I recently went one-on-one with Tony Grimminck, CEO of Scribd, Inc., which includes Scribd, Slideshare, Everand, and Fable.
Adam: You grew up in Australia and spent your early days in the Australian Army. How did that experience shape you as a leader?
Tony: It’s hard to escape it. Once I open my mouth, everyone’s like, “Oh, yeah. Not from around here.” I grew up in Australia, in a small country town. Some of my family were in the military, so that was both a way to get out of the small town and see the wider world, and it was also familiar. I joined the Army, went to our military academy in Australia, and then served in various roles in Australia and overseas, in East Timor, in Iraq, and some time in Africa. I accomplished my goal, I saw the world, and without seeking it out, I learned a lot about leadership in the military. A lot of folks that have spent time in the military could attest to this, where the lessons you learn are put into practice every day, and it is an unforgiving environment where mistakes can usually have fatal consequences. Ultimately, the military, like business, is all about people. How you manage people to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission, and not just the first mission, but subsequent missions as well. I’ve learned a lot from that experience in different environments, and I’ve brought some of that across to the business world. There’s no shining of boots anymore, or ironing uniforms, but there are a lot of other lessons that came across.
It comes back to this notion of people, because in the military, you have a mission, you need to go achieve that mission. People are required to achieve that mission. You could burn out all your people to achieve the mission, but then how do you go on? You must balance achieving the mission, getting a desired outcome, with the needs of the team who will get you there and then need to get you beyond there. As a leader, you must make difficult decisions that impact your people. In corporate environments, that may include letting people go or changing the focus of the organization. As the CEO, the buck stops with you; you need to make those decisions, and any abrogation of those responsibilities to someone else just means you’re not leading this team. Ultimately, it comes down to good judgment, and you’re paid to make these difficult decisions in the best interest of the company. Who are you representing? The interests of your shareholders, but also the team that needs to go out and achieve results. That is probably the biggest takeaway from my military career. It’s not necessarily a specific point in time. I would say there’s an accumulation of experience in somewhat difficult circumstances, having to make difficult decisions, that led me to this point of view today.
Adam: You bring up an interesting topic, which is that no matter where you are, no matter what environment you’re in, if you’re going to be a leader, you’re going to have to make decisions. And many of the decisions that you’re going to have to make aren’t going to be easy decisions. If they were easy decisions, they’re not going to rise to your desk. If they’re getting to you, they’re probably getting to you because other people pass them to you. And if you’re a leader, you have to be able to make decisions. You have to be able to make difficult decisions. And those early days for you gave you some training in making tough decisions. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to decision-making, and what advice you have for anyone on how to make difficult decisions and how to ultimately make sound decisions?
Tony: Having a great team. To your point, if the decision comes to me, it’s a big decision to be made. I would hope that’s a sign of good leadership, that you’re not having to make all of the decisions. At that point, you become a bottleneck, or there’s information overload, you can’t make all the decisions. I’d say the better the team you build, the fewer decisions you actually need to make, and then, the decisions you do need to make are the really big ones that are consequential. Building a team, having responsible leaders, and having sound judgment are the critical aspects. You communicate your intent, your purpose, the vision of the company, and then trust the team to make a lot of decisions, sometimes in an environment of uncertain, incomplete information. You trust their judgment to be able to move forward. In a business sense, that’s hiring people, making product decisions, making a dozen different decisions every day, and having the right team to be able to do that is critical to any leader’s success.
Adam: Yeah, Tony, I’m with you 110%. You bring up a couple of really important points. Number one, if you’re the one making all the decisions, that’s a failure in leadership. You’re not leading. You’re the problem. What a great leader does is empower the people around them. And to your point, it starts with finding the right people, and once you find the right people, then your job is in a lot of ways to get out of the way, figure out what you need to do to help them become their best selves, and not overdo things, not overcook the steak. Sometimes, medium rare is just enough.
