John Chambers - Connecting the Dots - Leadership Lessons in a Start-up World

The opportunities over the next few decades will be staggering. Every person on the planet has the potential to compete. The average seller on eBay does business in seven countries. With digitization, anyone can innovate and leapfrog the competition at a scale and speed that’s unprecedented. There’s no entitlement, not even for Silicon Valley. I’m now working with entrepreneurs and leaders in the United States, India, France, and other parts of the world who could lead the next great wave of innovation. Through JC2 Ventures, I am investing in and working with startups to help them scale to become the next Cisco. Some of them won’t make it, but I believe that many of them will, creating jobs and opportunities far beyond the scope of anything we can picture right now. What will differentiate the winners from the losers won’t be technology or capital but leadership and a willingness to learn. The lessons and practices that helped me are proving to be powerful for many of the people I coach. As an adviser to President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, I’ve seen how visionary political leaders can transform their countries into startup nations. At JC2 Ventures, a company I co-founded to invest in startups and help leaders scale, I’ve seen how the playbooks I used at Cisco can work in businesses as diverse as cricket farming and drone security.

Candidly, I get more credit than I deserve. My success is due to the incredible passion, discipline, innovation, and teamwork of Cisco’s people. Every CEO likes to say that. In my case, it’s definitely true. I’ve worked with many generations of chief financial officers, sales leaders, engineering heads, and other leaders who knew far more about their areas than I ever could. I was lucky to have the most brilliant engineers in Silicon Valley work with me to build products that really changed the game, and I had a job that allowed me to interact with leaders worldwide who inspired me with their vision and taught me how to lead. Most important, I have had Elaine, my best friend and wife for more than 45 years, and our two children—Lindsay and John. They have inspired me, supported me, and put up with my foibles and the frustration of a family member whose passion for the job never turns off. My immediate family treated the people of Cisco as part of our extended family, which reinforced a culture that’s hard to capture in the pages of a book.

A lot of people have come to me over the years, asking me what I’ve learned from my successes and mistakes. One thing I’ve learned is that talking about success is way more fun! The other is that making those mistakes made me stronger. But they don’t make you stronger if you keep doing the same thing instead of adapting to a new reality. The setbacks and the tough times should force you to take stock in your strengths and find new ways to win. When I look back on the incredible competitors who later disappeared, I realize that most of them didn’t fail because they suddenly did the wrong thing. They failed because they kept doing the right thing for too long. The biggest mistake we all make is that we get comfortable and we get disrupted because we don’t disrupt ourselves.

I don’t have all the answers and I expect that many of you will disagree with some of the things that I write in this book. In fact, if you agree with everything I say, I will have failed. I like to take risks and I like to challenge the status quo. I hope you find some inspiration or useful tips from my experiences, especially the mistakes. If our paths cross on our journeys, I look forward to learning from you.

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THE CONNECTED LEADER (THE MINDSET FOR LEADERSHIP SUCCESS)

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