Klaus Kleinfeld: Nashville Tennessee. Okay, that's very
nice.
Adam Outland: Where in Germany? Did you grow up again? Or was
it...
Klaus Kleinfeld: I was born in Bremen, but I left when I was
18, and my parents were refugees from East Germany. Currently,
I'm outside of New York.
Adam Outland: Well, uh, ich bin ein actor Berliner.
Klaus Kleinfeld: Oh wunderbar, let's start with that. So, how
come you speak German?
Adam Outland: Both my parents were opera singers, and they're
us, born in the US, but they live 14 years in Bonn and
Cologne.
Klaus Kleinfeld: And they performed there at the.... does
cologne. Cologne has an opera house?
Adam Outland: It does, yeah, yeah. My dad performed locally
at the Cologne Opera House. Bond had an opera house still does.
And my mom performed there, and then she, she had an
international career after that, and performed all over.
Klaus Kleinfeld: I love opera. I'm also on the Metropolitan
Opera board, you know, so I just love it. Yeah, lovely,
absolutely lovely. And bond at the time probably still was the
capital of Germany, right?
Adam Outland: Yes, yeah. My dad and mom would sometimes perform
in Berlin during that period. And the way they were paid was,
it was always interesting, and you always wondered if your pay
would would make it back across to the other side.
Klaus Kleinfeld: What were they paid with gold coins? It's
interesting, yeah. I mean, I went to Nuremberg, or my first
place of work. Then from Nuremberg, I went to
Switzerland, you know, worked there in the pharmaceutical
industry, back to Munich, and there I started my career with
Siemens, you know. And then Siemens moved me to to Erlangen.
And then from Erlangen, I was asked to go to New York, then I
was asked to come back to Munich. And then after that, I
decided to leave Siemens, and I came back to New York. And when
I co headquarter was in New York, you know, so which most
people don't know, because the presence was usually in
Pittsburgh.
Adam Outland: You know, when you were a young man, though, did
you did you already envision this, this path towards
administrative leadership of of major companies? Or were you in
it for the details of the science?
Klaus Kleinfeld: And yeah, so no, I did not. I did not imagine
that. In fact, I enjoyed learning. I mean, I've always
been curious and wanted to want to learn more. I enjoyed being
in the outdoors, doing stuff I only later realized I was forced
into working when I was 12. Was my first paying job, you know,
because my father died. So when I was so, so little, you know,
but I enjoyed it. I mean, I enjoyed working in core
business. You know, for me, it was making money, but it's also
something that I I started to really like, you know, making
things, doing things, you know, so to be I always enjoy being
with people, and I also enjoyed complicated problems, you know.
So in the early days, I would have thought I stay in academia
and and make an academic career, because I saw what some of my
friends who studied with me, when who went into business,
what type of jobs they had. And I thought that I wasn't
interested in that, you know.
Adam Outland: And so, I mean, 12 I just, I gotta spend a minute
on this, and then we can, what could a 12 year old do?
Klaus Kleinfeld: Well, first of all, it's illegal to employ a 12
year old, you know. But, but, but the local supermarket, first
of all, I was fortunately relatively tall at a young age
already, so they never asked me for a passport, you know. So
they, they needed somebody who refills the the racks, you know,
and and ideally comes in early in the morning, and changes also
the fresh goods, milk and stuff, you know, before the supermarket
opens, and be there on the weekends, you know, and where
there was a lot of traffic, you know. So, so I did that, and
they paid me two Deutsche marks an hour. Made my first money.
The motive was very simple. I wanted a new bike, for instance.
So things like, things I want to does a 12 year old one, you
know, you want a nice bike. And very early on, then also, I
started to love music. So then it became records, you know, I
was very intrigued by this thing that had just gotten started,
called software as as a as a individual, there was no way you
could have a computer. It didn't exist, you know, even the the
thought of it was insane, you know. So I wanted to, I wanted
to get my hands on a computer and do programming. And at
gutting, there were only two locations where I could program.
One was where the physics. Department. And the other one
was with the economics department, you know. And I
decided to start with the economics department, you know.
And and immediately got into software writing, which I
enjoyed tremendously.
Adam Outland: You speak to this a little bit in your book. And
maybe this is a good opportunity to take, take a principle out of
the story, your ability to or one's ability to untangle a
problem. It's a good visual image because they're like nuts
in business, and the knots are sometimes created because of a
communication issue. Sometimes they're created because of a
strategy issue, but what was a procedure that you found most
helped you untangle the knots in business?