Tony: That’s definitely true. It depends on the purpose. Sometimes good enough is good enough, and sometimes, it has to be perfect. I do say to a lot of my executive team and my leaders, sometimes if there’s an issue, “I need the two of you to resolve this issue.” If you can’t resolve it, then bring it to me. If it’s within your domains and you can’t make that decision, or it’s big enough and you have the judgment to say, “Listen, this is beyond us this is a company-wide decision you need to make,” bring it back to me, and I’ll help you make that decision after talking to you both. But if you can resolve this between the two of you, between two different points of view, then I think that’s probably going to be the best outcome.
Adam: Who do you look for in the people who you surround yourself with? What is your approach to hiring? What are your best tips on the topic of hiring?
Tony: Hiring is hard, especially hiring executives. It’s not a quick, easy process. You want to understand them, you assume to get to their level, they have the technical skills to be able to do the role. Now it’s about understanding judgment and fit. Do they have good judgment when situations come up that are not clear? Do they have the right judgment to make most decisions, or to defer the decision to somebody else, whether it’s me or another leader? And then fit within the culture. You may have great skills, great judgment, but you’re a fish out of water in terms of the culture, and that doesn’t allow you to fit in over time. When I’m talking to people, I’m trying to get a sense of their judgment and their fit in the culture, and that takes time. I’d love to say I’m awesome at it, but I’ve made mistakes. Some people you click with, but then you work with them for a couple of months and it’s like, “This is just not working out,” because you need time and experience to understand how they react in certain situations, the feedback you get from other people about how they’re performing, to really understand whether they’re going to fit or not. It takes time.
One other thing, especially in technology, when things are changing quickly, is this innate curiosity. People have the ability to ask questions and curiosity to understand how things work. That is a common trait I see in great leaders I’ve worked both for and with. In a time of rapid change, trying to understand and solve problems is one of the most important things you or they are going to have to do. When you’re talking to them during the interview process or afterwards, do they ask good questions? Are they insightful? Are they connecting the dots? All very important. They don’t need to agree with you. I’ve had some of the best results with people that disagree with me a lot. It’s a challenge sometimes to be disagreed with all the time, like, “Okay, here we go again.” I’m going to have a conversation; this is going to be a difficult conversation. But coming out of that, I learn something, and our company is better off for that conversation. Having someone agree with me all the time is probably not the best outcome, though it may make you feel good.
Adam: When I give keynotes, I share a list of the key characteristics of the most successful leaders, and right on that list is curiosity. When you’re trying to figure out who you want to surround yourself with, whether it’s someone at an executive level or even if it’s someone at a junior level, even if it’s someone at an entry level, you want someone who is inquisitive. You want someone who is curious. You want someone who is interested. I gave a talk to some kids, and one of the things that I told them is be interested and be interesting. Be interesting. Be the kind of person that other people are going to want to be around. Be the kind of person that other people are going to want to cultivate a relationship with. Be genuinely curious. Be genuinely interested in people around you, and what’s going on if you’re that person, people are going to want to be around you, and it’s no different if you’re a person seeking employment. It’s no different if you’re a person trying to rise within your career.
Tony: I’d add to that authenticity. Here’s a kid who’s pretty authentic, like, “I’m struggling. Here are my issues.”Imagine the conversation he has with other kids. Sometimes it’s not going to work out; they’re just going to go, “I don’t care.” But that authenticity, he will probably find lifelong friends from that, because they understand him. He’s willing to be vulnerable. Like, “Hey, I’m feeling that too.” You’re an authentic person. This is the establishment of a long-term relationship. I think that’s critical, as well as the curiosity piece. Things change rapidly; you want to be curious to understand and adapt. It’s also authenticity. People can relate to you. I don’t know the answer all the time. I admit that to my people, but I’m curious enough to go find out an answer for you, as opposed to pretending I know the answer. I admit, “I don’t know what it is.”
I see this a lot of the time with my teams. We’re doing a check-in on a particular product, and they’re telling me it’s all going great, like we had this test, it was super successful, and this other test was successful, no problems here. But what I really appreciate is when people also step back and say, “Here’s where the results don’t look great,” even though some tests do. That kind of openness builds trust. It’s like, “We were successful here. We tried this, but it didn’t work. We actually can’t work it out, but we’re still continuing to work on this new product.” It’s okay, you’re authentic, you’re transparent. I have a level of trust that you can go out and solve this problem.
