Ranjay Gulati:
There was a time two decades ago when it seemed everyone in the business world carried a BlackBerry.

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Ranjay Gulati:
I had one and I loved it. The BlackBerry was a handheld cell phone with a screen and a little QWERTY keyboard. At the time it was called a smartphone because most other devices were just flip phones with conventional numeric keypads.

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Ranjay Gulati:
The BlackBerry was immensely popular. At one point, BlackBerry captured almost 50% of the US smartphone market.

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Ranjay Gulati:
The device had a reputation for being both reliable and secure from hacking. So, all kinds of business deals, big and small, were typed out on BlackBerry keyboards. But when Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's iPhone in 2007 and Google then followed with its Android operating system, the market for the BlackBerry began to shrivel. The Canada-based company that made BlackBerry just didn't keep up. And by 2012, its global market share plunged to 5%.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Deep Purpose, a podcast about courage and commitment in turbulent times. I'm Ranjay Gulati, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. My guest this time is John Chen, the man who was brought in to turn BlackBerry around. He's the company's executive chairman and CEO. I started my conversation with John Chen by asking him to recount moments in his career when he had to draw upon his inner sources of courage.

John Chen:
There are moments that when you have to say no to acquisitions, to investment both sides - people investing in us, we invest in others, for example. There are moments like that. So, I think the courage really to me ties very much to being the person that have to make the decision by yourself. And there's certain level of loneliness to it, that will be what comes to mind when you utter that word.

Ranjay Gulati:
So, in these moments where I'm sure there is doubt, there is second-guessing, tell us about your internal thought process and how you then resolve that thought process in your head. What do you have to tell yourself? Are you talking to yourself? Are you talking to somebody else? How do you resolve and move out of that?

John Chen:
Some of the time I just write it down. I just write down the pros and cons on either the decision and then just look at it. But most of the time it's just come down to a call, what you believe in, you have to tell yourself when the tough questions come that needs very tough answers. It's neither right or wrong and you just have to understand the consequences and be ready to live with the consequences.

Ranjay Gulati:
So, deep down inside you, where do you think you get that from? Is it from childhood, something you saw, something you did, your parents? Where did you get this instinct in you to be able to take decisive action?

John Chen:
I mean, I learned a lot from my parents, but I don't really believe that this is the part that came from them. I do believe that you either have it or you don't. That some people are willing to make that call. And I hope that we could group it under the leadership quality. You just have to be able to make the tough call and in the all walks of life.

Ranjay Gulati:
Have you gotten better doing this over time? Do you think you learn, it's a learned skill that people as they do this more and more over their career, they get better at it?

John Chen:
I don't know about other people. I did. I learned from my own thought process. I became more clinical. Over time, I remember in the very beginning of time when you had to make a very tough decision. So, whether it is investing in something or divesting something or sell something and shut down something, a lot of time I have the emotional part of it. You think about the people surrounding it. Those are all very valid considerations. But over time I have learned to be more factual and more clinical and less emotional.

Ranjay Gulati:
And do you think that's helped you?

John Chen:
That helps to make that decision process more timely.

Ranjay Gulati:
Emotion is one of such a powerful thing. The amygdala in our brain is hardwired to our emotions. How do you sever that? You can't completely sever that. All decision-making is emotional. How do you bound or contain or put an armor or a wall around your emotions so it doesn't interfere too much? How do you do that? What do you tell yourself?

John Chen:
The keywords is to not interfere too much. Like you said, you can't block it all out and it's probably a good thing you don't block it all out, because oftentimes a decision ties to people wellbeing and so forth, especially when you are facing some tough, difficult decisions.

So, you sometime really have to separate it out because you have to think about it as what's the best option for the overall? Whether it's for the business, it's for a group of people, for family, you need to think about it in a much more cooler fashion than you think about it with a lot of emotion, because tends to make the wrong decision if you are tied up a lot with the emotion part of it.