Klaus Kleinfeld: Asking questions. I think, I think that
I don't think I was shy asking questions and and I even today,
and I think friends who have worked with me, and what, even
those who are not friends who've worked with me, would say,
closes a hypothesis generating machine, you know, because I
always try to verify or falsify and find, find a course and, and
I'd like to drill down to the bottom, you know, to really
understand how the mechanics work. Because that did me also
well, already in school, you know, when you understand the
principle, then you don't have to learn much, you know, you can
deduct everything from the principle. And in a way that
helped me a lot, you know, because I also had to be very
efficient with my time, because I had to do other things like
work, you know, where other people could spend the time
doing homework or whatever, you know, I use logic, you know. So
that's the one thing that you can't have fault, you know. So
I, first of all, I'm I don't think there is such a thing than
a than a wrong question. And also, you also have to remind
people that they should talk to you in non expert language,
because way too often have I seen that expert language is a
way to hide behind and very often, certain terms that have
been coined in the expert world describe the phenomena,
phenomenon in a limiting way. I mean, language is a limiting
thing. That's one of the reasons why you see there are large
differences in languages, like, for instance, the Australian
aborigines when they describe the different kinds of red, you
know, because they live in an environment, if you ever been in
Australia and fly over it, it's red. The same with the Eskimos.
They have gazillions of words for snow, whereas we say it's
snowing and the snow is a snow there. Yes, you know. So. So I
always believe that you have to be careful in in accepting this
terminology, because it might actually prevent you from
finding the real issue. So I asked them to explain it to me
in plain language, and I would continue if they use terms, I
would not be shy to say, Can you please explain how you use the
term? What does that term mean? Then, then you get it, you know.
And very often people then say, word classes is complicated,
because if somebody tells me it's complicated, I mean, but
first I would say, we're in a very friendly way, yes, please
explain. I have time, you know. Because that's the other thing
that they would say, oh, takes too much time, you know. And
say, no, no, I have all the time. I want to understand. What
is this, you know? Why don't you explain it? You know? But very
often, you see very quickly that they can't explain it, then you
find, then very often, flaws in the logic. The moment you have
flaws in the logic, you say, why did that individual, who's
supposedly the expert and not not ask these questions? Maybe I
have to get some other people looking into this. Or maybe I
have to drill even further here.
Adam Outland: You know, this brings it to mind another
question where I feel that this strength of yours played out,
which is that there's, there's really only been, I think
yourself, that's, that's Captain multiple companies at the CEO
level on different continents that are in the Fortune 500
right? There's two companies that you've led as a CEO on two
different continents, and that really hasn't been done before,
and one was US based, and one was German. So, you know, I
think about the cultural and language differences between two
different countries, what did you find from a leadership
standpoint, as how you had to adapt?
Klaus Kleinfeld: Yeah, I think that, yes, there are a lot of
differences, but the fundamentals are similar. You
know, because we all as human beings have some fundamental
principles that we live by. How we interpret certain things is
different, you know, but get the fundamentals is, everybody wants
respect. And I mean respect comes to simple things,
listening to somebody, you know, asking, you know, their opinion,
you know, being thankful when, when they do something. So these
type of behaviors are, I think, unilateral, all around the
world. You have to learn, you know, what, what exactly what
means. You know, certainly the most tricky thing is sign
language, very I would advise everybody to be very, very
cautious on this, you know, very carefully. Can get you into real
trouble if you think that you know the sign language and
suddenly realize it means something not so nice to their
sign word, you know. But those are little things. Those are
little things you know, that you learn. And overall, I think the
commonalities, particularly when it comes to leading people, are
bigger than the differences. One other principle is that I always
try to go as close to the source where the issue originated.
Because you very often you have filter processes. I mean, the
higher you get, the more filter theoretical filter processes you
have, and to really understand what is going on, you know. I
mean, I would always go to the source, you know, and literally,
to the person who is standing at at the machine, you know, where
something is going wrong, and understanding what exactly are
you observing that gets lost in translation, you know. I mean at
a certain level you I mean, you don't even talk to a head of the
to the head of the factory anymore. You talk to the
division head, you want to make sure that you really, really go
down to the core.
Adam Outland: It very rarely is, is someone's life just pure
accelerated growth. There's plateaus, there's down curves,
because you've had such extraordinary success, not just
in arriving in leadership at a company, but helping companies
really scale and grow. What have been some of those plateau
moments that presented real challenges for you personally?
