Resiliency The Podcast

Welcome to today's episode of Resiliency the podcast. I am Jen Quater, your host, a global strategic communicator and the CEO of a PR firm called the Smart Agency. I am joined as always by our wonderful cohost, doctor Kelly Culver. She is a renowned global leader. She's has more than three decades of experience as a director, an entrepreneur, a strategist, an executive coach, and our resident doctor of resilience.

Always happy to see you, doctor Kelly. And today, we have something so special for our listeners, you guys. Today's guest is the former global business operations director for a company we've all heard of, Apple. His resiliency in business helped Apple to break into Europe, and he brought helped to bring the company into India. He is responsible for setting up the first office for Apple in The Middle East.

And to this day, Apple still uses algorithms that he designed to keep things running. We are so honored, excited, and ready to learn from the great Tom Pysing. Welcome, Tom. How are you today?

I'm very well. Thank Thank you very much. That was a a humbling a humbling intro, so thank you.

That's That's what we try to do here, Tom, keep you humble and keep you resilient. Right?

It's always good to be on the street now. Thank you. Thank you.

It's a good

day to both of you.

Well, thank you. And, you know, we are super excited. Jen said that we are super excited because you have some really interesting stories to tell us and things to share and stuff I know that we can learn from. And we're just curious right now. Where are you sitting?

Where are you located at this nanosecond?

At this nanosecond. I'm in London. So, yeah, I'm in London. I'm in North London. A beautiful day in London today.

So beautiful fall day. And, it's a wonderful time to be, to be out and about because today, it's not raining.

Ah, well done. Well done. And so on that today is not raining. Tom, what does resiliency mean to you?

So, you know, it's, I've done some research. And, you know, for me resiliency is you hear it very often. It's a little bit like maybe motherhood where it it you you can never challenge it. I think it's a concept that's both strategic and visionary as well as tactical. So for me, resiliency is someone who can create a vision of where they want to be, a goal they want to achieve, but yet at some level, it also is having the grit, the determination, the, the, the adherence to be able to course correct all the various ways and paths that you could actually get to your goal.

And if you have to do that by yourself, you're self driven. But if you have to recreate that inspiration outside and drive a team, that is also a very important element of of of being resilient. But for me, it's about that. It's someone who can create a vision, but also tactically course correct their their path, both crafting a path in their mind, but also creating the course correction and being able to actually be flexible to continue on looking at the vision. So that for me is kinda resilience.

That's what it means to me.

Such a cool and and all encompassing and, direction there, Tom, because I think, what I see in that is this ability to course correct and that the the the the combination of visionary and tactical is really interesting because I think a lot of leaders think that you have to be one or the other. You have to be either visionary or tactical, and trying to do both can be quite a quite a feat. And you yourself worked shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand with some of of the most recognized leaders in in our world and in in in our time, and that would be Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. And so these were great men, of course. And I just wonder if taking that definition of resiliency, course correction, being strategic and visionary and tactical, can you talk to us about some of the lessons that you personally learned from Steve Jobs and Tim Cook?

Well, Steve, you know, I didn't have direct, that much direct contact. We would meet with Steve every three months. But with Tim, I worked with Tim, you know, you know, very, very directly. So I mean, Steve is a legendary a visionary guy. I actually think that Steve for me, if if I were to encapsulate the decision the, the definition of resilience, Steve was incredibly resilient for building Apple.

And it was, I mean, my learning from Steve at a distance was being able to see through things that one other people could not see. So Steve had this ability to see through things, and under and and that really is, again, this this ability to create a vision. And he is, you know, most people see a mountain and he was seen through the mountain and and seeing where the power button should be on the iPhone, and challenging why do you even need a button. And that's the cut kind of thinking that Steve had. And they're very different than Tim that he could take that vision and create a very, very detailed plan to make that vision happen.

Like, we need to open up a new country like China. We need to move our manufacturing facilities. So those are the kind of meta projects that that that Tim was so was so was so great at. And I think the two of them contribute very well to each other, you know, because Steve was the visionary around the product. Tim was really the Tim was the I don't wanna say tactician, but Tim was the the leader who could make the foundation happen, to support the vision.

Right? So those are the kind of the two, there's a lot of learnings that Tim taught me, especially in meetings when he would ask a zillion questions and he would already be answering the question that I couldn't answer. And and and that was, really, those type of operational issues because understood the supply chain so well. And he was actually answering your questions for you, because he he he knew the answer to your eighth question, that you were gonna answer. And that's that that's that's how tactful and how insightful he was into, you know, the supply chain and operations and things like that.

So

You know, it's interesting when you say he knew the answer to the eighth question that you didn't know that you need to ask, if I can use a hockey analogy here.

Yeah.

You know, Wayne Gretzky was asked, how do you score all of these goals? And he said, it's simple. I skate to where this puck is supposed to be. Yeah. And it arrives.

