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The Best Ever Podcast with Scott Eblin is your insider’s guide to what it takes to lead at the highest level at work, at home, and in your community. Each week, Scott sits down with remarkable leaders for real, revealing conversations about the mindset shifts, self-management habits, and everyday routines that fuel extraordinary leadership impact. Drawing on his 25 years of experience as a top executive coach, Scott brings a coach’s lens to every episode to help you bridge the gap between intention and action.
00:00:10 - Scott Elbin
Welcome to Best Ever, the show where we explore how effective self management creates the foundation for positive leadership outcomes. I'm Scott Eblen and in every episode I sit down with notable leaders to uncover the routines, mindset, shifts and strategies that have helped them lead at the highest level and the difference that's made for their organizations, families and communities. Today we're welcoming Harry Kraemer, former chairman and CEO of Baxter International, executive partner at private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, and a clinical professor of leadership at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Through personal practice and self reflection, Harry has become a recognized thought leader on values based leadership. The author of From Values to Action and three other best selling books including his latest, you, Values Based Legacy, Making a Difference at Every Age and Phase of Life. Harry is a mentor and teacher to executives and aspiring leaders around the world. In fact, as we have this conversation today, he's just returned from leadership sessions he's conducted in Shanghai and New Delhi and remarkably, he's jet lag free. Harry, you're the perfect person for a conversation about the connection between effective self management and positive leadership outcomes. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me on Best Ever.
00:01:33 - Harry Kraemer
Great to be with you Scott.
00:01:34 - Scott Elbin
Oh man, I'm so excited about this. So I'd love to start at the beginning. I've read a story you've told of taking a walk as a seven year old boy with your grandfather and as you pass statues of military leaders, you asked them why there were so many wars. And his answer, and this was in the Northwestern alumni magazine, I guess his answer was that people don't take the time to listen to one another and don't reflect on how short of a time they're on this earth. They're only after power and wealth. Your granddad said things that are very temporary. The fact that you remembered that moment from age 7, I think tells us a lot about the big impression and impact that had on you and your life. How would you summarize the impact of that on the course of the rest of your life? That moment with your grandfather.
00:02:20 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, I mean, even today, Scott, I get a little emotional about it. He was a very special guy. And that whole idea is you and I know, Scott, there's so many things going on and we're running, running around and we confuse activity and productivity. Let's just go faster and faster. And that whole idea of why are we on this earth and the short, short time we are, why can't we find ways to get along with one another regardless of location Regardless of your faith, regardless of whatever. And that idea of treat every person the way you'd like to be treated, you could call it Golden Rule or whatever. And even when I was a little kid, it was always sort of like, hey, I realize I am here for a very short time and it's not negative for me at all. That's just a fact. I was a math guy, right? It's a fact. And once I realized that, I really try to conduct my life that way of, hey, we're going to have careers, we're going to do things, but just putting things into perspective and taking the time. Some of us would call it prayer. I teach in a secular university, so I call it self reflection. Okay, it depends on what school I'm talking with. But this whole idea of. I literally refer to it as, you know, Scott, of taking the time to slow down, turn off the noise, and ask yourself some of those very, very basic questions. What are my values? What is my purpose? What really matters?
00:03:49 - Scott Elbin
So eventually that leads to your first book, I guess, right? From Values to Action and that philosophy and Approach to Life and Values to Action. You make the case for four principles of values based leadership. There's self reflection, which you just mentioned. A balanced perspective, which you also mentioned. I think this is all coming from your grandfather, apparently. True self confidence and genuine humility. So you've kind of told me already, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you landed on those four principles. I mean, they're timeless, but there are other timeless principles that one could refer to. So what was it about those four and what other experiences did you have along the way that helped you come down to that short list of principles that kind of guide your life?
00:04:40 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah. So a lot of interesting personal stories in all this. First was my grandfather, as you stated, and then the second kind of fun one. I went to a small college, Lawrence University in Wisconsin. And when I was a senior there, I met a young woman who was a freshman. I met her first day of school, Scott. I admit that. But I was graduated early and I went down to Chicago and I would hitchhike up to visit her. And I did this for a couple weeks. And her father called me from Minnesota and said, hey, I know what's going on here. I need to spend time with you. And I said, sure, come on, Chicago. He said, no, you come to Minnesota and I'll tell you the weekend to come. So I thought, okay. So I went up to Minnesota thinking.
00:05:17 - Scott Elbin
Did you hitchhike there? Or how did you get there.
00:05:19 - Harry Kraemer
Well, you know what? Actually I rented a car, I went up there and it was the first mistake I made. It was the first weekend in December, okay, 20 below, the whole bit. And I thought, hey, we're gonna go to a football game. He said, no, wait, I got an exercise for you. That's what I said, we're gonna go on a retreat together. And I said, what's a retreat? You'll find out. You'll spend a little time thinking about values, purpose, you know, how you're treating my daughter. And I thought, okay. And as we're driving to this retreat.
00:05:42 - Scott Elbin
House, which I didn't want, just the two of you. Just the two of you.
00:05:45 - Harry Kraemer
Just the two of you.
00:05:45 - Scott Elbin
Wow.
00:05:46 - Harry Kraemer
And he said, I should let you know before we get there it's a silent retreat. And I said, what does that mean? He goes, well, you're not going to be talking for the next three days and you can't shut up for three minutes. So this will be an exercise. So we get to this retreat house, 65 men, Scott, no talking at all, other than a Jesuit who every three hours would ring a bell and he'd give you something to think about. He'd say, hey, you're flying home. The plane crashes. What would you have liked to have said to your significant other? Now you take three minutes, you think about that, but I got nobody to talk to. I'm thinking about this. I'm not even on an airplane. And they said, this shouldn't be a one time occurrence. You should spend 15 minutes a day asking yourself what really matters and why. Values, purpose. And I thought, okay, so I'll try to do that. So I said, I'll do that for a couple weeks. Well, I've done that every day, Scott, now for the last 43 years. And what the students find a hard time believing, not only did I marry his daughter, but for the last now, for the last now 43 consecutive years, wherever I am in the world and I travel a lot, the first weekend of December, I fly to Minneapolis St. Paul Airport and I go on this three day retreat with my now 90 year old father in law.
00:06:58 - Scott Elbin
He's still around. That's amazing.
00:07:00 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah. And it literally helps me be very, very clear of what matters and why.
00:07:05 - Scott Elbin
That must have been some authentic true love. Because that sounds like the most intimidating meet the parents weekend I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, that's crazy.