Klaus Kleinfeld: The first kind of wake up call shock was when
my father died and I was 10, you know, and basically life, our
life, my life, became a very different life then, because it
made me ask a lot of very fundamental questions. You know,
the next one, the next biggest one, was when, after 20 years,
you know, 20 plus years, I decided to leave Siemens
because, I mean, obviously after 20 years, you have a lot of
friends there, you have a lot of memories, you know, you feel at
home. But I decided to that's not that the environment was
just not worth for me to stay on, you know. And I move very
difficult, very, very difficult, you know. And then there's a ton
of others, you know, when you when you have to restructure a
certain and you you know that that how many families are
affected by it. And you know, at the same time, if you don't do
it, you'll risk that everybody will get affected by it. I mean,
so by making that you can at least save the core, I hope that
you can save the core, and you can never be certain you know
whether it works out or not. So you you've done the best you
can, you've got all the facts together, and you hope that it
will work out after you've done your your best. And there's
really nobody who as a leader. There's really nobody who
carries the burden other than you, and at least that's my
that's been my view of leadership. You know, when I
when I take it on, I'm accountable and I live with the
consequences and I stand up for it.
Adam Outland: Yeah. And you know, you, you mentioned quite a
bit around energy, you know, where it stems from, but also
how you can recognize which quadrant you're in in that
moment, one of those quadrants, I think you you've labeled as
the burnout quadrant. It's, what was it? Low Energy, and what was
the other variable?
Klaus Kleinfeld: Low energy and negative, you know, so, so
burnout is basically your toast, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's
an interesting one. Let me take a step back, you know, I've
always driven for efficiency, you know, because I also never
had time had to do stuff, you know. So I was always driving
for efficiency. I always thought it's willpower, good German
willpower, boom, boom, boom, plow through, you know. So until
one day, I realized it's all about energy and why? How did I
realize that? I realized it very straight. It came relatively
late in my leadership life, you know. So when I realized the
following phenomenon I saw around me, people really getting
burned out, you know? I also saw that not only older people, but
younger people got burned out, you know. And I thought, wow,
what is this? And then I love playing tennis. Wish I could
play better, but I love it, you know. And in the tennis world, I
saw another phenomenon. They got older and older and older the
top performers. So I was thinking, What on earth is going
on there? You know, in the end, it's all about performance,
whether you're in business or whether you're in tennis you
know, all about performance. How come that there's this
dichotomy, you know? So I started looking into it, you
know, as a curious person, you know, I want to learn more about
it, you know. How can a tennis player, you know, who has no
time to recover, really, you know, just 20 seconds between
the serves? How can they do that? And how can they do it at
such a late age. And I realized that in this whole high
performance scene, the concept of energy had been introduced,
and that they were not talking about time management or
whatever on the court. They were talking about, how do you
recharge, how do you keep your energy? How do you get
resilience? And then I started my own journey and trying to
figure out what is energy. What gives me energy? And I realized
it's the old thing of body, mind and soul. The body I understand,
you know, but then on the mind is basically mental and
emotional, and then on the spiritual side. Nobody even
talks about the spiritual sides, but those are the things there
are no more. Those are the things that give us energy, and
they can also drain energy. There's a flow in this, because
you burn in the morning, you get up, you have a full tank of
energy, typically, if you have slept relatively well, you know,
and then you burn it through. So, and there are a lot of
tricks, you know, that the high performance players have
learned, and leaders can learn the same thing. Leaders can
learn absolutely the same thing. So in the end, we are even more
high performance athletes, you know, then, then the tennis
players. Because the tennis player after the game or after a
tournament, they have a time where they can go somewhere
else. We are on 24 hours, or 25 hours, eight days a week. It
feels almost, you know. So that got me into this. And in regards
to the zones, it's relatively simple. You know, you want to be
in performance zone. You know, performance zone is where you
have high energy, positive, but then life happens, you know. So
what do you do? Panic, you know. So you immediately go into what
I call survival zone, by the high energy, but but negative,
you know. So what do you do now? What do you do now? You know,
you have to find a mechanism how you quickly get back into
performance zone. The first thing when you go into survival
zone. It's very good. And the human body is made for this,
because it's a flight or fight response. We get adrenaline. Our
focus goes like this. We get superpowers. The only thing is
that the superpower lasts for an hour, for two hours maximum, and
then you drop into burnout zone, so you have to very quickly get