Right. He go you know, he was able to go there, and and then it would show up. And so you're you're, like, you're speaking my language. I'm just so excited around you know, you use the word strategic and visionary, and, you know, that's that's sort of what I'm trying, tactical and course correct. I think you and I had a discussion in London about course correct.

And Exactly.

For our

listeners, you know, Google NASA moonshot, and you'll see NASA had to course correct 1,001 times before John landed on the moon, and they didn't look at it as a failure.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of learnings there.

Yeah. Well, I think that's a fascinating learning and one I kinda wanna pick up on, which is to say, you know, here you are, someone who's had this this and and I'm to you, Tom, but you too, doctor Kelly, you both had these huge global careers. You've worked with all these different people. Can we talk about resilience and failure for a minute? You know?

I I think and maybe, Tom, I'll pose this to you because you're our our wonderful, illustrious guest. But, you know and and we were speaking about really what you learned working hand in hand with Tim Cook and and where he brought. Could could we spring a question on you and say, were there failures you encountered? Of course. And and if so, how do you keep that core how do you keep that energy going, let's say, both for you and Tim at the top and then also for that team that you're guiding, which is which is many, many, many people?

How do you face failure and find the resilience through that?

Well, so I I can think of a a story where, Apple, it may not have been a failure. It was a it was a situation that the operations team had to clean up where Tim and Steve used to meet at the Starbucks in Palo Alto on a regular basis because they both lived in Palo Alto. So on a Sunday morning, discreetly as you would in California, you you you take a coffee and you go for a walk. Steve was famous for walking. And it was early in the in the production and the launch of the iPOD where we decided to get rid of, to to eliminate the first product in the line only after they had manufactured many millions of these products, the eight gig, and start at 16.

Right? And this is all related to back in the nineties of, you know, DRAM supply and where you start a product and what's available. And, this is something that Tim was was an absolute brilliant strategist as determining where. So it turns out that on a Sunday, they've manufactured all the the products for launch. And on a Sunday morning, Steve says, you know, I think we should start at the 16.

Right? We should reprice the whole product line. And Tim was left with this operational problem of what do you do with, 15,000,000, 15 13 to 15,000,008 gig iPods that are around the world in warehouses around the world. So, that was a big problem that he he had to up. I wouldn't call it a failure.

It was a decision which led to that. But, he brought us all together and we, effectively had to figure out a way to deplete the inventory in a way that didn't that didn't show up in the normal channels. So obviously, they looked at Europe because there's a lot of emerging markets where generally the product you can, you can operationally deplete the inventory without it without it showing up in in in other areas. You know, The Middle East, Africa would be those. So he he and I were working together on that project.

So I I wouldn't call it a failure, but I would call it this, you know, a course correction of trying to figure out where, you know, we're left with this decision. This is the best decision for the company. And, again, that, you know, hats off to Steve that saw the you know, most people, because the DRAM pricing the way it was going, we decided to start with a product that was slightly higher, that had more capacity, and would attract more people. Right? Slightly higher in price, but as Apple, it it is not a low cost product, but they always try to present three things in the Buddhist concept of three, a good, better, and best for all their products.

And so by eliminating the eight gig, they had to create another higher product, which was the 64 gig. Right? So, because they didn't have that. So not only were you eliminating one product on the bottom, but you needed to add another product. So that was the the other operational problem that Tim was left with.

But I was involved with the depletion of the, you know, 15,000,000, iPods. And that presented a very big a very big problem. And that was basically creating a process of working through regular meetings with with each of the teams that were in charge of getting rid of this. Making sure that we understood the data, we under how many we had left, where they were, what are the colors, and going through this process of management where you're just looking at that data every other day and you're talking to the sales teams around the world to try to deplete the inventory. Right?

So, so that was, that's a good example of resiliency because it took us about six months to do that. Took us about six months to do that.

Well, it's six six months and a a lot of oh, yeah. Sorry. I was gonna say there's six six months and a lot of time and likely a a lot of money. You know? And and so I kinda wanna ask this.

And, again, Steve Jobs is, like, the best leader in the world, but who better to learn from? What what does it take to make that kind of a decision? And, again, you sat in a different seat. I'm not asking you to get into Steve's mind. But but when I here I am.

I'm you know, I I own a company. I bought it in 2018. And I would be beside myself if if I knew that I had to leave that much product that I had created. And I and I would, I think, be tempted to see it as a failure. So I just wanna dig for a moment into the mindset of resilience because I do understand the operational strategy behind it had to be so effective and so tactical.

But at at that moment, that decision being made, can you talk about about that from, again, when you see a leadership style that that that has that much vision but is willing to take that much risk? Can you talk about, about how that makes it resilient? You know, like, how what what do you see in that as someone who lived that with them?

