was a guy who, um, just brilliant engineer.
He actually had a, a degree from University of California Berkeley and, and very much in the specialty we were in key employee. We wanted to keep him happy. Well, we were a startup. We didn't have tons of money, so we weren't gonna fill his, We weren't gonna be able to keep him with just dollars.
Yeah. We had to figure out what motivated him. One of the things we learned, Chris, is that family was really important to him.
But with a twist. The [00:19:00] twist is, for him, family were his dogs. He had these, I don't know what kind of dogs they were, these very special dogs. Oh. He had five or six of them.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And they were very important to him, and he wanted to spend time training them, working with them, and he also figured out that he did some of his best work at night. And so while I had a whole engineering team that worked in the day in the office, and I got this other guy who wants to work at night and spend his time with his dogs.
That seems like y- a broken system. We figured out, how could we make it work in our favor? And said, "You want to spend time with your dogs? Super. You want to work at night? Super. Here's how we're gonna do it. We're gonna run this as a two-shift operation." So we're gonna have these folks in the, in the, in the daytime working on the, the software code and, and making improvements and all that kind of stuff.
Then they're gonna pass it to you for the night shift." And so we were able to develop r- so what could've been a, a weakness, like, we got this whole other guy who's on this other schedule, what the heck? We turned that other schedule into a plus, 'cause he was, we were able to cycle twice as fast, and, the only, time we ever required him to come to the office, and this was before remote work was the norm-
Chris Wofford: Yeah
Brad Treat: was we had every two weeks we had an engineering meeting. We said, [00:20:00] "Only come, you only have to come to the office for that engineering meeting. Otherwise, spend time with the dogs." And even when he was in the office, he'd come in sometimes, he'd have the dogs up on his camera and he'd, like, have the dogs- He could have them do tricks over the video and it like...
It was really novel at the time.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And so, we developed a work environment for him, and people didn't feel that was special, like we're giving him special treatment, 'cause everybody got special treatment. Yes. Everybody got treated the way they wanted to be treated. And so one of the things I encourage people to look out for, especially if they're going to get a job is, "Here's way w- the way we do things.
Take it or leave it." That says to me that's an inflexible manager. Mm-hmm. And if you look at the data, the number one reason people leave a company is management. And so a manager who understands their person, their peoples, and is able to get the most out of them can turn a weakness, "Hey, I want to work at night," into a strength, "Hey, we're gonna run s- two cycles."
Chris Wofford: , This happens almost in every keynote we do here. Empathy comes up, emotional intelligence comes up, intellectual curiosity. All the things that you [00:21:00] just kind of demonstrated there. Do you talk about that in your coursework? How to teach it? , Emotional intelligence isn't necessarily an inherent thing.
We're, you know, we're built the way we are. But you can cultivate emotional intelligence. I don't wanna keep going, but you tell me how you think about this.
Brad Treat: Well, well, I think you're asking me how do I, how do I teach people this stuff?
Chris Wofford: Yeah,
Brad Treat: yeah. And, and, and, and so there is three elements to it.
So here's the key point you're trying to make, uh, here's the tactic, and here's a story.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: And so I find the story informs the tactic and the strategy. So you know, I just gave you a brief example. I have a whole series of talks I do about the, all the different ways you can motivate different people who have different priorities.
Where I just told you one story, it's a story I've told before.
And so what you can, what you can do with, with folks is say, "Hey, listen, um, maybe you're motivated by," um, you know, we've talked about family here. "Maybe you're motivated by money." You can be frank about that. Maybe you're motivated [00:22:00] by flexibility.
I just saw, a Cornellian today who was training for the Olympics. That was important to him. His training was absolutely key.
How do you structure that, uh, around, um, you know, hey, if somebody's competing at that level, they're, they're serious about it. That's important to them. so the way I do it is say, "Here's the philosophy.
Understand the person. Here's the tactic. Go have lunch with them. Here's the stories that reinforce that." And, and Chris, here's how I know that these lessons work, is I talk to former students a lot, and I love it when they quote me back to me.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And most of the time they're quoting one of these stories, because they say, "Remember that story you told us about?"
