Full Transcript for Jon Huntsman, former Ambassador and current Mastercard Vice Chair

is. 00:02:57.324 --> 00:03:51.414 Well, I'd say, Dana, that there are both events and people that kind of shape who you are. You live in interesting times. You experience interesting thing, things, and they happen to have an impact on the choices you make in life. And you're shaped by your environment, but you're very much shaped by the people who intersect with you through life. And I have to say that, you know, I come from a family of educators, entrepreneurs. My grandfather Huntsman was a public educator, retired as principal of a high school. My other grandfather ran a hardware store in in Palo Alto, California, where I was born, and he both were great exemplars of how we do anything means everything. I know they thought through exactly what they were doing as leaders in their day, and this was always top of mind. 00:03:51.414 --> 00:04:07.180 They wouldn't have known what it was, but they were exemplars in terms of how they conducted themselves and and how they let out my own my own dad, a great entrepreneur and terrific father. You know the mantra I remember most from him growing up was kill them with kindness. 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:55.389 They'll come after you. They'll try to do everything they can to stop you, whether it's in business or public service, but you kill them with kindness because there's not much they can do in response to that. So having those kinds of mentors around for me has always been inspirational, but I've always found Dana in whatever work I've done, whether in public or private sector, whether in diplomacy, whether in direct governance of a state, that I've always made it a point to find mentors, people who were doing things way better than me, and that that wasn't difficult to do, but I always identified someone who was an exemplar of the values and the moral leadership practices that I always thought were important in in in successful leaders. 00:04:55.425 --> 00:05:38.774 You've operated across a lot of cultures and institutions and.And there are moments of probably difficulties or crucibles or tensions where it's often a lot easier to rely on transactional engagement than actually investing in trust. So maybe for our listeners, you could share a little bit of how you approach What's your playbook for getting beyond this carrot and stick type of transaction towards deeper, more meaningful, humble, trusting relationships that function function more as friendships or partnerships, especially when, like it's really the stakes are very high and trust is maybe not a given. 00:05:39.855 --> 00:06:45.704 Yeah, and you hit right on Dana, very key word, and that is trust. And with without trust, you have nothing, and with trust you have everything. That should be a guiding principle for any human being, regardless of what the end ever is. Because if you're in an environment that doesn't speak to trust, and if you don't have that one with another, you won't get anything done, and if you do, it will be just on a temporary

transactional basis, and that doesn't serve the purpose or the good of anybody or anything. So I learned, I learned in politics, and I'm not much of a politician, but I was in it at one point, and I loved it that one of the hardest things for me was asking somebody for their vote. And my friends and advisors will come up and say, Well, you got to aggressively ask people for the vote. You got to do this, or they're not going to vote for you. And it's like, okay, I get that part. But for me, it was, I'm asking that person for that which is most precious to them, which is giving you their trust. 00:06:45.704 --> 00:08:11.985 If they vote for you, they're putting total trust in you as a leader, to do something that will improve humanity or improve their, their their their conditions and and I used to get up, you know, in town hall meetings, and explain this, that I'm an imperfect politician. I'm trying to ask you all for your vote, and that's an important thing to get to the finish line, but let me tell you where I'm coming from. When I ask for your vote for me, that's a daunting thing, because I know what it means to you if you want to vote for me, and that is, you're giving me your ultimate trust. I never took it for granted, not once, and every time I would go up to somebody and say, I'd like your vote. I hope you vote for me. I want to earn your I want to earn your trust. I guess for a lot of politicians, those are just spoken words, and you'll learn that in the script or something like that. For me, it was a real kind of deepening of a relationship that I took very, very seriously, maybe too seriously, but I did because I thought there's no more intimate relationship than that, of your constituencies, your your colleagues, fellow citizens, who vote for you to be governor of a state in which they're placing great trust, to fix schools, to pave roads and to lead with integrity and to keep your hand out of the cash register, to not do dumb things and not be corrupt. 00:08:11.985 --> 00:08:35.250 So what does service first leadership playbook actually look like in practice when you're serving others that you're unified in, that that we're about to serve her, and you know, it's not without cost, personally, professionally, reputationally, but what's, what's the service first playbook look like in practice? 00:08:35.480 --> 00:09:21.664 Yeah, I think the service. And again, I'm not, I'm not an expert at this. I've just been a perfect practitioner. But I think service, particularly leadership, service through whether it's a simple need in your neighborhood or your community, you name it, I've done a lot of different things with with my family over the years, and it doesn't matter how simple or how local you feel empowered. You feel empowered because you're doing something bigger than self, you know, just serving those who are without shelter over a Christmas break, which I would do with my kids. 00:09:21.664 --> 00:09:34.490 They all walked away the same way, thinking the same thing, we're doing something bigger than self, and that tends to shape people in ways that they otherwise would not be shaped. 