Timestamped Overview

00:00 Mitt Romney and Fraser Bullock’s Olympic leadership excellence.

04:37 Bridging live events and technology through rigorous planning.

07:25 His curiosity-driven, risk-tolerant journey to company CEO.

12:34 Flexible leadership and manifesting vision through others.

16:27 How to get an imperfect system to work together cohesively..

20:11 Why self-awareness is crucial for effective leadership transformation.

27:02 The importance of taking responsibility for your reactions and mistakes.

30:12 CEO’s words and actions significantly impact company culture.

33:01 Calculated risk explorer balancing adventure and safety.

36:55 “The Courage to be Disliked”: leadership, conviction, compassion.

39:42 Perkins daily rituals such as writing and reflection to diagnose persistent problems.

44:41 Balanced leadership needs conviction, compassion, and adaptability.

46:48 Incorporate joy and fun into leadership.

 

Full Transcript

Darren [00:00:02]:

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another exciting episode of one of one. I’m your host, Darren Gold. Today I’m delighted to be speaking with Perkins Miller, the CEO of Fandom, one of the world’s largest online community of fans. In this episode, we discuss Perkins exciting career, which includes working on several Olympics and roles at NBC Universal, WWE, and Stop Hub. We dive into the importance of self awareness and personal responsibility and leadership, including Perkins early formative experiences and how they’ve shaped him as a leader. We touch on the secret to effective senior leadership teams, the importance of personal discipline, including Perkins daily rituals, and the role of fun and joy in being a CEO. If you’re a fan of leadership, you will absolutely love this conversation. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Perkins, it is so great to be with you. I’m so excited about this conversation. Thanks for being here.

 

Perkins [00:01:10]:

Yeah, great to be with you as well, Darren.

 

Darren [00:01:13]:

Yeah, we’ve known each other now for a number of years and gotten to know each other really well, and so it’s really going to be a fun chance to dive deep. The thing that I wanted to start with was just this incredibly fun, interesting, I would call it, maybe even wild professional career. You’ve had some of the companies you’ve been associated with, Warren Miller, the Olympics, NBC, NFL, WWE, Stubhub, and now this incredible company that you’re leading fandom. But it is the year of the Olympics, and I wanted to start with the time that you were with Mitt Romney in Salt Lake in the 2002 Winter Olympics. I’ve heard you tell that story, but I’d love you to tell it a little bit again. Like, what was that experience? What was the highlight of that experience?

 

Perkins [00:01:54]:

Well, thank you, Darren, for calling out exactly how old I am now. As we reflect back on Olympics in 2002, which it was 22 years ago. And just briefly, kudos to the Salt Lake organizing committee there for 2034 who now have the Olympics coming there again. And I worked, and Fraser Bullock led that charge, by the way, who Mitt worked with, sort of the two of them was Frazier Bullock and Mitt Romney. Both came in in 2000 on the Olympics to really steer the ship and put it back on course because it was a bit adrift. And I may be old, I was pretty young back then. This is 22 years ago. And I think the thing that really jumped out of me from a leadership standpoint was just the focus that Mitt and Fraser both brought to execution. So I was very young and pretty inexperienced overall. And the way they both came from a finance background and an operating background. Mitt, coming from Bain Capital, and I had some fairly small parts of the Olympics. I was by no means a leading executive of the Olympics. I was just a cog in the wheel. But I oversaw a few different pieces that were definitely important, and I was proud of them. We had a great team to work on them. But the way Mitt approached it was basically one page of financials. You basically had a budget and you had a timeline, and you sort of had to execute, because one of the tricks of the Olympics is they don’t move. So, you know, when the Olympic starts, the Olympic starts, and so you better be ready. So what we did, and literally, it was monthly for a while, right after he started, were these meetings, and you had one page that just had your budget and financials on them, and you had to explain what you were doing and whether you’re on course. And being Mitt, who he is, which is a very smart, very intense man, and same with Fraser. They would just ask questions and you had to be able to answer them. And so it was a very early trial by fire for me of learning how to be very clear about what I’m doing and be very data driven, because there’s no kind of hand waving. For Mitt and Fraser, it was all about the facts and the numbers and are you on track? And I think the meetings were like 20 minutes long, by the way, these are not long discussions. They were basically running through 42 different functions inside of the Olympics on a monthly basis to making sure things were on track. So it was quite the experience.

 

Darren [00:04:21]:

There’s something about the intensity of an event like that, or the alternative would be a crisis that gets people’s attention and focus and helps them sort of really channel that. Where else have you seen that in your career? And you’ve been at a number of other places with that kind of intensity.