Well, here's how I applied it." Mm-hmm. "Here's how I took it to heart. Here's how..." And so that's that's how you teach it, or at least that's how I teach it. Yeah. In fact, my teaching style is a raconteur, storyteller.
Because people will remember... It's, it's just like Aesop's Fables.
Right? You, you, we all remember the story The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: We remember the point of the story because of the story.
Chris Wofford: [00:23:00] Yeah. Very good. Uh, , We are going into a place where it's starting to feel like company culture. I have so many questions about this.
But I wanna, wanna keep it kinda simple. How does a leader define company culture- ... make sure that it's something that's continually cultivated, maybe even, developing and changing as it goes? Um, Number one, why is company culture important? What is it? And how do you think about it?
Brad Treat: company culture is how the people in the company interact with themselves and with their customers.
Mm-hmm. And, and maybe anybody that's associated with the company.
And I do believe you have to be deliberate about company culture, and the way you're most deliberate about it is by modeling the behavior. So we start with the founders. Here's how the founders interact with each other. And as the company grows, the people who join the company will start to m- they will mimic that behavior.
And if you're not conscious of the way you do things, [00:24:00] you may be magnifying bad behavior. So if your company culture is, we come in, we work hard, but we leave at a certain time, then your f- your employees will mimic that. If you're nice to each other, they'll mimic that. If you're rude to each other or condescending to each other, make snide comments, they'll mimic that too.
You can have... Company culture can go in different directions, so be very cognizant of it. But I, I wanna give you a key point here, Chris, that I learned with my first company. So, um, Aaron Rosenberg was a young man who I met here at Cornell that we started this company. And he and I would have these incredibly heated conversations, and if you were just looking through the window and couldn't hear the words, you'd think we hated each other.
Like, these were...
Chris Wofford: Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Treat: But what was key about those conversations, Chris, is it wasn't about you're a bad person. We were having a heated discussion about an idea or a concept. Mm-hmm. here I'll give you silly example's a good one. We had some incredibly heated conversations about what color the button should be to download the software.
Chris Wofford: [00:25:00] Yeah, controversial.
Brad Treat: Yeah, what shape. Yeah, like-
Chris Wofford: Yeah ...
Brad Treat: And, and so I could have said, "Well, well, I went to business school, and I think it should be this color." And Aaron could say, "Well, I am an in- information theorist. I think it..." It didn't become about the person. It became about the idea.
And so by doing that, saying, okay, it's, encouraged to have vigorous conversation, and even though I'm 10 years Aaron's senior, treat him as an equal. Well, our company then mimicked that culture. We treated people as equals.
We listened to their ideas. We'd attack the idea, not the person. And so we solved some tough problems.
Our company, we licensed some technology developed here at Cornell, but then the company continued to innovate and get in- ten different more patents and more trade secrets, but much of it came from this, this discourse that would happen. You know, like, let's attack this idea in a heated way. And you can attack the idea, and I can attack the idea because if you say, "Well, we can do it better," but you're not attacking me personally.
But when people attach their personality to the idea, well, then they can't change if it's about [00:26:00] who they are. So that's an example of how you could create an environment which discourse is positive- But don't make it about the person
Chris Wofford: you know, there are villainous tyrants who are heading up wildly successful companies.
How do, how do we explain that? Maybe it's not a great place to work, but, um, how do you explain that success, right? I mean, you get, you get talent, somehow you retain it. I don't know. Do you think about this?
Brad Treat: I think running an established company is very different than running a startup, so.
Chris Wofford: I see.
Brad Treat: I may not be the person qualified to say.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Brad Treat: Yeah. I mean, there is data that shows that micromanagement works in the short term, but it doesn't work in the long term. And so if you are running a fortune... If you're running a publicly traded company, you're often looking at a next quarter horizon.
And so maybe you can burn through and cause people to leave, but startups are based on keeping people around.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: Right. Right? So there's this whole concept of institutional memory. Well, if your company has 10 people and two of them leave, you just lost 20% of your institutional memory.