00:07:14 - Harry Kraemer
It was a little while, but the impact of that is huge. Because when I started teaching, Scott, I thought how best to do this so as you said, I'm teaching this leadership class and the students will say, all right, well what do I need to know? And my whole thought was, wait a minute, how could you, as you know, Scott, as a coach, how could you possibly lead others if you can't lead yourself? And so this whole idea of values, purpose, what matters? And I thought, okay, if I can figure out that, that'll be very, very helpful. So when I the first class turned into a book, but it was all first about how can I be self reflective? Why? I'll say, well, if I'm not self reflective, how do I know myself? If I don't know myself, how can I lead myself? If I can't lead myself, how can I possibly lead others? So that's of the first of the four principles. That's what always comes first.
00:08:04 - Scott Elbin
You just really stated the whole premise of this podcast or this show. If you can't lead yourself, how can you lead others? I mean, that connection between self management, effective self management, and the impact and the outcomes that you generate as a leader. Right. You mentioned early on self reflection, and I want to go deep on that in a minute. But the other three principles, the balance, perspective, the self confidence, the genuine humility, it sounds like in your case it's something that you developed all of those over time through life experiences that were shaping you. But does a leader or any other person have to wait for the life experiences? Or in your experience, can you consciously do things to develop routines or actions that are built around those principles so they stick and they become sort of inherent within you?
00:08:57 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah. It's funny when you mention it because people will often say, well, geez, you know, can you really develop? Can you really grow in these areas? Can these be taught? And I always tease and say, I hope they can. That's what I do at North University. No. So I actually think if you're self reflective and you take a little bit of time, as you know, Scott, and just take the time and figure out what matters and why, and you start to think about things. And I realized, well, balance becomes very important because you and I on this podcast, we could talk about anything. And what I realize is people often have very strong opinions. They have their strong opinion, but they have really no understanding of perspectives other than their own. They've got theirs. And I really do believe in addition to self reflection, it's important to develop what I call a balanced perspective. Take the time to understand multiple perspectives, or I love to always quote, I believe it's St. Francis. I, I seek to understand before I'm understood. I seek to understand. If I'm having a discussion with you, Scott, I will almost try not to say, oh, I don't understand, because I've decided that's sort of ignorant. If I take the time to understand, well, then I can decide whether I agree or disagree. But I am going to take the time to understand. And I think that then opens me up to, I can learn more. It isn't about me. And if I think that going north makes sense, but you say to me, hey, Harry, respectfully, have you thought about south? I may say, you know what, forget about north, Scott. Let's go south. Cause as a leader, I have no need to be right. I'm incredibly focused on trying to do the right thing. So this balanced perspective to me means a tremendous amount.
00:10:32 - Scott Elbin
Yeah. You know, you mentioned St. Francis of Assisi and seeking to understand. And I immediately thought of Stephen Covey and the seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
00:10:40 - Harry Kraemer
Exactly.
00:10:41 - Scott Elbin
I think number two, I think is seek first understand, then be understood. Covey drew from some great sources. When you're drawn from St. Francis, Francis of Assisi, no question, that's a pretty good source. I'd like to talk a little bit. I mentioned in the intro one of the many leadership roles that you've played in your life for several years. You were the CEO of Baxter International, Chairman and CEO. As a setup to this next question, could you give us 30 to 60 seconds just on Baxter International, what it does, what the main points of emphasis were during your tenure there, what just for the listener who's maybe not as familiar with the company, what's Baxter do? And when were you the CEO? And just tell us a little bit about that period in your life.
00:11:24 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, sure. Well, when I got out of graduate school, I had the opportunity to go to work for at the time it was Baxter Travenol Laboratories. Travenol was a contraction of intravenous fluid. It was the first company to come up with intravenous fluids, first in glass after the Second World War, and then obviously they became more plastic and so on. So I went there. I always tease the students, Scott. I went there for two years as a junior, junior financial analyst. I forgot to leave and I was there for 25 years. And the company, we basically said we provide critical therapies for people with life threatening conditions and anything to do with drug delivery, dialysis equipment for people with kidney failure, therapeutic proteins. It grew from roughly a little less than a billion to by the time I left, it was a $12 billion company global. 70% of the companies outside the United States based in Chicago, but a global company. And I started in finance operations, a lot of different divisions, ended up becoming the cfo. By the way, Scott, when I was a cfo, my business card never said chief Financial officer. It said cfo, cash flow officer because cash flow kind of matters. And then the last seven years, I was the, the chairman and CEO. So I was there, I guess it was from 1980 till 19, end of 1985, 2000, 2005.
00:12:46 - Scott Elbin
I'd read that you're there in the early 2000s. Right. So that's a long career there. And it says a lot about you that you started out as that junior, junior analyst and ended up as CEO. Can you share any stories or a particular story about how these principles that you really have based your life on influenced the way you operated as CEO? You know, the self reflection, the perspective, self confidence, humility. How do you think those played out? And more particularly, kind of to the point of this show, there's the hairy part of it, but there's also the impact that has on the outcomes. Any connections that you could share between the two and how living by those principles affected the outcomes.
00:13:29 - Harry Kraemer
I would say living those four principles was pretty much everything. By being self reflective, by having a balanced perspective, by what I call true self confidence, of, hey, I was always willing to admit what I don't know, I was willing to admit when I was wrong, and enough genuine humility to realize every single person matters. And what I mean by that is, you're not just nice to people. I often refer to it while I was there. You know, yes, I may be in these positions, but it's not about me. It's not about me at all. And that ability to truly relate to every person had an enormous impact. People would often say to me, well, how do you think about this humility thing? And it's funny, Scott, I'd say to people, well, how did you get to where you are? Well, people usually say, well, I work very hard and I have certain skill sets. I said, well, that's interesting. Yeah, you work hard. Skill sets. I said, well, for me, let's not forget about luck. Let's forget about timing. Let's never forget it's all about the team. It's all about your mentors. And for some of us, you know, there's somebody upstairs as a spiritual, religious perspective. And I think if that happens, you realize every single person matters. What do I mean by that? I knew the name of thousands of people Scott, I couldn't walk into the building without asking the receptionist how she's doing, how her mother's doing, right? You talk to every single person in the cafeteria. And I often relate to. If I'm there at night, late, and the cleaning crew's coming in, you know, I would always like to take the time, a couple minutes to empty out a trash basket. And people would say, oh, you're being a nice guy. And I'd say, well, to be honest, no, I'm actually being a little self reflective because when I'm emptying out a trash bag as the CEO, what I realize, what do I know for a fact? If it wasn't for luck, timing, the team, mentors, and the man upstairs, I could easily be in the cleaning crew. You never forget where you're coming from. And by the way, Scott, I never say humility without genuine because a lot of people act like they're humble. But faking this, as, you know, faking this, you look like a complete, total idiot. But if you live your life that way, it's amazing because I kind of view it as the. I kind of view it, Scott, as a win, win. It seems like the right values thing to do. But even if that light didn't go on, it's exactly what you would do. Then people would do anything for you because you never forget where you came from. Never forget where you came from.