Adam: Such an important point, and it speaks to another key trait, vulnerability. When you are vulnerable, when you’re open about things that aren’t necessarily all that great, that draws people in, that attracts people, that builds trust.
Tony: Yeah, it does. One of the values that I espouse is strong opinions, loosely held. Come into a situation, have a point of view, don’t be like, “Well, tell me what I need to do.” Have an opinion, but don’t be set in your ways so that you will never change. Receive feedback, have an authentic, naturally curious conversation with people, and be prepared to change your opinion. I think that evolves into the best outcome in a given situation.
Adam: How do you approach feedback as a leader? How do you personally ensure that you’re receiving feedback and not only receiving feedback, but actually receiving it? And how, as a leader, do you ensure that you’re delivering feedback that is being received?
Tony: I hate getting feedback. It can make you feel like you’re doing these things wrong. Whether I was a junior officer, an associate, or a junior manager, I felt a little bit of existential dread; it’s annual review time, and let’s tell you all the opportunities for improvement. Personally, at the moment, it’s tough. You need to approach it so that the intent is to make you better and you improve, push down the feelings of nervousness and dread when you’re getting it, but then spend time with it, understand who’s giving it to you, for what reason?
Context is super important in terms of feedback. For me, I recommend picking one thing to work on, as opposed to the three or four things, which would require a complete pivot in my personality or how I act. I pick one thing, work on that, and then check in with that person over time. You can say, “You gave me this feedback. Am I heading in the right direction?” Or at the next formal feedback period, have I improved? Has that gone from my improvement list to the list of things that I’m doing well? That helps you feel better about the improvement, and it makes it manageable.
You would think, as the CEO, I don’t get a lot of feedback. Actually, I get more feedback now as CEO than when I was a CFO or when I was a manager. When you’re a manager, your manager, and maybe one of your peers, may give you a bit of feedback. As CEO, I’ve got customers giving me feedback about the company and the product. I’ve got my investors and board giving me feedback about my performance. I’ve got my executives giving me feedback about how they’re being managed. And then employees have their point of view of me as well. There’s a lot of feedback. Trying to understand it, group it, gather why they’re giving it to me, where it’s coming from, and then picking one or two things to incrementally improve over time has been my approach. You may not fix it straight away, but be able to say, “Okay, I’m making progress on this.”
Adam: As you were describing how you receive feedback, what I was thinking about is a kid taking medicine.
Tony: Your analogy of the kid taking medicine, at a certain age, you’re going to reject the medicine because you haven’t got the maturity to understand that it’s going to help you in the long run. As your career evolves and you become more senior, that’s an evolution you have as well. Initially, it’s like, “No, no feedback,” and then it’s like, “Okay, this is actually going to be beneficial for me,” and leaving your ego aside while you receive that feedback is super important. It’s tough, admittedly, but ultimately I think it leads you to a better place.
It’s not just leadership feedback to your traits and the decisions you’re making, for example, leading the company. You also receive feedback from the market as well. Customers have feedback about your products and the direction you want to take them. Technology is evolving so quickly that you need to adapt. That is almost real-time feedback, because if you’re not adapting to that technology, you’re going to get left behind. I’m sure there are some industries where, regardless of the technology, they’re going to be fine, but for us folks in San Francisco and deeply meshed in technology, it is the reason that we were successful. There was a gap in the market with a technology change, or it created an opportunity, and it’s also a threat to our business as well. That feedback you need to be on top of to be able to continue to adapt to as you go along.
Adam: What are the keys to cultivating a culture that is agile, that is adaptive, and that embraces change?
Tony: I have a constant refrain to employees when I talk to them in small groups or the whole company. Change is inevitable. Change is actually good. Embrace change. Human nature is to hold off change. We’re all back to the comfort zone. If everyone’s telling me I’m doing a good job, or I’m not getting feedback, I’m comfortable. I’m not being challenged. Most people are going to be happy. Change makes people uncomfortable. It’s getting people comfortable through how you talk to them and the messaging around this notion of change. Once they start to understand that, they start to embrace it, and change becomes part of the landscape. I can’t change it, but now, how do I adapt to it? How do I win in this environment?