It's a very it's it's a very good question and observation. I I think a lot of it relates to Steve's insistence that he was only focused on the customer experience. And, here's here's an example. Steve very often would not participate in a lot of the normal business process, finance, operational reviews. He would read his email, email, and that's people obviously understood that, but people, customers, some customer in the middle of, you know, Germany would send them an email and he would read it.

And middle of, you know, Germany would send them an email and he would read it. And that's how he understood how his company was delivering an experience through that. And I think when he sat there at the Starbucks with Tim and they went for a walk probably past Mark Zuckerberg's house, and he was entirely focused on the, you know, consumers around the world, Apple consumers who may have bought bought previous products and giving them the best available product for the best available price that would create the best experience. And that he I think other leaders, the burn of that failure of my gosh, the money it's gonna cost us to get rid of this product. He, in a way, tone that out because that for him was it was I don't wanna say it was someone else's problem.

It wasn't the key element of that decision that he could take. The best thing that he could do was take the decision for the customer and then let his operations team, Tim Cook, myself, and many of the other, global ops leaders around the world figure out the best way to deliver that and not interact with that decision. But that was in fact the best decision for the customer at the time. Because we we led the, you know, in a way, Steve took that decision. So we were the first in the iPod or the digital music player space.

We were the first one to start the product line at a 16 when people did it kind of three, four months later as the pricing came down. So, I think that was Steve's north star, his guiding light that he was using. And and and and he was only focused on that. Throughout his our interfaces, we're only focused on the customer experience.

I think that's a really good lesson around the customer piece and all else is sort of secondary or or in third or fourth tiers in terms of importance because if you don't connect with the customer, you know, there's no product. Right? There's no it was about the experience. It was almost like a movement. Like, I look at Apple as a movement.

My late husband bought one of the very first Apple computers, you know, dogs age ago, at a time when when, Apple's operating system and Microsoft's operating system were at war in, you know, in the government of Ontario, for example. And it's just so you get people who are so passionate. And if you wanna keep that passion, then you have to keep them engaged, so you need to keep your finger on the pulse. And I think that's what he was really good at doing. Yeah.

But as the ops guy, because that's how you've described yourself. As the ops guy, you were in charge of laying the foundation, to break into Europe. Can you tell us a bit about that?

That yeah. Sure I can. That was, that was quite a challenge, but it was a it was a big, it it's a little it's a little historical. So Apple was primarily before the iPod, just after Steve arrived, so this would have been kinda early February. They were primarily more of a dealer.

They were selling small volumes of of of Macs to mainly architects, film designers, graphic designers, very, very small volume. And they weren't used to this kind of very massive consumer product that you would wanna buy the iPod. And let's say in Europe, more than North America, they realized that and they did not have the right retail infrastructure to sell, a large massive influx of products across Europe. They didn't have the let's call it the business model, the supply chain, the demand planning model. And so they they picked me up from HP because HP was one of the first companies that basically led the fast moving technology good space, in focusing their supply chain on the actual demand of the consumer that buys the product versus the shipments into a dealer channel.

So it it kind of, there's an operations game called the beer game, which is a beer distributor, and you have college fraternities buying the beer and it shows you what happens when the beer distributor you're forecasting off the beer distributor and not the fraternities buying the beer or the people buying the beer. So, and that's kind of what Apple was. So they really needed to fundamentally change their demand planning model. Europe is a more complex channel. There's, it's not mega distributors where you can ship pallets of of products directly from the manufacturing facility, drop them in front of a a Best Buy in in in the North American sense and have them distributed, you have to actually get to smaller shops.

So it goes through a distribution channel. It's kind of three to five steps long versus one to two steps. So that's something I was I was I was doing that and laying that foundation was was really critical to because Steve probably knew this and then so did Tim that the iPod was only the first of many products that they were focused on in this retail, more consumer oriented space. And this was before the retail stores. So it was quite a challenge to do that in Europe because Europe is more complex.

So, you know, I that that was when I came to Apple, in in 02/2004. That was kind of my mission to create and implement a new demand planning and supply chain infrastructure to support this. I didn't realize other products were coming down the road, but laying this foundation was was, was, you know, quite complex. So to do that, I, you know, I think what I do well is I gather people together, inspiring them to kind of look through the mountain that we see. Because I had done it before at HP, it made a lot of it I I was bought into my own vision because I had done it with a company like Hewlett Packard, which was at that point the number one seller of notebooks, consumer notebooks around the world.

So I knew it could be done. I realized the impact of the change. I realized as the change, the teams we needed to bring together to actually do that. So and typically what I do to inspire people is I kind of brand the change. Right?

So as opposed to just creating a project, you kind of create a brand around the change. So people hear about the brand and they realize that it's actually the change. And then you inspire people who are involved with that change. You inspire them to kind of change their own platform that they're working on. So, and because it was a European project to actually do this, I called it Da Vinci.

Right? And it actually stood for Demand.

Love it. Great.

