← Redefiners
Redefiners
Music with a Mission: Former MTV International Chairman and CEO Bill Roedy on Leading with Purpose
00:48:42
Many of us have heard the expression “doing good is good for business.” In this episode, Simon Kingston sits down with former MTV International Chairman and CEO Bill Roedy about how he put this concept into practice on a truly global scale. Bill t...
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- [00:00]
Bill Rode
Call them change makers, call them rule breakers. We call them redefiners.
- [00:12]
Simon Kingston
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Redefiners. I'm Simon Kingston, a leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds Associates. Before we get started today's episode, just a quick reminder to our listeners that you can find all episodes of Redefiners and Leadership Lounge on YouTube. If you're currently watching Redefiners on YouTube, just hit that subscribe button below so you don't miss an episode. And for our audio listeners, don't forget to rate Redefiners wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear and see your feedback. Many of us have heard the expression doing good is good for business, and studies and our own experience teach us that the companies that really engage in adding to their communities and sometimes to the global community are stronger and more successful in the long term. Our guest today is someone who's been an embodiment of that philosophy and has put the concept of doing good is good for business into action on a really global and international scale. Not just a redefiner, he's a definer of at least one of the industries through which he's moved, as we'll hear. And when it comes to corporate social impact, he's someone who's guided a global media company to redefine how people think about and act, particularly on urgent public health issues. He's also somebody I've had the privilege of getting to know as a client and as a guide over a number of years, and I have immense respect for what he's achieved in the course of his career. It's a real pleasure to welcome Bill Rode to redefine us today. He's the former chair and CEO of MTV International. Bill launched the greatest number of channels in television history and he built a global operation of 200 channels and 20 brands, including household names like MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central. And that's just scratching the surface. He founded and chaired MTV's Staying Alive foundation, the longest multimedia campaign to fight the AIDS epidemic, and expanding on that work is in the fight against HIV and aids. He was appointed the first ambassador of unaids, and he was a founding member and chair of the Global Business Coalition on hivaids. He was also appointed the founding chair of the Global Media AIDS Initiative. He served as chair of AMFAR and was appointed the first envoy for the Global alliance for Vaccines and Immunization gavi, which took him into a whole range of additional global public health challenges. And he was the vice chair there for a number of years. Critical years, which we'll touch on in the course of the conversation. So, unsurprisingly, this is a man who has been garlanded with a host of different accolades. He's won the Emmy Founders Award, he's won Amphar's Award of Courage. He was inducted into the Cable hall of Fame. He was the UN Global Citizen of the Year. And particularly important on this side of the Atlantic, he last year won the Winston Churchill Leadership Medal. BILL welcome to Redefiners.
- [03:12]
Bill Rode
Thank you, Simon. Some of that's actually true.
- [03:16]
Simon Kingston
And it's exhausting just to read it, to have lived it is amazing. Let's begin, as they say at the beginning. The principle of public service, and in particular of military service, didn't start in your family with you. Tell us a little bit about the influence of your father's decorated military career on you, and indeed the influence, no doubt in a different way of your mother in the formation of your character and the values that have obviously run as a seam through your career.
- [03:50]
Bill Rode
Well, I came from a single mom, actually, and my mother and father divorced when I was quite young. My father went to West Point, as you mentioned, and he did survive the attack in Pearl harbor, and he served 33 years in the Army. They evacuated right after the attack. The family did stayed there, so they were separated for the next couple years until the war ended. But he didn't even though we didn't live together with my father, he did have a tremendous influence on me, particularly going to West Point. But growing up, it has to be all about my mom. And the reason is those who've had single moms know how difficult that is. It was difficult just making ends meet, really. So I watched her in a parallel or in a set of jobs. And in parallel, I had a set of jobs to help where I could, but somehow we make made it work. And I would go with her on some of these jobs. Like, for example, she, oh, I don't know, worked as a receptionist at an emergency room clinic. So that maybe gave me an introduction to my global health work. I don't know, as a young, as a young kid or she worked also as a rental car agent in the Miami International Airport. Maybe that gave me an introduction to some of all the travel I did over the years. But I think the number one lesson was I saw how hard she worked. And that made me realize that it's old fashioned to say, but the value of hard work can make a difference.
- [05:22]
Simon Kingston
And you then took something of that work ethic into your own early military career. You were at West Point yourself. You served in Vietnam. You were serially decorated for your service there. What do you think you took from that experience into your business life?
