WHEN PEOPLE RELATE, THEY WILL FOLLOW

As I tell my students at Kellogg, if you want to know if you are an effective leader, turn around. If nobody is following you, then you're in for some bad news. If others relate to you, however, they will gladly follow you and give their all for the organization. Relating to others becomes more important the higher up you go. Otherwise, there is a big gap between you and the rest of your team. It is your responsibility to bridge the chasm. To do so, however, requires that you are both authentic and sincere. This is a lesson I learned from my assistant, Kathy Straus, who taught me so much about the importance of relating to others.

I had been CEO for just a few months, and the holidays were approaching. Kathy suggested to me that in order to spread a little holiday cheer around Baxter, I should dress up as Santa Claus and spend a few hours visiting the several thousand team members at our offices and facilities in northern Illinois. In my mind, the image was of me, Harry Kraemer, CEO, in a shirt and tie and wearing a red Santa hat, shaking hands and wishing people happy holidays. That's not quite what Kathy had envisioned. Hers was the total immersion approach.

Kathy showed up the next morning with a full Santa suit, from the black shiny boots to the full white curly beard and the pillows to stuff the suit. Plus she had a sack full of several thousand candy canes and a boom box that blasted holiday music. Although this was not what I had expected, I suited up and set off on my rounds. I was so thoroughly disguised that not even my executive team recognized me. People came right up to me to see who was behind the beard and the granny glasses. “Is that Kraemer?” they'd ask incredulously.

“No,” I'd reply, changing my voice, and then I'd give the name of one of the vice presidents—male or female. I had them laughing and guessing long after Santa had left the building.

Was that the best way for the CEO of a large publicly traded company to spend several hours of his day? My reply is, “Absolutely.” By the time I became CEO, I had spent sixteen years at Baxter. I wanted people to know that I hadn't changed as a person just because I occupied a new office and had a bigger title. Shaking hands and wishing people happy holidays demonstrated that I was still one of the team, and nothing would change that. I was still the same guy I was back in the cube.

Another way in which I made sure that I related to people was through softball, which was a popular sport at Baxter. Several of us at corporate headquarters decided to field our own team. Because we didn't belong to any particular division as the other teams did, we called ourselves the Baxter Orphans. Once, on a visit to a Baxter facility in Wisconsin, I was approached by one of the younger people at the plant who asked if his Baxter team could come to Chicago to play against the Baxter Orphans.

Shortly thereafter, the Wisconsin team came to Chicago for a game and a hotdog and hamburger roast. This story, however, has a postscript beyond “and a good time was had by all.” Later, when we needed to go through downsizing, including hiring freezes and layoffs, the goodwill we had built up by relating to people on a human level through such things as softball games enabled us to work through difficulties. There was never a complaint of “those senior people just can't relate to us.” The people in the plants knew us and understood that we were taking these difficult actions because of economic necessity and that we would do everything we could to restore jobs as soon as possible.

When you are in a global company, the ability to relate to others takes on another dimension, crossing borders and cultures as you interact with people whose language and customs are different from yours. Your ability to understand how and why they do things will enhance your ability to relate to them. For example, whenever I went to Japan, I made sure I spoke at about one-third my normal speed. By slowing down my speech, I showed respect, demonstrating that it was important to me that they understood what I was saying. I also learned that in Japan, people generally would not ask questions after a presentation. In a culture that stresses harmony, questions can be construed as being offensive or disrespectful. Therefore, when I gave a talk in Japan, I tried to anticipate the questions that might have been on their minds.

I was passionate about learning about the cultures of the different countries I was visiting; I wanted people to realize that I was sensitive to what was important to them. Once they understood this, it became much easier to connect with them and to accomplish our goals. For example, when visiting Japan, I would be invited to visit a rock garden where people would often go to meditate. If I had not read about this practice ahead of time and prepared myself, I would not have understood the importance. Showing respect for the rock garden experience—even though there were dozens of other things I could have been doing—demonstrated to my Japanese teammates that I was genuinely interested in their culture. With this connection, we could accomplish more.

I also found other ways to relate to my global team in Asia, to allow them to get to know me in a spirit of good fun. While speaking to the Baxter team in Singapore, where I encountered a lot of questions, I mentioned that my next stop was Japan. They teased me that I would not get as many questions there as I did in Singapore. I playfully bet them $20 that this would not be the case.

When I started off my talk the next day in Tokyo, I shared this story, including the bet that I had made. “Now, I am very confident that you will not let me down,” I told them. “I know you will have plenty of questions for me.” Suddenly, two hundred hands shot into the air. Everyone was smiling and enjoying the good humor. The spirit of camaraderie was infectious.

Here's a final example. I needed to visit our facility in Mexico before year-end. My habit on these visits was not to meet in a conference room and watch a PowerPoint presentation but to spend most of the time on the manufacturing floor, shaking hands with as many of the team members as possible and asking questions about their jobs. When I suggested visiting on December 12, however, the response was that the plant would be closed for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a very important religious holiday in Mexico. They asked if I could come down the day before for meetings and stay for the festivities on the twelfth. If it was that important to them that I be there, I decided I would make the time.

On December 11, we had our meetings, and I met everyone at the facility. The next day, the festivities began, starting with a religious service on the grounds of the plant and then music, food, and dancing in the afternoon. The mariachi band played until well after midnight, and rumor has it I danced with about seven hundred women. Several months later, Baxter encountered some competitive pricing issues in Latin America, and we needed to find ways to reduce costs. When I approached the plant management in Mexico, the response was, “Harry, if you agree to come down again for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we'll figure out how to further reduce production costs.” And they did.

My drive to relate to the Baxter team around the world has taken me outside my comfort zone at times, from the Santa suit at company headquarters to singing karaoke in Tokyo, where I belted out “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The moral of this story is that relating to others should be fun. If you want people to follow you through good times and bad, they need to know who you are and what you stand for. Otherwise, you're just a name and a title; they'll do what you ask only because you're one of “those guys,” not because they trust you and want to follow you.