And that basically was, I think helped bring people together around changing this process. I, you know, the long and short is I started, I failed, I went back to the London office with my tail between my legs because the European sales team was a little bit prickly, and they, of course, had their their version, the French, the German. You know, everybody had a different view over how, over how things were, actually to work. And I was trying to come up with a common view. So I took six months and I came up with this Da Vinci.

I rebranded it. I I helped people understand what it was. The killer to that, the in a way, the the straw that that actually, turned the the tables of the cart was I got Tim at a very large European sales meeting to talk about the project. And that was actually one of the things that actually was the key driver of change that people saw that Tim was interested in this project, called me up by name. Shortly after that, every country manager in Europe got a notebook with their name in it.

It was signed by the the signed by the VP of Europe, signed by Tim, signed by myself that we are eliciting this change, we're supporting this change, and there's a team driving this. And that I think had a lot of relevance and importance to get people through these variations of, oh my gosh, we have to change this. We have to change the forecasting system. We have to change the operations allocation. Lots of operational things we have to change.

So that's the long and the short of laying the foundation.

That is the coolest I I just I wanna just say it's so cool to me, Tom, because it all ties back to your definition of resiliency. You said strategic, visionary, and tactical. And here you are strategically creating what I heard you say demand visibility planning. And then in that visionary way, making that da Vinci. You know, I I just think that's really cool.

I I wanna ask before because we're gonna keep stay on ops because you did something else really cool. You also brought Apple into another country. But I wanna I wanna throw one more question in because, again, I find frankly, Tom, I find your brain fascinating. I find it very cool that you have such a depth of this tactical process, but that you really understand, as you said, the motivation, the leadership, the visionary that is needed. So I'm gonna ask you an an off the cuff question.

I've heard you say this now both when you were speaking both thank you. Both when you were speaking about Steve Jobs, but also just recently. And you talked about Look Through the Mountain. Okay? And then I'm gonna share with our listeners that before we got on, me and Tom were chatting for a minute, and he said, I'm I'm excited.

We're gonna do this podcast, and then I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna take my daughter for a walk. And so I wanted to ask if your daughter were to come to you and say, dad, you keep talking about look through the mountain. How do I do that? How do I look through the mountain? What would you tell her?

You know, it that may be related to resiliency because I think it would be, it it's it's hard to tell people who are younger than you that everything's gonna be okay. But at some level, when you are older and you look, as Steve said in the Stanford, commencement address, when you look at life, your life, and connect the dots, it all makes sense. Right? So we can, you know, we can say that. Anyone who is, let's say, older than my daughter could say that.

I think it's trying to get them to feel comfortable with any decision that they take. They are that's the best decision you can make with where you are. And I think my daughter sometimes, may create her own stress in that moment of a decision and realizing that when you look back in life, these are gonna be very small valleys in the larger valleys and mountains that you will encounter. And to realize that it is the momentum that you create by taking the decision and then the ability to course correct it or change it if you need be and continue to have that momentum. So if she were to be off into the wing of this podcast, the and and, that's what I would be telling her, and I hope she's listening.

I hope so too. It's a great question, but

thank you for bringing it home. Thank you for bringing that one home.

That that that's the way we gotta do it, you know, because that is the truth, and I love what you said. And it's just and and, actually, Tom, I'll take that for me also because I think Jen Quater, just like your daughter, might create my own stress around some of these valleys. And so, really, I I I it's really important to understand that even when we work in this global landscape with all these different cultures and all these different people, at the end of the day, we are all human, and we all share that desire to have that resilience. Now with that, I am gonna bring us back to operations because I don't wanna I don't wanna leave the Apple story untold. And that is to say, after it sounds like maybe after you you worked through Europe and you you got that operational planning going, then you oversaw Apple's move into India.

I can imagine that faced some challenges. Can you talk to us about what challenges you faced there and how you guys overcame that?

Yes. Yeah. That was, yeah. It's true. After five years in in in Europe, they asked me to have a unique opportunity to, to come to, India to kind of do this dual kind of operations and sales leadership.

Apple was already in India, but it was reporting into ironically China. If you know the politics of today, they were very relevant back then where you India reporting to China.

How did that happen? I know.

So,

I saw Kelly shaking her head. Doctor Kelly did not approve that. Just, I mean, I'm sure yeah.

And and so

I'm sorry, Tom.

Yeah. The the board decided to change the structure like a lot of other consumer products and have India report into Europe. There's a lot of synergies of that and language and things like this. But also we had more focus. Right?

And the supply chain flows, you know, it flows east west, it doesn't flow north south. So, India for example, all of our products were manufactured outside of India. So when we launched the phone, I launched the phone in India, the the the phone was almost as expensive or at slightly more expensive than the Tata's new low cost car, which was called the Nano. And it was, you know, I remember the Indian newspapers kind of making fun of the, you know, do we buy the new iPhone or do we buy a new car? So that's the kind of challenge that we had and that our products were 600% more expensive due to, you know, customs duties.

