Bracken 
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[00:00:00] Bracken: there's only one insurmountable barrier so far that I'm aware of, and it's death the others are manageable. As long as you don't give up, you know, I think you, you can. Hope to find a way to solve problems. So, and I really believe that, and I love it when we encounter something in our business where we say, gosh, you know, there, there are only two models. There's this scaled model where everything's really big and there's this, you know, completely fragmented model where everything's really small and there's no in between and it can't be in between because you've gotta be laid there, low cost or super differentiated.

[00:00:29] I love when I hear those things cause it makes me wanna do something different. You know, I love to be, I love to find a new way and I think there's always a way, you know, to do so. Try something and to experiment you know, I just very rarely hit, hit these real dark periods of, doubt, I would much rather just act on something and then correct it later than sit around and doubt myself, worry about it, you know, too

[00:00:49] MacBook Pro Microphone & BadVirus Camera-5: this week. I'm excited to welcome Bracken Darrell, CEO of. In the short of the normal episode industry leading difference maker and masterful storyteller, [00:01:00] Bracken shares his perspectives on life leadership, learning the power and value of design thinking, logitechs, sustainability, imperative, remaining nimble, and fostering values of hunger and humility.

[00:01:13] But Bracken was born in Owensborough, Kentucky. He majored in English in Arkansas, then graduated accountancy. He became a public accountant to Arthur Anderson before earning his MBA at Harvard. This led him to pivot into brand management at p and g before finally moving into general management at ge, which sets on his path to becoming CEO at Logitech in 2012.

[00:01:35] On paper looks like a stellar linear journey in reality, Bracken has had to navigate an overcome imposter. Well intentional with his goals. He's taken action, learned from mistakes, acknowledged successes while remaining humble and focused on the journey ahead. It's pretty much a recipe for engineering.

[00:01:53] Serendipity. Under Bratton's leadership, Logitech's experienced significant growth [00:02:00] after a decade of leading innovation, digital transformation, and and fostering a design led culture at Log. Bracken is now focused on transforming forward and scaling Logitech's impact beyond mere profit for the benefit of people and the planet.

[00:02:15] Mark: Uh, so welcome to the Impossible Network, Bracken. It's great to speak to you. 

[00:02:19] Bracken: Thank you. It's great to be here. Thanks a lot for having me, mark. 

[00:02:21] Mark: Well, uh, very much appreciate your time on this Friday afternoon. And where does this find you?

[00:02:27] Bracken: I am in California, Northern California, 

[00:02:31] for once in a lately it's been very rainy, but today, it's beautiful. 

[00:02:34] Mark: I was gonna say, I'm sitting here in Austin, Texas, and we had the most torrential storm last night, but sunny today, so 

[00:02:40] everyone's happy. 

[00:02:41] Bracken: We're in good.

[00:02:42] Mark: so having established, um, uh, with my introduction as to what you do, um, I'd love to start with two fundamental, pretty big questions, um, really about you. Uh, for people that don't know you, just e.

[00:02:55] Uh, who you are. So the question is, who are you? Who are you as a human [00:03:00] being?

[00:03:00] Bracken: Uh, well, I'm a father of three. I'm a a friend to many, and, uh, and I'm a person who loves to try to make an impact on the world. Uh, the things I love, which is so, and I love a lot of things. One of 'em is my work.

[00:03:17] Mark: So, uh, you are doing extraordinary things in, in your role currently as, as c e o of Logitech. Um, you clearly have, must have very solid values and principles. Who made you or what made you the person you are?

[00:03:33] Bracken: Well, I grew up in a, in a small town in Kentucky, Owensboro. I, uh, I had a, a single mom who my dad left when I was nine, nine or 10 years old. And, uh, that probably made me quite independent. And then my, a whole bunch of things probably impacted me, including my siblings. One of the things that happened in my, that year when my dad left was my mom kind of fell apart and she had, uh, probably a nervous breakdown [00:04:00] and had four car wrecks in one year, and she would come home every night and second guess, uh, what she'd done in school that day.

[00:04:06] She was a first grade teacher and you know, what she said to the principal and that her marriage, you know, it was over. And, and at some point in those conversations I had with her, and I imagine my siblings have it too, I don't know. Um, I said to her, you know, mom, it's. You know, everything that's already happened, you, you obviously can't change.

[00:04:23] Um, so you should just imagine you're standing on the beach, you've got a stick in your hand and you drag that stick behind your heels. Everything behind you is just to learn from it, really? You, you can't change it. So you should just learn from it and then your whole life is right here. And, uh, that's, that's one of those fundamental tenets I've, I've grown up with.

[00:04:40] Not, not just don't try to look back at the past and relive it, but. This idea of continuously starting with that line in the sand behind you, you know, a chance to start over again. Every, every year, every, every month, you know, and, and, and I think, you know, really having that mindset of being a beginner all the time, uh, it [00:05:00] reinforces a need that, not the need, but just the reality that you ought to be humble.