Ranjay Gulati:
Can you think of some people, others, your courage heroes, people you've seen that you admire, like, "Wow, that was courageous."? That you have either witnessed yourself ideally, or even if you read about and you say, "I really admire that individual and how they went about making that decision."

John Chen:
There are a lot of people I could think of, and I don't know this gentleman well myself, but I read the book. When Lee Iacocca turned around Chrysler and the kind of decision he has to make and the method that he goes around making it, that's quite amazing. I mean, I liked that book.

Ranjay Gulati:
What stood out to you about that book? What did you think he did that really impressed you?

John Chen:
He'd take action in a definitive and timely way. He likes the number speak itself and just apply logic to every tough decision he has to make. And I'm convinced that that's why he could save Chrysler. And I see a lot of people in Hong Kong where I grew up, the entrepreneur that came from China as immigrant or refugee, and they build their business by their commitment and started to be from a very low level and work themselves up to near a tycoon status. So, those are very inspiring and I think those are all bounded by courages.

Ranjay Gulati:
So, let's take the opposite of courage. In your mind, courage is about taking decisive action and doing it in a timely way, even if it's in the face of uncertainty and risk. The majority of people don't seem to be able to do that. Why? What do you think holds them back?

John Chen:
It's a sense of whether you could stand the accountability, because in order to make those courageous decision, there is always the element of what happened if you're wrong. Or you could second guess whether it's the perfect way to do it, whether you have all the answers. None of those could bother you for making that decision. When you have enough knowledge around it, there's a time to act and there's a time to think. You don't mingle the two together too much. Another way to say it was, I always heard this statement, which I truly believe, no decision is the bad decision.

Ranjay Gulati:
So, do you think fear, is it just the fear of being caught making a mistake or making a wrong decision? People are just fearful of the shame or the consequences of those decisions?

John Chen:
Not the shame part, I think. I think it's fearful of not well received or being criticized. I think that's probably the part that's drive most people into not being able to do that.

Ranjay Gulati:
Before he got lured to BlackBerry, John Chen did a remarkable job turning around an enterprise software company called Sybase. In the 1990s, Sybase was getting hammered by its main competitor, Oracle. Chen took over in 1998 and under his leadership, the market cap for Sybase grew from $362 million to $5 billion. Then he helmed the company's acquisition by software giant SAP. In the process, John Chen developed a reputation as a wartime CEO.

Let's go into Sybase and talk about Sybase for a second. Again, this is a company you went into which was in deep distress. Everyone was upset, customers are upset, investors are upset. Wall Street in general is upset. Employees are not exactly happy in the company. It's unraveling fast and you are willing to step into this company. Why?

John Chen:
Sybase was a little bit different than BlackBerry, in the sense that when I took Sybase, I came from a hardware background. My first job is to design microchips for the large mainframe for a company called Burroughs. And then I went into running a company called Pyramid Technology that makes Unix-based database servers. Again, hardware. Sold the company to Siemens and run most of the Siemens computer business. Again, hardware.

I wanted to try my hand in software, but I also wanted a job that could make the difference. And honestly speaking, nobody want that job. And so I said, "Well, it might as well be me." I didn't have any credential with running software company at that time, so this is different, but that's why I took Sybase, to prove to myself and to everybody that I could do it.

Ranjay Gulati:
What gave you that supreme confidence that you could do it? You didn't have the resume to suggest that you could do it. You hadn't done a turnaround per se like that, at that scale before. Where did your inner strength and confidence come from?

John Chen:
Maybe it's just blind confidence. I believe hard work will create an opportunity. Being diligent, being focused, feel like owners and ownership, you will not be too wrong. I believe you could assemble a team that think the same way. And in the meantime, learn a ton. I didn't know it was going to be success, like we were fortunate to have the success we had, but I thought that even if I fail, I try my best and I will learn a ton. And that's the more important thing for me. The journey is more important than the results. And as long as people trust me to do it, I love to show myself, forget about showing other people. And I was looking for the experience.

Ranjay Gulati:
Were there any scary moments, real moments where you were like, "I'm over my head here. This is really hard. This is really difficult. I don't know if I'll even succeed here."?

