The 4 core principles of crisis management, w/Ellen Kullman (DuPont, Carbon)

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Spacecraft commander Jim Lovell says Odyssey is go. He will be on T minus thirty, T minus twenty five seconds and counting, and a Powell 13 is go. Hey, ignition sequence has started. Sick. Five four three two.

One but zero. Okay, Program. It's April 11th. Nineteen seventy.

And NASA's mission to the moon has just lifted off from Kennedy Space Center. A year earlier in N Seksi Nine. The world had paid rapt attention. to Apollo eleven. But the moonshots

Almost humdrum. However A troubled planet's attention is about to snap to Apollo Thirtín.

Yeah. Okay. Stand by, I got a power. You probably know the story of Apollo thirteen from the movie starring Tom Hanks. But what you're hearing.

Jim Level. John Sweiger. Fred Hayes. I'm looking up the uh

Actually, we are ready something. Fruit things are finished. We're moving out uh into the uh space. An oxygen tank had exploded. Flinging the three astronauts into a desperate and deadly situation.

But their voices. All sound oddly calm. Quite different from the Hollywood version. In the film, when you see all these people kind of running down hallways and you see this like sense of urgency in all the background players, they actually had to add that in to give the audience a sense of urgency because things were actually relatively calm. That's Space Flight Historian.

Amy Shearer Title. She studied the logs from Apollo thirteen. and live tweeted them to mark the forty fifth anniversary of the mission. Now For the fiftieth anniversary, she's revisiting them with us.

With the transcript, you really have this business sense of like, Oh, we had this problem, oh we had this problem, all right, well we're gonna work on it. In other news, the Beatles have broken up. Oh, okay. Well, we've got a new procedure on that tank for you. It just feels professional. It feels like these guys do this for a living almost. The exploding oxygen tank set off a chain of crises. Each of which was solved by the astronauts with the help of the NASA ground control team. The most dramatic.

Which threatened to poison the crew. The guys in Mission Control had to figure out a way to fit The Carbon dioxide scrubber from the command module into the port in the lunar module.

Because the two spacecraft were built by different companies. And they did not use the same filters, which you would think would be a given, but nope, they had to actually make one fit into the other. It was the classic square peg round hole problem. With a twist. It was two hundred thousand miles from Earth.

The astronauts were stuck in a container the size of a family car. With just inches of metal separating them from the terrifying vacuum of space. And they knew. Making one wrong move. would doom them all.

As workplace crises go, it really ranks up there. But as you can hear in their voices. Everyone kept calm and carried on. Doing. What they were trained to do.

In the end, this very slow, deliberate step by step helped the crew Visualize exactly what the guys on the ground were going for. They were able to all figure out how to get the square peg in the round hole and bring down their carbon dioxide levels. I wish we could figure a way to get a hot cup of coffee up to you. It probably tastes pretty good about now, without. Power pertaining through 2000.

The astronauts and the team at NASA knew they couldn't change the laws of orbital mechanics or chemistry. They could. Make a round peg. Fitness square hole. They found a creative, decisive way.

Out of a dire situation, not by inventing something new. But by falling back on thousands of hours of training. Extensive knowledge of their equipment. and a well worn playbook. On how to communicate.

And collaborate. Начанна Крис. But always. That's why I believe. There's no such thing as a crisis playbook.

To survive a crisis. You have to double down on who you already are. As a company. You gotta have incredible talent at every position. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy way. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. It just seems absolutely nutball. Just how you do it.

This is masters of scale. I'm Reed Hoffman. Co founder of LinkedIn. Partner Greylock.

And your host. And I believe There's no such thing. as a crisis playbook. To survive a crisis.

You have to double down on who you already are. As a company. Think of the sound you associate with the word. Crisis. Sirens

Alarms. Screens. Okay. That's enough.

These are all sounds that tip you off. Without much subtlety that something bad is happening. The sounds are at very least unnerving. At worst. Panic inducing.

