The John Chambers Interview:
How He Turned Personal Weaknesses and Near-Death Crises into Strengths
John Chambers is one of the biggest and most beloved technology titans of our time. Leading Cisco for 20 years, he grew the company to $47 billion in revenue and solidified a reputation as one of most profitable companies during the Internet’s early days.
Despite two economic crashes, rounds of layoffs, and increasing competition, John’s optimism and nerves of steel never wavered.
It isn’t just in business that John knows how to emerge from setbacks stronger than ever. In this rare and intimate interview, you’ll hear how he was stereotyped for his dyslexia, so afraid to speak on stage that he’d throw up before presentations, and doubted because of his compassion and empathy.
Through his entertaining stories and words of wisdom, you’ll be equipped to turn your own weaknesses into strengths.
“Once you’ve been through a challenge like dyslexia, you never laugh at anyone else. It teaches you to be humble and connect with others on an emotional level.”
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Notable Revelations in the Interview
“During a crisis is when leadership is lonely. Even though you have friends around you, you are all by yourself. That’s when you have to reach in to your inner self and confidence and navigate through it. It’s like a flagpole: if you’re the leader at the base, and you’re just wobbling a little bit, the poor individual contributors at the top are going way back and forth.”
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“Once you’ve been through a challenge like dyslexia, you never laugh at anyone else. It teaches you to be humble and connect with others on an emotional level.”
“During a crisis is when leadership is lonely. Even though you have friends around you, you are all by yourself. That’s when you have to reach in to your inner self and confidence and navigate through it. It’s like a flagpole: if you’re the leader at the base, and you’re just wobbling a little bit, the poor individual contributors at the top are going way back and forth.”
The John Chambers Interview:
How He Turned Personal Weaknesses and Near-Death Crises into Strengths
John Chambers is one of the biggest and most beloved technology titans of our time. Leading Cisco for 20 years, he grew the company to $47 billion in revenue and solidified a reputation as one of most profitable companies during the Internet’s early days.
Despite two economic crashes, rounds of layoffs, and increasing competition, John’s optimism and nerves of steel never wavered.
It isn’t just in business that John knows how to emerge from setbacks stronger than ever. In this rare and intimate interview, you’ll hear how he was stereotyped for his dyslexia, so afraid to speak on stage that he’d throw up before presentations, and doubted because of his compassion and empathy.
Through his entertaining stories and words of wisdom, you’ll be equipped to turn your own weaknesses into strengths.
Notable Revelations in the Interview
“The teachers realized I had a learning disability. I’d read every night, but I was learning to read the wrong way. It was hard to deal with because I’d lose my spot in the classroom. My teachers didn’t think I’d graduate from high school.”
“My parents had confidence in me and found a spatial teacher. She got me to realize the strength of dyslexia, the weaknesses of it, and how to overcome it.”
“My hands are sweaty. That’s how much hurt I went through. You got scared to death as the teacher came down the row to call on you. Even mentioning it now many, many years later my hands are sweaty. And my hands don’t sweat when I’m with the President of the United States or in front of 40,000 people, but they do with dyslexia.”
“Once you’ve been through a challenge like this, you never laugh at anyone else. It teaches you to be humble and connect with others on an emotional level.”
“I’m writing a book and one of the chapters is focused on whether you are more a product of your successes or your setbacks. I think you’re more a product of your setbacks.”
“In the 1990s, Cisco was on fire and we were growing at 65 percent year over year growth. Jack Welch told me, ‘You have a good company. And I said, ‘What does it take to have a great company?’ He said, ‘A near-death experience.’ I didn’t understand that at that time, but he was absolutely right. Having gone through the 2001 dot com bust — a near death experience — almost all of our peers got wiped out. We came back even stronger than before, although it was extremely painful.”
“I take my weakness, dyslexia, and make it a strength. It forces me to go from A to B to Z, and I can do it at pretty fast speeds. This allows me to see market transitions in unique ways, such as seeing that the Internet will change our lives, the digital world will completely transform every business, and more.”
“Trying to learn to be comfortable with public speaking was very hard. I did about everything wrong you could do: memorize speeches, reading note cards, outline everything and try to make it flow, but none of it worked. I found that my weakness could become my strength. So what I now do is picture the whole flow of how a presentation goes. I picture my opening, my closing, and visualize what it looks like. But I still threw up before each presentation for almost a year -- I would get that nervous. Now it’s one of the things I’m reasonably good at in part because you can connect emotionally once you’ve been on the other side of this and you know how to look into someone’s eyes. When I talk to 20,000 people it’s like I’m talking to each individually.”
“During a crisis is when leadership is lonely. Shimon Peres, the former president of Israel, taught me that. When he taught me, I said, ‘What do you mean? I have 40,000 employees, I’m not lonely at all. The stock is going through the roof, everybody wants to be our friend.” But he was right: even though you have friends around you, you are all by yourself in a real crisis. That’s when you have to reach in to your inner self and confidence and navigate through it. It’s like a flagpole: if you’re the leader at the base, and you’re just wobbling a little bit, the poor individual contributors at the top are going way back and forth.”
“I can’t explain what the crash was like. You take a company from $70 million in sales to $47 billion. You have a chance to be one of the top leaders in the business world, according to the media, and then all of a sudden they’re saying you shouldn’t be a leader at all. That’s when you have to have inner confidence and the ability to listen.”
“When I first came to Silicon Valley and didn’t know anyone, people said about me, ‘This guy’s too nice. It’s obviously not for real.’ I don’t think I’m nice, I just treat people well and put customers first. I treated Cisco people like they were family. I knew every life-threatening illness of every employee or their spouse or children, and we were there for them like no one else. Then you get the brand that people trust you. And this is powerful. It makes your company unbeatable.”
“I was at a dinner the night before a Duke vs. Stanford game with Coach K. He said, ‘What do you think of the team?’ I said, “Your team loves each other. They give each other hugs! Giant guys, giving each other hugs. I’m not sure how tough they are.’ Turns out they were the most physical and awesome Duke team. I learned that you can take that even a step further: you can tell people you love them, you can make it a family, you can do this at a level other groups do not.”
“Now with my next venture, JC2 Ventures, I’m going to teach disruptive CEOs these lessons learned — both from my mistakes and successes -- and see if they can do this in their own areas.”
“All of us have to reinvent ourselves in this new world, or you’ll get left behind. If you do the right thing for too long, you’ll get into trouble.”
“I encourage people to have courage and dream big dreams. People often said at times I dreamed too big or moved too fast, but I respectfully disagree. I wish I had dreamed more and wish I’d moved faster.”