Two CEO Speeches I Still Remember

Two very good CEO speeches I still remember, in each case a good leader put himself in the same boat with the rest of us during tough times.

Two CEO Speeches I Still Remember

One of the most compelling and motivational CEO speeches I ever heard when I was at Cisco was by John Morgridge in early 1994. The company had been growing very rapidly for several years and many employees were starting to view our success as inevitable. At a sales offsite Morgridge recounted a series of meetings he had held with prospects at InterOp (the big show for the networking world) and how each time he could look across the conference hall or the restaurant or the lobby and see Paul Severino, the CEO of Wellfleet (our arch-rival), talking to a different prospect or one of our customers. Morgridge observed that

“They may be beaten, but they don’t know that they are beaten, and they aren’t acting like they are beaten. Now, I am an old man, and I am doing what I can. But I need your help because I can’t do it alone.”
John Morgridge

He put us all “in the box” with him: none of us would succeed unless we all picked up the pace. And Morgridge turned out to be correct, Wellfleet merged with Synoptics to form Bay Networks and continued to be a fierce competitor.

I remember similar remarks by Irwin Federman a decade earlier when I was working at Monolithic Memories. We were doing four day work weeks, well they weren’t actually four day work weeks, we were getting paid for four days but working five. At the time I thought it was a terrible alternative to a layoff because I hadn’t any experience with how wrenching and arbitrary and destructive and capricious most layoffs are. It was a company meeting where Irwin was outlining changes that we needed to make to become profitable enough to start paying people 5 days a week. And he closed with

“And I hope that you all act on this, because if you don’t, fewer of you will be listening to someone else next year at this time.”
Irwin Federman

A good leader puts himself in the same boat with his team, especially when times are tough.

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Image Credit: “Black Rudder” image licensed; © BlueBright

This blog was subsequently published on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-ceo-speeches-i-still-remember-sean-murphy-jlfcc/ which triggered several comments and this postscript

Postscript Thu-Dec-5-202

I have worked in a wide range of firms, some wildly successful like Cisco, and some less so. At the time these speeches were made each firm had had gone through a period of strong profitable growth and were now facing strong headwinds. Both were announcements similar to Churchill exhortation, “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.” What I have seen other leaders do is to threaten team members if they fail to meet the challenge, acting as if they themselves would be exempt from any consequences. What I learned from these two heartfelt talks was that it was far more energizing to hear: “We have a struggle ahead of us but we can succeed if we pull together–and we includes me.”

In a smaller team or group setting you have to make it clear that you need their help and actively encourage feedback, suggestions, and a free exchange of ideas. You can’t open with, “Here’s what I think we should do but I am but I’m interested in what you think.” Because that’s what you say when you want to let people know that you have made the decision and are announcing it gently: “This is what’s coming so get ready, right?” Which is a kind of fake democracy.

If you ask for feedback, you must understand the meaning of someone’s remarks or suggestions. Ask questions like, “Tell me more about this,” or “Can you give me an example.” Avoid the temptation to deflect or object. Instead, acknowledge what people are telling you. You don’t have to agree, but you have to demonstrate that you understand. I know this is at odds with the common portrayal of the visionary founder or dynamic CEO, but it’s what you need to do to harness a team’s collective problem-solving creative talents. More on this at

• Time to Market Episode 9: Making Tough Calls in the Section “Encourage Dissent and Exploration of Alternatives”
• When You are No Longer The Smartest Person in the Room
• Managing Recurring Problems In Your Startup