 

Perkins [00:04:37]:

Right. I mean, I got the privilege of also working on two or three other Olympics. So there’s always sports where, you know, I think the benefit of working on sports and major events is there is a start and an end, and you have to be prepared. And whether you’re doing that for a Super bowl or doing that to make sure tickets are available for concerts like at Stubhub, sporting events do lend themselves to very rigorous planning and a high degree of execution because, you know, they’re live, and things that are live and have dates and deadlines to them require that. And I think I saw that. I did the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 Olympics, worked on launching a bunch of stuff with the NFL for streaming content. I think what I’ve done in my career a lot has been bridging the gap between these live events and technology. So when I did the work for Olympics, even back in 2002, we were streaming a postage stamp size video of a recycling center in Salt Lake because it was the first multistream recycling that had been put in place and no one believed it. And so Mitt wanted it streamed. Of course, it was a postage stamp on the Internet in 2001, which no one could see. But that, you know, there was, the effort was there, but, and it continued in my career, whether it was, you know, Sunday Night Football at NBC, again, where, you know, you have to be able to deliver something that’s of quality back in, you know, 2007, 2008, or working on the WWE, which has this enormous fan base and a massive amount of activity, I mean, they put over 500 events a year, and so you have to really be on your toes about execution. And, Stubhub, you’re selling a ticket. I think we’re selling a ticket every 4 seconds. And you’ve got to be able to meet the demands of the market, whether it’s a Beyonce concert or Hamilton or Super Bowls, they have to work, and you have to recognize the demands that fans and consumers have that they expect everything to work and expect it to work on time. And so I think that trained me, and I’ve always, it’s been maybe a crucible, but it’s been a training ground for me to know that you have to kind of plan very deliberately and be very data driven and detail oriented in order to make sure that stuff gets done right.

 

Darren [00:06:58]:

So, Stubhub, 2016 to 19, is that about right?

 

Perkins [00:07:02]:

Yeah.

 

Darren [00:07:02]:

So I want to talk a little bit about 2019. You’ve got your first CEO role, incredible senior executive roles, but your first CEO role. Walk us through a little bit about the thinking. What was it that motivated you to want that, and how was it in your sort of first few days as CEO of the company you now lead, which is fandom?

 

Perkins [00:07:25]:

Yeah. So I think for me, I’ve always been relentlessly curious, and I’ve also, for me, wanted to test myself, and I test myself in a lot of ways, as you well know. I mean, I’m a pretty ambitious adventurer, test myself in the mountains and in various parts of the world, and always kind of had that same sort of curiosity around management and leading companies. And it was a general manager at Stubbub and a co president for a bit. And I had really set an intention to be CEO of a company, because I was really curious about could I do it, and would I be effective? And so I think one of the things that I’ve learned about myself is I am very curious, and I have a high tolerance for risk, but I also, for me, it’s a lot about calculated risk. And so the first days of taking the CEO, and I talked to my wife about this, and of course, I knew I could fail, but the thing that always gave me comfort, Washington, of course I could fail, but I will always learn. And so when we talked about it, and it was a risk, because it was a company that had been picked up by TPG and another acquisition had been made, and there was a rough draft of a strategy, a good one that TPG had, but you have to execute. And so I said, well, I could fail, of course, but I also knew that I would learn. And so at the end of whatever window of time, and private equity has pretty low tolerance for low performing executives. So I knew it could be a short run, but I also recognized that even if I. It was a short run for me, I would have learned a lot. So the first 1st days of becoming a CEO was one learning to be comfortable with that uncertainty and ambiguity, and then just putting my head down and executing and knowing that the worst thing that could happen to me was that I’d learn. And it’s proven to be a great experience, obviously, over the last five and a half years. But that was what it was like those first several months.

 

Darren [00:09:29]:

Your biggest surprise becoming CEO?

 

Perkins [00:09:33]:

You know, I think the biggest surprise to me was how much further I had to go into embracing ambiguity and uncertainty and, and really leaning into the idea that I’m a force multiplier and ultimately have very little absolute control. And then when I, whenever I would try to take absolute control, I knew I was doing the wrong thing. Really, this notion that it’s going to be messy, it’s going to be imperfect, and it’s going to take longer than you think. And all that ambiguity and that uncertainty of it all. You have to be really comfortable and really focus on just setting the direction and the vision and leading through others. Because as smart as I would like to think I am, n equals one, and I can only have a singular impact, and that impact has to be applied through others. So that was really, you know, that came very, very clear to me early on that that was even more than I expected. That was the big surprise, that it was even. It was even more of that than I had anticipated.

 

Darren [00:10:39]:

Your CEO of fandom, help us understand who is fandom? What does the company do?

 

Perkins [00:10:44]:

So fandom has a few pieces. The mission of the business is to serve fans who love imagine worlds. So we really are embracing fans of movies and tv and gaming and anime and all that fans need to celebrate the things they love in those areas. And so we have a wiki platform that was spun off of Wikipedia 20 years ago by Jimmy Wales. And so we have 300 million people that come visit tens of thousands of wikis about the worlds they love, to learn about them, to research, to learn how to play the game better. So this collection of wikis, 50 million pages of content for 300 million people, sort of the core of that service, that utility we provide. And then we’ve acquired other businesses that meet that mission. So we have a business called fanatical, which is the sort of leading independent e commerce business, selling video games for people who like to play in PCs. We own some media businesses where we think really meeting fans where they need help. So we own Metacritic, we own tv guide, we own GameSpot Game FAQs, Game Facts, which allow people to either figure out what to watch or a game to play at the top of the funnel. And so that’s that core business, reaching about 350 million people every month.