So operationally, it was, you know, we needed to start to think about how we distribute the product, how we lower the price. But a lot of it a lot of the I would say, what I encountered in India is because and this is maybe the story of Apple's resilience as a company, is that, I was I was trying to do so many things, but in reality, there's other parts of Apple's infrastructure, of Apple's company, the brand that has to happen for, for for the experience to be good, for experience to be the best. So for example, there has to be an online store, there has to be a retail store, there has to be direct shipments from the factories, and all that didn't exist. So when I was starting with Apple, I was starting from ground zero. And what I effectively encountered is that we didn't have a great consumer experience in, at, within, within India.

So when the iPhone launched, it had one of the it it had Hindi, and it had the dialect of Hindi on the voice over. And let's say other competing products, Nokia, for example, or some of the other early, kind of smartphones had, let's say, 12 of the various languages. Right? So today, you know, realizing how important that is, Apple spent a lot of time re engineering its products to make them very localized. So today, Apple's iPhone, for example, has, you know, 17 of the 27 languages, and that's voice over turn by turn as you're doing navigation.

There's various, you know, you have a language of Punjabi, but then you also have the accent of Punjabi. So, so Apple has gone through that level of detail to create the experience for Punjabi customers in the North Of India or customers that speak, you know, another language in in in, in and that was so critical and that's what Apple had to do. So I kind of laid the foundation for that to happen by bringing the engineering teams in and having them realize the disparity, the gap between where we were today with one language on the iPhone, Hindi, and let's say where some competitors were where they had, you know, twelve twelve languages on their on their actual device. So the second thing was early around the supply chain and that was why it was there. So, and then, you know, the the challenge there was it took about three months for the phones to flow between China to Singapore, Singapore to India.

And so I worked with the operations team to talk about resilience to change that, to have the product shipped directly from China into India directly in two weeks. And and and that was a dramatic, availability and customer satisfaction issue that when the phone launched in California and Steve got off the stage, you know, within two weeks, it was available in the resellers within India. And that, of course, was one of the triggers that, you know, began to tip the cart in the the Apple favor for, many customers that were in India.

So Wow.

You were just talking about, you know and and sorry, Jen. Just just like a two, like, two second observation. You know, earlier, you said to us, Steve was focused singularly focused on the customer experience. He'd read the customer emails. He would know, you know, that he could feel and touch the the the temper and trem tremor of the company by that.

So you were executing that vision. You were hardwired to do that when you went to India because you said it has to be about what the customer feels, touch, sees, hears, and experiences. You took that it rubbed off on

you. Well, you know, it's, when you're leading a country, you're this is the dichotomy of kind of matrix management in a leadership forum. So as, you know, as the head of a given country, you have a huge sales goal. So you want all that foundation, you want all those customer experience layers now. But Apple in its own resilience vision wants to make sure that they deliver those to you in the the the when they feel it's right and when they feel that the connected tissue of all those things actually will work in unison.

And that it that creates the the determination, that creates the gap, that drives more passion into your leadership to make sure that you have a sales goal that could be ease easily met if you had an online store, but we don't have an online store. So I have to find other ways to push the team to to fill those gaps. So, talk about course correction, but there there really is this element of determination and grit because you have to suffer through to find and then maybe in a way as a company, they do that to make the best solution squeeze through that process, ultra curated through many layers of people trying to find the best way to meet those objectives.

It's the go through again, isn't it, Jen?

It is. Yeah. It absolutely is. And I was gonna say, it it's well, doctor Kelly, I was gonna say we were very much on the same page because I circled that insistence on customer demand, so we were right there. But I I I think what's so interesting is it it is it's the go forward, but it's also the the you know, we talk a lot here, Tom, about, like, I I my platform that I talk about is confidently walking in the wrong direction.

Like, sometimes it just feels wrong. And so even for you, as you talk about, here you are, a company that's very focused on the the customer, and yet you're having to solve these massive complex global problems. And so you launch your first product with just one dialect when there are 27. But I think and and and if you stop the world and you looked at that, you could say, oh, well, that's not resilient. But what I heard you say is, no.

There was a constant effort to hear and to expand, and now there are 17. So I guess and I know Kelly has one more question for you, but I do also wanna know because you mentioned earlier that you understand, and this was when you were telling the Europe story, you understand how to, like, get people motivated and get people to understand. And that's really where I think anybody who's not worked in Apple is like, how'd you do that? How do you get that many people? You know what I mean?

To be that that together and that passionate. Can can you give us a a word of wisdom when it comes to leading a huge team through something this complex. How do you maintain that passion? You know, you're talking to Tim Cook. You're you're meeting every three months with Steve Jobs.

You have a direct line to that. How do you pass that down to your team and have them feel it in a palpable way?