[00:05:04] Uh, you are not, you are not your failures. Uh, and you are not your successes. You know, you're, you're whatever you're gonna be from here.

[00:05:11] Mark: It's quite a stoic, um, mindset.

[00:05:13] Bracken: I do like STO system, as a matter

[00:05:15] fact.

[00:05:15] Mark: Uhhuh, it's interesting.

[00:05:18] Bracken: Marcus Aurelius, I, anybody listening out there, if you're looking for an amazing book that most people have not read, it's, there's a book that the, uh, the writer I'm convinced read memoirs of, sorry, read, uh, Mark's, meditations, and then. Created a fictional, uh, autobiography by this, the famous Emperor Hadr who selected Marcus Rails to be

[00:05:39] his Emperor two after him.

[00:05:41] And, uh, it's called Memoirs of hadr and it's amazing. Written by Margaret Yen.

[00:05:45] Mark: I didn't know that. I will add that to show notes and put it on my audible list.

[00:05:50] Bracken: It's incredible book.

[00:05:51] Mark: Okay, that's a good one. And who was the author?

[00:05:55] Bracken: Uh, Margaret Yar. Who is a, uh, she was [00:06:00] Belgian by birth, but, but grew up in France, won the high, the equivalent of the, the Pilcher of Nobel and for France.

[00:06:07] Mark: Excellent. Okay. That was great one. I'll definitely, uh, add that. So you mentioned, um, your, your mother, the impact of your mother. Were there any other sort of teachers, mentors or early life life experiences that were pivotal or def defining

[00:06:24] taken?

[00:06:25] Bracken: Yeah. You know, I, I guess, you know, I, I, I, I couldn't go a step further without talking about my siblings, you know, Bobby Barton, Shelly, so, uh, two older brothers and a younger sister. And, um, you know, I think, you know, if birth order has a lot to do with you, I think who happens to be in that birth order also has a lot to do with who you are.

[00:06:43] I ha I am blessed with three great people in those, in those roles, and each one of them played a different role in my life, you know, and, and they, the coolest thing about that is, um, in the early days, Help me be more competitive, uh, face reality a lot, you know, and be, uh, and, [00:07:00] and be kind. And then, then most recently, now they're, they're really good friends and we, we support each other.

[00:07:06] You know, we, we have a, like so many families do, we have an ongoing chat going. So it's a, it's a lifelong, it's a, these are lifelong loves that, uh, have really been amazing.

[00:07:16] Mark: Well, let's talk about what you're working to achieve, uh, before you leave this Mortal Coil as, uh, was, uh, in fa Hamlet's famous soliloquy. Uh, you have a long way to go. You had a lot work to do. Um, and we're, we are living at a time, um, at a very pivotal point in time, and I was talking to a guest the other day, um, Melanie Vanel, and she talked about Adam Smith's, uh, theory of Moral Sentiments and said that free markets can only operate with strong principles of justice.

[00:07:47] Now I listened to you a great reflection on your 10 years at, um, at Logitech, and you talked about transforming forward with a clear mission to address the social organizational and environmental injustices [00:08:00] that exist. Um, and at your recent Edison Achievement Award, um, you talked about enabling people to fill their passions in a way that is good for the. Now, many people today clearly feel anxious. Now, the guests have recently talked about this great unraveling that's happened after Covid, that there's almost a societal level trauma going on. Um, and many people feel hopeless about the scale of the challenges we feel and expect that government, uh, feel the governments are failing us.

[00:08:28] But you're a, you're a industry leading, um, c e o visionary and you're leading this transformation forward. Can you explain, uh, why business leaders like yourself can be dis difference makers over governments?

[00:08:43] and be the standard bearers for change that we need In the,

[00:08:49] Bracken: Yeah, maybe I'll, maybe I'll, I'll tell a story to try to explain that. My view of that, uh, when, when, uh, George Floyd was murdered in 2020. Um, [00:09:00] The most notable thing the first few days after it had hit the, the internet and, you know, millions, hundreds of millions of people saw it was the silence coming from, uh, you know, the top of government.

[00:09:14] And, you know, that was, uh, that was a very uncomfortable silence and I think took me by surprise and I think took a lot of special surprise. I think most of my life as a leader, I've been used to. The government taking, you know, a moral stand on things that seem to matter. And there didn't seem to be anybody taking a moral stand at the very top.

[00:09:34] And so that caused me to reflect on, you know, on my past I was thinking about South Africa and Apartheid and I was at my dining room table about, or kitchen play about four days later. And I was thinking, Wonder what those business leaders in South Africa when this was going on with, I'm sure there were, there were a lot of great moral business leaders li and working in apartheid who disagreed with [00:10:00] apartheid baseball bat or so, uh, that I'm one of those leaders and I'm living in an American apartheid and, and I'm not speaking out. And that was a dramatic, kinda transformative moment in my mindset where I realized I'd always thought I was one of the good guys and I realized that I was just one of the guys, and it was time to completely that upside down.