- [05:41]
Bill Rode
Well, West Point was very influential on me. It was a major pivot to go from surfing on the beach, if you will, in Miami, which is where I grew up, to the plane of West Point. For those who have been to West Point, the plane is where it all happens. And taking bayonet lessons and kill. So that was a major pivot for me. But, oh, I don't know. Number one has to be discipline. Certainly the honor code had a big influence on me. Cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal. And it's drilled into you so much that that honor code set the. I don't know, the stage for me to try and adhere to principles of value and integrity going forward. And, you know, it's not always easy to do that when you get in the cutthroat world business, but it's. It's what I try to adhere to. And so West Point was a very, very important pivot for me and a very important learning lesson for me. And by the way, I was a terrible cadet.
- [06:42]
Simon Kingston
And what about the experience of being in. In combat, in a. In a conflict situation?
- [06:47]
Bill Rode
Well, this was an unusual situation because people were actually not wanting to go to Vietnam. People in the service, in the military, it was a very unpopular war. I felt that, number one, West Point was given to me really as a huge privilege. So the lesson of marching to the sound of cannons, as they say, was paramount in my mind. And so I wanted to go. I volunteered when it wasn't necessarily fashionable to volunteer. And it taught me a lot. It put things later in life in proper context as it relates to, you know, how dangerous situations can be and staying calm. I ended up loving the culture, loving the Vietnamese people. I've been back many, many times since I started the business in Vietnam. I started MTV in Vietnam. So I g. I. I left feeling a very, very strong affection for the country. But it wasn't an easy experience because it wasn't supported by the American public. So coming home was, you know, a bit of a shock. That's completely different now when you come home from different wars. Unfortunately, to the United States, the first thing that said to you is, thank you for your service. That was not the experience I had in Vietnam. So it was a bit difficult. Keeping the morale up with the troops was a big, big challenge. But for me, it was a, you know, you can't say it was a good experience. Of course, War is never a good experience, but for me, it was a very, very deep, emotional learning experience.
- [08:20]
Simon Kingston
And the transition from that, I mean, two points of transition, as you say, the return to a society that was not necessarily welcoming and the decision to move into a business sector that in some ways, and this is a glib observation, but it's almost as opposed culturally to the military on the face of it, as you can imagine, the kind of, the culture of, of media and of rock music, I mean, is quite a long way from the discipline of West Point, isn't it? Tell us a bit about those two transitions, because they must have been formative.
- [08:54]
Bill Rode
Yeah, no, it was unique. And even before that, however, after Vietnam, I retrained to command nuclear missile bases as part of NATO. So going from a nuclear missile base was even more of a pivot to mtv. I didn't talk about my military career when I first joined MTV because I didn't think it necessarily, necessarily resonated with rock and roll, of course, and I was concerned about the image. However, over time I realized it was very important training for me. Not only West Point, of course, and leadership, but also in how to design a organization, a global organization. From my military experience, small attacks, large defense. So I wanted to keep the channels relatively small. 100 to 200 people around the world, keeping the communication lines open, these are all military lessons. Keeping the supply lines open and then being close, in this case to the competition and to the consumers. And I know it sounds a little bit far fetched, but it actually worked for me to have the organizational skills I learned in the military and apply them to the private sector and of course, leadership. Couple things. First on the battlefield, last to leave, was ingrained in to me because I don't know, when you have a global business, you have a crisis somewhere in the world all the time. So my commanders, if you will, who were running the channels around the world would invariably encounter a crisis. And first thing I wanted to do was be by their side, the first on the battlefield, and stay there until we resolve the crisis or at least made progress, and then be the last to lead. The other principle that I adhered to, I tried to adhere to was slow to take credit, quick to take blame, which again, is a military accountability motto that we always go by and not always held by business leaders. But I tried very hard to be slow on credit. I wasn't always that way, but very, very, most importantly, very quick to take blame.
- [11:02]
Simon Kingston
And that I think people will be struck by that, that analogy, that comparison. We talk a lot when we talk about leadership, about being your authentic self, how long did it take before you were able to talk openly about the value of your military training in a commercial context?