 

Darren [00:12:04]:

Okay, let’s talk a little bit about your professional learning journey as a CEO. But maybe even before that, I’ve had a bit of a front row seat to watching you evolve as an incredible human being and leader. What has been the through line there? What has been the sort of significant source of growth that you’ve experienced?

 

Perkins [00:12:23]:

Well, Darren, you’ve had a front seat and been instrumental in my development as leader, so you’re very well aware. And I honestly could not have done it without your help, which I’m very grateful for.

 

Darren [00:12:34]:

Thank you.

 

Perkins [00:12:34]:

And I think what I’ve found is that I’m someone who is a work in progress. And I think one of the gifts that I am so grateful for is this curiosity I have, and to some degree maybe very limited, but some humility to wonder how I can get better. And I’ve been very committed to this personal improvement. And so because I’m not perfect and because I know I’ve got a lot of growing to do, I’m always curious about what I can do better. And my journey has been, I think, moving as you do as an executive or someone who’s just trying to be helpful when you’re early twenties, I’ll take any job. Let me see if I can do it better, and let me see if I can be helpful to the point of when you’re a CEO and you’ve got to be a servant leader and manifest vision through others. That’s a very big change. I think my journey has been, and I think the, the places where I’ve had to learn the most is when I’ve had to move from someone who’s, again, especially you’re going to heard some of my early experiences where I am very driven by deadlines and execution. A lot of that’s very directive management. I’m going to put a plan together. I’m going to make sure we hit that plan. And it can be very driven and very intense about that to recognizing that that’s just one muscle. And in order to be really effective leader, you’ve got to actually be somewhat balanced, be able to flex and have strength in several areas. It can’t just be in directive execution. It’s got to be in consideration of others. It’s got to be compassion. It’s got to be laying out a vision. I’ve got to be living with ambiguity and uncertainty, all those things. I think over the course of the last 25 years, I’ve had to really expand my flexibility in musculature as a leader in order to be effective. Because the thing that served me really well 15 years ago couldn’t serve me today because it’s limiting. It’s only one dimension of leadership, and you need to have, I think, several to be effective as a CEO.

 

Darren [00:14:42]:

What’s been your process for continuing to build self awareness, to know what to focus on? How do you get feedback? How do you work on getting better?

 

Perkins [00:14:52]:

The process that I have one, it starts with my partner. Incredibly grateful for my wife, who I’ve been married to for 33 years, who is incredibly introspective and thoughtful and very smart and currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology. So someone who’s got a very high degree of self awareness to start and doesn’t really tolerate someone who’s not going to, I think, have that same level of curiosity. So I think that’s been very important to developing myself. And then the other piece for me, I think, is reading and meeting others to sort of understand where they are in the journey. So as you’ve talked, we talked about, I’ve got a stack of books behind me and around me, really trying to learn from others, I think has been very, very helpful for me. So I think it’s a balance of being self aware because I think my partner demands it, and then also kind of being naturally curious about, well, what are best practices. How do I learn and study so that I can be better at what I do?

 

Darren [00:15:57]:

Yes, I’ve gotten to know you, and as I’ve heard others describe you, it’s a really compelling and powerful mix of strength and attention to detail and operational rigor with a very open heart and enormous amount of generosity. You’ve used the word servant leadership a lot, and I know that’s been aspect of your leadership that you’ve really been intentional about. Talk a little bit about why that’s important to you. How does it show up in how you lead, and how is it distinctive?

 

Perkins [00:16:27]:

You know, I think the learning that I had, it’s been probably a good ten years ago, was just how important it was that I not think of myself as the center of the leadership universe. Because when you’re managing smaller teams, you’re managing a singular project. You can be really effective by, again, just driving and flexing that one directive muscle and saying, we’re going from point a to point d, and I’m going to make sure we get b, c, D in the mix and when we’re going to do it, and the milestones. And, you know, I studied and used six sigma lean, six sigma, of course, you know, many times. And so there’s a lot. I’m very process driven and systemic. So that really, really works. It’s very effective at execution, but it doesn’t scale ultimately. I mean, I think that when you’re managing a more complex system of different personalities and diverse personalities, I’ve learned that I have to be able to adapt and serve each of those leaders differently and recognize that it’s a collective set of strengths that I have to galvanize and unify. And so that idea of servant leadership, for me, is being able to identify a diverse group of leaders who have different skill sets and different, frankly, personality types, find a way to get that imperfect system together to work cohesively. Knowing that it’s going to be imperfect, it is going to be in, sometimes in conflict, it’s going to sometimes be slower than I would like. But recognizing that if I set a very clear intention and really focus on how do I capitalize on the strengths that each of them have, help them understand those strengths, help understand the learnings that come from our weaknesses, and then be able to put that together in a way that is really caring, you’ve got this phrase, high standards and high care. And so knowing that, like, okay, how do I hold everybody to a very high standard of execution while at the same time holding each other in a high degree of respect and compassion. And those two things can be done at the same time. They require respect and a lot of transparency and a very clear vision for where we’re all going. But if you can put those all together, I think that’s how you kind of get to success or get to some version where you’ve been able to really achieve as a team. So that’s been this journey from singular, directive execution to this collective, unified, diverse set of leaders who then can have a really at scale impact on a business.