[00:10:28] So I, I really to look in the mirror, see what I really was, which was bystander. So I just, I, I, I drafted my first, um, you know, blog post. On LinkedIn, on, uh, on the George Floyd murder, and, and I proceeded to kinda turn my whole life over, you know, all the rocks in my life. Look on the other side and see what I'd been, and real, real focus on trying to understand, you know, How in the world I was sitting in the middle of having, you know, [00:11:00] black friends and, you know, thinking I was a, an advocate for anti-racism and, and that I just sat there and said nothing for so long.

[00:11:08] And I realized I'd done very little relative to what I thought even though was the diversity council and was all these things. So that was a dramatic for me and I think it it to, to answer your question now more directly with that background, I think I realized. Actually we can't, we can't leave it up to governments to, to do the right thing.

[00:11:25] We're in a world where companies are global and, uh, companies have incredible resources and, and influence on their own people and on the people around them and their customers and suppliers. And you can make a massive difference. The reason I got into this business was because you can make a massive difference from, from an individual company.

[00:11:43] So why in the world wouldn't you do that? Um, in, in. Places where justice really is not happening. And, uh, and then I can answer your follow up question, which I'll ask for you, which is it the role of a company to have a moral position and, [00:12:00] uh, is it your job to try to seek justice in these jobs? Or isn't your primary job to, to seek, uh, value creation for shareholders and let society deal with the rest?

[00:12:09] I think the, the really exciting thing about the that question is that I don't think you can separate at least two areas of. Uh, two moral areas from business performance anymore. I think for certainly environmental sustainability. I think if you're not an environmental, environmentally sustainable company in the next decade, you'll be out in almost every industry, at least you'll be behind in losing, losing ground.

[00:12:34] Um, and I think on de I will be the same. You know, when I, when I was, uh, When I was an early CEO I would go around to investor meetings with a virtual picture of a, of a chart that showed the power of design to transform a company's value. And it showed design companies on one line, and it showed all the other companies, you know, Dow Jones industrial Average on the other, and, and design companies got a [00:13:00] 300% better return over 10 years than, than non-design companies or everybody else.

[00:13:04] And I think we could put the same chart up 10 years from now and those that are leading the way in environmental sustainability and DE&I will way outperform the others. And, uh, that's a leap of faith. And it was a leap of faith for me on design a long time ago, but I was right then, and I'll be right.

[00:13:18] ​

[00:13:18] Mark: now.

[00:13:23] Mm-hmm. What can be done to, um, encourage other leaders to follow in your footsteps and accelerate the changes they're implementing?

[00:13:34] I mean, obviously there's a lot of conversation and talk at Davos and. You know, we've got e s g sort of standards. All investors are now focused on E s G, uh, stakeholder capitalism has talked about at at length. But still, if you, if we actually look at, not talk about, uh, d and i. But just looking at, uh, sustainability, there is a bit of a [00:14:00] climate paradox.

[00:14:01] The things are moving at certain speed, uh, certain scale, but they're moving at the speed where we're actually seeing significant reductions in carbon emissions. We're still seeing widespread, um, injustice, social and economic injustice. So if it is gonna fall on the, uh, uh, fall on the shoulders of organizations and their leaders like yourself to take these bold steps. Some of them aren't moving fast enough, it would appear

[00:14:29] Bracken: So, I think so, so your fundamental question is what, what, what, what could I do to influence other companies or what could log do to influence other I think, first of all, there are a lot of companies that are doing what we're doing. You know, we're, we're, uh, As many as we need, but there are many, many joining the, the bandwagon here.

[00:14:46] We're carbon neutral now we're we'll be climate positive. We're carbon negative by two 30. That's why in that purpose statement you mentioned earlier, I said, we're gonna be a company that enables all people to pursue their passions in a way that's good for the planet, not, not less [00:15:00] bad. So we're gonna be actually negative in carbon.

[00:15:02] Part of our initiative there to impact not only our own company, but other companies and. A forcing function on ourselves and others is to carbon label. So we started carbon labeling three years

[00:15:12] Mark: Yeah, 

[00:15:12] Bracken: Yeah and we, and by carbon labeling and having a, an accurate carbon label. And then, uh, you know, it, that's like calories, you know, you know, carbon's a new calorie.

[00:15:22] If you, if you buy something and it has a, a label that has a carbon old amount of carbon, you know, for example, this mouse. Is equal to about an entire life from the, the creation of the components to the end of life and usage in between two of the power and the wall. This is the equivalent about a gallon of gas and carbon impact.