- [11:22]
Bill Rode
It took a while, I must say, because again, it didn't match what was happening with rock and roll and music around the world. But then, and I was too stupid to really realize that I was using these principles in the military to grow the business, the global business. But then as I got to know the artist a bit, I found that it was worthy of some, oh, I don't know, weird credibility. Michael Stipe's father served in the service, for example, from R.E.M. wycliffe's father was in the service also. So I was able to develop some even closer relationships because of, you know, this respect, I suppose, for the military and discipline. Now it does. It is a challenge. There's no secret to transition from the private sector, I mean, from the public sector, in this case the military, to the private sector. And it takes a certain, oh, I don't know, empathy and set of experiences to manage a creative operation. So that was all a challenge. And it didn't come overnight. I had to learn it. Now. Harvard Business School did help me on the business side. I had no idea what a logo was. I had no idea what a P and L was. I thought it was some outdoor latrine or something. So I had to learn from scratch. And that was a very important transition for me, that experience at Harvard Business School. Not even sure how I got in, but I got in and it helped me with the business principles matched with my military discipline to go forward.
- [12:53]
Simon Kingston
So the, the link between HBO and HBS may be stronger than people realize if we, if we pick up the narrative, I mean, you. You then go and you lead MTV Europe, which is in a sense commercially a startup at the point in which you take over, but also at a moment of extraordinary change, particularly in Eastern Europe, where all manner of people, not just the usual competitors, must have opposed the idea of everything MTV represented in terms of Western values or the absence of them, as some of them might have thought. Tell us a little bit about that experience and how you approached that as a leadership challenge.
- [13:33]
Bill Rode
Well, that's very interesting because I guess, I suppose I was the non American American in that I didn't hire very many American employees, which irritated my colleagues back in the States immensely. But I wanted to truly reflect local cultures. And to do that, you had to hire local people? Of course. And I was so fanatic, and I shouldn't say I. It's we, because we became a team very quickly, growing from 6 to 15 to ultimately 6,000 people. We felt so strongly about reflecting local culture and truly respecting local culture. And at the time, that was a very unusual concept. I like to say we were local before. Local was cool because now you can't have a global business without in some ways having some sort of connection with local people. But this local audiences or, you know, consumers. But in this case, it was not only early, so we were pioneers, but we changed our product. We actually changed our product. It was almost unrecognizable. We had Bollywood in India, we had Dora from Nickelodeon with Burka. We had, you know, kitchen shows in, in Italy. So we changed our product depending on what the culture was. And that became a real smorgasbord of different creativity around the world. And, you know, we became a voice for young people. The rest is history, a cultural influence. And we use music, of course, as a vehicle for cultural exchange.
- [15:12]
Simon Kingston
And in the very particular context of the late 80s and early 90s in Eastern Europe, you were right at the forefront of an extraordinary upheaval.
- [15:22]
Bill Rode
You know, I'm a big believer in taking advantage of the opportunity. And that was an opportunity. So I first came over in late 88, but I really didn't start with MTV Europe until January of 89. And sure enough, countries started changing. Now I like to say we played a role in it, but I never want to take myself too seriously, take ourselves too seriously at mtv. But for example, one of the first decisions in January of 89 was to go onto a brand new satellite that had K band technology. What's that mean? Before, in order to receive a single from a satellite, you only had C band and you needed a three and a half meter dish. Suddenly in January of 1989 with K ban and Mr. Murdoch was one of the first to jump on this. With Sky Television you had the ability to receive the single with a 60 centimeter disk. So we jumped on that. It was a big investment. I had a lot of pushback because it was $10 million per transponder. Each satellite has transponders. The other decision that we made, however, was to put it in the clearance. What does that mean? Most channels are encrypted in order to have a subscription revenue. We decided no. We wanted as much distribution as possible. And by the way, I learned a little bit of this with hbo, that access and distribution was really key to the success of any rollout of a new product. So by doing that, suddenly people behind the Iron curtain could buy a 60 centimeter dish, or if they didn't have the money, which was often the case, they'd want to contact their relatives in the for $900 and get a dish. It was unencrypted. So suddenly you had access to Western programming that they've never experienced before. And it was not only the music, it was the commercials. And we were told, and I modestly believe that by having that exposure to this whole different form of programming, it energized an audience. Now, it didn't bring the Wall down, obviously, although I was in Berlin in the east on November 9, and so there's a lot of history there with that. But we were told we brought the Wall down. It was just, you know, one piece of the puzzle, I suppose. It was technology, innovation, a little bit like Arab Spring, by the way, you know, with Twitter and Facebook, that encouraged change. And the other thing is we were programming to young people, and young people are more prone to a bit of irreverence, rebellion and change to begin with. So we rode that wave in 1989 countries, and I made it. We made it a mission to make sure that we were distributed in these countries. And it culminated on November 9. It was a Thursday. I'll never forget it, because I was there in the fall of the Berlin Wall.