 

Darren [00:19:08]:

I’ve seen you do this so effectively, and one of the things I’ve seen you do really well is to deeply understand the person that you’re leading, that’s on your senior team or extended leadership team, really get underneath the covers of that person. How do they ticken what were their formative experiences, and then relate to them and lead them from that place. And I imagine that’s only possible if you really understand yourself, which I know you do. And I wanted to spend a little bit of time on that aspect of leadership, because it’s one that’s not talked about enough, I don’t think, which is the ability to deeply understand where we came from. What were our formative experiences? How did they shape us? How did they give us strengths? And sort of, what are the shadows of those strengths? Can you bring us into that part of you? Who is Perkins? Where did he come from, and how have you understood yourself in the context of your early formative experiences and the implications for your leadership?

 

Perkins [00:20:11]:

I think your point about knowing thyself is at the core of leadership. And if I’m unaware of my own strengths and challenges, I will be ineffective because I would lack the self awareness, I think, to be able to understand how I am a part of a team and how my responses and reactions can impact that team. And for me, it’s been a very long journey. And I think there’s a lot of psychology in this, which you’re very fluent in, and I’m somewhat fluent in because of my own personal curiosity. And for me, it started, my mother passed away when I was my early teens, and it was a very traumatic event. That traumatic event impacted me, impacted me through high school, impacted me through college, and created in me some great strengths, created this sense of self reliance, because I was faced with this notion that I was on my own in some very fundamental way, alone. And in the face of that isolation, I developed a lot of execution skills because I wanted to protect myself. And that sort of leaning into self reliance and a sense of drive or ambition to sort of over achieve as a form, frankly, of protecting myself, drove me in my career. And it has enormous strengths because I am very self directed. I really do not need a lot of other people’s reinforcements. So I think that for me, that early trauma and the strength that came out of that trauma is really meaningful, and it’s gotten me. Got me a long way in my career. Of course, a lot of these things. There’s another side to it. Early trauma like that has cost, and the cost to that was a sense of acting out of fear because I didn’t want to be, in this case, metaphorically alone. I didn’t want to expose myself to be vulnerable because I didn’t want to be hurt. A trauma like that, again, is very painful. And so, for me, there was a lot of challenges to some of my management or behavior as a leader, in the sense that I could be very aggressive, because ultimately, when challenged, I wanted to succeed, and in that would not allow me to be vulnerable and, frankly, impaired my curiosity and my willingness and openness to see some degree, some goodness or others or see other people’s perspectives. And I’m a good analyst. I’ve got a lot of intellectual capacity to some degree. And so that may be very aggressive, and that’s a way to achieve, and that doesn’t serve me as a leader. In fact, that’s the opposite. So if you want followership and you want people to trust you, you have to be vulnerable. You have to be open and be willing to be wrong and be curious about what can change in you so that you’re a better partner to a team and serve that team. And so, for me, that, again, my journey started decades ago with that trauma. And over the years, it’s basically been learning how do I take the strength that comes from that? The self reliance, the drive, the ambition, the fearlessness in some cases. And how do I also understand that? Well, to be effective as a partner and as a leader and as a teammate, I have to be curious and kind and vulnerable, because that’s also that part of me that fears that I have to acknowledge and understand it, because ultimately, if I don’t acknowledge it and expose it, it’ll drive people away. So, for me, that’s. I mean, that’s been a very deep part of how I’ve had to learn to show up is to really understand that about myself, because I know that it’ll manifest itself, especially when things get intense in business, especially when you’re dealing with a crisis. It’s all about how you show up when things are hardest and when things are hardest and the stress is greatest. It’s when some of these behaviors that may be grounded, in my case, a very early trauma, you have to be very careful how they show up because they can have a consequence that you don’t expect. And so being really self aware about how that shows up has been very important in my own development.

 

Darren [00:24:32]:

How open are you as a leader about this sort of formative experience in your life?