[00:15:39] If we're still a gallon of gas, you know, three years ago, when we create the new version of that, we will have failed. And I, I suspect there will be advocates out there on the consumer side and the regulatory side will think we failed. If our competitors launch a, a product that's similar to. At at two gallons of gas, they'll probably get dinged for that by Amazon and by [00:16:00] everybody who rates them.

[00:16:01] So competition will will be good, will be a really good thing for this. But we need carbon labeling. I would, I'm a big proponent of legislation requiring carbon labeling on all products. It can be expensive, but the more we do, the more of us who do it, the less expensive it'll be. That's one thing we can do.

[00:16:16] The second thing we can do, um, is be transparent about our goals and transparent about our data and make sure that we're all using the same, uh, kind of data. You know, just to use that example, you know, carbon labeling, you can, you could have a thousand different ways to come up with the, to estimate the amount of carbon in the life of any product.

[00:16:36] We need standards and hopefully industries can join together and create the standards that are consistent. We're trying to do that and we've got a lot of partners now behind the scenes that are, that are advocates for that. Um, but if not, we need to get it legislative, I think. And so for the first time in my career, I've got a legislative, um, player on my team because I do think this is super important.

[00:16:56] Um, and that's just a couple examples, but I, I think they're, you know, we're [00:17:00] a little mouse company, but, but sometimes a little mouse can influence, uh, some big companies

[00:17:04] Mark: Growing, growing mouse company.

[00:17:05] Bracken: Yeah, maybe even a better way. We're, because we're, we're Swiss, you know, so we're neutral to everybody, but we're, we're able to kinda nudge people a little bit and not get in trouble.

[00:17:15] Mark: Uh, you've talked a lot about design thinking, and you've talked a lot about design being a literative process, um, aimed at imagining future state and then delivering it through new and existing technologies. Where do you think, um, uh, organization and leaders embracing your design thinking mentality can actually help them accelerate, uh, these solutions?

[00:17:39] Leaving aside things like the carbon label. Because there's still a lot of con, a lot of talk around design thinking. It's a, it's a term that's thrown around quite without much thought. And I doubt whether many companies outside technology really do implement it. But I'm just wondering your perspective given you're such a sort of a proponent.

[00:17:57] Bracken: Yeah, I think, I think design and [00:18:00] design thinking are not, um, It's not sort of a here's what you do and then you've completed it in, you're a design thinking organization. You know, I think it's a, it's a pathway to something much better for your users and I believe for your shareholders and your employees and the planet.

[00:18:17] And, um, there are three, three areas that you really have to think about when you're, when you're designing something for, for any, any individual user. The first is what do they want? And often what you think you want. You don't really know what you want. You know, if I ask you what you want in a mouse, I bet it take you a little while to come up with something.

[00:18:34] But I bet if I watched you and, uh, and maybe gave you some things to do and, and I bet I could figure out what you want even more than you could. So, cause I'm an expert in this, in this business, in this, in this product. So what is the desirability of the product? The second one is the viability of the product.

[00:18:49] Can you do it? Is technology to push you out there to do that kinda thing? Um, can you do it at the cost you need to to do that? And there's a, there, there are a couple more, but one of 'em that we've added [00:19:00] is, um, is the environmental sustainability of the product. So is it good for the planet? Is it less bad than the prior version?

[00:19:07] I, we'll get to less bad. So, design for sustainability is part of design thinking for good people who really believe in design in its purest form. It started with de Robs who was a great industrial designer who one principles of design was design should be responsible to the planet. So, so I, I think.

[00:19:25] Design and design thinking can really be an incredible tool for any organization. And you don't have to start with a big design team, which I do have now, but when we started we had no, nobody. And you can start small, but, but you can make a mighty impact and, and everybody can be a design thinker every single person because at the end of the day, we're all experimenters and that's the most important part of design thinking.

[00:19:48] Mark: Um, I heard you talk obviously before about the influence of Dita Rams on your approach to leadership. Um, and I also heard you talk about your, you, his 10 principles, but you've got five, you, you talked about, um, [00:20:00] and there's two of those principles. You maybe explained the five and then talk about two of them.

[00:20:03] You called, I think it's one's powerful idea, and the set number five is magical. Would you mind just unpacking that

[00:20:10] Bracken: Yeah. One. Uh, so one powerful idea is, um, or one big, I, a big idea is one of them. So that's really. You know, finding a space that's really big to work on. You know, I wish to use, uh, Henry Ford's, you know, that everybody should have the freedom of a car. You know, that's a big idea. You know, and that, that now that there's another design principle, which is that, that what makes the Ford car different from, you know, the, the Volkswagen Beetle, you know, which is, it has a, every, every great product should have a soul.

[00:20:44] That expressed it to self through every layer of experience. You know, the Beatle, you can picture what that is. It's, uh, for the, for the, for the model t. It was one, it was the every man's car. Everybody has the same car. That was the idea for the Volkswagen Beatle. It was a lovable buck, [00:21:00] you know, it was a lovable thing.