You know, maybe maybe it's maybe it's personal. Maybe it's me. I I I think a lot of it came down to meeting people where they were, especially if you come into a country, like India. You know, I needed to, I needed to be humble and learn learn where they were at at at the given moment. So I spent a lot of time with people understanding how they were and where they were, and that I believe helped people, see me as someone who is credible, but someone who is approachable.

I think maybe the approach of being more authoritative as a leader in that instance is probably not what we needed. And I I think I won people into the camp and into that process by jumping into the trenches with them, and understanding how they how they get through their day, what are their problems that helped, level the playing field. And in doing that, I I had this opportunity to their ears to be more open and and to be to turn up their listening volume to listen to me more over where we needed to go after the next step. So because I was so excited to have this opportunity, I'd worked in India before with HP, moving a couple manufacturing facilities around. Apple selected me as this kind of first change agent to lay the foundation for what now is a very different India that, you know, than when I started it.

And and that was my modus operandi to jump into the trenches with people to level the playing field, which I think was a personal critical factor that, that worked at least to to get people motivated to listen of where we needed to go.

What you did, you know, we we we touch on this frequently here on the podcast. You were leading with people's ears, their eyes, their heart, but what you were really doing is meeting people where they're at. And we talk a lot about that is in order to build resiliency as a culture, as an organization in your business or in your life, you have to go and meet people where they're at, decomplicate things so that you can build up the structure that is going to be resilient and sustainable over the long term. And, you know, you've just articulated that with what the the the approach that you took in a new country, new language, new culture, new everything, and you made it work. So congratulations.

If I look back on that experience, the dots connect very nicely. But there there were peaks

in Belgium.

Yeah. But not at the time.

Not at the time. I love it. Hear you. Well, I I heard this, I watched these artists, you know, influencers on social media. And one of them, she was saying, have you ever sat and watched a a painter paint?

She said because they put a they put a a line over here and then a circle over here and then and you do not know what it's going to be, but it all starts coming together. So I I I think that is, you know, that's really a beautiful way of thinking about it. And then I just want to I like, as you know, bringing it back full circle. But, Tom, after we gave your your big introduction, you said, well, that was humbling. And and you you talked about being humble.

And what I really heard in that is be humble and learn. And I think the best leaders, the most resilient people that I've met and I've encountered are those who are always learning and listening. So I I think that's such a great, beautiful thing for us to take.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. And I'm well

So what are what are your

Still still learning. Still learning.

Well, on that note on that note, we're still learning. What are your next steps after Apple? Like, what's going on now in London and the world for you?

Yeah. So, at at, so next steps so I'm I'm already into my next step, but, I I I really when I when I left Apple, I I wanted to, at some level, try to figure a way to give back. So I migrated towards startups, and I was very focused on not only helping startups, but also helping leadership of startups. And, so I created this little company called MDV. M stands for momentum, d stands for development, and v stands for velocity.

So those are, I think, in my thirty five plus years in fast moving technology goods. I used, I crafted, I implemented those words a lot in my leadership forum, how I would develop people. So momentum is always creating movement. Development always develop your teams or develop yourself. And velocity is actually creating deeper impact by moving in two directions.

So like a bullet, for example, it spins. Because it spins, it goes faster. Right? So, and that's really a little bit related to Menom. So it it it I apply it both at a personal level.

So, I I call this little company that, and I'm really focused on I do some coaching to some leaders, but primarily, I get involved with helping small startups understand the concept of scale. So applying the operations, you know, platform that I understand from Apple to understand how they can scale a business because of course startups are all about scale. And I try to help them understand the leadership elements of scaling. Right? Scaling themselves, but also scaling the team, and actually doing so.

So that's kinda what I'm doing now. I like it a lot. I work with about eight startups around the world. Three here in Europe, two in India, and two in The United States. So that's what keeps me busy.

And filled with purpose. Just a such a beautiful thing, Tom, because what I hear in all this and, you know, you hear this in different ways. There are physical artists. There are different things, but you build things. That's what you do.

You build processes. You build people. You build things, and now you're building these startups. It's really a a cool cool thing to to know you and to know that that's what you're doing.

Yeah. I I Yeah. You said you said to us

Yeah. Go ahead, Kelly. Sorry.

I was just gonna say you said to us earlier that, you stepped down the ladder to help people climb up.

Exactly. Yeah. I I was I was just gonna say that. So it's it's a little bit like that humbling experience of I I was on the ladder. People would say, wow.

You've you've made it. But I'm gonna step down off so I create more space for for other people, and I'm pushing people up the, ladder. One of the things I used to always say among all my teams when I would leave, because almost every three years I was moving, is I'm always as a leader, I leave more with them than I take myself. Right? So that's kind of my little adage, my tagline as as a leader is, you know, I leave more with them.