Chris Wofford: Yeah. [00:27:00] That's an emergency.
Brad Treat: That's a big problem.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: So you wanna keep those people around. You wanna keep them happy, keep them engaged.
Brad Treat: that's what you wanna do. And so I'll come full circle. I work for an organization within Cornell called the Center for Regional Economic Advancement.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: It's run by a guy named Tom Scriver.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: he actually runs it with a startup mentality, and he has people in this comp- in his organization who've been there for 10 years.
Chris Wofford: Oh, yeah.
Brad Treat: Right? And so, one of the people he works with, uh, uh, he was working for him is, uh, a lady named Jen Smith, who runs a Grow-New York.
Chris Wofford: Huge fan.
Brad Treat: a multimillion-dollar business plan competition.
It gets better every year, and I think part of it gets better y- every year 'cause Jen Smith is there every year, and Tom's figured out how to keep her happy. I don't know if she gets paid, but it's Cornell, so she's not getting some exorbitant money.
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: But he's managing her effectively, and so he's taking that same philosophy into an organization.
So I think these entrepreneurial mindset can work inside of an organization.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: But if you say, how can a tyrant run a company? that tyrant's gonna be a short-term solution, not a long-term.
Chris Wofford: Oh, got it. Okay. [00:28:00] let's move to public speaking.
you do quite a bit of this.
Brad Treat: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: you emphasize the practice of it.
beyond the, uh, the personal and professional benefit of becoming a good communicator, how can it help us as leaders or just regular professionals? Softball question, but you know what I'm getting at.
Brad Treat: Yeah. I'll, so I'll tell you how I was really motivated by this in, when I was in grad school, I had this classmate, his name's Sean Neville.
Brad Treat: And he gave this, presentation in class, and I was just mesmerized. I'm like, "How did you do that? What was that, what was that magic you just did?"
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: Right? And I, I've learned later is that, um, back in ancient Greece, they thought Aristotle was a magician 'cause they, he could, with his words, he could change people's thinking.
Mm-hmm. How did, how did you do that? And here's the trick. So I, you know, talk about ideas. If you have the right words and say them in the right way, you can change people's mind. Here's the tactic, Chris. The tactic, there's an organization called Toastmasters.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: Toastmasters is an international organization, and Toastmasters International will teach you [00:29:00] how to be a public speaker.
I'm a huge fan of Toastmasters, and so I asked my friend Sean Neville, like, "How'd you do this?" He's like, "I did Toastmasters." Now, he was, like, the Toastmasters champion of Ontario. He's from Canada.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: I'm like, okay, I, if I can speak half as good as that guy, I'm gonna be able to change people's minds and maybe they're customers, maybe they're investors, maybe they're...
You know, 'cause an investor comes in a room, they've determined they're not gonna invest. You have to convince them otherwise. You talk to a customer, the customer's determined they're not gonna buy until you convince them otherwise. And so you've got to go in there and change people's mind, and public speaking's a good way to do it, and the tactic is join Toastmasters.
And Toastmasters has this program, they're 10 fundamental speeches. And I'll tell you, Chris, if you complete those 10 fundamental speeches, you will be a good public speaker.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: And then you'll look for opportunities to practice, and you'll get better at it. Toastmasters comes from simply the act of giving a toast at, say, a wedding or a-
Chris Wofford: Or a dedication
Brad Treat: or a dedication. Yeah. Any of those kind of things or, and, you know, maybe even, um- Yeah ... giving a eulogy. But it can be a very valuable life [00:30:00] skill as well, not just, uh, running a company. So here, there's the tactic, and then you'll be able to tell stories that people remember.
Chris Wofford: in eCornell, and Cornell University world, there's a number of courses that are called, or, or speak about this as having executive presence.
Brad Treat: Mm.
Chris Wofford: Meaning w- uh, a lot of what it's about is, is being there, listening, taking the time.
Brad Treat: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: Demonstrating, really thoughtful behavior that can be super intense and powerful. Anyway, just thinking about that. W- Public speaking and executive presence, kind of the same thing, but a little bit different.