We do a couple of things at Scribd. We make sure that our team, regardless whether you’re in engineering or across the company, are using some of the latest tools that are available, whether it is generative AI tools, whether it’s other software tools, to understand what’s happening and what’s at the cutting edge. These tools are there to make people more productive. Allowing them to use technology to change the way they do things, to be better at their jobs. It’s about messaging and then opportunity and exposure. Whether they use those tools to write an email or help their kids with homework, they’re using technology, they’re understanding what it is, and then they’re coming back and finding new and innovative ways to use these tools and this technology to do their job. You’ve created an environment where they’re aware that change is going to happen, there are things out there that could impact them, there are good outcomes from those impacts, and then bringing that back full circle into their job, and driving their own nature of change. It’s not any one thing. It’s a whole organizational culture shift you need to go through.
Adam: What are the most important tools leaders today should embrace?
Tony: A couple of things. Be widely read. Understand what’s going on in the world. Understand what’s going on in your industry. There’s some limit you need to place on it, because you could spend all day, every day, consuming information. Be succinct, whether it’s summaries, whether you need to dive in on certain topics deeper that help you. The other is actually not a technology. It’s people, having a network of people that you can ask questions to, that you can discuss issues with. They may be having the same problems as you. Maybe they could lend you advice. As a leader, I think that is a critical second piece, and it is not related to technology whatsoever. I’m sure that advice hasn’t changed in thousands of years, and I don’t think it will going forward either.
It comes full circle back to judgment. You can learn something, whether you read it, listen to it, or experience it. But it takes multiple instances for it to truly sink in. That’s where experience helps. Good situations and bad situations are both learning opportunities, and that accumulated experience reinforces the learning you may have done when you’ve read things. I think that leads to the judgment that actually makes great leaders.
Adam: How should leaders approach and best utilize AI?
Tony: AI is not going away, so to ignore it and hope it does is a failing proposition. It is a tool that we as people can and should utilize to do better, whether it’s to optimize your time or optimize the outcomes. I think generative AI is a tool that helps in both. We make sure that every one of our employees, regardless of the role, is using this tool, because it’s not just a tool of the future, it’s the tool of today, and without that skill, you’re not going to be able to keep up. Do we get to the point where there’s general intelligence, at which point we’re all rendered useless? I don’t know. Maybe I read a lot of science fiction. You’ve got the dystopian future versus the utopian future where it all works out for humanity. Outside of that, when it comes back to a tool, whether it was fire, whether it was the printing press, whether it was computing, all of these have been tools for humanity to advance to its next stage. I think generative AI is the next tool to allow us to advance further. But I don’t think it’s going to take over anytime soon.
I use generative AI tools personally to help me craft messaging. Instead of “write me a message,” whether it’s a communication to the company or a communication to the board, I use it as, “Here’s my input. Help me structure an output.” Here’s a stream of consciousness; come back with some structure to this output. I find that personally very useful. I can shortcut the process in terms of crafting. I can get all the content in, and AI will help me with the outcome. I also use it as a sparring partner. It’s like, okay, I’m thinking about strategy, what are the faults here? A lot of the time it brings in considerations that I hadn’t thought of, and that’s helpful. Then I validate that with my peers and a human connection as well, to make sure I’m not being led down the garden path on a topic that it’s hallucinating on, or may not be as relevant. Those are the main uses that I have for it at the moment.
We use the technology up and down the stack. Internally for our people we use it for software engineers to write code or to help develop marketing messages. For our product, for our customers, we use it to translate content on scribd.com, user-generated content in one language to multiple languages, because we’re a global platform. We use it to provide succinct summaries of sometimes very long documents to help people decide, “Is this what I’m actually after?” so they can utilize their time better, like, okay, this is what I’m after, I’m going to dive deep, versus, okay, that’s not what I thought it was, and I need to move on. Where we’re taking scribd.com now is going from a repository of user-generated content, hundreds of millions of documents uploaded to the site, to basically being this knowledge builder now. We talk about going from content to understanding. Generative AI helps people do that, not just at the scale of 300 million pieces of content, but also in the thousands of words and multiple documents in a particular subset of knowledge you’re trying to build. It is a perfect tool to help people do that now. It’s still information on a screen. How to get that into our heads, that next step, going from reading to understanding. I think it is a critical piece of technology that helps us deliver to our customers what we’re setting out to achieve.