A crisis is a time of disorientation. But panic. Із невер the best response. So what is the best response? You might imagine developing a crisis playbook.

and sealing it away in a red, glass fronted box with the words Break class. In case of emergency. This is a smart approach for events like fires. Or earthquakes.

But it's not appropriate. For the kind of crisis that can upturn your whole business or industry. For times like these, your crisis playbook needs to grow out of your normal playbook. It has to be a natural extension of who you are as a leader. And as a company.

This will give you the things you need most in a crisis. Consistency. And flexibility. I wanted to talk.

In two thousand and eight. She became CEO of chemical giant DuPont. Just before the global financial crisis. The innovation she launched. not only helped to pop through the crisis

but chartered a new direction for the company. In November two thousand nineteen, she became CO of the three D printing startup Carbon. Just months before the global coronavirus pandemic. She led Carbon's efforts to rapidly deploy its unique technology. Against the spread of Covid.

Ellen has developed. For crisis principles. And what I like most about them is they're foundational. These are principles you can apply every day. And you should.

In fact. If you find yourself only following them when a crisis hits Well You've started following them way too late. Ellen was also one of the first people we spoke to for our new rapid response series.

Sparked by the Covid pandemic, Rapid response features interviews with leaders who are grappling with the constantly changing and unpredictable challenges we are all currently facing. Throughout this episode, we'll be hearing from some of the other leaders who have been featured on Rapid Response so far. Their perspectives on the pandemic crisis will help us dig into Ellen's four principles. But first,

We will go back to two thousand and eight. Allen had just stepped into the CEO role at DuPont after two decades at the company. And was immediately thrown into a crisis. As the global financial system seized up. We were in free fall.

DuPont was a sprawling worldwide business. It was particularly exposed to the financial crisis. We watched from September, October to November our growth rate in emerging markets going from something like plus twenty percent. to zero percent. To minus twenty percent.

We had businesses that lost fifty percent of their volume. in an eight week period of time. If we put together numbers, they were wrong the next week. The crisis. wasn't just taking a toll on the bottom line.

It was also spreading fear and uncertainty through the company. People were literally in their offices with their doors closed. Because they were afraid somebody would come by and tap them on the shoulder and say, We don't need you anymore. Taking over as a new leader is challenging at the best of times. And here was Ellen stepping into a complex global business in free fall.

А глоба із Filled with uncertainty. I just got my dream job at the worst possible moment that you could. And I found out that in many ways Starting then was a blessing in disguise.

I got to know how the leadership truly acted. I got to know how the business responded. And it was quite a learning for me that really helped craft. the steps we took towards recovery out of the global financial crisis. Ellen was getting a crash course and how the entire business worked.

This is the kind of perspective that that usually takes years to achieve. And this meant she could put her first principle straight in action. Principle one. Focus on what you can control.

In innovative and fast growing companies you're always managing through uncertainty. But it's especially true in a crisis. To set up for this first crisis principle, I asked Ellen just how she leads a team. Through especially ambiguous times. Say a little bit about the handling of ambiguity,'cause one of the things that I think

kind of draw the the line between the dots of your career. You seem to take on crisis spectacularly. And this seems to be one of the early crises that You know, navigated in a A super strong way.

We're all gonna hit bumps in the road and have Positives and negatives, and I have learned so much more from the Tough challenges that I've handled than I've learned from the successes. One of my mantras I've developed over time is focus on what you can control. That mantra

Focus on what you can control. Became Ellen's guiding principle as she led DuPont through that crisis. The world's gonna throw at you the economy, the world's gonna throw at you a lot of things. Now the question is, what do you do about it? What can you do? In order to improve your company, your situation, your business.

And I learned that during those years. The more you understand the ins and outs of your business, the more you can maintain control when a crisis hits. This will help you avoid one of the biggest dangers of a crisis situation. Getting stuck. A lot of times the paralysis deeps in.

Oh my gosh. The world is falling apart, my бізнес is falling apart. What do I do? Well, what you do is figure out what you can do, what you actually have some modicum of control over. And figure out if it's gonna help and get after it and get the team focused. What do you have control over?