00:15:48 - Scott Elbin
Do you think the culture of Baxter was always aligned with those principles or do you think it became more aligned over time, especially as you moved into more and more senior roles? Cfo, CEO? Did the culture follow you or were you already immersed in the culture and just put the pedal to the metal on that?
00:16:11 - Harry Kraemer
You ask great questions, Scott. I hate. Well, because of. Genuinely, I don't want to make them sound like too much credit, but no, I would say in most organizations and Scott, you coach a lot of people. You know, I think what often happens, honestly, is my opinion opinion. Remember, I always say, Scott, I have very few answers. I have many opinions. I don't do Q and A. I do Q and O, right? So what I realize is my interpretation, Scott, and you may know more about this than I do. An awful lot of really good people, they get told how good they are. You know, Scott, you're good. Scott, you're. Scott, you're phenomenal. And after a while, you start to believe it and you kind of think of yourself as above other people. And from the very beginning, I just took the attitude, never forget where you came from. To the point, Scott, where crazy Enough. Even when I was the CEO and you in this big office, I would at least once a week enter the building from the other end of the site to go into building five, third floor, fourth cubicle, from the west wing wall, which was my four foot by. Just walking by reminded me what it was like to be 22 and to be there. And again, Scott, I emphasize if you. And I can't tell you how serious I am. If you never forget, never forget how you started. Well, now, 20 years later, you remember that. So, for example, Scott, when somebody's making a presentation to me in a boardroom and I'm looking at a slide, a PowerPoint slide, I immediately remind myself being up at 2:00 in the morning, putting a slide like that together. And even now on a lot of boards, I'll say to the CEO, hey, how many of those slides do you need? Somebody's up at 2:00 in the morning. I don't think you need all those slides. So it's very. It's incredibly emotional for me when I say, you never forget. You may be blessed, you may be fortunate, but every single person matters.
00:17:55 - Scott Elbin
You know, there's so many things that come to mind as you share that. I just want to make a couple of points for the folks listening that are kind of like coaching points. I used to teach coaching at Georgetown for about 10 years, and one of the points that we made in that to our students was the power of behavioral practices for their clients, the leaders that they're going to coach, and emptying the garbage for you as a behavioral practice, entering the building as if you're walking from the south 40 of the parking lot when you're 22 years old as an analyst and didn't have the primo parking spot. That was a behavioral practice for you, right? And it reminds you to be humble. The other thing I think about is this Greek word, praxis. You ever heard that one? P R X I S?
00:18:48 - Harry Kraemer
No.
00:18:48 - Scott Elbin
Okay. So they essentially means there's different interpretations of it. But one of them is if you want to be a certain way, then do things that lead to being that way. If you want to be humble, do things that humble you. And it sounds like that's really how you've practiced your leadership and really lived your life kind of on that point. In my own work with leaders, I encourage them to look for routines in four different domains, physical, mental, relational, and spiritual. Domains that if they practice them consistently, would help them show up in their version of peak performance. You know, you at your Best, whatever that looks like for you. And you know, those routines support them in living and leading that way. And self reflection actually is one of the spiritual routines that I recommend the most to people because as you kind of said at the outset, you could call it prayer, you could call it self reflection. It's sort of a tradition neutral approach. Right. And if you're coming from a faith based tradition, terrific, you've got your own. If you're not, that's okay too. But there's power and self reflection. I'd love to hear about your own practice. I mean, you mentioned prayer and I, as comfortable as you are talking about, if you know to the degree that you're comfortable with it, I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about what is your routine of self reflection, the frequency, how much time do you try to dedicate to that each day, each week? Just any of the details that you think might be helpful to folks listening.
00:20:25 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, Scott, you give me a whole lot of things to think about and I'll break it into two pieces related to the prayer, the self reflection. I will spend 15 to 20 minutes every night. I'm not a morning guy, but every night before I go to bed going through what I call the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, which basically goes as follows. What did I say I was going to do today? What did I do? What am I proud of? What am I not proud of? How did I lead people? How did I follow people? If I lived today over again, what would I have done differently? And then the last one, Scott, is if I have tomorrow and I'm very well aware of the fact, sooner or later we won't. But if I do have tomorrow and a learning person, based on what I learned today, how will I operate differently tomorrow on whatever dimension of your life matters, in my case, as a father, as a spouse, as a Christian, as a leader, as a teacher. And I do that 15, 20 minutes every day. And of course the students will say to me, do you do this every day? I do it every day. And 15, 20 minutes is great because if I said I'd do it for an hour, I could easily convince myself I don't. Hard to imagine I don't have 15, 20 minutes. And then the student will say, well, do you have to write it down? I don't think you have to. I do. Because if I don't write it down and my self reflector and my daydreaming, particularly if I've had a couple glasses of wine, it could get a little Murky. And then they'll say, well, geez, wait a minute. If you're taking notes, you know, a paragraph or so, when do you have a chance to read? And I say, well, every year, the first weekend in December, I have three days, okay, on this silent retreat with nobody to talk to other than a prayer book. And then I review it. So the self reflection piece becomes very important. Now you talk about how you think about your life outside of the spiritual side. As you well know, Scott, as a pretty well known coach, at the end of the day, we're not in a sprint. This is a marathon. And if you believe it's a marathon, you gotta pace yourself. And the expression that I tease everybody and I'll tease you now, Scott, I always ask everybody, have you heard of this famous expression that seems to be worldwide? I heard it last week in India, three weeks before in China. This expression called work, life balance. I assume you've heard of this expression, Scott.
00:22:38 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, I hate it actually.
00:22:40 - Harry Kraemer
So I hate it to the extent, Scott, if you look at my hands here, I look at and say, all right, work, life, balance. I mean, it looks and sounds like you're either working or you're living. Okay, so when I wrote the third book, which is called you'd168, and by the way, Scott, I always interview people. Only 1 out of 20 people know why 168 is the world's most important number. I'm going to guess you may not.
00:23:03 - Scott Elbin
I think I do.
00:23:03 - Harry Kraemer
You do?
00:23:04 - Scott Elbin
I think I do. 24 times 7 equals 168.
00:23:07 - Harry Kraemer
Scott, you're one of the few people who knew that. And I didn't tip you off. I honestly, I did not tip you off.
00:23:11 - Scott Elbin
We have never.