Brad Treat: B- but it, uh, falls... I think they're cousins.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: I think, I think public speaking is a, a part of ex- executive presence.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: But also, if, if your employees see you being deliberate about your public speaking-
Brad Treat: they will mimic that behavior.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: So if they, if you come to a meeting and you ramble endlessly, they will ramble endlessly.
But if you come in and say, "Here's what we're gonna talk about, here's the plan, here's the," to get to the point, they will do the same.
Chris Wofford: Having an elevator pitch might, might help. Yeah. We, you and I didn't talk about that. good to [00:31:00] run around with, right? Especially when you're in startup mode, 'cause you never know who you're gonna meet.
Brad Treat: Yeah. So the elevator pitch being your, y- sort of the trailer for what you wanna get somebody to wanna know more about. Yeah. Could be your company, but- Yep ... uh, everybody should have an elevator pitch for themselves. who are you? What... You know, we, we do this thing when, and we do networking, and- Yeah
we'll meet somebody, and, "So, uh, what do you do?" We always start with people's employment, which I'm not sure that's the most relevant thing.
Chris Wofford: No.
Brad Treat: But your answer, if somebody asks you that question, should be elevator pitch.
Chris Wofford: Yep. "
Brad Treat: So what do I, what do I do? Well, let me tell you who I am, a little bit about myself."
Who are
Chris Wofford: you?
Brad Treat: Yeah. Yeah. So when people say, "What do you do?" Tell, you r- you reply with, "Who are you?"
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And so it could be about your company.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: Could be about you as a person. It could be whatever may be relevant-
to whatever activity you're involved in. Maybe you're at the, the running club, and you wanna talk about the marathons you've run.
But you have an elevator, hell of a elevator pitch. it's... I'll tell you a, a funny story that, um- A couple years ago I was at a, a convention in San Antonio, and we [00:32:00] all piled out. We're going to the, the, the parking garage.
Chris Wofford: Uh-huh.
Brad Treat: And so the parking... The elevator's relatively full. I mean, you can't see.
You know, the audience can see I'm pretty tall. Yeah. So I'm in this crowded elevator, and I, I'm just looking at the tops of heads.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: And I look across the elevator, and the other top, other person who was taller than the heads was the actor Morgan Freeman.
Chris Wofford: What?
Brad Treat: So he's quite tall.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Brad Treat: And so I'm looking across.
I'm like, "There's Morgan Freeman." Now, you know, I'm not a script writer. But h- if, if I had a script and I wanted a great actor, man, this would have been my chance to be like, "Mr. Freeman."
Chris Wofford: Yes. "
Brad Treat: Let me tell you about Shawshank 2, Red's Redemption. I got the script right here."
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: these opportunities sometimes could land right in your lap.
And so b- having your elevator pitch, whether it's your personal pitch or your company pitch, have it at the ready. It can be really valuable 'cause in that moment, if you're not ready and you stumble, you may not get it back.
Chris Wofford: You mentioned when we talked the other day about, networking- Yeah ... and how, how important it is, and being deliberate about it.
What do you mean by deliberate- ... in your approach? A
Brad Treat: Yeah, so- ...
Chris Wofford: persi- not [00:33:00] persistent. Deliberate,
Brad Treat: yes.
Chris Wofford: Different.
Brad Treat: Yeah, so, so networking being the idea of going to a place. It's still very much an in-person activity.
Chris Wofford: Yep
Brad Treat: For the purposes of making connections, most typically for the purpose of doing business, right?
So you're not there dating, you're not looking for personal, you're looking to connect with people for, a business purpose. And so my goal with these things, I encourage people to set the bar pretty low. So y- your goal is to, to enable serendipity, but make connections. And so the way you do it is go to these type of events, and you only have two goals.
One is one, learn one new thing, and two, meet one new person.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: Set that as a goal. The tactic would be, okay, when I get there, I'm not gonna just talk to my friends. Our t- reaction when we get to a, a networking event is like, "Oh, there's Chris. I'm gonna go talk to Chris." Chris, you're a very nice guy. If I see you at a networking event, I'm gonna talk to you.