More of myself goes to you than what I take back from all of you. And therefore then, I'm leaving most of, you know, my thinking, my emotions, our emotions together. I'm leaving them with you. Right? So so that's my

Beautiful. It's like there's a I love it. There's a there's a servant mindset that people talk about in leadership that that that that, matches, but I think it goes beyond that because it's not just serving them. Because as you're saying and I really liked what you said, momentum development velocity, which is I know you said you that's your company name. But you you're leaving with them that energy, and that energy is very real.

You know? So that's really cool. I also wanna say I was also gonna say before we move into our rapid fire questions, that it does It gets exciting at the end here, Tom. But, one of the one of the things we do talk about a heck of a lot here at Resiliency the podcast is communal resilience and how important it is to be able to work with others. So I just wanted to make that statement that, you know, you've had this huge career, but you certainly didn't do it alone.

And and, in fact, a lot of of how you've done it has been working through other people. So I I think I I I think we have a really good understanding of who you are as an operations person and who you are as a global leader. I wonder if you have before we again, we're gonna move into our our rapid fire questions in a minute about resilience. But is there anything that we haven't asked you about your leadership, about your current MDV, just anything within your life that that brings you resilience and that relates to to community that you're building that you'd like to share with us before we take you into the fun part?

Okay. I think there is a lot to be said for, you know, in part of the community, it's, I do I do volunteer my time and I find, you know, I I find volunteer my time to, high school students, to I I think high school is a very difficult time for students that are the stress of what do I do with my life? So that question is just so

you know,

or where do I what do I study? Because my parents want to know. And so I do volunteer a lot of my time in that. And I I would probably apply a lot of what I do as a leader where I'm trying to meet them where they are. But this ability to remove the stress points from those decisions, where children may get themselves into a knot where they feel they can't get out.

And and, to understand that, you know, there are ways to do things. If you look at, if you look at, you know, some of the great architects never studied architecture or vice versa. Some of the great engineers fell into it in in in, other ways. And so the fact that it's okay not to know what you want to do. And but if you have the energy and the inspiration to to learn, that gets you to other places, which then helps you that helps you take a decision, which may lead you in in fact to be an architect when you didn't want to be an architect.

Right? But it leads you to that. So I do volunteer at a couple schools at the school my daughter goes to here in London, as well as other schools when I lived in India, I was actually doing that. Working with the guidance counselors to just kinda have q and a. Most times, it's about how what they want to know is how did you get here, what decisions led to it.

And if you tell that story, sometimes, you know, people understand that's not a direct path to be working for the world's largest brand. You know, I started working at a railroad and then I studied architecture, but what does that have to do with building factories and shipping iPads around the world? It doesn't, but, you you take those learnings with your life experience and you you you land somewhere different and you apply what you are. So that that is my community, resilience because people can be people can go off on a tangent and maybe they they never, get back on because they're focused on doing something maybe someone else wants them to do and not what they truly want to do. So

Tom, I'm gonna give you applause and tell you anytime you wanna be a cohost on Resiliency the podcast, you are welcome because you have got a great, great view of resiliency. Thank you.

You do. And, I mean, it comes back to course corrections. Right? You just described yourself. You know?

Started on a railroad, architect, building this, doing that, and you had a bunch of course corrections in your own life. And I think that's one of the in your career, and that's one of the things that that's a message we wanna leave to people is it's okay to course correct.

Yeah. Exactly.

It's okay to pivot and shift.

Right.

In fact, more than okay, it's it's encouraged. It's exciting. It's it's what must happen. You know, it's it's a reinvention of self or reinvention of the Yeah.

That come out in that process that, that that may be better and good. So

Yeah. You gotta get a little messy.

You gotta get messy. You gotta go through it, and it's always better on the other side. You just have to have the grit and determination to use your words, tenacity,

you know Yes.

Tenacity. To carry it through.

That's a great word, tenacity.

Well, it's tenacious transition. You know, here in in seriously, I do this with I sometimes I come up with these things. So in resilience and we look at sort of that swirling nexus of chaos, which is the looking through the mountain, it's a state of tenacious transition.

Okay.

And that's okay.

Now I'm ready for Prowse's questions.

Okay. Okay. Are you ready? Here we go. Here we go.

So Okay. Tell us, what's your favorite movie or TV show

that makes you feel

resilient? Oh. It's a movie. It's called the 100 foot journey. Do if you know what that's about.

It's about a family from India

Yes.

That, drives from India to London and they get in a car they their their car breaks down in the middle of Burgundy, and the son becomes a chef. And he journeys to London, to Paris, and then he ends up working for the restaurant that is directly across

everything.

Love that movie.

And and a global environment. Oh, so good good one, Tom.

Yeah. Alright. Next one. What's your favorite song that makes you feel resilient?