00:23:14 - Harry Kraemer
So once you say that, then I say, scott, it's all about life balance. And what I did in that book, which was a tremendous learning for me, Scott, I literally interviewed hundreds of people and I simply asked them the question, how do you think about life balance? And some people said, well, I've got three things I'm trying to focus or 10, it turns out, math major, there's an amazing normal distribution related to 6. In no particular order. Scott, you have your career, your family, your faith, your health, a little bit of fun. And I call being a best student making a difference in the world. And so from my perspective, I'm always trying to get people to think about that. So from my perspective, I make sure, Scott, you know, I'll exercise for at least an hour, five days a week. I will make sure that I spend in my case, a lot of time with my five children as they're growing up, to the point where I had to coach one team for each of the five children. Even no matter what job I was in, I would always make sure I had two or three other guys that we could trade off. Because at the end of the day, when there's 15 first grade girls at the field, one of the five of.
00:24:15 - Scott Elbin
Us, somebody's got to show up.
00:24:17 - Harry Kraemer
And so that ability to keep that balance and realize it's a marathon was something that was and is very important to me. To the point now where now my children are older, they're all over the world. I talked to all five of them every single day. And Julie had said, right after we got married, why is it that 50% of relationships don't stay together? I thought, wait a minute, just got married. Why are we having this discussion? And she said, well, because people sort of drift apart. They don't spend time. And she said, I got a great idea. Why don't we make sure we spend one night a week, no matter what, just the two of us, date night. And we've done date night now, I think, for 43 years. I don't think we've missed a night in 43 years.
00:24:57 - Scott Elbin
Those are fabulous because that's really where I wanted to go next. I, I'm just, I. There's so many things you're saying. I just want to get your thought on this. Actually, that again, for the listener. We talked a minute ago about behavioral practices. You're St. Ignatius of Loyola is four questions, right? We're definitely going to get those in the show notes. That's a self observation exercise, right? I mean, really with the way that you use that process is to observe yourself nightly for 15 to 20 minutes. And if I heard. And that's another thing we teach at Georgetown is self observation exercises followed by behavioral practices, which again, what do I need to do differently tomorrow? I think is the last of your questions. Right. It leads immediately to behaviors that then have impact on outcomes. Right. Whether it's at work or the family, the home, whatever it might be. I want to get your opinion on this one. So I said, I hate the term work life balance. And I've written a lot about this myself. I think of balance. Like that great Mike Tyson line, everybody's got a plan until they get hit in the jaw, right? I mean, they're like, I'm balanced until I'm not. And it doesn't take much to upset the balance. And so the term I Like, and I really would love your honest reaction to this. And it's okay if you think. I think that's a terrible idea. I'm down with that. I really try to encourage people to think about life rhythm. Like what are the elements in your life that make up the overall rhythm? And the cool thing about the rhythm is it comes and it goes, right? I mean, so you'd like to get 100% of 100% of whatever you want in any given day. But it's a rare day when you get all that right. So, you know, I might want to talk with each of my five kids for 10 or 15 minutes. But you know what? It's a two minute check in tonight. Yeah. So that's 25% of what I'd like to do. Or I only have 5 minutes for self reflection tonight because it's been a long day and I've got to get my sleep or whatever it might be. But five minutes is better than zero minutes. Two minutes is better than a two minute check in, is better than no check in. Right. What do you think about the life rhythm idea and that it's going to come back around today may not be perfect, but tomorrow's a different day. What do you think about that?
00:27:04 - Harry Kraemer
Well, I'll always tell you when I agree or disagree. This one, Scott. I agree 100%. And the reason I do is, I conclude in the book, by the way, I don't think it's possible to achieve life balance. I think you pursue it.
00:27:14 - Scott Elbin
I agree.
00:27:14 - Harry Kraemer
And if you're close, congratulations. If you're not, that's the key for me. If you're not, then you ought to ask yourself, why did you say your family's important if you never spend any time with them or faithful, whatever it is? And you're probably, with all the work you've done, Scott, you're probably aware of this, but when you say life rhythm, it reminds me, you may have seen this. Somebody showed it to me in a way where they showed a circle. And you can divide the percentage any way you want, but if one of the parts is out of the circle, the thing will not spin. And so to get that rhythm going and if you may say, wait a minute, wait a minute, my job is so important, that's going to be 80%. Well, then everything else better be somewhat in rhythm so that you actually can spin this thing. So this rhythm idea I think is important and I think it's really interesting. By the way, I'm sure with your work, you know this, Scott, not A week will pass by, then some student or some executive will say to me, I'm sure you've had the same experience, Harry, I'm having trouble balancing my life. I'm having trouble balancing my life. And I always say no answer. Opinion. My opinion is most people I know that are having trouble balancing their life or rhythm is because they're not self reflective enough to figure out what they're trying to balance. If you haven't figured out what matters in your life, how could you possibly balance it?
00:28:29 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So we've kind of covered this, but one of the questions that I thought about in advance because it's such a cool story. And so I'll give you, I want to give you a little bit more opportunity to talk about routines that work for you. There's a really kind of a specific one. So recently the Wall Street Journal ran an article that you were quoted in on executive stress and how to manage your stress. If you're an executive and you talked about when you're CEO at Baxter at a free hour suddenly opened up on your calendar, which is like the greatest thing when a meeting cancels. Oh gosh, I got an hour. I didn't think it's going to. What you'd often do is like hop in your car, crank up Springsteen and head to McDonald's for a big Mac like from the drive through. Right. So I'm totally with you on the Boss. Not so much on the Big Mac. That's not really my jam.
00:29:16 - Harry Kraemer
But it was really chocolate chip cookies.
00:29:19 - Scott Elbin
Okay, well, there you go. Okay. So totally down on the stress reducing breaks. You just got back from Shanghai and New Delhi. I mean, like, what, how do you get those micro breaks in throughout the day to just kind of keep your, your energy where you want it to be? Like, what's working for you? Just sort of in those micro doses where you have a few minutes besides the McDonald's drive thru.
00:29:41 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, well, it's usually not the McDonald's drive thru.
00:29:43 - Scott Elbin
That's good to know. You don't look like a Big Mac kind of guy.
00:29:47 - Harry Kraemer
You know, for me, Chief, if I've got 15 minutes, I will literally just walk outside, take a walk, look out at the trees, look out at the sun. And by the way, in Chicago, if it's snowing, I got my winter coat on my gloves, just getting the fresh air and just stopping and thinking, hey, how is today going? How do I feel about what I'm doing? How reflective am I? And your view of, okay, what practices? If I feel all of a sudden like I'm worried about something. What should I do? Because what I realized early on, I'm sure you have, is what do most people deal with, Scott, that you're coaching? Most people I deal with, they're dealing with a lot of worry, fear, anxiety, pressure and stress. And I sort of tease them. If you're self reflective. One of the big advantages of being self reflective is that you minimize the surprise because bad things are going to. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. So I literally have trained myself, Scott, that I already know what I'm going to do when things turn down, because I know they're going to turn down personally. Relationship wise, work wise. I was talking about with one of the CEOs that I'm the chairman of the board of. He was all wound up and I said, let's take a step back. What happened? Why did it happen? What can we do about it? And I convinced myself very early on in one of my retreats, Scott, this may sound like a simple, I'm very simple guy. I realized no matter what happens, and I mean, no matter what happens, two things. One, with a lot of people's help, I'll try to do the right thing. And two, I'll do the best I can do. And I know it sounds overly simple, Scott, but if I can convince myself that no matter what happens, I'll try to do the right thing, I'll do the best I can, I'll try to do the right thing. I would argue worry, fear, anxiety, pressure and stress can be significantly. You can eliminate.