- [18:16]
Simon Kingston
And you're being very modest, if I may say so, in that description, because clearly that oxygen that you provided was a pretty important part of what made the change possible. And no less a figure than the late Mihail Gorbachev had a very special name for you. Can you tell us what it was and why he christened you in that way?
- [18:37]
Bill Rode
Well, he called me Missile Man. And this is one example, I suppose, where the military came in very handy in our work with the Soviet Union. The fact that I commanded nuclear missile bases fought in combat was held with a certain amount of esteem, if not mystery, by Russians and by Eastern Europe, too. And Gorbachev jumped on it, of course, and came up with a wonderful phrase that. Because by this time I was commanding a different army, which was an army of MTV and music. And he came up with the phrase that music is more powerful than missiles. And I actually have it on my three and a half ton section of the Berlin Wall, which is in my courtyard in London.
- [19:23]
Simon Kingston
We'll be right back with Bill Rhodey. But first, let's hear from Andrew White, a leadership advisor who specializes in executive assessment and development. Andrew will discuss why curiosity and adaptability are essential leadership traits in today's business environment.
- [19:39]
Andrew White
Our research shows that while 54% of leaders rate technological change as a top five threat to organizational health, only 45% feel confident in their organization's ability to effectively transform. To successfully navigate this transformation, CEOs need to take four critical 1 assess the AI readiness of your leadership team, 2 unlock your existing leader's AI potential, 3 find AI transformation ready leaders and 4 plan for an AI powered future. The stakes couldn't be higher. Organizations that successfully navigate this transformation will unlock efficiencies, innovation and competitive advantage. Those that falter risk irrelevance. To learn more about how you can lead effective AI transformation and the key actions to take, find our full report in the show Notes or by visiting.
- [20:37]
Simon Kingston
Rra.Com and now back to the conversation with Bill Rode. The other thing that's very obvious about your career, Bill, is that you have really relished creating new channels, new media vehicles to reach audiences and as you've just been describing, adapting the product, the offering to those audiences to what is culturally relevant to them. What are some of the lessons you'd offer people thinking about innovation in their business leadership now? Because it's clearly been that's the theme, the thing at which you seem to have excelled.
- [21:17]
Bill Rode
Well, innovation is the key word, Simon. And we had so much opportunity when we went on a digital transponder that we had suddenly had more capacity to develop new products. So in the UK at one point I think we had 20 music channels, you know, every genre possible, and combining that with comedy and nickelodeon, so we were able to hit every, every demographic and this gave us an opportunity. But the thing about MTV at the time was it was a phenomenon. There's no question it was. I felt like I was on a bucking bronco just trying to hang on to the horse. But you can never can rest on your laurels. So even though we had this amazing start and response, it was important to change the business model. So we changed the business model quite frequently. When I was talking about being unencrypted, that only lasted a certain amount of time before we tapped out of what we call pan European advertisers. And then we decided to go local. And that was a pivot because we narrowed our audience, but we were able to develop a revenue line of subscription. So that was an innovation. We went on digital, as you said, we had mobile, eventually content, we had gaming. And it was just important to continuously reinvent yourself in order to grow the business. It was ingrained into our DNA.
- [22:50]
Simon Kingston
The other obvious thing to ask you about in that phase of your career is Dealing with huge personalities, both on the business side and the artists with whom you've engaged. And you've proven since that those partnerships can be used for a whole variety of public goods as well as commercial ones. But if you were offering advice to people dealing with big personalities, big egos, sometimes pretty volatile characters, what is it you'd say you learned? Is there a single recipe or is there a philosophy that you bring to managing those relationships?