John Chen:
No. Knock on wood, I never thought about, "I can't do this." There has been a lot of difficult moment where I even second guess whether I have the ability to come up with the right answer, but that also presuppose that I will do it and I will take responsibility. How do I get help? It's where go through my mind.

I don't ever think about, "I can't do this thing." That's not how I'm wired, but I will get help. Things that I don't understand at all, I surround myself with people who understand it. I seek advice and counsel and then we decide. So, not doing is never came to my head. Being anxious about the decision, yes.

Ranjay Gulati:
Could you tell us about one or two really hard things you've had to do, hard decisions you've had to make in your journey at Sybase and even at BlackBerry?

John Chen:
Once we stabilized the business, I wanted to find an avenue of growth and we decided to move to mobile database, which is adjacent, but it's a completely different category, a mobile database. And then what does that mean? Well, it goes into things like personal assistant devices. It goes into routers like Cisco's. Markets was small, but it was untapped, and we have the technical capability to do it, but it costs a lot of money to get into it and it definitely takes a lot of time.

And so, now you have a business that's starting to be profitable and steady. Now I'm going to introduce an element of change that will at least affect the margin of it, of the total business, the profitability part of it. But I figured that you need a path to grow in order to create values. So, that's what we did. It took me a long time and I really questioned whether we really know how to do that business. Thank goodness we did and it worked out fine.

Ranjay Gulati:
In that moment of uncertainty where you said it took you a long time, you were evaluating options, you're gathering data, you're figuring out how much it's going to cost you. What can others learn to then give yourself the willingness to take the leap of faith ultimately you had to make?

Was it just talking to people and getting data or was it realizing no matter how much data you get, somebody still has to make a leap of faith? Was it realizing that if you don't do a decision that is even more risky than making a decision? How did you connect the dots in your head finally when you had to pull the trigger?

John Chen:
Two things. I think the first thing is, is there any option outside of doing this that are better? Couldn't think of one at the time. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just couldn't think of one. That's always my question, whenever I face a decision, I always say, is there another options that are better than this? All right? So, if you intelligently come up with one, then okay, so you have to consideration. But at that time, no, we don't.

We wanted to grow a business that is adjacent, that is forthcoming that the market, all the big boys aren't in it yet, okay? And you want to be differentiated. So, couldn't think about thing that checked all the boxes. That's number one. Number two is, what if you are wrong? So, we calculate a downside risk, mostly financial, but it won't destroy the company. It will set the company back, but it won't destroy the company. But then if you don't try it, then you're going to be stagnant. So, the combination of those factors said that I got to make that decision a yes or no.

Ranjay Gulati:
One incredibly tough decision John Chen had to make for himself was whether to take on the challenge of rescuing BlackBerry. He thought there was a 50/50 chance the Canadian company would survive, and BlackBerry approached him three times before he finally agreed to sign on. But John made the courageous choice to do it, in part because he didn't want to regret not taking on that challenge.

John Chen:
I am very fortunate at the time that I have to make this decision, my career isn't rest on the success of this. Of course, I don't want to have a failure in what I'm attempting to do. But on the other hand, if I fail, again, it's the journey, it's the experience. I am confident that I will make it better. I don't know how much better, but I will make it better. And so based on that, I decided to say, "Okay, no regrets." I don't want to not do it and then five years later look from the outside in and say, "I should have done it." Or, "I would've done it this way." I just don't want to do that.

And then also, I wanted to do something meaningful that most people don't want to do and find it very difficult to do it well. So, when I thought about it, I said, "I will be able to make it better. I don't know whether that's enough." But I sure wanted to give it a try.

Ranjay Gulati:
Did you talk to anybody like in your family or to your spouse or to a friend or a mentor? Are there people in your inner circle that you feel are wise counsel that have helped you in some times like that?