00:31:31 - Scott Elbin
You reduce the triggers, right?
00:31:33 - Harry Kraemer
You can never eliminate them, but you can minimize them in a very, very big way.
00:31:37 - Scott Elbin
So you're touching on a couple of places I wanted to go. One is you're on several boards. One that I have a little bit of a personal connection with is Leidos, I believe, right?
00:31:47 - Harry Kraemer
Yes.
00:31:48 - Scott Elbin
And some other boards. And then you're an executive partner in the private equity firm Madison Dearborn. You've been doing that for 20 years. So you've met a lot of company leaders, worked with a lot of company leaders, counseled and mentored them. Self reflection sounds like a key differentiator between those that really operate in peak level and those that don't. What else differentiates? In your experience and observation, the ones who are managing themselves effectively. And you can see the impact of the outcomes coming from that and those that aren't so successful over the long run. You talked about the marathon self reflection plus what Else differentiates the great ones from the near greats.
00:32:36 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, no surprise to you, Scott, because we all have ways we kind of simplify things. And I, one of my keys is I try to simplify things so I don't confuse myself. I literally will assess, I think I've been on the board of what, 20 some companies now or non profits. I assess people very simply in what we've already talked about. Scott, if I'm just going to role play, I'm looking at you and working with you. How self reflective is this guy? How self aware is he? How balanced is he? Does he seek to understand before he's understood? What kind of true self confidence does this Scott guy have? Is he willing to admit that he doesn't know? Is he willing to admit that he was wrong? Does he realize it's not about him, it's about the team and how do you treat people? One of the great ways I've always interviewed people is I'll take you to dinner and all I'm watching at dinner is how do you treat the staff, how do you treat the waiter, how do you treat the busboy? Because I want people on my team that really live those four principles. And literally when I interview people and I'm going to interview somebody this afternoon, I literally will have my own little card. And I'm trying to assess the person on those four because I have found, assuming the person has the specific hard skills they need, if I can find somebody, Scott, that follows those four principles to some degree, I will hire the person.
00:33:52 - Scott Elbin
Very good. So you talked about doing the right thing. And one of the stories that I came across or events in your life that I came across when I was doing the research for our conversation was back in 2005 when you were CEO of Baxter, the company had a subsidiary, Alpha, I think was the name that produced filters used in kidney dialysis that were linked to some patient deaths in Spain and Croatia. Do I have that right?
00:34:14 - Harry Kraemer
You got it, yeah.
00:34:16 - Scott Elbin
And so you pretty quickly, based on what I've read, made a public apology, conducted an investigation, reached a settlement with the patient's families, those that died, the families of the deceased, and then closed the subsidiary. And you took a $180 million write down in the process and I, I'd love to have you talk about how your values informed all of the decisions that you had to make in that multi month process related to that event.
00:34:43 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, boy, you summarized it very, very well. I mean, when you're a company whose focus is providing critical therapies to People with life threatening conditions and then people die as a result of it. How do you deal with that? And it's a great example of what we talked about before we knew, I knew that despite all well intentions, something is going to go wrong. Something's going to go wrong. So when something goes wrong, instead of fear, panic or whatever, it's what happened, why did it happen? What's the right thing to do, what's the right thing to do? So rather than, well, maybe it wasn't our fault, maybe it wasn't the dialyzer, some people were saying, oh, it may have been the water wasn't sterile, whatever. Okay, well maybe. But guess what? Let's assume it's our problem. Let's take the responsibility. And when people would say, well, maybe not all the dialyzers are bad, maybe, whatever, then I literally said to one of the scientists, well, let me just ask you this, I'm not a scientific guy, but if your daughter unfortunately had to go on dialysis today, would you give her that dialyzer? And I didn't get a really good response. Well, I think we know the answer. And it was very interesting, Scott. You're reading some of it was a lot of articles written about this. And people would literally say to me in the media, boy, that must have been very, very difficult. And I said, you know what, to be honest, it was a terrible situation, but it wasn't difficult. And the reason it wasn't difficult, Scott, was for those two reasons. We'll do the right thing, we'll do the best we can do. And when people say it must have been tough, I said, Well, I had 55,000 people in the company that were just expecting me to do the right thing. I knew most of them. And so it makes life much simpler when you look at it in a very, very straightforward way. That's why I think about it.
00:36:27 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense for sure. One of the things I thought about when I was reading it was you had a lot of different stakeholders in that situation. You know, you had most immediately the families of the folks who died. You had regulators in Spain and Croatia, probably the EU and the US as well, that were paying attention to this. You had Baxter shareholders, you had Baxter employees, you said to 55,000. But you've also got folks at the, I think you closed down two factories as part of that process. So those folks are no longer, I guess, employed by Baxter. So it's, you know, it's not simple. Right? You know, the do the right thing is a terrific Guiding Light. But even within do the right thing, it's not a simple decision. How do you, how do you think through the values guidance when you've got really competing commitments or competing interest among different shareholder groups or stakeholder groups?
00:37:21 - Harry Kraemer
I should say, yeah, no, Scott, you raise great questions. So the way I think about it is, as I said earlier, I have very few answers. I surround myself with people that are a lot better than I am and I actually listen to them. Okay, what do you think, Joe? What do you think, Mary? And you take all of that and you listen to it, you think about it, you reflect on it and say, all right, in this world, to try to keep it simple, in an uncertain world, what do we think makes the most sense? And let's try that and we'll go from there. And I do believe maybe I could be accused of being a little bit idealist, but I actually realize if you say we're going to do the right thing, that will make your team feel like they want to be part of this company. It'll certainly make your customers and the patients feel like, hey, when there is a problem, we're going to do the right thing. And I actually believe while the shareholders immediate response is going to have the stock go down, if you can demonstrate you dealt with a problem as efficiently as you could and treated people as well as you could in that circumstance, that that could actually work out. Which, by the way, Scott, that was actually fairly remarkable. The stock fell. We wrote off the $180 million. What I hadn't expected was within six, seven months, I started getting calls from customer groups that had never bought our dialyzers that said, we're going to switch to Baxter dialyzers because the one thing we know, when you folks have a problem, you will do the right thing. So I keep it simple enough, Scott. And by the way, it was one plant that closed. And what we ended up doing, we offered those people the opportunity to go to work in another facility.
