Kate Johnson may have graduated from the Wharton School and is currently president and CEO of Lumen Technologies, but she learned one of the most important lessons of her business career when her husband coached her to become a better skier.
Johnson, a longtime athlete, considers herself a “good” skier, but she “pales in comparison” to her husband, an expert on the slopes. The gap in her talents limited the paths they could walk together. During her ski trips to Deer Valley, Utah, Johnson learned that her husband could tell her a lot about how to become a better skier and asked him to train her.
Her reaction was not what she expected. ” Of course not,” he told her.
Johnson told her husband that she was looking for him to exercise for two reasons, and one of them had nothing to do with skiing.
“It’s vital for me,” he tells her. First of all, I need to be a better skier for us. We can have more fun together if I don’t slow you down on the trails or other tracks. Secondly, I need to better understand the comments in a constructive way. I need you to help me with this.
Going back to her idea, her husband said that he would train her, but that there would be some floor rules if he looked for her. “There have to be rules,” he said. I’m absent if there’s any kind of emotional reaction that comes with it. “
“Perfect,” he said. Great. That’s your limit. Well, I have a limit too. You can’t give me more than 3 things to paint at a time.
His request is an essential component of Johnson’s, an important lesson he learned in his office over the years. Before leading Lumen, a company that owns one of the world’s largest fiber optic networks connecting countless businesses and government agencies, Johnson ran Microsoft’s US business and was an executive at Oracle and GE. Johnson’s specialty is business leadership and virtual transformation at one hundred Fortune companies.
In a recent interview, Johnson said that one of the constants of his career (and his life on the court) has been to focus on improving 3 things at once. Call it your rule of 3.
“I never make a progression plan with someone who has more than 3 priorities. I don’t think you can paint more than three,” Johnson said.
You can lose if you prioritize too much, Johnson said. I think if you take seven priorities and distribute them across the company,” he said, “I hope no one is executing more than three of them. “
In the interview, Johnson gave some tactical advice on how to excel in the workplace and added how to put his “rule of three” into practice in his leadership toolbox:
With this guidance and that of her husband, Johnson is now a better skier. They traveled together the double black diamond slopes, the most difficult slopes on a mountain.
“Simply put, I can ski anywhere on the mountain! »She said. “It helped me not only get started in skiing, but also understand that receiving feedback deserves to be easy for the user who sends it to you. If this security can be created within the confines of applicable standards, it can have an incredibly significant impact.
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