 

Perkins [00:24:38]:

I’m very open and transparent about it because it’s who I am, and I think that, of course, I don’t go meet somebody at cocktail party, and it’s the second thing I tell them. Right. You know, as I build a team, I think we, the sooner that we all know each other, and ideally, the really most fundamental level will understand where our behaviors come from, and we can understand that we’re all just human beings trying to understand ourselves. And in that process, we’ll learn how to show up for each other better, and we’ll know how to get permission to give each other feedback. And that idea of sort of saying, look, we’re going to set the goals. We’re going to, again, have high standards, but there’s a high care part of this that allows us to show up much more effectively as a team because we care for each other and we understand where each other’s coming from and when. In some cases, hey, if I’ve rotated too far into some style or some behavior, which, you know, is not serving the team and not serving me, I want to hear about it, because that’s how I learn. You know, some. We. We can’t always be so self aware that we always see our own behaviors. You know, we do need some folks to help us hold the mirror up. And for me, that’s where, again, coaching with you has been incredibly valuable, but also making sure that I am vulnerable enough to my team to say, look, I not only really would welcome the feedback I expected, because it’s the only way that I’m going to be better is if I learn. And the only way I can learn is if someone is sort of pointing out when I may not be showing up as effectively as I’d like to.

 

Darren [00:26:14]:

Yeah, I think you’re touching on something that’s central to team effectiveness is this ability to understand each other with much greater fidelity and accuracy and relate to each other out of that. And yet there’s another ingredient that I want to just touch on and get your thoughts, something you and I talk about a lot, which is it’s one thing to be self aware, to share, to have a shared experience with others around that it’s a whole other ballgame when you are taking responsibility for the kind of growth that you’ve alluded to. Right. So it’s sort of like self awareness without responsibility is just probably not going to be as effective. So talk a little bit about this notion of responsibility and where it shows up for you and how important it is to you.

 

Perkins [00:27:02]:

There’s, I mean, in this idea that we are going to be reflective on who we are and do our best to understand each other. There’s also a responsibility to ourselves to be responsible for our own reactions. One of the things that I think challenges teams is that if folks get somewhat there, which is to say, look, I have this behavior, I can see this behavior, but I dont want to take responsibility for the behavior, then theyre just essentially offloading or discharging that responsibility to the team, which just creates more stress. If im just going to say on this way, you all have to suffer through it, doesnt do anything for the team, all it does is great. Thanks for naming it. But look, we have to operate as a team. You need to be able to take responsibility if your behavior goes outside the bounds of what we think is going to be good for us. And so I think for me that there is a clear corollary, which is you need to be reflective. You need to understand yourself and you have to take responsibility for reactions. Take responsibility for your reactions. If something happens, you get triggered, guess what? We all can recognize it. And if you are acknowledging it and take responsibility for it, we can all move forward and all accept it because we all recognize we’re not perfect. That’s sort of the dynamic of being human. You’re going to make mistakes. Guess what? No matter how self aware I am, I can read every book in the world and I can meditate for 20 hours a day. I’m still going to get triggered. I’m still going to make a mistake. And that understanding of that just imperfection is just something we all have to acknowledge and be willing to admit it. And that was very hard for me. You know, I am. I tend to hold myself to a very high standard and being compassionate with myself and saying, okay, I made a mistake. I’m going to admit that mistake. I’m going to learn from it and not feel that it somehow exposes me in a way that someone could hurt me with it. And that’s a, for someone like me, that’s a very important step to take. And so I, again, I try to, if I can model that behavior and say, look, I’m going to make a mistake, it’s okay, and I can apologize for it and I can learn from it. Now, if I do it over and over again, that’s a different story, but I just have to take responsibility for it in the moment. I think that’s just incredibly important for teams.

 

Darren [00:29:21]:

Yeah, you said the word role model, and it’s, I think it’s such an important part of leadership. I like to say a company is a perfect reflection of its CEO, which is a bit of an exaggeration. But there is an enormous amount of truth in my experience, in that if you’re not role modeling, the very things you expect to see in the organization, good luck. And I love this notion because it points to an extremely high point of leverage in a very complex system. Tell me how you think about that. The fact that how you act, how you behave, what you do, sets the stage, creates a field for what’s possible within an organization as a singular person. I also recognize the tension that you alluded to earlier, which is, I’m just one person. So how do you reconcile perhaps those two truths?

 

Perkins [00:30:12]:

Well, you asked me earlier about what are the things I really learned or surprised me as a CEO. And I mentioned that living within ambiguity, uncertainty, and the other thing that really was very clear to me early on as becoming a CEO is just the impact every word you say has on the company. And by the way, everybody will interpret, because we’re all humans and we all have different backstories, what you say differently. And so what I learned is that even though I’m n equals one, and I really can’t have a force to impact the growth of the company without scaling through others, I can absolutely have a negative impact on the company by what I say and what I do. Because everybody, whether you like it or not, is going to look to the CEO as the voice of the company and the representative of the company. They joke about it that you’re a figurehead, but you are. So when you’re in the all hands meetings, when you’re talking to the press, when you’re meeting clients or meeting customers or fans, how you show up really, really matters. And your words matter, whether you smile or not matters. All those things, those subtle cues are really, really important. And I think the thing that really drives it is that your values of the company have to actually show up through others, meaning that they also need to model the behavior that we want as a culture. So people ask me if I’m the culture carrier for the company and the answer is no. With the people of the company or the culture carriers, how we show up as a company. But what the leader says and does is effectively the brand to some degree of what the culture is. It’s the reflection of what the culture is should be seen in the CEO. And if you are not careful about that from what you do and say, it can have a, I think it have a really negative effect. It can have a lot of drag on the business. And so I see that’s where it’s interesting dynamics. You really can’t have the positive benefit that leadership has to come or culture has to come through others. But I think CEO’s can have a very negative impact if they’re careless about what they say and careless about what they do.

 

Darren [00:32:25]:

It requires an incredible amount of discipline to be at your best, particularly in a world that’s very complex and uncertain and volatile. I’ve known you to be a leader of incredible discipline, and a lot of that has to do, I think, with where we started, which is this fascination with extreme sports. So tell us a little bit about who Perkins is sort of, when he’s not CEO, exploring skiing and motorcycle racing and your commitment to your own sort of personal health and well being. How important is that to you in your role?

 

Perkins [00:33:01]:

Yeah, so this is the discipline side of me, which is always a little bit embarrassing because it goes fairly deep. I mean, we talked about calculated risk, and I do have, that’s, I’m a calculated risk CEO. I’m also a calculated risk kind of person. So I really do like to explore, I mean, one of my natural values is to explore the world. I’m really curious about it and I love being in it. So I am in the wintertime, in the backcountry with skins and climbing with friends of mine in the mountains, either here in Europe or in the summer. I’m on my mountain bike, you know, running around the hills here in California where I’m on a motorcycle with bags and into the dirt and trails in the mountains in the west or in Europe with friends to explore. And so I spend a lot of my time kind of training because I am getting longer in the tooth to make sure I can continue to do these things that I really, really love because they’re so interesting and so challenging to me. And so backcountry skiing, you’re evaluating avalanche hazards, you know, which has unfortunately killed a number of people. I know, and it’s very serious and I would like to continue being alive. So I tend to sort of focus on, well, how do I take a calculated risk? Still have fun skiing untracked powder in the mountains, but at the same time not get caught in an avalanche. You know, when I’m riding a motorcycle, you know, weighs 500 pounds through a dirt, rocky track in the middle of the sierra, how do I make sure that I am not likely, hopefully, to fall off and really hurt myself? So, you know, that’s at my core. It’s this idea of calculated risk and being an explorer that I. That really gives me a sense of just being alive in the world. And then I, of course, have to do a lot of very nerdy, very quantified self, as you well know, kind of work to try to keep the system running.

 

Darren [00:34:57]:

Yeah. What does that look like?

 

Perkins [00:34:59]:

Oh, it’s so. It’s so embarrassing. So this is, you know, this is. My wife makes this relentless fun of me, as she should. So I, you know, I get up every morning pretty much without an alarm at about five or 515. I have an espresso. And then I start my workouts, which are usually an hour and a half to so long. And they’re a blend of strength training and interval training, both on a bike or in a pool. I do yoga two or three days a week, and I meditate every day pretty religiously to sort of keep that all in balance. I don’t eat red meat. I haven’t for 40 something years. I’m pretty careful. I don’t really drink very much at all. So it’s like this because the thing that things that give me real satisfaction in the world is being able to be in it. And so I tend to try to make sure that I’m as prepared as I can to, again, for these calculated risks so that I can continue to do things I love to do, but that involves a fair amount of training and wearing a garment watch and having a coach. And it’s a lot of effort to make sure that hopefully things go right. And again, I’m as well prepared as I can be, which, again, is a metaphor for what I do as a CEO. So I’m very committed in the same way. So I think probably that’s not atypical, I would imagine, for folks in my seat. But anyway, it’s always a little bit of an embarrassment because it’s so nerdy and it’s so disciplined that it’s sort of like, wait a minute. Where’s the fun in that, for God’s sakes?

 

Darren [00:36:26]:

Well, I think it’s very endearing, and I see you having a lot of fun with it, too. I think you have to, to sustain that level of consistency and discipline. But it obviously shows in how you lead and how you show up in the world. You also mentioned books, and you are surrounded by a bunch of books right now, as I can see. I know you’re an avid reader, you’re an avid learner. Any that really stand out for you? Is there one or two, particularly as you think about your role as a leader that you’d want to highlight?