John Chen:
Yeah, many. I normally on business do not talk to my wife, but on this one she get tired of hearing me saying it. So she just say, "Hey, just do it or don't do it. Let's don't talk about it again." Then I realized what was happening because how difficult it is, and I was struggling between my heart and my brain. So, my heart finally won.

And I also spoke to a few mentors of mine, particularly in the PE world, people that I look up to as good advice, good insights, and they all said no way. And because they said no way, I think it actually helped convince me that I should, because if everybody said, "Oh, you should do this." Then I'd probably say, "No." I don't know. This is hindsight, but almost everybody is negative on it.

Ranjay Gulati:
To turn BlackBerry around, John Chen and his executive team had to make a slew of hard decisions. They cut the workforce by 65%. They refocused the company on BlackBerry's core strength, cybersecurity, and hardest of all, he says, was to get out of the hardware business.

John Chen:
The reason it is hard is because here earlier we talk about not letting emotion comes in to dictate how you're going to decide. It was such a iconic BlackBerry devices, commonly used in governments and finance and medical, in legal, in law enforcement, et cetera, et cetera. The emotion of having the hardware, the phone business die at my watch was the hardest.

I also know the emotion of our engineers and our employees, to us this is more than just a product, it's a way of life. So, I know a lot of employee will be devastated when I made that decision. So, that was the hardest one, and to decide which was the last phone, it was pretty difficult.

Ranjay Gulati:
How did you make it? In that moment when you had to make that decision, you have all the evidence coming at you, the pros and the cons and the yays and the nays and the emotion around this decision. Can you just walk us through that moment where you had to clear your head and ultimately own it and be accountable for it?

John Chen:
The math of staying in hardware and losing market share just doesn't work for our shareholders. It's a money losing proposition. The more it happened, the longer it happened, the less ability to launch the next phone, because we don't have the cash to do that. So, that makes it logically pretty straightforward. We know that the only people that actually make money in selling phones is iPhone. And you could see less and less number of people making phones.

So, balance that and the heritage and the emotion and the Canadian pride and everything else. That was the difficulty. But when you finally overcome the emotion side, you know this is the right thing to do. It's the right thing for the company, it's the right thing for our employee, because the lingering on is going to cause more and more pain and more and more harm, and then you have to get rid of more employees.

Ranjay Gulati:
You've talked about having a fighting spirit. Where does this fighting spirit in you, where do you think it is ... You said maybe we are born with it. Were you always like that or do you think it's just a result of somehow once you do it then you learn to get better at it? Is it just a learned, acquired skill?

John Chen:
I think a lot of the fighting spirit is when I growing up, I see a lot of examples including my parents. My father was a CPA, but a Chinese CPA. When they took the train into Hong Kong, it was a British colony, and so they don't recognize CPA from China. That's not a degree to them. So, my father has to do bookkeeping, like three sets of bookkeeping, basically doing contract works to keep us alive. But later on he got into silk business and it started to do well.

So, I always believed growing up that A, nobody going to hand you anything and B, hard work will pay off. So, I guess that's the genesis of the fighting spirit. And when I came to the United States, you have a lot of stereotyping of Asian and I ran into some of those issue while I was working, not in a very bad way, but it certainly existed.

And then I wasn't clear why I do most of the work and I don't get to even represent the company. And it was told of me that they didn't find it presentable and I will forever remember that word. I went back and asked the question, "What does that exactly mean?" He said, "Well, for example, you can't go out and give us public speech in one of the conferences." And so, I didn't believe that.

So, I hired a couple who is the husband's a producer, the wife is a TV host personality, to teach me how to do public speaking. And the first time they put me on tape, I was horrified. I was terrible. I was ridiculous. And I was moving all around the lectern that would make everybody dizzy. There was a speech they want me to give. I was rushing it and stuff like that. So, I was wrong. It is not presentable. I mean, that was true. So, I overcame that. I hope I overcame that now we're taping. And since then, I learned. So, that's a positive story out of stereotyping. I'm not saying that I could do everything and I will probably stumble and fail on some things, but I wanted to learn that through my experience.