Oh, man. So many. I would say it's a song by REM, called Everybody Hurts. That's the one for me that because at some level there's pain and we we solve that pain and we move on and that pain creates that pain turns into beauty which and and and learning. So that that for me is a song that is, reminds me of the resilience it takes to to get through life and prosper from it as well.

Very good. What's, something that made you laugh out loud lately?

Oh, I may it's hard to, you know, I maybe maybe it's not that I laughed too much that I've forgotten when I've laughed last. I have to say the I'll bring it back to America, although I live in London. British politics are full of laughable moments.

But Yes.

That, so every every Thursday, there is the prime minister's questions where, and that is always laughable. But I I it didn't make me laugh that hard. But, I think it was actually last week's cold open of Saturday Night Live, which I think was a was a laughable moment for me where they brought back Alan Yes. Alec Baldwin to play the role of that kind of Fox News, you know, I don't know what you wanna call the guy, but the Fox News, interviewer.

With a face like this.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So that that was a pretty laughable moment for me. That was probably the last time I

really That's

a good one. I really cut loose.

Yeah. Yeah. On point. Tom, on point.

Very on point.

And what's the question that you'd like to leave for future guest?

Wow. You know, I think I would I would replicate it, from the podcast How I Built This, where he asked always at the end, how much of where you got today is related to luck and how much is related to your skills, over where you were. Right? And then so that that that for me is a question. I it's it's a great question for people to answer.

Because no matter where you are, no matter what you do, there is an element of luck and there is an element of of skills or decisions that you take. And it's different. It's interesting in that podcast how people answer that question. I think everybody should answer that question. How much was luck?

If you're really technical, maybe you try to quantify luck. But there is an emotional element of there's an emotional and there there's an emotional element and there's a quantitative element of of of luck, but I certainly just look at the emotion. But it's interesting to see how your next guest would answer that.

I love it. Trying to quantify luck sounds like something that you and Tim Cook might do in a room somewhere. And and then it also makes me think of your velocity. I loved what you said that velocity is moving in two directions like a bullet that spins. And it's like that luck has to be moving, so you gotta be out there, but also all your skills have to be moving.

It's such a great question. Thank you, Tom. I have one for you that was left from a prior guest. Are you ready?

Oh, gosh. Okay.

Here it is. So the question is, who's the person you go to when you need to feel resilient?

That's a good question. I would say that it is a former, it is a former leader, that I worked with at Hewlett Packard, who's Italian. And I would say that I generally would go to him, and have a conversation. And I think that that helps me it helps me because you always learn from people who are ahead of you in life, and it's because they're ahead of you somehow they make our our peaks and valleys seem more, smaller because they've actually been through them already. So you know that you know you survived because they're there.

And so that always helps me. And he's Italian. He, you know, he dresses wonderfully and he just has this beautiful way to put things into reality when I have conversations with him. So that that's that's that that would be my go to person, that I would go to feel more resilient and and and and get life learnings.

Beautiful. And such a such a beautiful way to bring it back around because it's someone that you worked with in your career. And you are someone who's had a huge global career. You've affected a lot of people. I'm sure there are many people who think of you that way and and likely some of your startups through MDV do.

So with that, knowing that that, that you are someone who has this mentorship capacity, I wonder if you could let our listeners know where might they find you, follow you, learn more about MDV? What where can people find you today, Tom?

So, likely LinkedIn is the best place. I'm working on my website as I speak, but, LinkedIn is the place that you could find me. I've recently updated it to, include MDV, and I'll be adding some more content into that space as we as the weeks, as the weeks go forward. So that's that's probably the best place to find me. And then from there, I'm, you know, I'm I'm able to be found and to connect with and very quickly have a conversation with.

Very open to do that. So but thank you very much, guys. Thank you.

Tom, thank you. We really, we we are honored and inspired by by everything that you've said. And so, again, I encourage our listeners, Take a look at Tom pricing on LinkedIn, connect with him. And with that, we say thank you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening to today's show. If resilience is something that is important to you, we encourage you, please subscribe to us on YouTube, resiliency the podcast, or give us a like wherever you're listening. Everything that you're doing in that regard helps us to keep this resilience movement and train moving forward. As you know, Resiliency the Podcast is the place to find stories, strategies, and inspiration on how to embrace change, overcome challenges, and redefine resilience in today's ever evolving world. You can find me, Jen Quader, online on all the socials, j e n n q u a d e r, at JenQuader.com or at my company, thesmartagency.com.

And then, of course, our illustrious, illustrious, wonderful queen of Canada Cohost, Doctor Kelly Culver. You can find her at the CulverGroup.ca. Again, that's .ca for all those Canadian wonder wonderful people. You can also find her at doctor Kelly Culver on LinkedIn and Instagram. And as always, we just thank you.

We thank you for being with us, for listening to these stories, and being a part of this community. Resilience is important. It's important to us. We're passionate about it, and we are so grateful to have you on this journey with us. Be resilient.

Be strong. We'll see you at the next episode.