 

Perkins [00:36:55]:

Yeah, I mean, the book that I come back to pretty often is the courage to be disliked, which is that japanese philosopher narrative which really speaks to me about leadership, which is, as you know, a fairly isolating position to be in. And for someone like me, who has a lot of drive, a lot of ambition, when I get to the point of being making some of the more difficult decisions which may infect people, there’s some conviction that’s necessary. And unfortunately, you can’t please everyone. And that for me, someone who one of the. Again, we talked a lot earlier about some of the dynamics of how I grew up and the trauma early on. And again, part of the outcomes of that, because of my fear of loss, is that I do. There was a part of me that really wants to please. The ability to execute and overachieve people would be very gratified in that. That helps to keep me safe. The corollary, the other side of that coin is that I got to be very careful that I’m not so afraid of displeasing people, that I make a bad decision or I don’t act with the degree of conviction and commitment that’s necessary as a CEO. And so this book really speaks to me because it basically teaches and reminds me that there’s time for courage and commitment and conviction that is necessary. And even if that means some people are not going to be happy and not going to potentially like me. And that’s okay, because if I do that, if I come from a place of caring and compassion, I stick to my values. That’s what’s really important. Not trying to please everyone, because that’s not my role as a person. It’s important. So that, for me, is one of the books that I found to be incredibly valuable just from a leadership standpoint. And of course, love Matt Ridley’s how innovation works. And I love all the cons books. I’ve read a number of them. And I do think there’s plenty of books strategically that give you a lot of frameworks for how to do strategic planning, how to evaluate different moments in time as a business. And I think they’re kind of like a tool book or a toolkit where you sort of say, yeah, grab the book that seems to be appropriate for the circumstance and reflect on it. But that first book of the courage to be disliked has really spoken to me as a leader and just helps me execute again through the more difficult times.

 

Darren [00:39:26]:

What is your practice? When you find yourself, you notice, you’re aware enough that there’s some fear that’s holding you back from doing something that you know you want to be doing. You have conviction to do. What does the practice look like to address that?

 

Perkins [00:39:42]:

Well, one of my practices, to talk to my coach to make sure that I. To see if he’s seeing or lay the situation out and be open to the feedback and welcome it and then take action on it. So that’s one, I think having someone you can trust, especially as a CEO, that you can share a circumstance and said, this are the. This is where I’m at. And sometimes it’s just like, yeah, you know where you’re at, you know what to do. And, and actually, to some degree, having a peer or coach that pushes you just that little bit further and says, you know, you’re not going far enough. So I think part of it is the having the peer or friend or I coach, in my case, that’ll help me get to that point. The other thing for me that is really helpful other than the meditation, which kind of quiets the mind and sometimes allows me to see the thing that’s important that I should focus on is there is writing. So I’m pretty religious about every day. I have a to do list. I take notes every day. At the end of the day, I revise my to do list to see what is accomplished. And of course, like, 90% of the things I hope to accomplish don’t really get done. But because I have a practice of sort of writing down, I can actually see when problems are persistent. And so if I’m seeing that problems are persistent, if they’re sitting there on that list for like, three months, I’ve got a systemic problem here. I’m not addressing this thing because it’s just still there. Sometimes it doesn’t take three months, sometimes it’s still sitting there six months. But I think the idea of this discipline of writing down the core actions and having the strategies listed every day and then seeing what’s not moving, what’s starting to calcify is what leads me to drive change, and when I see things start to sort of sit there and become again, bit calcified in the environment that I know I need to take action, then I try to diagnose and I say, okay, what is the root cause here? Big fan of RCas. If you’re a tech nerd, what’s the root cause analysis here? Get to the core, diagnose what it is, and then problem solve from there.

 

Darren [00:41:48]:

You talked about the importance of peers, friends, coaches, mentors, any that come to mind as you think through your career, one or two that really stand out as having been instrumental in your growth.

 

Perkins [00:42:02]:

I’ve been really fortunate to have a good group of folks who I’ve been able to sort of rely on, sort of test and see what’s going on. And there are some very strong leaders in the world. One of them speaking Olympics is Gary Zankel, who’s the president of NBC. Olympics is in Paris right now, and he and I have known each other for 22 years. And he’s someone who I’ve had enormous respect for because he’s incredibly thoughtful and strategic and very patient about how to approach things. When you’re dealing with something as massive, with the magnitude of the Olympics and a franchise that’s one of the most important in the world. This idea of his sort of thoughtful, strategic approach to the world has always been very impressive to me and been very, very helpful, sort of as a thought partner. I’ve also talked to some of the other gentleman named Peter Kern, who I just saw a couple of months ago in Italy. And he’s someone who’s been a business leader running private equity and been very sharp minded about where business is and where the bigger trade winds are blowing. And he’s been helpful over almost 15 years to give me that sense of the world. So that’s another kind of tense. And then I’m very fortunate to have had a really good peer group over the years, whether it’s Scott Cutler at Stockx and I catching up about things. There’s a woman who’s at PlayStation, you know, Aret Ziv, who’s one of the, probably the premier human resources executives that I’ve ever met.

 

Darren [00:43:32]:

Agreed.