It's so important to focus on this question. Otherwise, you will be the proverbial deer in the headlights. The key to gracefully leaping. out of the path is to focus on the things you can control. And come to terms.

With the factors you can't. This is something we hear over and over. From leaders in our rapid response series. One particularly notable example. Jonah Paretti.

Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed. First, he took in the grim situation in online media. Then He took control.

We've seen tens of millions of dollars just evaporate because our partners aren't digital businesses and are impacted. And Our advertising business is very exposed to companies that are not pure digital companies that are really struggling. And so

We found ways with as little employee impact as possible to take forty million dollars out of our business to reduce our costs. And we're fighting to be breakeven for the year instead of profitable. with a lot of cost reductions and a lot of changes to our business. We've Changed our business org dramatically, and in the short term.

It really is hard. But in the long term All these trends play to our strengths. E commerce is a strength. Being a digital business is a strength. Being a food brand is strength. There's so many things that actually are long term tailwinds where on the other side of this, in an economic recovery, we should be stronger than ever. But the transition is really painful.

Spotting these long term tailwinds is exactly what you should be doing every day. As a leader. And in a crisis, you have to double down on that. It will chart your path. Through the crisis.

and beyond. Which brings us To Alan's second principle. Principle two Create your own trajectory.

As the financial crisis hit DuPont. Allen Sar team Lose their nerve. And their sense of direction. She also saw a lot of wishful thinking.

People really believed the world was gonna go back exactly like it was before, and it didn't. So how do we create our own trajectory? What do we invest in? It is really being very thoughtful and almost forceful with the organization about you're not gonna just ride this out and things are gonna be the same. What you have to do is really Write your own story.

Don't play the hand you've been dealt, play the hand you want. Picture an eagle. Navigating thermal currents as it scans the land below for its prey. Its path is full of constantly changing eddies of turbulence that could fling it out of the sky. But once the eagle is locked in on its unsuspecting lunch, it knows exactly what

What it's aiming for. And precisely the course to take. Despite Chaotic currents. Roaring around it.

As a leader. Ellen knew she needed a clear outlook on how the world would change. and exactly how DePont would win. In the new reality. If you don't have a hypothesis on what the outcome is, pretty specific hypothesis.

Then you're not gonna know whether you're winning or losing. lot of times I've had teams that'll say, We're gonna try this and see what happens. So I said, Okay, what do you expect the outcome to be? Well, better than we are today. Well, what does that mean? And if you can gain alignment on what the goals are, specific goals. And what winning is

That allows you, depending on what the outcome is, to say, okay Didn't work out at all. Let's go back to square one and start over, or hey, you know, about fifty percent of this work, let's back off on the other and re look at it and then take it from there. Getting specific about goals and a willingness to regroup.

Із авійсел про гройнь бізнес. But in a crisis. You have to double down on this focus in order to chart your trajectory through the crisis. And out the other side. Ellen knew their industry was changing fast.

And she didn't believe it would go back to normal. DuPont would need a different and lighter. structure to survive. The first series of changes that I made in simplifying the organization Was very much in response to the crisis. We had

Furlough or laid off. probably eight percent of our people But then when I took a look at it when we were In the midst of these reductions There was not one manager or leader among the list.

And that just struck me as just Right. I really felt the world was going to be different as we recovered from the crisis. And I think we were way too complex a company and we had to simplify that. So Alan took.

An extreme measure. So my bright idea was to task each one of my senior leaders And I told them they had to reduce fifty five zero percent of their leadership. And the reason I took such a bold objective was because they couldn't just squeeze The turnip.

Right. And if you ask him for ten percent or fifteen percent They can squeeze and then it'll pop right back. And so Fifty percent you couldn't. I got some great ideas.

