Comfort with Chaos: Interview with Boogie Board CEO Dr. Asad Khan

I recently went one on one with Dr. Asad Khan. Asad is the CEO of Kent Displays, the maker of the Boogie Board.

Adam:  Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Asad: I started at Kent Displays, a research development company that has since become a global leader in reflective bistable cholesteric liquid crystal display technology, as a research engineer in the mid-90s. Our focus was to find a way to take the liquid crystal technology developed by our co-founder, Dr. Bill Doane, and develop it into a commercial product. 

During the early 2000s, the initial relevancy of our product offering in the display was being questioned, and those doubts helped fuel the research needed to develop the transformation flexible displays we currently use today. We then developed the patented roll-to-roll manufacturing process that allowed us to turn our research into a technology that we could potentially sell to manufacturers. 

However, we weren’t able to find enough manufacturers who were willing to buy the technology in order to make it a sustainable business model, even though the markets we were targeting were large. So we decided to develop a consumer product ourselves, which turned into the first reusable writing tablet.  We launched the first Boogie Board in 2010 and have since sold millions of products across the globe!

From those early days at Kent Displays in the mid-90s, my career has been blessed with amazing leaders, managers, and colleagues. Kent Displays proved to be a brilliant and fertile ground to cultivate technical skills, people skills, management skills, and gain business acumen.  

No learning or “experience” comes without errors, mistakes, and poor decisions.  As mentioned above, there were many twists and turns that both challenged and enabled my professional growth.  These substantial transitions were each tough learning experiences and forcing functions to rethink the status quo to pivot and to reach out both internally and externally to resources that can help us make the transition. Watching my peers make these pivots and react to the changing business needs was truly inspirational. And it was tough to see those peers that were unable to make the transitions!

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

Asad:  People. Having the right people in the right roles with the right attitudes, developing the right partnerships. The alignment of urgency and mindset of the organization and its people is paramount.  This may be obvious and is stated eloquently by many brilliant books and seasoned professionals – but very hard to accomplish in a coherent, calculated and sensible way!

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Asad:  First, the ability to observe and appreciate the business from the eyes of the many workers in the organization. This helps one understand their perspectives in order to better address conflicts and inconsistencies, which in turn, create productive and exciting environment and culture.

Second, making sure to treat all ranks with equal respect and be as forthright as possible. In order to be cognizant of the feelings of those that are subordinate, one has to show respect and be honest!  Honesty and clarity are attributes of respect. However, honesty and clarity must happen at all times. 

Inconsistent action and communication will often lead to mistrust and is not synonymous with respect. Interestingly, respecting those subordinate to one is trivial and requires very little extra effort.  It is not without a conscious effort though and the dividends are enormous.

Is it possible to be clear, empathetic, respectful yet firm, tough, and relentless?  Yes.  Period.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Asad:  Connect with colleagues in the same and adjacent industries.  Reach out to mentors and executives that can help with tough situations.  More often than not, leadership skills are tailored and developed by being empathetic and connecting with all levels of people within the organization.  The self-development and maturity of a leader is paramount in his or her capability of growing their leadership skills and helping the organization get to the next level.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Asad: Build strong partnerships and relationships, provide clarity in roles, make sure there is alignment with the overall mission, and then constantly provide feedback. The team-building part is the most important.  If done right, the leading and managing of the team becomes natural.

We are proud of our diverse team from scientists to engineers, creative people to sales, and manufacturing to operational teams! Our diversity extends in racial and ethnic lines as well as gender.  Such diversity lends to stronger teams, more creativity, and a multiplicity of ideas.

Adam: How can leaders create a culture that fuels innovation and creativity?

Asad:  Have a focused mission and goal that all team members can get behind and work toward. When team members are working toward a common goal, creativity and innovation are often the key things needed to achieve that goal. 

Help build trust and relationships among the teams. When team members trust each other as well as leadership, it allows them to put their energy toward creativity and innovation vs. having them try to work against each other. We have done creative off-sites, which have helped our team members then build great rapport with associates outside of work.

Give your team an abundance of latitude, freedom and space to be creative and try new things. 

When these foundational elements are in place, innovation and creativity come naturally.  

Often, we also find creativity to come when faced with severe challenges – in operations, in technology, and even in sales!

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Asad:  First, entrepreneurship is not easy – you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

Second, you must focus on people development and skills and keep your feet on the ground. 

Above all and perhaps the most crucial: Take the shots. So many are looking at executives to make decisions and “take the shot.”  Often, an executive has to make the decision, take risk, and be able to exude confidence without having all the data!

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing and branding?

Asad:  I am a data-driven person. For those leaders coming from technical backgrounds, it is imperative that the teams you build in sales, marketing, and branding are those that respect, value and use data and clarity in decision-making. 

Indeed, there is a notion of instinct and a respect for the gray areas in these spaces; however, blending data-driven decisions with experience, instinct and intuition is very effective!  Because I am not from this background, it is even more important to hire and have people that you trust and are aligned with the same logic, and therefore help make the right decisions.  Constant learning, building expertise, asking questions and staying informed are always good sound practices!

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Asad:  “Explosive growth cannot come in an organized fashion.”  Having learned this, I have become comfortable with the chaos that often comes with growth in a small organization.  Once there is comfort, ironically, one can start to create organization and coherence within the turmoil of the organization’s ability to act and react.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Asad:  Absolutely. To your readers, I offer the canister theory – a metaphor on developing and harnessing individual capacities!

This is about the capacity of an individual to work.  The canister is the total time available, which is fixed.  One can assume this to be 24 hours in a day, or less if one takes out sleep. But the notion is that this is fixed, cannot be expanded and everyone has the same amount. 

The amount of work one does is a gas inside this canister.  Work includes productive stuff, non-productive stuff, planning, thinking – everything.  The gas always occupies the canister.  No matter how much work you have – less or more, it always occupies the time you have available.  

Some people can do more (they can add more gas to their canister, pressurizing it even more). Others can do less (they work best when there isn’t as much pressure built up).  Interestingly, some people actually work better when the pressure is higher – you have more productivity when the amount of things you have to do is more. A natural trait of high performers.  In fact, most high performers will seek out to pressurize the canister as they seek higher productivity.

It can often be very tricky for supervisors and peers to understand how much pressure one’s canister can take. Indeed, often it can be difficult even for the individuals themselves. This is when you hear “I surprised myself at how much I could do.”  

It takes constant monitoring and testing to determine at what level an individual operates.  It takes a skillful and dedicated mentor or supervisor to spend the time it takes to learn the pressure scale of an individual. However, done effectively, this exercise will often add to the capacity of the individual to handle more of the gas, as well as set the expectation of how much pressure one can handle. 

The obvious extension of the metaphor is how not to pressurize the canister so much that it bursts.  This, clearly, must be avoided at all costs.  This is also why regular breaks (vacations, time to disconnect) are needed. One must not run the canister at max pressure all the time.  It needs time to heal and self-repair. 


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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