And so instead, I'm gonna go talk to somebody new.
Chris Wofford: Sure.
Brad Treat: And now I'm, I'm being a little silly. I'm certainly [00:34:00] give you a, "Hey-
Chris Wofford: I might nod in your direction ...
Brad Treat: Yeah, give you a little cool guy head nod, yeah. What's up? But-
Chris Wofford: But for real ...
Brad Treat: but for real, talk to new people- Yeah ... and be bold. And if you don't know what to say, well, no, I, I got my elevator pitch in my back pocket.
I can just, I can tell that. Yeah. And you wanna hear about them, too, and if you can be a good listener. And so you can walk away from an event and say, "Okay, I learned one thing. I met one or two person." That's, that's a success. And if you do this enough, you exercise this muscle, you get better and better at it, you'll create these serendipitous events, because this comes back to kind of the way startups work as well.
People often ask me, "Hey, Brad, how do I get a job at a startup? Like, what's the message board? Are they in, Indeed? What, are they a career services office?" They are not. They are not there. they're tapping their network. Mm. The, they're gonna say, "I have a need. I need to get this thing done. I'm the chief everything else officer.
I've got something that I need more help with. Who do I know?" Is where I start. If I don't have somebody I think is a good fit, who do I know who knows people who know? So they'll go out to their network, "I'm [00:35:00] looking for people." I get inquiries all the time from CEOs like, "Brad, do you know somebody who can do this?"
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm
Brad Treat: Networking is how you get into that conversation. So getting out there and, and if you don't currently have a network, good news is there are places, you talked about Rev.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: Uh, Rev is here in Ithaca. We've got
Chris Wofford: the- And most cities have places like this ...
Brad Treat: places like that. We also have this-
Chris Wofford: Second or third
tier cities
Brad Treat: we also, because of the Cornell connection, we have the Cornell Entrepreneur Network. Yeah. Which has events, both virtual and in person, around the world. You can connect with those folks. They have, uh, two events a year, one in the spring here in Ithaca, one in, in the fall in New York City, at Cornell Tech.
Go to those things. Be deliberate. Say, "Hey, my goal here..." And I may get in trouble for saying this, I don't go to those events for the speakers. I go to those events for the networking.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: So if you wanna find me, I might be listening to the speaker, but I'm more likely out in the hallway talking to the people, 'cause I'm very much there to, to network and make deliberate connections.
And you're now enabling serendipity. Like, hey, you make those connections, figure out what people are working on, listen to them. Maybe you help them. [00:36:00] Look for ways to help people first, and then that'll come back to you.
Chris Wofford: I wa- I wanna make something explicit that you brought up a couple times, which is listening.
Brad Treat: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: asking questions. An elevator pitch doesn't have to be a one-way thing. It's a conversation. And I, I just sort of wanted to call that out because- Well,
Brad Treat: I think it's a m- Well, it's a, it's a good point, Chris, here, 'cause, um, let's talk about some of the challenges we face working with entrepreneurs.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: And that is, um, the way to good ent- do entrepreneurship is not a way that makes good movies. And so there's two roles that are often misunderstood in sort of popular culture. One is the role of the visionary entrepreneur. we don't see a lot of strength in visionary entrepreneurs. I see this wonderful world that nobody else can see.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: A better approach is listen to the customer.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: It sounds obvious when we say it out loud.
Chris Wofford: Yep.
Brad Treat: And certainly there have been some incredibly visionary CEOs out there. You've probably heard of some of them. They are the exception, not the rule. The best CEOs are the ones out there that are listening to their customer, and they're developing solutions to solve that customer's problem, make that customer's life better.
Let them aspire to, to something. Which also [00:37:00] applies to the second thing that, makes for good movies, but, bad real life, is sales. People have this perception of sales as this kind of sleazy role. Mm-hmm. Like, "I'm gonna sell you a used car that you don't want."
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: That's good television, bad real life.