[00:21:01] Um, the magical part of that is, is really maybe in some ways the piece that people get the get right the least often, which is, um, it should surprise you a little bit. It's so wonderful when you're surprised, you know, surprise is such an important component of experience, and if you're surprised or some people would say delighted, you don't want a bad surprise with the product or experience.

[00:21:24] But if you're, if you have a, a slight, a slightly surprisingly good experience, it's really amazing. And I just love when I have surprisingly good experiences, whether it's a service experience or a physical product.

[00:21:37] Mark: Talking of, um, uh, you talk about mouse company, um, someone that works for a competitor to another mouse company, uh, Pixar, ed Catal. Um, it, it's quoted as saying, when it comes to creative endeavors, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It's counterproductive.

[00:21:55] I've, again, I've heard you talk a lot about, uh, your perspective on learning, [00:22:00] uh, failure through a learning lens. Can you share, uh, how you actually nurture that in your.

[00:22:05] Bracken: Yeah, I, I, I have, uh, I feel even, maybe even stronger about that than Ed does. I, I actually don't think we should use the word failure or success. I think they're really dangerous concepts. I mean, everybody seeks success, but the minute you have it, You try to protect it and you lose a lot of the independence and, and experimentation that got you there.

[00:22:25] Uh, and then failure is, you know, terrible because you, you know, you, you try to avoid failure. Cause who wants to fail? And, you know, I think these are both just learning experiences and they're, there's, they're just descriptions of something that's already happened. So I'm, uh, what we try to do is, Uh, it is experiment a lot.

[00:22:42] So we have, we, we have this, this model we call trees, plants, and seeds. Trees, the big businesses that are mature and, uh, this, the, this. Plants are fast growing businesses that we invest in and seeds are the new ones. These are ones that are really relevant here. The ones where we create small teams and we, we just experiment with users and try to [00:23:00] create something that's really unique and different and powerful.

[00:23:02] And, We have between five and 20 new categories in development at a time, and they're run by sometimes just one person, often by entrepreneurs, but not always. And um, and, you know, they, they often don't make it out of the, of the. Starting blocks, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. We give people a, we give the teams a bonus when they, if they don't make it out, and we move 'em onto other things and we try to make it, uh, not feel like a failure if it doesn't work.

[00:23:29] We're those the way, that's way creativity, ed said.

[00:23:34] Mark: Mm-hmm. I interviewed a, a, an ex-colleague of mine who I spent all my life working, branding and advertising, and one of my ex uh, uh, creative partners, um, it's now an inventor. And we were talking about failure and success.

[00:23:49] And he follows a philosophy, a German philosopher's view. It's a thing called emergence that everything is. what happened yesterday. It's a bit like you're lying in the sand, sort of, [00:24:00] um, example from earlier that we are all in this state of emergence and when you actually embrace the principles of emergence, nothing is a failure.

[00:24:07] Nothing is, nothing is a success. You are just everyday progressing on the pathway towards where you're, where you're meant to go, which I think is an interesting sort of philosophy to, it really does sort of start to ground.

[00:24:19] Bracken: I love that. I really love that that 

[00:24:22] Mark: that. Yeah, it's, it's really good. I, I'll send you a link to his interview where he talks about it and the timestamp because he, he delivers it so eloquently and I've heard a lot of people watch that went, oh my goodness, that's made me rethink my life.

[00:24:34] Bracken: Well, I think, I think it's a wonderful way to think, you know, some people can say it's rationalization, but I, I get question all the time. You know, what's, if you could go back to your 20, you know, when you were 19 and could

[00:24:44] different, what you do, and I, I always say, I just don't even know how to answer

[00:24:47] Mark: Yeah,

[00:24:48] Bracken: I, cannot answer. I maybe because I don't let myself answer, but I just don't believe in that. I, I do believe in your concept of, or his concept of.

[00:24:56] Mark: Yeah.

[00:24:57] It's, it is fascinating. Um, [00:25:00] you'd spend a lot of time with founders and startups a, a leader of, uh, essentially a, a fortune, believe it, fortune 200.

[00:25:11] Bracken: Fortune something.

[00:25:13] Mark: whatever

[00:25:14] but, but I think that is quite unusual for someone to actually dedicate so much time to spend time with founders and startups. Um, presumably you have a really good reason for doing it, but it obviously helps you stay close.

[00:25:24] I think you've, you've said close to the edge, but what lessons do you learn from these conversations? Uh, observations and experiences?

[00:25:33] Bracken: Well first, why did I do it? Cause you know, I, I did it because I moved out to Silicon Valley and you know, if you don't live in Silicon Valley, especially when I was moving out here 10 years ago, Well, all you hear is now this, this is like a startup mecca, you know? So I wanted to get an understanding of what that scene was all about.