00:38:53 - Scott Elbin
Awesome.
00:38:54 - Harry Kraemer
Or to have severance. It's a little bit, Scott, of I know it sounds. We will try to treat every single person the way we like to be treated. And rather than thinking, oh, these stakeholders are all very, very separate, I try to think of a way of how can you bring them all together in an uncertain world.
00:39:12 - Scott Elbin
Love it. As we begin to wrap up the conversation, I want to talk a little bit about your latest book, your values based legacy, Making a difference at every Age and Phase of life, which is something I've been personally reading about lately. I'm Adding yours to my reading list. What inspired you to write the book? And what are the main messages or takeaways that you hope readers get from it?
00:39:33 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, it's kind of fun, Scott. This is where you have to have a sense of humor. As a CEO of a large company and I came to teach, the last thing I ever thought is I'd start writing books. I mean, I thought, I don't even write short emails. But you know, when I first started and that first class on four principles ended up becoming a book, I realized, okay, well, that's how, that's how you become a value based leader. And I get all my ideas from the students. And the students started to say, Scott, all right, how do you lead a value based life? Excuse me? No, it was how you advise value. How do you build a value based organization? And that was the second book Becoming the best. And I thought, okay, I'm done. Until students said, well, how do you live a value based life? Okay, you know your life rhythm. And it was year 168. And then I thought I was done until about a year ago. And then all of a sudden people said, how do you live a value based legacy? What's beyond this life? What difference do we want to make while we're here that's going to impact not just our children and our grandchildren, but future generations and study this whole idea of legacy, because I actually thought that legacy, oh, that's, I've done well financially, so I'll set up a foundation or something. And it's like, no, legacy is not about the money. It's literally what difference do you really want to make as an individual that can impact the current and the future state? And I ended up interviewing a lot of different people and I realized there's a lot that's going on here. There are some people that are dedicating their life. Okay, one is this Andrew Yun that I mentioned. Y o u n who started something called the One Acre Fund in Africa, which is an unbelievable story of a guy who said, hey, I think we could double or triple the crop yield on these farms. And he graduated from Kellogg Northwestern, and rather than taking a job in New York, he moved to Kenya. And he's been there for like 17 years. They've doubled or tripled the crop Yield, Scott, on 5.1 million farms and save the lives of 10, 12 million children. And there's people who go through a tragedy where there's a person whose son dies as a result of an overdose, as a result of an illness, says, well, no, I'm not going to sit and watch. I'm going to set up a foundation. I'm going to find out what do we do to minimize the chance that people are going to die of an overdose. I found it fascinating to see once you realize we're here for a blink of an eye. You and I talked about this at the beginning. Once you realize how short we're on this earth, what difference do you want to make? And are you self reflective enough to realize it isn't about me, it's about making a difference and it's your value based legacy.
00:41:58 - Scott Elbin
I'm glad you mentioned the One Acre Fund because I'd read about that as well and doing the research for our conversation and what I read is that you donate all of your speaking fees and book royalties to the One Acre Fund. True statement.
00:42:12 - Harry Kraemer
True statement. Originally Scott, I told him I would do one talk a month. And I've kind of got into this, Scott. So I do two a week and I did one the other day for a company. It was my 1,623rd talk. I do two a week for 17 years. And all the proceeds from the talks and all the proceeds from the sale of all four of the books now all go to the One Acre Fund.
00:42:34 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, so that's amazing. And I'm sure that's added up to quite a sum given all the speeches you've given and everything else. But there's, you know, it's interesting with the legacy, there are so many heart tugging needs, you know, in the world and there's, it can become overwhelming really or like where do, where do I help, where do I plug in? How did, how do you sort through that? I mean, because I'm sure there's a lot more requests on your time and attention and resources than you could ever. Especially the time and attention. Right. There's only so much of that. How do you choose where to contribute in the community and just how do you think through that? Harry?
00:43:16 - Harry Kraemer
Yeah, you know, four words I seem to use, no matter what the topic seems to be, Scott, is discipline, focus, consistency, credibility. So to your point, there's an endless number of things to do and I think where the self reflection comes in is to say, are there certain things that you have a natural inclination toward? Is it because you're fascinated by that topic, you see a significant need that maybe you can do something about? Or is there somebody that you highly admire and it may not even be something you're that interested in, but somebody you highly admire? Say wait a minute, if Scott's focused on that. I'm literally going to support Scott. And therefore I think it really comes down to it has to be a priority. So, for example, I mean, I always try to be very open. So do I really believe that we have a serious issue with climate control and the formula? Absolutely. I mean, there's no question. I mean, sign me up big time. But is that one I'm going to personally spend a lot of time on? No, it's a big, big issue. But there's only 168 hours in a week. And I just feel a certain more affinity to the fact that there's people on this earth now that are farmers that are starving. How does a farmer starve? Okay, So I almost, because I get this asked a lot, Scott and I always tell people, good place to take some self reflection. Good place to take a long walk. Okay. You know, get a certain amount of time. What speaks to you? Is there certain. Is children's education in this country so bad in so many areas right now that until we fix that issue, no wonder we've got a lot of other problems. So is it hunger? Is it, Wait a second, we're in the world's wealthiest country, but instead of taking care of our health, you realize we don't have health care, we have sick care, okay? And we've got what, 35% of the population that's obese, that's gonna end up with kidney disease, okay? And diabetes. So it's like what speaks to you. And you mentioned before Stephen Covey. So remember one of the slides that I think about his all the time? Remember that slide, Scott, where he draws this big circle of, circle of concern and inside there's this little circle of influence. And he taught me to say, wait a minute, shrink that puppy circle of concern. Make your circle of influence inside it almost concentric to the point where, you know, what if I can't influence it and it's not one of the things I do with my168, I'm going to let Scott or somebody else deal with it. Because being concerned about something and not doing anything about it solves absolutely nothing.
00:45:52 - Scott Elbin
Pick your spot, right?
00:45:54 - Harry Kraemer
Pick your spot, Pick your spot.
00:45:55 - Scott Elbin
And I love the four, Give me the four criteria again that you're using to pick your spot.
00:46:00 - Harry Kraemer
Discipline, focus, consistency breeds credibility. I think about that every day.