- [23:26]
Bill Rode
Humility and empathy. You know, when I came to MTV after 10 years at HBO, I decided to go with three subtext personal objectives, if you will. You know, one is that I would never go on camera. And the other one is I would never be exact producers, because I saw all these examples where people were CEOs, had nothing to do with the program, but they called themselves exec producers. And then the third thing is I would never become a groupie to the artists. So I must say, the one thing that I violated regularly was I became a groupie to the artist, and I decided I wanted to be on the front line. Front lines. You know, when we did events, the first thing I would do is greet the artist. I would go to the red carpet and greet them and make them feel welcomed and warm. And I think that that sort of relationship and humility helped establish some sort of rapport with the artist. Now, with that being said, I had my. My difficulty. We had our difficulties. I had one artist who wouldn't perform unless we did an outdoor shower for them immediately. I had to do Red Jelly Beans in the Green Room for one. I had one that refused. This was a very serious one, to be the anchor slot on a AIDS concert in Cape Town because I had promised. We had promised them him a slot as the sun came down Sunset, and because his predecessor on the stage, Militia Keys, was doing so well, she went past Sun Sunset. So he came to me and said, I'm not going on unless you yank her. And I said, no, I'm not. Well, actually, I had to be a little more nuanced. I said, let me take it under consideration because I was surrounded by his bodyguards. And then I went on stage, saw the manager, Felicia Keys, and said, you know, I've been asked to pour, and I just want you to know that we are not going to pull Alicia Keys from this stage. So sometimes I had to call the bluff of the artist. But more often than not, it was such a privilege to work for professional artists like U2 and R.E.M. and there's just unlimited amounts. And I developed a huge respect for their Creativity and just wanted to welcome them and show appreciation for them being part of mtv.
- [25:53]
Simon Kingston
There's something almost biblical, Bill, about being asked to stop the sun going down. The Staying Alive Foundation. It was the beginning, as we've already touched on, of a series of aspects of your leadership in global public health, but more broadly in social impact. What was the genesis of that?
- [26:13]
Bill Rode
Well, I think it's on two levels, Simon. Personal and then also business personal. Because I had come from LA in the creative community, being with HBO, I encountered the AIDS pandemic very early in the 80s and of course knew many people that fell to the disease. Tragically, by the time I got to mtv, we. We didn't start this because we, they were already doing it in the us But I realized that as we were guests of other countries, we had to do something that was good. Getting back to doing good is good for business. And by the way, the strategy, very early with MTV Europe, I tried to simplify it. Access to all homes, be in every household. Creative, aggressive, relentless distribution. Number two, as we've talked earlier, respect and reflect culture. And number three, fully one third of the legs supporting the stool was doing something good. So we did a whole host of campaigns. We did voting in countries that never had democratic voting before, like for example, Russia. We engaged in voting campaigns. They were called Rock the Vote, choose or Lose. The concept of doing something beyond our, I don't know, mainstream of programming wasn't totally new because every location had a different priority. But I wanted to get one that unified the entire audience around the world. And we did lots of research and it turned out to be HIV AIDS. And in the 90s, the pandemic just got out of control. Unfortunately, 98 was probably the peak. So from a business point of view, it made perfect sense. And I connected it with my personal experience again in LA and the us. And why did it make perfect sense? Well, because it was such a big concern of our audience. Why was that? Because it was the same demographic. 18 to 25 was the hardest hit demo for the AIDS pandemic. And likewise it was our core audience for mtv. So we did everything. It didn't happen overnight, but we grew it into this multimedia campaign that turned out to be the largest in history, really. And we had 30 second PSAs all the way to 90 minute documentaries. And it just grew and grew and grew. I established a relationship with one of my many mentors, Peter Piat at the United nations, who was head of unaids. He made me the ambassador. It wasn't me, it was me. Delivering the channels around the world. He made the wonderful comment that MTV can save more lives than doctors. Not to be dismissive of doctors, of course, but just because of our scale and our distribution and our trust in our brand and our straightforward talking to our audience could make an impact. And it became, as you mentioned, a gateway to my career following media, which was global health.
- [29:04]
Simon Kingston
And before we go on to that, as people look at staying Alive now, I guess we would say this was an early exercise, in a way, in behavioral psychology, in the nudge theory of how you educate people, because it was through a medium that was popular culture. It was the way in which you used the channel to reach those audiences with a very different tone to that which was coming from formal public health authorities. Was that always your intention, or is that something you learned as the initiative unfolded?