00:09:34.490 --> 00:09:55.595 So I'm one who believes that service, however defined, whether local, whether in a school, I always and all of our public educators are servants in a very interesting way, or whether it's on a political stage or a public service stage, or whether it's in uniform as you, as you, you did so well. 00:09:55.595 --> 00:10:20.840 Service, first of all, should be a little hard. It's not the easy road. You're giving up yourself, you're making a contribution to something bigger, and from it, you're improving your community, the well being of the environment in which people are living, and you are being strengthened as a result of that, it's bringing out a sense of humility. It's bringing out a sense of inclusion and equality. 00:10:20.840 --> 00:11:05.149 It's interesting, because a virtue of service, I think, is also humility. And so the two go together in terms of big being part of something bigger than self gets you outside of self, and that humility that comes through from you, there also must be times where you've had because you're a learner, leader, Curiosity is something that is a message, right? Even in your mentoring, advice for us, what intellectual humility have you had? A short story, maybe where you held on to a belief or something that in reflection, you change that for some reason. What was that where you had to change? 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:38.585 Well, I know so little. It's easy to be an enthusiastic learner and listen when you're throwing throwing into an environment, when you're on the streets of developing country in Asia in the late 1970s and you have to learn a very difficult language, and you've never really studied a language before, and this one is the most complex in the whole world, a it brings out enormous humility, like, How on earth am I ever going to tackle this one? 00:11:38.585 --> 00:13:02.539 And if I can't tackle this one, there's no way I can survive, because nobody speaks my language, but it also instills new a certain work ethic to want to succeed and to pull things mentally and emotionally that otherwise you've never been forced to do and and that helps you along, but, but I have been so Blessed Dana in the sense that I've been in so many different environments, professionally, whether diplomacy, whether elective politics, whether policy job in DC, running embassies overseas or in in in the in the corporate World, and each of them have been so different that it's like, every time that I've had a first day on the job, it's been like, I feel like I'm in Taiwan in 1979 all over again, trying to what am I going to do? I'm going to totally fall through the cracks. There's no way I can master this, this language or the subject matter. And it brings out a natural curiosity to want to learn everything you can about the automobile business.

I'd not been in the automobile business before I went on the board of Ford, and then went in as vice chairman of the company, and now I can tell you how to build a car and or in in the payments world, where I am today, which is a highly complicated world of finance. 00:13:02.539 --> 00:13:29.450 And even though I should have been around retirement age, I came in here, and I thought one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I'm so curious about how this whole side of the of the global financial circulatory system works, and what makes it tick. And I get a front row seat, and I get to lead teams and make decisions, I darn well better understand and do my homework and figure out how this stuff works. 00:13:29.570 --> 00:13:55.654 you know, there's also this. The only thing certain right now is uncertainty. And so there's that continual learning in this environment as well, whether it's financial, social, global and it's really rough, and so maybe the question here is, how, in your view, what's the most important practice for a moral leader in times of crisis? How do you navigate these chaotic, turbulent times, 00:13:57.700 --> 00:14:07.659 Bringing clarity and chaos, which means you filter out the noise from the signal. And few people do that. 00:14:07.659 --> 00:14:14.919 I'm always surprised people get caught up in the drama, the noise, and they lose the signal. 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:21.264 And the minute you lose the signal, you've got your eye off the ball, and you're not able to lead because you have no destination to lead people too. 00:14:21.264 --> 00:15:06.054 And so for me, chaotic environments, and I've been in some have taught me that, first of all, deep breath. First of all, you're on point to calm everybody else down. And if you don't calm yourself down, and if you don't model leadership in a chaotic environment, then no one else will. But if you do, they will follow, and they will follow in a like fashion. So if you can lead your team in times of crisis, and anybody can, if they, if they put themselves to it on the house side, it's, it's really leading yourself first and foremost. Because if you can't lead yourself during times of crisis and get your act together, then you're never going to be successful at it. 00:15:06.054 --> 00:15:37.899 But I've actually enjoyed leadership during times of difficulty, because I think that's where leaders really can shine, is where they have the most impact and value. But it's not easy, and you've got to model that behavior in terms of trusting others, in terms of relying on the best information available, in terms of filtering out the noise, in terms of articulating messages of hope and confidence to people who are directly impacted by the chaotic environment. 00:15:39.299 --> 00:16:30.990 so that stability in the clarity and signaling so important you also have reflected, and this is a quote I think capital, whether it's monetary or political, is meant to be used to benefit others. And as you