Right. The best salespeople I've ever known were great listeners. They're like, "You know, let's, let's understand what your, what your problem is around this area. Let's see how..." You know, I, I worked with this guy, I told you I worked in engineering. He sold grinding stones. Grinding stones are a thing you use to polish ball bearings and surfaces for-
Chris Wofford: Okay
Brad Treat: in engineering, right? It's not a very sexy business. He's a great salesperson because he didn't come in and say, "Hey, Brad, I got this new grinding wheel. You wanna buy it?" No. No. " He'd come, "What are you guys trying to achieve? What are you trying to get? What are you trying to do?
where do you see the challenges?"
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm. "
Brad Treat: Okay, let me work out a solution for you." Great listeners. So being a, a leader of people is being about being a great listener. It also means good sales.
Chris Wofford: Another good trait you mentioned is decisiveness.
Brad Treat: Oh.
Chris Wofford: Able to make a decision maybe under hazy conditions, the fog of [00:38:00] war, changing market, market conditions, and so on.
How do you coach leaders to become, better or confident decision-makers? 'Cause you have to demonstrate a confidence ... or at least a competence in doing so.
Brad Treat: Right. So if you're a CEO making decisions You're gonna have to make a decision, and not making a decision is a decision. So you can't avoid making decisions.
Yeah. You just, "I don't wanna make decisions."
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: So not making a decision is, is making a decision. So CEOs have to ask themselves, what decision to made, made, and do I have enough information to make a decision? If I don't have enough information, what information am I gonna get, do I need? Many of the best CEOs I know spend a lot of time reading, listening, collecting information.
But here's the thing, nobody can see the future. So at some point you have to stop collecting information and make a decision, you'll never have perfect information, but, okay, I, I got enough information to make a decision. I'm gonna make a decision, and let's go. And then if that doesn't work out, you don't base [00:39:00] the decision based on the outcome, you base the decision based on the process.
How did we get to that decision that led us to this? If it's a good outcome, let's analyze that. If it's a outcome, bad outcome, let's analyze that. there's a famous example having to do with, um, Amazon. So Amazon a number of years ago launched a phone. So they got into the phone business, and they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this phone, and the phone did not do well.
You may not even know Amazon had a phone.
Chris Wofford: I did not.
Brad Treat: They spent hundreds of millions of dollars bringing a phone to market.
Chris Wofford: Yep.
Brad Treat: by Wall Street's standards it was a colossal failure, and there was calls for all sorts of... You know, everybody should, touched that phone should be fired. Get rid of all those people.
But, you know, it was a sort of knee-jerk reaction, but that's not what they did. Instead, they said, "Let's analyze this. Like, what worked, what didn't work? What are we gonna learn here?" And one of the things that they developed as they were developing a phone was this new thing that you could talk to the phone, and the phone would listen to you and make it really easy for you to do things.
Chris Wofford: Hmm.
Brad Treat: And it was a piece of software called Alexa. [00:40:00] And so they said, "Well, what about that? That, that was pretty cool. That kinda worked." And so they launched a product called the Echo. And-
Chris Wofford: Yes ...
Brad Treat: Now, Echo is sort of, um, you know, it sort of run- It's the device
Chris Wofford: itself.
Brad Treat: Device itself. Yeah. The software's called Alexa, came from that phone.
Yeah,
Chris Wofford: yeah.
Brad Treat: And at, at its peak, they were doing 10 billion a year in sales through Alexa.
Chris Wofford: Goodness.
Brad Treat: And so if you had said, "Hey, let's measure the result," well, that was a terrible result. But let's measure the process. What do we do? What worked, what didn't work? And so if you're a leader who says, "Okay, we're gonna just..."
You know, this is what North Korea does, right? "Oh, you're a bad general, I'm gonna blow you up," right? Companies do the same thing. Yeah. Right? "Oh, this, this was an outcome?" Let's analyze not the result, but the process. You could have a good process and a bad result. That can happen, I'll, here's a silly example.
Chris Wofford: Go ahead.
Brad Treat: Uh, you may say, "Okay, let's figure out how we can, disembark people off a plane faster." Seems like something an airline may be interested in.
Chris Wofford: Talk about a problem.