- [29:41]
Bill Rode
No, I think it was almost an immediate responsibility. When you realize what had the size of our audience and, you know, 2 billion people potentially, and when you realize the connection that we'd have with young people because we were a voice for young people, if we were a voice for youth and we were a cultural voice, that it was a responsibility because we were living, and the young people especially were living with this dreadful, dreadful disease. And there was no access to treatment. There was no cure. So it became immediately obvious to us that we can make a difference. And, you know, modestly, it's very hard to measure behavioral change. We did it with a lot of research. We had the help of the world bank, for example, and who. Who would conduct unlimited amounts of research. But I'll give you one example. So we would take one of our programs from staying alive was called suga, which in swahili means sugar daddy. And this was a program where we inserted our messages seamlessly. So you watch this program because you really want to watch. It's a little bit like gossip girl, but more subtly, we had the messages about prevention, treatment, and, very importantly, discrimination. And the reason discrimination was a key component of the challenge of the. Of the disease was because it hindered you from being tested. We would do screenings in auditoriums or even outdoor arenas in Africa, and people would watch this, and they would come out, and alongside that screening, we would have a testing on a confidential basis because of the possible discrimination and people. And we saw people get tested right away. So that was a direct, sort of on the ground, grassroots, if you will, level of research that we. We discovered we could make a real difference. And so that was just, you know, one of many different examples of how we tackled a disease Going forward.
- [31:46]
Simon Kingston
And as we mentioned before, that that gave you a kind of an authority to engage in a whole series of other areas of the global public health architecture, as people refer to it. We talked about unaids, we've talked about amfar. Let's talk briefly about, about Gavi. We've had the privilege on an earlier Redefiners podcast of talking to Jose Manuel Barroso and indeed to Ngozi Okonjo Awila. So we know regular listeners will know a little about Gavi. But how did you decide where you were going to invest your time? Because there must have been a whole range of other places you could have placed it, including in the wider public health and social impact sphere. So why Garvey?
- [32:25]
Bill Rode
Well, unlike the AIDS pandemic, you could have impact right away. And before I go to Gavi, let me just say that when I was trying to decide what I was going to do post mtv, I decided to make another pivot. I didn't want to go to another media company or do anything, you know, that I've done before. So I went all in on global health and before I knew it, I said yes too many times. And I had, though I don't know, at the peak, about 10 different initiatives. I worked with Barbara Bush on her Africa frontline health workers. I worked with Vanessa Carey with her doctors. I worked with Goldie Hahn on her meditation. But probably the piece de resistance as far as impact was, as you say, Gavi. And by the way, you mentioned two that I worked very closely with who are great leaders. And I spent 12 years with Gavi. I came in as an ambassador and I rotated from ambassador to being a board member and then became vice chair for Ngozi. And that to me was such a privilege because it's a simple premise. With a vaccine, you know, that used to cost $100 because a scale now costs $5 because there were negotiations with pharmaceuticals, you save a life. So when I was there, we were up to about 12 different vaccines. The last two ones we worked with were pneumococcal and rotavirus. They were killing hundreds of thousands of children. And you know, fast forward. Billions of vaccines, hundreds of millions of children vaccinated, tens of millions of lives saved. Started by Bill and Melinda Gates, it became a multilateral, I believe, success story in a world that doesn't have a lot of multilateral success stories. And since its inception, it has cut child mortality by half. And one of Bill Gates original objectives was to cut the lag time between developed nations and LICs, lower income countries. Would have access to vaccines. Now everybody has the access right away, thanks to the distribution and the procurement of vaccines. So Gavi was like a dream come true. Why? Because it was a global health initiative that could make an immediate impact and what a thrill to be associated with.
- [34:47]
Simon Kingston
And it's been a privilege for us at Russell Reynolds to serve Gavi over a number of years. And one of the things that's really striking about it, even as you just describe it is, is it's a multi sector alliance. This is a joint effort between governments, the private sector, civil society, philanthropists in a period when, to put it mildly, that kind of alliance is rare. And when sometimes the kind of the political and the social media backlash against business apparently getting out of its swim lane and being involved in the delivery of public good, social good is so difficult. What's your advice? What's your advice to leaders now who want to do that but want to avoid creating that sort of backlash?
- [35:34]
Bill Rode
Yeah, I would go back to Churchill. Never, never, never give in and all the things small and great, you know, never accept no for an answer. It takes more perseverance now, more resilience. There is pushback even with donor countries because of their voters. But it's important more than ever. It also in a strange way creates a bigger opportunity for private sector to step up. And there has been that already. But when you show what to just pick the private sector, for example, the ability to do something good with csr, which, you know, in many ways we were very early on, can do a number of things. One, it protects your, your consumers, if you will. I'll toss out one Coca Cola or Unilever. You want healthy consumers. And if you don't do something for the AIDS pandemic, for example, or for Covid by washing your hands with Unilever products, you're not going to be able to protect your consumers and you want a healthy business. Number two, it gives the people that come into work every day a, a further reason to feel good about their work. So it improves morale and productivity. And number three, and this was, this was the thing I drove home all the time with the Global Business Coalition. It improves your brand and you don't have to be altruistic. You can do it for other reasons, just do it. And that's, I think has been the case in some situations around the world with private sector. But you cannot have a business now without having a CSR policy and something that has truly makes a difference. So when you have the pushback from, you know, some of the voters etc. You always have to show impact. And with going back to Gavi, but some of the other things that I worked on, if you show measurement and you show impact, I think that's the best way forward.