well know how frames leadership as stewardship, as you do how power is used matters as much as whatever is achieved. So the matter matters and so looking back across the roles that you've had, the decisions that best illustrate power and service of long term trust, rather than short term wins, what are some of the questions that today's leaders might be asking ourselves, to ensure that influences is other oriented, lifting people up, not just advancing agendas. So why are you doing what you're doing? 00:16:30.000 --> 00:17:14.144 What are you in it for? What are the expected outcomes? What is your life journey? What do you value most, in terms of what it is you're doing in in the service place, or in the in the workplace. And I've always thought very simply that, you know, we come into this world with nothing, we probably should leave with nothing but that which we give others, and that can be monetary, that can be through service, that can be through inspiration doesn't matter, but we don't take anything with us, and therefore it's all kind of what we leave behind, and we're measured by, you know, simple acts of service and kindness. 00:17:14.144 --> 00:18:46.664 I've never seen a tombstone in a graveyard that didn't have a descriptor of the deceased, that didn't have one or two words, and nobody cares about your bank account. You know, nobody cares about your titles. In life, what comes out, you know, loud and clear, is mom or dad or military servant or made the world better in some form of service, that's what's remembered. And I like to tell my kids, you know, when you read an obituary, that should put your life in perspective, because the first two or three sentences are always the most important in somebody's life, and the first two or three sentences are usually about, depending upon the person and who's writing it, maybe about some historic drama that somebody got involved in, but in most cases, you know, the first couple of sentences are about service and what that person did. I told my I have two sons in the Navy, and when Jimmy Carter died, who he got a chance to know during his lifetime, in some interesting ways I won't get into right now. I shared his obituary with my two Navy sons, and I said, read what the first few sentences say. Lieutenant JG, United States Navy, nuclear commander. US Naval Academy graduate, and then it was President United States down maybe in the second paragraph. 00:18:47.505 --> 00:18:53.730 Obituary virtues. That's the dash in our life on our tombstone. It's a beautiful story you just shared. 00:18:53.730 --> 00:19:03.509 And I know my last question here for our listeners is one that as positive as you are, it eases and oozes during these times. 00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:08.970 You know, we know moral leaders are purveyors of hope. What is giving you hope right now? 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:19.759 Because I see pockets of excellence everywhere I look, I see pockets of despair. I see people suffering. 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:40.025 I see divided communities and divided families, but I also see just the opposite, and we tend to, we tend to focus a lot more on that which is dysfunctional as opposed to that which is functional. And then I travel outside of the United States into marvelous age old cultures. 00:19:40.025 --> 00:20:39.275 And I've done this my whole life, pretty much, and I see that the wear and tear that we're experiencing in the United States is not a global phenomenon. We're too negative, we're too quick to judgment.Our politics are divided and upside down. All of that in you can go on with the laundry list of of woes. But you travel to a lot of parts of the United States outside of DC, because DC is kind of a bad town, and you see people working together, just like Alexis de Tocqueville used to write about in in the 1830s or 1840s and that's volunteerism, contributions, people pulling together, you know, to help rebuild a church that burned down, folks coming together to help a mother or a father in need. I mean, this is just routine, and we don't focus on that anymore, because it doesn't, it doesn't spend very well in in in Twitter or Instagram or whatever it is. 00:20:39.275 --> 00:21:08.644 It's not dramatic enough, but I go, I go to other countries, and I see a lot of hope, and a lot of young people who are just looking in their eyes. I mean, they're looking at the possibilities with great anticipation, and that's a hopeful sign to me. And my kids still in their eyes have a look of great anticipation, and my dog still has a look of great anticipation every time I walk in the door. So I see this, and it really does, it really does warm me. 00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:44.464 Well, this has been an amazing HOW Conversation, and I have to say, a way that you captured a time that you engaged with a group of veterans. You use the word inspiring and rejuvenating. And I think our listeners are probably feeling inspired and rejuvenated by your willingness to share your journey and thank you for the message of how in building trust and also leading across divides, that helps give us hope for our communities and for all levels, and your global influence and impact also is very inspiring and rejuvenating. 00:21:44.464 --> 00:21:58.250 So we hope it's returned back for you for the journey of your leadership and continual learning. So thank you, Ambassador Jon Huntsman, for sharing with us moral leadership and the how, let's put more how into the world. 00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:01.130 Great pleasure. 00:22:01.130 --> 00:22:01.130 Great pleasure. .