Brad Treat: Yeah, that's a problem. Okay. Well, [00:41:00] Chris, here's an example. What if we, instead of landing, just had people step out of the plane? 'Cause there have been people who have left planes, fallen to the ground, got up and walked away.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: It's a good outcome, bad process. Sure. Right?
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: Right. So, um, we're gonna say let's not, let's not do that. That's a bad process.
Chris Wofford: Understood.
Brad Treat: Right. So- Heard. Yeah. So let's, let's analyze- Yeah ... how we came to that decision.
Chris Wofford: Awesome. I love that Amazon story. That's great.
Brad Treat: Yeah, thanks.
Chris Wofford: the best among us are great at time management.
Um, it's not easy. No. Leaders are short on time. It's a constraint. It's a limitation. any advice for those of us who are challenged by that, particularly those people who are finding themselves, selves in leadership roles?
Brad Treat: Right. So one of the things that you'll have to do is you're gonna have to have a way to master your calendar, and there's different ways people master their calendar.
Some people keep their own calendar. Some people have an assistant calendar. But you gotta be deliberate about putting everything into your calendar and treating that, like, time [00:42:00] off as precious. You may have to put it in your calendar. So y- when we talked about having to exercise. Uh, the former president of Cornell, one of the things he would do is he'd block off noon to 1:00 to play basketball.
That was blocked off on his calendar. Right? So, um, treat everything on there as important. Like, I put, I put all my kids' activities in there. I, I'm the coach of my son's soccer team. That's a priority. That's on the calendar. Everything goes on there, and you make sure that you don't let things, impede in that.
Similarly, like how you set the priorities for your life on who you talk to- Yeah ... whose phone call you're gonna answer. And then you control your calendar, and figure out how you're gonna do that. Who can schedule? How far out can they schedule? I have my own way of doing it. I'm not gonna impose that on everybody, but have a way.
Now, technology makes it a lot easier. You can literally just talk to your phone now. "Put this in my calendar."
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: But then also be deliberate about blocking things off to say, "This is personal time. I'm gonna play basketball," or, "I'm gonna swim. I'm gonna chase a golf ball or tr- put a fish on a hook."
Whatever it's gonna be, control your calendar.
Chris Wofford: Good one.
Brad Treat: [00:43:00] Yeah.
Chris Wofford: okay, this is a callback from, viewer Tiffany, who asks, How do we prevent decision fatigue?" This is a callback from five minutes ago. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Brad Treat: Yeah. Um-
Chris Wofford: Somebody's overburdened with making decisions on behalf of the company.
Brad Treat: Yes. So, so hi, Tiffany. The, um, I-
There's a term, analysis paralysis.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: So I told you, before you make a decision, you've gotta ask yourself, "Do I have enough information to make a decision?" Knowing you'll never have imperfect infor- you'll never have perfect information. So decision fatigue and analysis paralysis I think are cousins.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: Because they're like, "Oh, I don't know if I have enough information to make a decision. Let me keep reading. Let me keep asking. Let me..." And one of the things that's gonna off- often happen when you go and collect information is you're gonna have contradicting information. Let's, let's say, let's talk about customers.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: Like, we love it when people go out and listen to customers, understand what the customer wants. Well, if you talk to five customers, four are gonna tell you to go this way, and one's gonna tell you to go that way. And so you're gonna... Is that, is that enough to...
Is, is five [00:44:00] enough? Do I need to go 10, 15, 20?
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: and so I don't know if you're, as a CEO, you're gonna be avoid, able to avoid making decisions because you're the one who's got your hand on the wheel of the ship. You've gotta make decisions. And so, if you're taking that CEO role, you've gotta make decisions.
Have a process for making decisions, but don't be stuck in analysis paralysis.
Brad Treat: Because what can happen is if you wait too long to make a decision, it is made for you.
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: So you can't avoid making decisions.
Chris Wofford: Good. You brought it home. Uh, another great leadership trait, giving others authority to say no.
tell us about that.
Brad Treat: Once again, it comes down to priorities.