 

Perkins [00:43:33]:

So I’m very lucky in that I’ve got each of this friend group, and I could probably keep going on, and I’m leaving a number of really critical partners out. Brent Wisnett, who works for a family office but was formerly in private equity, know he’s also an incredibly thoughtful, strategic partner of mine. So I’ve been really grateful for having people who have different disciplines, whether it’s areit who have really focuses on people as leverage, you know, business leaders, finance operators, because I think again, I don’t know everything, obviously, and there’s a weakened number of places. And so when I really need a clear thought partner, I kind of very fortunate to kind of have again, a toolbox I can go to and say, well, I wonder what Scott would have to say or wonder what Peter would have to say about this. And I reach out, yeah, you’ve been.

 

Darren [00:44:24]:

The recipient of, I imagine, a lot of great advice and mentorship. What would you offer in return to somebody listening that’s in a position of senior leadership? Perhaps thinking about CEO, maybe just become a CEO. If there is a single piece of advice that you might offer, what that.

 

Perkins [00:44:41]:

Might be, I think there’s. The balance of leadership, I think is recognizing when you need to make the decision yourself and be convicted and confident and courageous in that action, and when you can lean on others and when you can benefit from the support and trust there. I think that’d be my biggest note, which is recognizing your as the leadership in the CEO role. You’re this hub of the wheel, but the wheel is not a completely symmetric area. It’s this weirdly imbalanced one, actually, or maybe that needs different type of spokes. So your relationship to your board is different from your relationship to your leadership team, which would be different than your relationship to your customers or fans or different relationship to your overemployee base. It can be very isolating in the abstract, but I think learning to understand how to serve each of those audiences and knowing when it needs to be your courage and conviction, like the board board is from a CEO wants courage and conviction and execution. Your role is to define vision and execute against that path and do so transparently and with a level of conviction that everybody recognizes is necessary for the growth of the business. Your e staff may need or executive team may need the compassion and the strength of understanding and curiosity so that you can get the best out of them. Very different dynamics. I think for CEO’s to recognize that it’s an isolating position and recognizing that sometimes you’re going to need the courage and conviction depending on your audience, and sometimes you’re going to need to be curious and compassionate and being able to serve, know how to move through those different mindsets and do so elegantly is what’s really needed. And I think the sooner you can kind of get there, sooner I could get there, the better I did.

 

Darren [00:46:37]:

It’s been a wide ranging conversation as we come to a close here. Anything you’d want to offer maybe as a synthesis of what we’ve discussed or something new that we haven’t covered?

 

Perkins [00:46:48]:

The one thing that I know we didn’t discuss, but I don’t know if it comes through, but is the idea of having some fun with all of this. And, you know, I’m very fortunate in the sense that I work in a business that really doesn’t, from a macro basis, matter that much in some ways, except for the fact that it provides joy, you know, the business of fandom. And I’ve been very fortunate to work in sports and oak around music brings real joy to people. And I think that I hope and I know for myself, like, I really think humor and fun should be part of the experience of leadership. You know, have people around you that you enjoy being around and have a dynamic of the team that is light because there’s always going to be this intensity showing up. I mean, literally every day something’s going to go wrong, guaranteed. That’s a truth of being a CEO. Something will not be perfect. And so I think having a sense of, in the trust that you build and, and the openness that you have as a leader is letting some light in and warmth and joy, because for God’s sakes, we’re all doing this 50, 60 hours a week. I mean, I don’t want to be doing that and just have it be this like intensive medicine discussion. I mean, it’s like, thank goodness, are people building vaccines? We’re not. We’re like talking about video games and, you know, whether Deadpool three is the best movie of all time. I mean, stupid, irrelevant topics largely, but gives people joy. So I just, I would hope that in everything that I’ve been able to do, I’ve been able to find joy, even. And what’s really helped is to bridge those moments that are really trying because, you know, on the other side, there’s going to be lightness and we always find a way to smile. And you’ve encouraged me, by the way, you know, in those meetings when it’s tough, remember to smile because, by the way, it’s, it’s going to have that impact semantically on people’s physiology, if nothing else, and that’ll help make things better. So I just, that’s one thing we didn’t talk about, and I think it’s just really important overall, is to try to bring some joy and light into leadership.

 

Darren [00:48:52]:

I’m really glad you added that, and this has been a lot of fun for me. So I want to thank you for being you, for your leadership, and for spending this time with me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

 

Perkins [00:49:03]:

Well, thank you, Darren. It’s been a pleasure working with you. I’m honored to be on this podcast. I know you’ve got some incredible leaders, so I’m glad I hopefully don’t bring.

 

Darren [00:49:10]:

Down the curve too far anything, but it’s been great. Thanks so much. Wow. What I really appreciated about that conversation with Perkins was his authenticity and commitment to personal mastery. I hope you learned as much as I did, and I look forward to being with you on the next episode. One of one. Until then, I hope you live and lead with courage, wisdom, and above all, love.

 

One of One is produced by Erica Gerard and Podkit Productions. Music by John LaSala.