- [37:36]
Simon Kingston
I'm bringing that back to the traits that make a really good leader in that context. I mean, it's some time ago now, but you wrote an amazing book called what Makes Business Rock? And you identified in it a set of about 20 different leadership traits that you saw as being really critical to effective leadership in the context we've just been talking about. Bill, which of those traits strikes you now as being really crucial? If you were rewriting that and saying, I'm going to come up with a group of five or six of those 20, which would they be?
- [38:13]
Bill Rode
Do you think I'll do two, maybe I'll do three. Number one is your core, your core character and principles of being honest and emotional intelligence. And number two, get things done. Just do something. And number three, I would say be adaptive. Now, you can be adaptive on two levels. One is on the macro situation. So we're entering a world that's totally different now with AI, Every child born now will grow up in a world of AI. So this changes everything. And you have to adapt your leadership, I believe, to that sort of change, but even more importantly than that. So I do have 20 different leadership principles. I'm happy to go through them all. And you should choose the ones that you're good at first and double down on those, because that's what you're going to be strongest in. But you should try and do all of them. But the last one, being adaptive, is so key because you have to use different leadership principles for what the situation is. I'll give you an example. Winston Churchill, we talked about him earlier. So, you know, his record was not as great as most people think it was. Leading up to World War II, he had, you know, his hits and misses. World War II presented an opportunity to be tough and resilient and to create hope. So those leadership principles worked particularly well for that situation. And I think likewise, when you encounter a situation around the world, a challenge that requires strength, then that's your leadership principle. Another one may require compassion, then you need to employ that particular principle. So it does have new. I think leadership does have nuance, but probably the most important thing is it's so easy to make a list of leadership principles. I was never a natural leader because I researched and I read and went to West Point. I could make a list all day long of Leadership principles. The key is wake up in the morning and do them or do one or two. Have the discipline, the discipline to actually employ those leadership principles.
- [40:34]
Simon Kingston
My favorite quote ascribed to Churchill in relation to his career was success, he said, is defined as moving from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm. And I've always tried to model myself on that. But, but thinking of him. We always invite our guests on redefiners to reflect on the moment that was their redefiner experience. You, I could, I suspect, could pick from a number of points in your career. But what if you had to think of the redefining moment? What was it?
- [41:05]
Bill Rode
Well, it is hard to only pick one. I'll pick one. From childhood, watching my mother go from job to job and realizing that life was not easy, but that she worked very, very hard. The work ethic to me was a redefined moment. You know, I didn't have any particular athletic ability or academic ability even, but when I ran track, I ran as hard as I could. I trained like Forrest Gump and somehow was able to have great success at a statewide level. And I tell the kids this all the time because I was the slowest person in the room or outside on the track. And suddenly, you know, we got fourth, fourth in state. But here's the one that I'd like to leave you with. In 1968, we, it was a tough year. We had assassinations, war was raging, but NASA was still doing their, you know, their attempts to reach the moon. So in. On Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 had reached the moon. It was a dress rehearsal. It wasn't going to land. It was. It orbited 10 times. But on the way home from that dress rehearsal, if you will, one of the astronauts took the picture of Earth rising. And what was Earth rising? You could see the Earth for the first time taking from a person, you know, far away, in this case, circling the moon. And you could see the blackness everywhere but the beautiful blue white colors of the Earth. And it reminded you of the story perhaps some of us have heard before. The blue dot. We are a blue dot. And that picture, which ended up on a cover of a magazine, I think it was Life magazine, changed our relationship with the world. And that's gotta be a redefining moment.
- [43:04]
Simon Kingston
To go from the vast build to the micro. We, we've come to the part of our conversation which is one where we like to bombard our guests with some rapid fire questions.
- [43:16]
Bill Rode
I'm never ready for this, but there's no such thing as a stupid Question. Likewise. I hope you'll remember there's no such having. There's no such thing as a stupid answer.