Ranjay Gulati:
In the many years that I've been teaching and writing about leadership, the really great leaders I've met all seem to have a core sense of purpose. It defines how they live and conduct business. It's not always spelled out, but they radiate a set of central values and they approach business as a vehicle for accomplishing that core truth or vision. I asked John Chen to describe some of the principles that define him as a leader.

John Chen:
I believe in a few things. I believe in transparency. I believe in fairness. Fairness is the hardest things on earth. Your people could handle a lot of things if they believe that you treat them fairly. People could handle a lot of adversity, no bonuses, as long as they believed that they were treated fairly.

And transparency is most people, most leader likes to be positive and instill confidence and do rah-rah talk. I tend to treat everybody as professional. Everybody on my team, they deserve to know the truth, the entire company. And to the extent that are legally problematic, I would disclose what our strength is and what our weaknesses are.

Ranjay Gulati:
When it comes to fairness, how do you ensure fairness? I mean, you don't know all the data. How do you say, "I'm fair."? Is fairness comes from understanding their point of view, listening to them? How do you come to adjudicate what is fair?

John Chen:
That's a great question. It does require certain level of communication, but not too much, because if you got too much, you basically gave people an impression that they could plead their case. And that may or may not be the fair thing to do because two people, one talk, one doesn't talk, the one doesn't talk will quote, unquote, "suffered" so to speak.

So, you have to collect enough data and accurate data, but you can't be swayed too much, but you need to communicate why. I communicate based on one principle, what's best for the company? And this is what I believe is fair. And you might not believe it's fair as the recipient, but at least you know where I'm coming from, how I arrive at that point. And that takes a lot of my time. I do a lot of one-on-one with my direct reports. It's a lot of time in a week, but I believe that's the only way.

As a leader, you cannot say, "I have decided that that's it. Don't want to talk about it." Or, you could say it once in a while, but you can't say it too often because then it lacks collaboration, it lacks understanding. So, I tend to spend a lot more time communicating why. That doesn't mean I'm going to change my mind, but I need to communicate why. And if I have something that is really wrong, then I change.

Ranjay Gulati:
When you look back at all that you've done one day, how will you know that you have been successful? Or rather, another way to ask is, how do you know you have lived your life purpose?

John Chen:
I feel pretty fortunate that the few big things that I've done in my career particularly, we have good outcome. We have good outcome for employees, good outcome for shareholders, good outcome for the customers. So, I do believe that I have helped create jobs. I have make people's life better. And so, I hope I could do the same thing here at BlackBerry. I don't know to what degree, but I am comfortable to suggest that I have a pretty good life.

Ranjay Gulati:
Any advice for people who are starting on their journey as a leader early on in their career? What advice would you give to somebody who is just starting out?

John Chen:
Experience is the most important thing. It's more important than results. As I took the Sybase job, I explained to you a little earlier, to me, honestly, a job that nobody really wants. And I wasn't even sure that on paper I'm qualified for, but I always think that the journey is more important than the results.

And I think I see a lot of young people nowadays that they want to go into certain situation, already achieved, and some people call it entitlements. I don't believe in that. I believe you earn the achievement, but the more important thing is what did you learn while you go through that? Because that stick with you forever. That's my belief. And I will encourage people to expand their experience. I went from hardware to software, software to mobile. I learned a lot. I learned tons. Every aspect of the business had different characteristics. So, I believe that make you a more useful person.

Ranjay Gulati:
I've been speaking with John Chen, the executive chairman and CEO of BlackBerry. For more of my conversations with leaders in the business world navigating the 21st century business environment, visit my Deep Purpose website. While you're there. You can also find out about my book titled Deep Purpose.

Companies that are serious about establishing and working towards a deep purpose find that it delivers game-changing results for the workers, the shareholders, and the larger society. So, visit with me at deeppurpose.net. This podcast is produced by David Shin and Steven Smith with help from Jen Daniels and Craig McDonald. The theme music is by Gary Meister. I'm Ranjay Gulati. Thanks for listening.