00:46:07 - Scott Elbin
Love it. Love it. We've talked about work outcomes a good bit. We've talked about community based outcomes just now. And you mentioned a little while ago your five children, who I think sounds like You've achieved every parent's dream. You've launched all five into successful adulthood. So good job out of you guys for that. You mentioned date night. You've been with your wife's name again is Julie. Julie. You guys have been together since freshman year. In spite of the rigorous silent retreat her dad put you through. Or maybe because of the silent retreat. In spite of. What else? What else has helped a lot as a spouse and a dad over the years in terms of creating a legacy that you're proud of with your family and a marriage that has gone on for 40 plus years. Quite successful, obviously. What else has helped a lot?
00:47:04 - Harry Kraemer
Well, in my case, I think my faith has had a big part. You've taught at Georgetown, so you know what I'm talking about there. Realizing what does it really mean to be a father? What does it really mean to be a spouse and creating an environment where you let people grow. I always say, from, what is it, zero to 18, you're kind of like in control of the situation. 18 to 22, you think you are, but what's really going on at Georgetown, I'm not so sure. And then adulthood of being there. And the fun example that I feel like I'm probably most proud of is my oldest daughter. She married a fellow that she was going to school with. A couple years ago they moved to Boston. Scott. And my wife, with my youngest son just graduating from Notre Dame last year, she was, oh my goodness, Harry, we're empty nesters or whatever. And oh my goodness. I said, well, Julie, we're in Chicago, we have five children. I wouldn't worry about it. So Scott, she's worried what happens. My daughter calls me 15 months ago from Boston and said, harry, dad, dad, we're going to have a baby. I said, oh my goodness, it's great. We'd be a grandparent. We'll come out to Boston. No, no need. We're going to come back to Chicago. We're going to move back. I said, oh, fantastic. After the baby's born. Well, no, dad, we're going to go do it now. We'll have the baby there. I said, well, do you want me to get you an apartment? She said, oh, Dad, I didn't make this very clear. We're moving back to the house. We're converting our bedroom into a nursery. And I said, okay. And then my other daughter who lives was living in London, she called me three months ago and said, dad, just so you know, I'm moving back to Chicago. I said, do you need an apartment? No, I've talked to Susie. I'm moving back to the house. Okay, so she's back. And my youngest daughter, who's a critical care nurse at the Mayo Clinic, I know they're talking to her, saying, hey, Dad's on the board of the hospital in Evanston in town, you know, I'm sure we could get you a job back. So I've gone in six months now, Scott, from oh my goodness, we're going to be emptying nesters to I may need to build a new house now.
00:48:59 - Scott Elbin
You've got three generations there. That's amazing.
00:49:02 - Harry Kraemer
And I've been accused, Scott, by the way, I don't know if you're a grandparent yet, but I've been accused by my five children of spending more time with my grandson than all five of them combined. In fact, my oldest daughter said, dad, you have more pictures of him in a year than you have of me. And I'm 35. How could you have more pictures of him than me?
00:49:21 - Scott Elbin
Because there was no iPhone back then. That's easy.
00:49:23 - Harry Kraemer
Well, that's an easy one. That's an E. But I tease her also, Scott, to just say, I like him more than you. So we have a lot of fun.
00:49:32 - Scott Elbin
Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. That's the lesson there. What's your one best piece? So you've got so much wisdom to share and so many good pieces of advice. What's your one best piece of advice for leaders who want to create a legacy that aligns with their values, no matter what stage of life they're in?
00:49:51 - Harry Kraemer
I guess for me, it is a realization that I'm here for a blink of an eye and what's the biggest impact I can make as set as an example for values on every person that I interact with, whether it's at work, whether it's at family, whether it's teaching and feeling like, what are you doing to make a difference? In fact, the last comment I'll make to you, Scott, kind of fun. The dean sometime recently said to me, hey, you said we could talk about anything. So since you're turning 70, just curious. I mean, what are you thinking? How long do you think you'll be teaching? I said, you know, I've thought a lot about it. I've talked to Julie. Respectfully, I'm probably down to my last 20 years of teaching.
00:50:33 - Scott Elbin
I'm probably down to my last 20.
00:50:34 - Harry Kraemer
Years because Julie said to me, I don't know what your situation, Scott, but Julie told me 40 some years ago when we got married at St. Luke's Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. For better or worse, for sickness and health. Not for lunch. You're too hyper to be a lunch. So we'll get together in the evening and the weekends, but, you know, you better keep active. So I look at it, Scott, if I was teaching finance, I would have done it for a couple years. But teaching value based leadership, as you know, Scott, of what you're doing in the coaching, if I can have a very small impact on the next generation of people, particularly in the world we're living now. We didn't get into it today, but you look at what's happening in the world today, the one thing that's pretty obvious to me, we are in desperate, desperate need of more value based leaders. We'll leave it at that.
00:51:18 - Scott Elbin
Totally.
00:51:18 - Harry Kraemer
Right.
00:51:18 - Scott Elbin
I just posted a blog post this morning on. You heard of the framework Bani yet? B A N I?
00:51:24 - Harry Kraemer
No.
00:51:25 - Scott Elbin
It's sort of the successor to Vuca. And Bani stands for brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible.
00:51:33 - Harry Kraemer
Wow. Send that to me. I'd love to see that.
00:51:37 - Scott Elbin
I'll send you the post.
00:51:38 - Harry Kraemer
The way I've been describing things lately is if you and I. If you and I a couple years ago literally wrote down everything that's been happening, there is no way we could sell it as nonfiction. Hell no, not sell it as nonfiction. And when people ask me to get into details of what's going on, for me, it's very, very simple. I say, I teach values based leadership. What do you think? I think about what's going on.
00:52:01 - Scott Elbin
Yeah. Yeah. I got one last question for fun, but an observation before I ask it. You. You a fan of Arthur Brooks? Familiar with him? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, me too. And he, Arthur writes a lot about the transition from fluid intelligence when you're young and young and frisky to crystallized intelligence when you are older and wiser. Right. And you seem to me to be quite the purveyor of crystallized wisdom and intelligence, Harry.
00:52:32 - Harry Kraemer
Well, thank you.
00:52:33 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, I appreciate that, Chief.
00:52:35 - Harry Kraemer
And in fact, I don't know if you've seen it, but somebody actually gave me a book and knowing a little bit about you, Scott, and this will be. We should spend more time together. Some other time. They actually, you may know this fellow, but I just got a book and I've read it now I'm going to read it again. It's a pretty simple book. Are you familiar with a book called Falling Forward by Richard Rohr?
00:52:54 - Scott Elbin
Yeah, yeah, I Read it last year. I have that very book.
00:52:58 - Harry Kraemer
I read it once. I got the whole thing underlined. But it's similar to this thing, right? We live the first part of our life. It's kind of about us. And then some people, it's always about us. And other people start to see, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's examine what my life's been. Let's examine where I am and the time that I've got here. What difference do I do? I really want to make? I find it very helpful. I'm sure him before.