You know, hey, I'll take Joe's business and I'll be one business leader. We don't need two, okay. Or I had one individual literally crying, sobbing in my office that I was gonna destroy the business. I had people very logically come in and tell me exactly what they were gonna do and it made no sense at all, but They fulfilled the goal of fifty percent

Ellen didn't end up. cutting fifty percent of the company's leadership. But by setting an extreme Turn up mashing figure. Ellen had created a vision.

Of what changes could be made to alter the company's trajectory. We have some businesses that should be combined. And we streamlined the organization ended up taking out about twelve percent of leadership. And I think more importantly Simplifying our operating structure, how we work together.

And change things to get great clarity. on those areas. And so it was very enabling for us then to get the kind of growth we did coming out. The boldness and clarity of Ellen's new trajectory allowed DuPont to emerge from the crisis. With strong growth. Across the business.

And it's important to remember. Great leaders. Always chart a bold trajectory. For their organizations. Based on their understanding of the world,

And its trajectory. A crisis will almost always overturn the old plan. Requiring you to double down, not on the old plan. But your commitment. and capacity to chart a new path.

And you hear this really clearly in the rapid response interview with Airbnb CEO. Brian Chesky. Brian. У част векс аве. From a long planned IPO when the pandemic

Caused a near total shutdown. And travel. All of a sudden. It felt like I was a captain de ship. And a torpedo hit the side of the ship.

But Brian adjusted quickly and put in place a series of bold moves to chart Airbnb's trajectory. Here are a few. We had more than a billion dollars of reservations. That guest wanted to cancel. The cancellation policy that the host has won't give them a refund, but if they don't get a refund, therefore some of them will feel compelled to travel because they can't get a refund and we don't want them to put themselves in a moral hazard.

And so we had this really, really difficult choice. Never thought I would have to make a choice like this before. And we sided with health and safety. And we said that we're gonna issue an extenuating circumstance policy. Where any guest during a pandemic that wants a refund will get a full refund. You know, fifty percent of our hosts depend on Airbnb to pay their rent or their mortgage. And then suddenly they weren't having any income coming in. And what we decided to do

Is take two hundred en fifty milyen dollars. Of our money. And send it to host. To pay them a portion of their cancellation policy. The next thing that happened is our employees rose up.

Employees donated over one million dollars of travel coupons. To our host. We said, Well let's double down on that. And so we put another nine million dollars. And with this ten million dollars from employees and the co founders.

We created a relief fund for our best host, our super host. And then recently we've increased that superhost relief fund to seventeen million dollars. Then we thought to ourselves, well, maybe you know, we can also get some government relief for them. Congress was drafting the CARES Act, a two trillion dollar economic relief program. And we noticed that hotels were included in the relief program, restaurants included the relief program.

But Air B hosts were not. We mobilized thirty thousand hosts in our host community, and they sent more than one hundred thousand. emails and phone calls to members of Congress. We eventually got them written into the CARES Act. We cut back. our marketing budget eight hundred million dollars

All of our executives went to half pay. The founders took no salary. We started renegotiating With vendors, froze hiring. And then finally we raise money. A billion from silver like Brian and his team's bold moves.

charter a trajectory that led to raising a billion dollars During a crisis. In twenty fifteen, Allen left DuPont. After twenty seven years at the company and seven years. as its CEO.

She steered the company through financial crisis. And pushed through a major restructure that sharpened its focus on science and growth markets. In November. Two thousand nineteen, she agreed to take on the role of CEO at Carbon. As a board member, she had become drawn to have the company's three D printing technology.

Was transforming traditional manufacturing. People have asked me a lot since I retired from DePont when I was gonna go back and run a company again, and I'd laugh and say, If I found something that was compelling, that was really compelling, more compelling than running DePont. That I'd probably go do it. January, February rolls in, and now we have a global crisis that makes the two thousand eight crisis look a little soft and cuddly.

How much did that feel like deja vu and how much does that okay, I understand Crisis playbook. And here's what we're gonna do. It's funny, friends and family have noted that maybe I should not take a third CEO role for that exact reason. My team looks at me and they say, You know, you're amazingly calm.