[00:25:48] So I immediately came out, went to see venture capital firms all over the place, and then started meeting with founders who would reach out to me. And, um, I met with three a day to three a week. In the early days, there was [00:26:00] always three a day. I would usually do it at breakfast. I had a room blocked off and a little, a tiny little restaurant here that they basically gave me the room, said, you know, you're here so much, just we want you away from our other customer, so well you can have this room back here.

[00:26:12] And people would just come, I'd just run, uh, have meetings in there, you know, it was awesome. And I learned so much. One of the things I learned was the power of small teams. I, I was just blown away. I'd have, uh, we'd have some big team working inside Logic my first year or two on some very difficult problem and.

[00:26:28] I'd see, you know, a three person team or a four person team come in and they've already either solved that problem or one that looked like it in three months with nothing but three or four people. And we had army of people working on it for a year. I was like, what is wrong with us? You know? And, and then I realized it's not something wrong with us, it's just too many of us.

[00:26:46] You know, we need to, we to have fewer people working on things, you know, and, and, and maybe more things working on to work on. But, but, but the small teams are where the action is, and I really learned that from startup.

[00:26:57] Mark: I suppose at [00:27:00] that time when you, you, you joined Logitech, it was still at the early days of the agile thinking movement and the start startups were obviously the first to embrace Agile. So presumably that was a part of it in flattening the structures and creating more direct reports.

[00:27:16] Bracken: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:18] Mark: Yeah, Interesting. Um, you've had a fascinating journey, uh, of transf. Professionally and, and personally, and through your public speaking and increasingly through your writings, um, you've shared a lot of your wisdom, uh, cautionary words about success. We talk the, the, the, the, uh, rejection of the word failure or, and then using learning experiences as your, the lens through which you look at it.

[00:27:45] You've also been very transparent about your growth as a leader, and it's interesting hearing you talk, uh, and which again is quite rare in c e o circles, um, of being so transparent about your personal growth. [00:28:00] Um, what led you to to, to be so authentic and transparent. 

[00:28:05] um, I think a hard time. What led be that way you way you, you know, I, I don't really know, but I do think, um, do love the, uh, the transparency that I feel like I could be. I don't think I was this transparent for much of my career. I think it's easy to be transparent when you've got 10 years of track record as ceo.

[00:28:28] Bracken: It's pretty good. It would be much harder in your first year to be, as, you know, say to talk openly about some of the things I do now. You know, it obviously only gives you confidence if it gives you a safety net. So I, I also realize when I'm giving advice to founders and things that my advice is all is a little too rooted in who I am.

[00:28:45] You. Sometimes I need to listen to hell of a lot more and, and try that crazy to empathize better because I think it's not as easy, uh, for somebody who's, you know, 28 years old and it's their first startup to be humble. You know, you sometimes need to be, you know, [00:29:00] being your chest and talk about how great you are, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[00:29:03] But if you watch me too much, think, oh, being humble is like this super good idea. You know, for every. You know, there's a time to be humble and there's a time to be proud, you know, so, I dunno, I, I think, I think I'll pivot your question a little bit and just talk for a second about, um, how bad I was in the beginning.

[00:29:20] In some areas, you know, I was, I was pretty good in some areas, but I was really bad. For example, in managing my board, I, I came in with a chair who I love, who, who felt the same way I did about boards at the time, felt like they were kinda necessary. You just try to do the bare minimum you could with the board.

[00:29:36] And uh, they were a governance body. It didn't really add a lot of value. And, uh, and so when they challenged me, I was very defensive um, everything they said, I felt like personally mortally, wounded, you know, if they criticized something I was working on, it took me, you know, four or five years to finally.

[00:29:54] Maybe six. I finally realized, oh my gosh, this is what a wasted opportunity. These are amazing people [00:30:00] who know my company better than most people would, and I have an opportunity to use them put things in front of them and get their feedback. They do have a governance. Love to do, which is from great, but I, I've gotta, you know, get a of a lot more thick skinned and, and, and listen, you know, I don't have to do everything they say, but I've gotta, I should want hear everything they say.

[00:30:19] So it took me too long to get to that point. You know, other CEOs are better than I, I really do get it.

[00:30:28] Mark: Hmm. Just as you were talking about, looking back, was there a mo a moment in time over those 10 years when you became abundantly aware that you, the company, needed to do more in the sustainability space and you were early to em embrace the carbon labeling?

[00:30:48] Bracken: Well, I was, I was always a big believer in environmental sustainability, aim. When I joined the company, we were already doing a lot of great stuff. We were moved to renewable power. I think we were at 92% of our, our sources of [00:31:00] power from all of our factories and offices around the world was renewable. So we were already well downstream.

[00:31:04] We were, we, we had a, a great operations leader, was a believer. I was a big believer. It was one of those principles designed, I believed in. Um, and again, it was a little bit like, uh, probably a little bit like de and i, I thought we were really the good guys. As I read more and more about where the world's going and global warming became more and more obviously happening, uh, then it became I, this, I had this sense of urgency welling up in me.