back into performance zone. And what's the trick of this? You
know, there's a ton of tricks mental training, you know,
figuring out the situation, but you have to be aware of it. You
get back into it. So life is not I used to think. I thought life
is an ultra marathon. That's in reality, your life is sprints of
various distances, and recharge sprints and recharge and
recharge time. And the sprint time is not equally, equal time,
you know? It can be much, much less time today there, there is
a really simple way how you can figure it out for yourself, you
know. So, so, I mean, many of us have some type of tracker, you
know, so, and this tracker shows me my heart rate. The heart
rate, for me, is a super good indicator of whether you're
stressed or not. You know one. The second one is breathing. If
your breathing gets very shallow, very fast, you know,
then something is going on emotionally with you. The third
one is vision, you know, if your vision becomes a tunnel vision,
you know. You know, where you only see one thing, you know,
then you know something is going on that is not healthy over a
longer period of time. You know. So, so, so there are things that
you can learn how to observe yourself. And I would think that
it's very easy to learn. You know, I don't even have to look
at the watch, and I know exactly, roughly, exactly where,
where, where my heart rate is, you know. So because somehow you
you know your body, what, how the body feels, you know when,
when the heart rate is outside of the zone that you want it to
be in. It also requires a certain will to change. I mean,
certain will to first be confronted with the realities,
which, unfortunately, very often. I mean, we kind of know
that something is not right, but in the we don't want to hear it,
because it inflicts stress on us, you know, but at the same
time, then, if you are not brutally honest with yourself.
How often have you seen that people have certain strange
habits? You know?
Adam Outland: That feedback loop; I've interviewed numbers
of executives and leaders, and it's kind of a common feedback
when you arrive at a higher level of leadership is that the
honesty from your team can diminish because there's less of
incentive directly to the person to be directly honest with their
superior, right? How would you go about moderating that risk
for those around you? Or how would you go about making sure
the feedback was honest, even if it's not always what you want to
hear?
Klaus Kleinfeld: By the way, this is one of the big
differences when I was asked to move into a leadership role here
in the US, for the first time, it's one of the big differences
between a German environment and a US environment the US. I mean,
if you as a CEO, start a conversation and want to want a
feedback from your team, it's very interesting. The the team
very often does not offer offer feedback. They ask you
questions. And I realize that the reason why in the US you
have that situation is simply because, in the US, if you want
to fire somebody, you know the person is gone, literally, in a
minute. And whereas in Europe and Germany, particularly, you
know, you can't fire the person you know you. Know, go through a
process, you know, because otherwise they sue you, you
know, and then talk with the unions. And so, in a way, the
perceived job security is, in this case, is a positive, a
positive enforcer of they are not, they are not afraid of
giving you feedback, even if the feedback is against what they
think you want to hear, you know, whereas here, there's more
an inclination to please, please the boss. So it's it requires a
little bit more of an effort. And I would always do it in a
one on one and say, may I ask you to give me feedback, you
know? And and the and learn the rule of feedback. And the rule
of feedback is you, you do not respond to what the person says.
Your response is simply, thank you for the feedback, and that's
it. If you draw a four by two by two, you know you basically you
say, what do you know about yourself and what do you not
know about yourself? And you have the second one, what do
others know about you? And what do others not know about you?
And the interesting thing, there is a an element there of
something that others know about you that you don't know. So what
you do with feedback? You open that window, and very often it's
these things that you you don't even you don't even realize you
know. You've adopted some practices, you've adopted some
language, you've adopted some some evidence you know that, or
dress you know so that people interpret in a certain way,
which was not your intention. And that's why it's so important
for learning. Just look at the Navy SEALs. I mean, they, after
mission was done, they would criticize what didn't go well,
you know. And then they separate the the feedback from the
person. They don't say you are an idiot. You didn't do, you
didn't didn't do, they will say, this went wrong. This went
wrong. It's clear whose accountability it is, you know,
but it's a mutual description of how can we get to better
performance. So brutal, honest feedback cultures are the
fastest learning organizations, as long as it comes with an
understanding this is not about you. This is about performance.
Adam Outland: Yeah, so many good things here. Accountability
seems to be invited by top performers. So for you know, an
executive that might be listening what you know, where
they find there's sometimes accountability gaps for
themselves, right? How would you advise them to seek
accountability for themselves?