Adam: What are the keys to leading globally?
Tony: I’ve benefited from global experience, geographic and cultural. It’s also a military mindset versus a corporate mindset as well. The more experience, the wider the aperture you have, the better judgment you ultimately can have, and the better decisions you can make, because you’ve got more experiences to rely on. I’ve been lucky to have lived in multiple countries and traveled around the world, and spoken to lots of different people. For me, it’s less about where you come from or your point of view. It’s how you contribute to the outcome. You’re smart, you’re curious, you have good judgment. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It’s about what you can contribute. There’s a realization that talent can come from everywhere, because I’ve seen it wherever I’ve traveled, and the different cultures I’ve been part of. The diversity of advice and experience and culture have led to me making better, at least more informed decisions, and also thinking about the makeup of my teams, whether small engineering teams or the company as a whole, that you recruit the best and brightest talent, irrespective of where they come from.
Regardless of where your company is based, if you build a high-performing culture that accepts diversity of opinion and curiosity, I think you’ll be successful.” In Australia, a common phrase would be, “You work to live, not live to work.” There’s an acknowledgment of a balance of work, what it provides, and the rest of your life, whether it’s family, personal, friends etc. In the US, I’ve worked in New York and California, in finance and in technology, work expands to fill all available space. You need dedication, not just smarts, and that dedication is represented by time that takes up a lot of your life to be successful, versus Australia, and I’d say Europe as well. The super successful people, both in Australia, in Europe, or here, probably spend a decent amount of time focusing on their work. It is a commitment to rise to the level of a senior person in a company, so I don’t think that’s very different, but the perspectives of work itself do differ. In Northern Europe, I’ve lived there for a couple of years, and in all of August, people take time off. We’ve worked hard through the year; this is the time for us to check out, refresh, recharge, and spend time with our families. It’s the unlucky somebody that’s holding down the desk during that time if you need something. There’s a tacit agreement across the whole country and largely the continent, we all do this at the same time. Not some of us are out, and some of us are in, and there’s an expectation someone’s just shouldering the load. We all collectively agree to lower the temperature, we lower the tempo, and then we’ll come back. I found that refreshing, as opposed to the US, where you sneak in opportunities when you can, and there’s this 24/7 tempo. It’s hard to collectively say, “Can we all agree just to not do anything for two weeks?”
Adam: That really speaks to the importance of understanding your environment, understanding your ecosystem, understanding expectations, and understanding cultural norms.
Tony: Exactly. It’s also the environment that you’re participating in. Our customers don’t go away during a couple of weeks of the year. They’re always there. So we need to meet their expectations as well. There is a balance. We have a workforce across a number of countries, and the expectations in those countries are different. But if you ladder that up to why are we here, what’s our purpose, what are we trying to achieve, I think you can transcend a lot of those cultural backgrounds.
Adam: What do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader, and what can anyone do to become a better leader?
Tony: For me, clarity, so optimize for clarity. Lack of understanding is not a reason for failure. Being clear, and people disagreeing with you is fine, but as long as they understand what your intent is and the message, I think that’s super important. Secondly, invest in people, especially those with curiosity and sound judgment. Judgment, not necessarily the right skills, because I think people can learn skills, but curiosity and judgment, it’s harder to learn, and so you need that there as a core base for those teams to be successful. And then on technology, which we talked about, technology amplifies strategy. It doesn’t replace it.
Adam: Do you think curiosity can be learned?
Tony: I’d say it’s largely innate, though it can evolve over time. I think the opposite is true. People may be curious, but it’s like, “Well, this is going to create problems for us, so I’m not going to ask questions,” versus coming into a situation just naturally asking questions, a lot of questions, and understanding what’s going on. I think that is harder to come across.
Adam: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Tony: Back to the future of knowledge and community, where we’re working at the intersection. We’re entering a new chapter where technology is moving really fast, so it’s critical that authentic human knowledge, stories, ideas, and conversations that we have, remain super essential in our evolution, and that we apply judgment by bringing together this diversity of thought to make great decisions for better outcomes.