[00:31:27] And one of my head, my head of operations, um, he's the COO now. He had the same feeling and we would talk about this and at some point I think the light clicked for vol. I mean, the, the light just completely went on bright for both of us. There's no more.

[00:31:41] It's now, you know, we can't sit around and, and, and talk about well, how we wish things were gonna be.

[00:31:46] We have to go make them that way and then try to influence other companies with that. So that was probably 2 18, 2 19, where we really felt this incredible sense of urgency and we haven't looked back. Now, you know, we're committed to [00:32:00] climate negative. We're inter carbon negative. We're cover labeling everything.

[00:32:04] We're, we're gonna 360 we're, we've got recycled plastic, 70 of our products and our biggest product lines. We're gonna move that everywhere. So we're, we're all urgent.

[00:32:14] Mark: When I sent the question, I, I did put in a piece about the, um, INGRA camp prod, uh, the founder of ikea's.

[00:32:21] Wonderful little book, the testament of a furniture dealer. It's one of the most undiscovered, uh, little gems of wisdom that I think everywhere every business leader should, and when I, when I heard you talk about humbleness, it made me think of him and that that perspective,

[00:32:38] Bracken: You're the first person in a long time that's mentioned that to me.

[00:32:43] time I saw it was two 10, I think, or two

[00:32:46] Mark: Yeah. it was about the same saw it. Yeah.

[00:32:48] Bracken: It's just a magical book and, and I would encourage anybody who's never seen it to, to try to get a copy. I'm sure you could find it

[00:32:55] Mark: yeah, yeah, you can. I'll gonna put it in the show notes as well. But, [00:33:00] but that humbleness, um, is it something you encourage in your teams and your, uh, other direct reports?

[00:33:07] Or is it something you just think is just unique to yourself? Or is it something you would think is, uh, something that the company should embrace?

[00:33:15] Bracken: Well, I don't, I don't, I, I try not to encourage kinda the off shocks. It was nothing, you know, kind humility, which is a false humility of, you let's not pretend, let's pretend we didn't do something good. You know? Cause uh, it looked like we're humble, you know? What we do, we do have a value we specifically call out, which is humility, but we, we partnered that with another value, which is hunger.

[00:33:37] Yeah. And drive, you know, real hunger. So the reason, but when we talk about that humility, we don't talk about it as, you know, oh, you know, yeah, we're, we're great, but you would, you know, we don't feel great. You know, it wasn't, we don't talk about that, but we talk about it completely as a realization that we have a lot.

[00:33:54] That's the, that's the key. It's about, that's humility is based on the fact that you just [00:34:00] dunno as much as you need to ever, and you have to keep striving for more understanding.

[00:34:05] Mark: Because I heard you talk about your early years of discovering your love of leadership through sport and your competitiveness. You've mentioned through your, through your siblings, presumably those characteristics that that drives that hunger and that competitiveness and the desire to win and be a leader.

[00:34:21] A leader in sustainability, a leader in de and i, social justice, mental health, all the things you've talked about. So in a way, I suppose it's healthy competi. that fair or

[00:34:34] Bracken: Yeah, I, I, I, it's very, very fair. I did grow up with, uh, you know, in a competitive. Competitive environment, you know, and it wasn't like my brothers were, you know, trying to rush meet me to the breakfast table every day, but sometimes, and we were, and really valuing competition and, but maybe not as much the competition as the.

[00:34:57] The training and the development to compete. [00:35:00] So I grew to love, uh, the, the principles in the practice and the form and practicing the form and trying to be an expert at that. And, and then the competition was just really a, a yard, a measuring stick. Like when you used to stand in the doorway with your mom, she said, you've one, you know, it was just a measuring stick.

[00:35:19] That's all competition is, but the real value is the, it's the principles and the process. And they're honing your skills and keeping learning new ones and trying a new trick, you know, that you've never tried before. That's what I.

[00:35:30] Mark: Again, very sto. Um, you've talked a lot about three levels of design and I, I, I interviewed Tony Fidel's ghost writer not long ago, and about his book, um, build and I think you've talked about very few reach that third level of design. But I do think that Tony Fidel, um, with Nest, uh, came close to that and having read a lot of what you've written on LinkedIn and heard you talk, I have to ask the question, can we expect the brack and Darryl.

[00:35:58] Bracken: I [00:36:00] dunno. You know, I, I'm, I dunno, you, I, I, I do like to write and I like to read great writing. I, I, uh, I don't know. Yeah. I really don't know. I, I'm not being quiet. I just dunno. I think if I, if I felt like I could write something that was, Have a big impact and really be meaningful or try to be meaningful, I would do it.

[00:36:22] And if I couldn't, I wouldn't do it. So I think there's plenty of great stuff out there from a lot of great people. So I don't think need another one. But if I really feel like, you know what's so out, I'll you how it.

