Cisco's John Chambers: The essential playbooks — and when to use them
All great teams need to improvise under pressure, but underpinning this should be a set of tried-and-tested playbooks that let you orchestrate and replicate winning strategies. Cisco's John Chambers created a library of living playbooks — covering culture, acquisitions, crises, and more — to astounding effect as he took Cisco from a small tech supplier to the most valuable company on the planet.
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John Chambers - Pattern Matching, Playbooks, and Winning Product Categories - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.6]
My guest this week is John Chambers. John was the CEO of Cisco from 1995 to 2015 where he helped grow Cisco from $70 million to $40 billion in annual revenue. In this conversation we discuss the best business lesson he learned from long time GE CEO Jack Welch, his key lessons from acquiring over 180 companies with Cisco, pattern recognition and playbooks, capitalizing on market transitions enabled by new technologies, the value of team offsites, and a lot more. I was immediately drawn into John's magnetic personality and it's easy to see how he was so adept at running a 40,000 person company for 2 decades. I hope you enjoy this great conversation with John Chambers.
This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out.
This episode is also sponsored by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick.
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Show Notes
(2:04) – (First question) – Why companies need a near death experience
(6:37) – The way his leadership changed between 1999 and 2003
(11:34) – His career before and leading to his time joining Cisco
(17:51) – What Cisco was like when he joined
(21:02) – Role that pattern recognition plays in his management
(24:16) – Lessons learned from the spate of acquisitions they took on under his tenure
(30:46) – Pricing deals and using Cisco’s scale to be successful
(33:09) – Lessons he learned in terms of distribution
(35:10) – What he learned from his relationship with Shimon Peres
(42:08) – His role in helping young entrepreneurs
(46:00) – Transformation on his team building trips to Alaska
(50:42) – Transitions in the world he is focused on right now
(52:542) – Kindest thing anyone has done for John
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.
Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag
Recode Decode: Former Cisco CEO John Chambers
John Chambers, the former chairman and CEO of Cisco, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the future of startups and his book, "Connecting the Dots: Leadership Lessons in a Startup World." In this episode: (01:43) Chambers's 26 years at Cisco and 180 acquisitions; (05:28) Cisco's new leadership and his transition out; (07:57) "We think we’re the leader of innovation in America, we no longer are"; (17:58) The Republican party and uniting the country; (20:40) What the government can do to help startups; (26:18) Damage caused by tech; (28:48) China and India; (33:34) Why Chambers wrote the book; (39:25) Key leadership lessons: Vision, strategy and culture; (44:16) Creating jobs and common problems; (51:01) Entrepreneurship around the U.S. and internationally; (52:57) Immigration and diversity
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