- [43:25]
Simon Kingston
Well, not. Definitely not from you. In my experience, the first one, describe yourself in only three words.
- [43:32]
Bill Rode
Oh, gosh. Curious, active, caring.
- [43:40]
Simon Kingston
Definitely not a stupid answer. As we've touched on, you've met up an extraordinary range of other leaders of the celebrities, the artists, the world leaders we've touched on, and many more. If you could have dinner with any artist who you haven't met in the course of your career, either alive or dead, who would it be?
- [44:01]
Bill Rode
Someone asked me once in one of my last town halls at mtv. So who would you like to meet that you haven't met? And I thought for a second, I said, you know, I'd like to meet every single person that works at MTV. At the time there was 6,000. Because we all have a bit of a hero and wonderful personality in ourselves. So I know it sounds kind of corny. I just like to meet everybody.
- [44:26]
Simon Kingston
If someone was to write a song about your life, and who knows, maybe they already have, but if they were to write another song about your life, Bill, what genre would it be? Rock, metal, Hip hop, country?
- [44:39]
Bill Rode
I think it'd be a love song or maybe R B.
- [44:42]
Simon Kingston
What's a piece of advice that you received early on that stuck with you?
- [44:47]
Bill Rode
Well, my mom told me to be happy and my father told me to keep a sense of humor.
- [44:52]
Simon Kingston
I think you've been a very obedient son.
- [44:54]
Bill Rode
Yeah.
- [44:56]
Simon Kingston
Pick your favorite decade and tell us why in one sentence.
- [45:01]
Bill Rode
You know, I'm very nostalgic, so I look back on all the decades with some affection. But you know, again, I hate to sound too self righteous, but I would pick the current decade. Why? Because it's so amazing what we have done. The positive side, you know, in health particularly, but in technology, it's incredible. And with this new thing, AI, who knows what its direction is going to take us? It's going to take us in a totally different world. And I just hope I can live long enough to see it. So I. This, this is the decade. You have to say this is the decade.
- [45:37]
Simon Kingston
And if they made a movie about your life, who would play you?
- [45:41]
Bill Rode
Rock Hudson? No. You don't know who Rock Hudson is, do you?
- [45:47]
Simon Kingston
I do, but it's going to be going to be pretty hard to arrange that.
- [45:50]
Bill Rode
Yeah. Bono, he's not an actor.
- [45:54]
Simon Kingston
Yeah, but I don't think he'd. I don't think he'd say no to the chance to start his career now.
- [45:59]
Bill Rode
Yeah.
- [46:01]
Simon Kingston
And then a final question, and maybe this isn't a quick fire question, but we talked a bit about your historical sense, your fascination with leaders of the past. We talked about Winston Churchill a bit. But if you were to pick one other than Churchill, another leader from the past who has lessons to teach us today, who would it be?
- [46:19]
Bill Rode
Well, certainly Mandela has one USP unique selling principles principle, and that's forgiveness. And the stories that I heard from him directly about how his prison guards wouldn't let him even attend the funeral when he was in jail for 27 years, wouldn't let him attend the funeral of his mother or his son, who died of aids, by the way, or who put him in the quarries and without sunglasses. And those were the first people that he invited to his inauguration, his inauguration when he was released and elected president. I think forgiveness is such a powerful influence on all of us, and it's a force multiplier. If we forgive more, it's almost logarithmic. It's kind of like falls in the category of being nice. If you're nice, concentric circles get bigger and bigger. So I would take that from Nelson Mandela.
- [47:13]
Simon Kingston
Bill, Rody, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Redefiners. A number of things come through incredibly clearly. The quality of your character, the centrality of the idea of character and purpose to your definition of leadership, whether that's reflecting and respecting local cultures in your time at mtv, or whether it's what drove you to play the leadership roles you did in global public health and to use the channel of media in all of its constantly reinvented forms to educate, inform and support people in some of the toughest situations in the world. It really shone through, all the way through the discipline to do, as a leadership principle, the merit of forgiveness as we think about ourselves as leaders, the people we lead, and indeed us as a collective, reflecting on our civil society and political leaders, incredibly important. And the humility with which you talk about your own leadership and the encounters you've had with great leaders, all of that applicable to leaders, I think, in a whole host of different contexts. And a ray of sunshine in a slightly bleak world just at the moment. Thank you very much.
- [48:36]
Bill Rode
It was a pleasure. Thank you.