So as a leader, you're gonna wanna set the priority for the business. Like, here's what's important to the company, here's what's not important to the company. And if you let people know, like, here's what's matters, then the other things that aren't on that priority, they don't matter, and they can also say no to those.
And don't let other people's priorities [00:45:00] become your priorities. I'll give you a very simple example of this, Chris, is a ringing phone. A ringing phone is almost by definition somebody else's priority. They're pushing their priority on you.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: And so I told you before, I, If, unless it's a scheduled call, I don't answer my phone.
And so I'll answer it if it's my wife or kids or ... my mother.
Chris Wofford: Right.
Brad Treat: As long as it's, you know, not Sunday. Uh, I'll answer on Sundays as well. But, A ringing phone is somebody else's setting their priorities. And so what you have to convey to your employees is somebody else's priorities are not yours.
Don't let them make their priorities yours. And so the ringing phone is an obvious example, but people are gonna encounter these things all the time. And sometimes they've put themselves into a pickle and want you to solve it.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: And you have to ask s- yourself and say, "Hey, is somebody else's pickle our problem?"
And sometimes it's not, and that sometimes it's gonna be hard 'cause you have to tell somebody, "Hey, hey, I'm sorry that you got yourself in this predicament, but that's a you problem, not a me problem."
Chris Wofford: That's right. [00:46:00] Good one. Thank you. I wanna thank Tiffany for that question from a moment ago. Just before we wrap up here, Brad, um, I have another good one.
I know you read a lot. we talked the other day, and you name-dropped several books. Terry asks, "What books and resources would you recommend for people wanting to start a business? Top three."
Brad Treat: Well, I would actually start with a podcast.
Chris Wofford: What is it?
Brad Treat: Uh, How I Built This.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: So, uh, How I Built This is, um, Guy Raz-
Chris Wofford: Oh, yeah
Brad Treat: it's with NPR, so it's free.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Brad Treat: And there's been a number of Cornellians who've been featured in it. Cool. So you can, you can check that as well. But How I Built This is a podcast where it's a one-on-one conversation. one of the Cornellians who, um, Vincent, the founder of Dang Foods, he's a Cornell alum.
He told me about being on, the process of being on that show. The podcast is about 45 minutes to an hour. They record over eight hours.
Chris Wofford: Oh, goodness.
Brad Treat: And then they cut it you know, for brevity and, and, But so it's a very well done, but it's a one-on-one conversation between this very experienced interviewer and the [00:47:00] founders themselves.
Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's multiple. And they're, the thing I love about it is they're candid. They're not putting them up on a pedestal and being like, "You're so wonderful. Tell us how you can-
Chris Wofford: Yeah ...
Brad Treat: turn lead into gold." No, no. They, they, they'll tell the straight dope. "Here's what didn't work.
here's stumbles we made and mistakes we made, and you can learn." So How I Built This is a good one. Uh, a good read is probably anything written by Guy Kawasaki.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Brad Treat: So Guy Kawasaki was, one of the early people with Apple Computer. he was one of the early bloggers. He's now transitioned over to social media.
He has his own podcast as well. He's, uh, he's funny.
Chris Wofford: Mm-hmm.
Brad Treat: He's smart, he's well-connected, and he gets people to be very honest, and he's also very honest with you. He'll give you the s- the straight dope. One of the things I like about Guy Kawasaki is he, um, he's not long-winded. So you can, in this sort of bite-sized world, you can digest his stuff without a...
it's not, uh, Tolstoy. You're not reading War and Peace.
Chris Wofford: Sure.
Brad Treat: not gonna, not gonna break you. [00:48:00]
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Brad Treat: and so probably the last one is, uh, Elisa
Brad Treat: Cohen. she wrote a book, uh, Startup to Grownup. And she also has a podcast. She's a, she's a Cornell alum.
Chris Wofford: And a Cornellian.
Brad Treat: A Cornellian. And she approaches s- very much this similar topic, um, but really from a personality standpoint. And so those would, on this topic, I think three worth checking into.
Chris Wofford: Perfect. Brad Treat, great to have you in studio today. Well- I really enjoyed our conversation.
Brad Treat: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Chris. Pleasure to be here.
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