And I'm sort of like, well yeah, this seems to be worse than the other crises I've had, but I've been through quite a few crises. And it doesn't really help to get all angst ridden over it. You just gotta focus again on what you can control. Focus on what you can control. It's Ellen's first principle.

Coming to play again. А ще фасис за глобал кризис. Of the pandemic. As she took the helmet carbon, she knew she had more control than many COs. through the agility of a startup and the flexibility inherent

In the three D printing industry. She immediately started asking. What can we do? Right now. This is an area where when we

Not knowing how long this crisis will last. How can we turn our technology to be useful within days or weeks, not within months or even years? So in just discussions among our people inbound calls we were getting from our networks. Can you help make ventilator parts? Well that's a longer term thing. Well what can you do? We're short on PPE. PPE

Personal protective equipment And I knew the P PE side because DePont's in that business with the gowns and drapes and things like that. So the face shields came up as a opportunity. Can we print the frame? And the band. And then just source

P E T. snap into place so people can use them. Can they reuse them? When it came to the second crisis principle. Setting their trajectory. Ellen and her team.

Look to their customers. The next thing we did was engage three hundred of our partners, our customers who own our printers, whether they're in the dental space, the industrial space. contract manufacturers. We engaged them and said, This is what we're doing, we'll put this file out on our website. Open source it.

And this is a great opportunity for all of us to produce locally, use the power of three D printing, use the cloud, download the file, produce locally. We can utilize our printers instead of sending our people home. We can utilize them to produce these things. Ellen and her team had identified PPE production as something they could rapidly roll out and control through their network of printers. They then set the trajectory by aligning early on with their partners. These moves gave him a clear target that could be scaled.

And within literally two weeks, two and a half weeks. We ship seventy five hundred face shields last week. We'll ship I don't know, fifteen, eighteen thousand this week. Just our production, just what carbon owns in our labs will probably be producing twenty thousand of these shields a week for as long as The demand is there. When you build substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position.

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Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's been two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Chayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives.

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We saw how Alan developed the first two of her four crisis principles. Focus. On what you can control and create. Your own trajectory. And now.

We come to the third. Principle three. Be in constant communication. Mm. Clear and constant communication is the hallmark of every great leader every day.

But the nature of a crisis. Is that situations change quickly and quick turns call for even more communication. Елен кьюдес а став до глобал пандемії. One thing she knew they had going for them. The компаніes Silicon Valley Style.

Startup sensibility. It's just a quicker pace, it's a quicker turn. Uh people seem to absorb the information and um And move and get on board more quickly than maybe my experiences were in big companies. And I think that's a real positive. Um, not that we know what the answer is, but we all talk daily.

Part of carbon solution? A daily stand up meeting for our leadership team. Although it's a stand up. In name only. You know, I call it a standup meeting, although we're all sitting in different places. Um but it's a quick meeting just to check in what's working, what's not working, what's the situation.

And what's changed. And more importantly, how are people doing? Of course, the particular challenge of the Covid pandemic. Is that employees had to work from home. Along with kids, partners, pets. And the anxiety

of the moment. It's very stressful. People are home with small children. How do they handle the kids, the school work.

work life kind of thing and so you know it's it's quite the challenge Throughout the COVID pandemic, leaders in all companies were facing a similar challenge. And responding. as Ellen did, with constant communication. On master of scale rapid response.

Orby Parker, CEO. Neil Blumenthal said you actually need To overcommunicate. You almost need to communicate two to three times more than you were beforehand. And you need to simplify that communication. An example is my co-founder Dave and I, right, on a weekly basis pre-COVID, we would have an all hands meeting and we would record it so that way teams could watch it. We've now moved to two all hands.

videos a week. And we've shortened them so they're a little more digestible. But they come out Tuesdays and Thursdays. So the team is engaged. They have the information they need to make informed decisions and they know what's going on. Because especially not being in the office, you lose all the hallway chatter. you lose all of these informal modes of communication and you need to supplement that with a lot more structured and formal communication. As Neil says, a crisis really requires you to overcommunicate. Especially when your team is forced to work from home. But if you waited until the crisis

To start communicating regularly. Oh. You've definitely started too late. And Ellen learned this early in her career DuPont. It's not enough to share an idea once.