00:53:19 - Scott Elbin
He's amazing. We should have a whole other conversation sometime about Richard Rohr. So my fun question, this has been a fan. I can't believe it's already been an hour. But my fun question for you that I like to ask all the guests on Best Ever, what's been in your ears lately? In other words, what are you listening to that's inspiring you or shaping your thinking?
00:53:41 - Harry Kraemer
Well, interesting. I would say that the two things that have impacted me the most lately are this falling forward and literally the words he uses and the way he ties it. And the other one, which I've given a book to a lot of people, knowing you, you probably read that one too, and I'm mentioning it to everybody, is you're familiar with Francis Collins.
00:54:01 - Scott Elbin
Oh, the nih. He just retired from the nih. Yeah.
00:54:05 - Harry Kraemer
The book that he did, Chief, that I've got here on my desk is the Road to Wisdom. And knowing you a little bit, Scott, and just you find it interesting because if you think about what's happening, Scott, and I find this. We can talk about this sometime. What I find fascinating is how did we get here, Scott? How did we get here? To the point where we're so totally polarized that we really can't talk to one another. And how did that happen? And you and I both know that as a result of social media with the echo chambers, instead of you having a view and I having a view. But I respect you. We have a different view, too. Wait a minute. How could you possibly believe that? And this echo chambers of not being able to talk. And in this road to wisdom, the brief one minute explanation, I'll give you, Chief, as he says, there's four things that we've got to get our act together on. One, we've got to figure out what truth is. We have to agree on what is actually true or not. Okay. The second one is science. I mean, we used to believe that science, in order for something, for a scientist to say something they had to go through so many proofs. So science. The third one is faith. You and I've touched upon that one. And people can believe whatever they want to believe, but if you don't believe in anything, okay, that creates a little bit of a problem in how you interact with other people and what's acceptable or not. And then the fourth one is trust. Okay? Do we even trust one another? And I gotta tell you, I recommend it because it's summarized for me. I love the simplicity. And by the way, he sort of teases about it a little bit, you know, when he talks about what's truth. I didn't know this, and maybe you knew this, Scott, but Tibbletum, it's true. He said, here's how. He said, harry, this is my colloquial way of saying it. He said, here's how I know we got a little bit of problem with truth. He said, do you know that there is an organization that several million people follow called the Flat Earth Society? And I said, I don't know about. And he said, now think about that. If there's a lot of people out there who don't even agree that the world is round and you and I are wondering why we can't agree on anything, no wonder we got a problem. Okay. Or on the science. To say, I think it's something like 90 to 95% of scientists would say we definitely have an issue related to climate, but yet, I don't know, half the population doesn't believe we do. Okay.
00:56:21 - Scott Elbin
Yeah. I used to be a huge fan of a famous quote from the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, that everybody's entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
00:56:33 - Harry Kraemer
I love that. I love that.
00:56:35 - Scott Elbin
Yeah. But the sad thing about it is, even facts are called into question at this point. That's why it's a banny world. Right.
00:56:45 - Harry Kraemer
Well, I look forward to reading that. I really want to see your.
00:56:48 - Scott Elbin
I'll send it to you later today. Well, Harry, I feel like we should, like, call a bio break and come back for hour two, because I feel like we're just getting started, but sadly, that's not an option for either of us, I'm guessing. This has been amazing. I've so enjoyed this conversation with you and thank you for everything you've brought to it and really just thank you for everything you've done up until now in your life. That makes you such a great conversation partner. It's. It's really inspiring and. And everybody's going to get a lot out of the wisdom that you shared with me today. Thank you so much.
00:57:19 - Harry Kraemer
I very much appreciate it. I look forward to reading more of your works and send me a couple of those posts and I wish you the very best my friend and definitely get together sometime and I look forward.
00:57:29 - Scott Elbin
To seeing you in person sometime. Okay, great deal. Have a good afternoon.
00:57:33 - Harry Kraemer
Take good care.
00:57:44 - Scott Elbin
Wow, that was one heck of a conversation with Harry Kraemer. I am so grateful for that and I'm so glad that you listened in. I hope you had got some valuable takeaways. I like to end every episode of Best Ever with what I like to call coachable moments. Like what are the actionable things that you could maybe take from this conversation and put to work immediately to both manage yourself more effectively and have a more positive and way up there on the charts, Leadership Impact Two things among many. But two things really stood out for me from Harry. One was at the very end of the conversation when I asked him to talk about with all the needs in the world, how do you choose the one or two or three that you really want to focus on? He had four criteria for picking your spots that I think apply not just to your charitable endeavors and your community endeavors, but probably anything you're doing with your very scarce time and attention and the limited amount of time we have here on this earth. His four criteria, just so you catch them, are what's the degree of discipline? What's the degree of focus? What's the degree of consistency? And that leads to the fourth item, credibility. Those first three kind of add up to credibility. So when you're deciding where do you want to get involved, especially in the community arena, I thought those were four great discipline, focus, consistency and credibility. The other thing that really stuck with me and we talked a little bit throughout the conversation about this distinction we teach that I used to teach at the coaching program in Georgetown. I think they still teach it there. There are self observation exercises that you can engage in and then that's followed by behavioral practices where you put the insights that you develop in self observation into practice. Harry's got a nightly routine of self reflection that he learned from the readings or the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. And it really revolves around spending 15 or 20 minutes on questions that he asked himself. What did I say I was going to do today? What did I do today? So that's kind of a gap analysis on what did I say I was going to do? What did I actually do? What am I proud of that I did today? What am I not proud of? Sort of you know, examining the heart kind of issues. How do I lead? How do I follow? And if I live today over again, what would I do differently? And then put it into practice behaviorally with this last question, based on what I did and I learned today, what will I do differently tomorrow? There's a reason that routine has been around for hundreds of years. Because it works right? And it clearly works for Harry. You can adopt it or adapt it, whatever works for you. But I would highly encourage you to develop some sort of routine for self reflection and practice that on a regular basis. Daily is awesome, but if you don't hit it daily, even a few times a week is better than zero. That Saint Ignatius of Loyola routine that Harry started with is a terrific one to start with, so I want to thank you for listening. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to follow Best Ever. We're at. Whenever you get your podcast, as they say, leave a review. It helps us a lot to get the show out there. If there's a star system on your favorite platform, give us as many stars as you feel comfortable giving us. I hope it's a lot. You can follow Harry Kraemer and his work@Harry Kraemer.org and if you're looking for more strategies on effective self management leadership, be sure to check out evelyngroup.com my blog and a lot of different resources for you to send there in addition to this podcast. So thanks for listening to Best Ever. And until next time, I really encourage you to keep taking those small steps of self management that, when consistently applied, lead to big and positive outcomes. See you next time.