Klaus Kleinfeld: Yeah, I think in general, I believe, as we
just talked about feedback, I mean, you even in larger
organizations, to I would highly recommend that. And you can run
this multiple times of the year. It costs you nothing if you want
to have it, have a real finger on the pulse if, particularly if
you're going through transition phases, if you have made an
acquisition, you know, or you have a major transformation
going through, you know. So I would highly recommend that, on
a personal level, I think very often people also don't
understand why this is so important. And it comes down to
what makes a great team. You know, will you be able? How will
you be able to make a great team? And accountability is one
of those five things that are essential. You know, if you want
a high performance team, they are essential. And it starts
with trust. You know, that's that's the core. That's the
core. You have to have trust among your core team, you know.
Secondly, we talked about this, what I call conflict, you know,
is you have to be willing to live with conflict. By conflict
here, I mean, it's also very critical feedback, you know. So
which many people interpret that as conflict, you know, but
people have to have a capability of that commitment is, a big
thing, you know. And then accountability, you know, if
something goes wrong and you are committed and it's yours, it was
your work stream, you basically say, hey, look, I mean, I did
not do well in that moment, I will correct that. And last one
is basically the results. And that's also interesting me,
something that very often is not clear. You would not believe how
often I see when I ask mentors, CEOs, you know, and when I ask
CEOs who complain about that their team is not doing what
they think they're doing, and ask them, explain to me, what
exactly do you want? Do you want from them, you know? And
interestingly, I mean, then they go into a rant, you know, it has
to be crystal clear. What is, what does winning look like? The
moment you know what winning looks like, and you will you can
align the team around that's what winning looks like.
Adam Outland: Wow, such a simple question to remember to ask your
team members to test.
Klaus Kleinfeld: By the way, we didn't talk about purpose on the
energy side. I miss that. I mean purposes, this thing on the
energy. It's a very interesting thing, because purpose does to
energy what laser does to light. You know, it basically focuses
the energy around one point. And as you see, light is diffuse,
you know, it's nice. You know, the moment it becomes a laser,
it can cut through large walls. It can. And do anything, and
that's like, that's what purpose does to energy the moment you
know what you want to achieve, what mission you want to do. You
know, all of your energy goes to this one point. Visioning is a
great exercise. And in my book, I have a long chapter on
purpose, because a simple concept, yet a complicated
concept, you know, it's a concept that the mankind has
struggled with as long as we exist.
Adam Outland: What was your purpose? What was the purpose
that you landed on?
Klaus Kleinfeld: That's the other thing. I mean, my purpose
also changed, you know, my purpose changed. And, I mean,
and it's not just one purpose, it can be multiple purposes, you
know. So my purpose, clearly, has always been around. I want
to raise a lovely family and have a great relationships with
my children, you know. And want to have children, and want to
have a great relationship with my children and also the family
of my my wife, you know, and want to be a great husband at
the same time. I mean, when I've been running large organizations
or even small ones, you know, the purpose was, I want to make
this successful. And I want to help people excel in here. The
people element also was always there. Those have been constant
elements of of the of the purpose, you know. I mean, I
love it, I change it, or I leave it, you know. So I Yes, I needed
work originally, you know, for for making money, you know. But
I, even then, I lived by the principles, even then I
believed, you know, I want to get energy from it, and I want
to feel that it serves a good purpose for me.
Adam Outland: So I love what you said, and this may, it's kind of
a great wrap up point. And if you've you've probably seen this
quote, but it's called the master in the art of living. In
this description, he says, the master and the art of living is
the person that makes it so hard to tell if he's working or
playing, because at the end of the day, he's always doing both.
Klaus Kleinfeld: I like that. Yeah, wonderful.
Adam Outland: So many good lessons in here. Klaus, I know
we could probably go for another hour, but I'll stay to our time.
The book was wonderful to do an initial read through, and I'd
recommend it. Where can people find and follow your your future
wisdom outside of what you've authored?
Klaus Kleinfeld: I don't do much on social media. I do LinkedIn,
I mean, so my LinkedIn, LinkedIn profile, you find me on a Klaus
Kleinfeld, and I do write these things myself, and I do comment,
you comment also, and, yeah, so, and the book can be found on
Amazon, you know, and on many other platforms. There's also an
audio book around it, you know, which I really like. I mean, I
didn't read it myself, but I like the guy who read it, and he
has a wonderful voice. I love it. I really love it, you know.
Adam Outland: So good, great knowledge today, and coming from
someone who grew up in the land of Haribo gum bears and
Beethoven, really glad to spend time with you.
Klaus Kleinfeld: Well Adam, wonderful pleasure. Yeah.
Adam Outland: Thank you so much, Klaus.
Klaus Kleinfeld: Thank you very much.