[00:36:36] Mark: The funny thing with, with Tony's book, he just had an Excel chart and he just filled in the Excel or the Google sheets with all the things that he, he thought about just lines, and he handed it to Dina and said, here you go. I couldn't write something with that. So if you, if you ever wanna sort of meet a good ghost writer or put you in touch with Dina, she's fantastic.

[00:36:54] Bracken: I'd love to meet her. I, um, I don't think I would write a book that way. I'm an English

[00:36:59] Mark: Well, [00:37:00] there you go.

[00:37:00] Bracken: Little harder to hand off the writing part of, but he's obviously, You know, I've met and I'm, I'm just blown away by the things I agree with your comments about Nest. I, I think, you know, stage 1, 2, 3, designer or level 1, 2, 3, designer, it's really hard to get to that third level.

[00:37:17] It's really hard to get anywhere closer to, to the midpoint on the second level, the way I measure it. So being a kind of company where you really design inside and out in everything that you do, even for your employees and for, you know, every a person who walks into the, the, uh, the, the, an, the, the reception area of your office, they should experience something.

[00:37:39] They should walk away with a little surprise they should walk away with. If, if you're really good, they might even walk away a little inspired. You know, if you can pull that off, which very few companies do that. I mean, maybe Disney did that at one point when they were smaller. Maybe they're doing it now.

[00:37:53] I dunno, I'm not Disney. I'm pretty impressed by the results.

[00:37:56] Mark: Yeah. It is hard to think virtually companies that can deliver that [00:38:00] and that experience.

[00:38:01] Bracken: But what 

[00:38:02] Mark: think that 

[00:38:03] Bracken: strive for, I mean, isn't that just an incredibly exciting thing that you, you think, gosh, now what?

[00:38:08] Mark: Uhhuh, I know, as a leader, everyone faces moments of uncertainty, um, actually, I interviewed Richard Branson when I was, uh, working back in the day in some branded content and He said The only difference between me and anyone else is just I have more problems to solve than everyone else, and I solve them faster. in a way that's, that's interesting cuz it, it makes you suddenly realize that you're just facing this never ending conveyor belt of problems. You, you get over one and then there's another one to overcome or challenges or barriers.

[00:38:41] But you must encounter times where you, you're facing undermount barriers. H how do you confront that, those moments of, that feels of fragility and.

[00:38:52] \ there's only one insurmountable barrier so far that I'm aware of, and it's

[00:38:56] Bracken: death The others are manageable As long as you [00:39:00] don't give up, you know, I think you, you can. Hope to find a way to solve problems. So, and I really believe that, and I'm, and I love it when we, we encounter something in our business where we say, gosh, you know, there, there are only two models. There's this scaled model where everything's really big and there's this, you know, completely fragmented model where everything's really small and there's no in between and it can't be in between because you've gotta be laid there, low cost or super differentiated I love when I hear those things cause it makes me wanna do something different. You know, I love to be, I love to find a new way and I think there's always a way, you know, to do so. Try something and to experiment and I'm, uh, so, so, so I just, I just, you know, I just very rarely hit, hit these real dark periods of of, doubt I would much rather just act on something and then correct it later than sit around and doubt myself, worry about it, you know, too

[00:39:48] much 

[00:39:50] Mark: What are your natural gifts and talents or your superpower 

[00:39:53] [00:40:00] [00:41:00] conscious of your time. I'll get the last couple of questions. Um, my goal, the, my goal with the podcast, I started out as an experiment in serendipity, just interviewing few people I knew and then they recommended ne uh, other people and it's gone on from there.

[00:41:35] But now what I'm doing with it is being more intentional and trying to. Facilitate and encourage random collisions between the guests where diverse minds can come together, um, to trigger innovative thinking. So my question to you is, are you open for me connecting you with other guests like Dean Lavinsky, the ghost writer for Tony or anyone else that I think is interesting that could lead to [00:42:00] interesting conversations and sparks of in. Cool. Okay. Well I'll look forward to building that. The reason I'm doing it is I believe there are too many think tanks and we need to build more what I'm calling action engines.

[00:42:20] People that are connected together, making progress. Um, cuz I don't think enough people are connected together. Uh, there's a lot of people around the world doing amazing things in everything from mental health to criminal justice reform. All sitting under the s d g banner, but in their own particular lane.

[00:42:36] And I think sometimes we need to start doing cross-fertilization of those minds and those passions and, and experiences. So we'll be doing that. Um, 

[00:42:45] Um, well, Bracken, thank you very much for your time.

[00:42:49] I, uh, know you're busy, uh, man, changing the world, uh, making a difference, changing people's lives, uh, making for a better planet. And I really appreciate your honesty [00:43:00] and, appreciate the time you spent with me. So Thank you, Okay. Thank you. 

[00:43:04] ​