The communication. Has to be clear. And constant. It's amazing to me when I first learned that about the fifteenth time I said something, people were finally starting to believe I was serious. And that when you're in a company with a s you know, with an old culture, I mean DePont was

two hundred and fifteen years old when I became CEO. Um, you know, people have been through a lot, and they don't always believe that the new or the shiny is always the best. And you really have to if you want change and you want people to move in a direction. You really have to be very consistent and communication Constant communication. Listening is critical.

Which brings us To Allen's final crisis principle. Principle four Instill pride. In your mission.

Pride in your mission. Will help spur you on, when you face a crisis. So you'll be challenged. Find new ways to fulfill it. At Carbon.

Ellen started the conversation with What makes us different? And how can we help? We figured out that three D printing has great value. when global supply chains have been disrupted.

And the question is how can we use that? capacity use that capability to really help in this situation. And maybe, you know, in our small way try to make you know, life easier for the frontline workers and healthcare and first responders through PPE. In other areas.

Well let's let's go to that'cause this is one of the two or three questions I had on the You know, the stepping into this crisis, which is, you know, obviously one of the maxims is to not waste a good crisis. And one of the key things that people start with is looking at threats and challenges, but that also becomes An opportunity, an opportunity to really Express the mission and opportunity to do something important.

And unique. And how is that playing out in carbon?'Cause there seem to be lots of different ways that the The innovation in printing and manufacturing. can be essential to what the years ahead look like. You know, I think it's been really interesting because in life sciences, in medical applications, the timelines are usually very long.

and very prescribed by the FDA and other regulatory bodies. And we've been working on some great areas there with J and J and with other companies around how to use our technology. And this is this is an area where when we Mm. You know, not knowing how long this crisis will last. How can we turn our technology to be useful within days or weeks, not within months or even years?

Bringing new speed to an established mission is one way to adapt in a crisis. But note. You can't suddenly start speaking about mission. When a crisis hits.

Has to be something you talk about. And work toward constantly. So in a crisis you have this foundation. To build on. A first principle.

To return to. This is exactly what Task Rabbit CEO Stacey Brown Philpot did. As the ковід pandemic started changing the nature. Of their work. We started to adapt.

We really thought about what is the power of Task Rabbit today. Our mission is to make everyday life easier for everyday people. And it's really, really hard right now. And as we thought about that, we also got inbound interest from people who wanted to help. They just didn't have a way to do it. So we quickly came together in just a matter of weeks, built a volunteer program that now people can task.

For good. They can sign up to Task on TaskRabbit to help some of the most at-risk people with tasks that they need. So whether it's delivering PPE and other supplies to healthcare workers on the front line. Delivering groceries. That's really what this platform and this program is designed to do Really to help those who are most in need.

and allow people to give back to their communities. And although it's principle number four on our list. For Alan. A strong sense of mission has always been the most important factor. And successfully facing crisis.

And I totally agree. People talk about this current generation being very mission centric. I don't know, I've found that throughout my career. People wanted to know that what their company did made a difference and what they were proud to be able to work there. That took many forms. But people at DePont were really proud of what we created over the hundreds of years we were in existence.

Things like Kevlar. Right, the bullet resistant material, and Nomex, the fire resistant material. And that's just a couple of the examples of what they've done. Whenever big change came, or whenever crisis came, if you centered them on our core values, if you centered them on the mission of the company. That gave people hope. And it gave people something to help them focus their energies.

These things have proven to be valuable to me in my entire career and That's why I keep coming back to them. A mission in which everyone can be proud of is a mission that everyone will strive for. Even in the darkest of times.

And this pride This hope. Well form a weave. Far more resistant. than Kevlar.

I'm Reed Hoffman. Thank you for listening. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode.

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