Crafting Cultures and Enterprise Asset Intelligence at Zebra Technologies

Hey everybody, welcome to The Leader's Show. It's great to have Bill Burns here today with us, who is CEO of Zebra Technologies. Really interesting when you think about what, uh, Zebra does. First of all, they're a Most Loved Workplace. I want to congratulate you on becoming a Most Loved Workplace, Bill. Um, and, uh, with the— if you really think about Zebra, you— every day we go through our lives and we don't realize what's happening necessarily behind the scenes. We go to the grocery store and, uh, we, we, uh, we scan a grocery, uh, at checkout. Uh, we go to, uh, get our blood drawn, uh, and that, that blood is taken and somewhere else, and somebody has to know who your blood— what blood that is, right? Whose blood that is. Uh, we, we go through life, we don't realize that there's people behind the scenes managing what we call supply chain, right? Who are these people? Who Who are these amazing people who are developing these technologies, who are helping us through our lives every day? And it's Bill and his team at Zebra Technologies, this awesome company, public company, who's a most loved workplace and who is leading the way in these technologies, helping us to have a better day, better healthcare, better manufacturing, better supplies, getting our packages to us on time. This is the infrastructure that helps us all. It's great to have Bill here with us today. Has been leading as the CEO of Zebra Technologies. Bill, welcome to the Newsweek Leader Show.

Yeah, Lou, thanks for having me. I couldn't be more excited about, you know, the award and spending some time with you today talking about Zebra and our culture and all the great things we do for our customers around the world. So thanks for having me.

Great to have you, Bill. And let's, let's, let's dive into culture because it's all about that, not only helping our customers, our supply chain, but helping our employees to to provide that awesome culture and service to everybody and empathizing really with what the world is all about, right? And where they're going and how you're developing tech. How do you create this culture of great innovation and great top, most efficient, you know, best-in-class products? What is it that you have done to enable that to happen?

Yeah, you know, at Zebra, we believe, you know, our employees are our most critical asset, right? They are the company, right? And around the world, we think of, you know, how are our employees really seen, heard, valued, you know, throughout the organization and then respected, right? And that each employee has a voice and feels like they have that voice in the processes of really, you know, serving our customers. So we think of, you know, kind of priorities of our organization is really, you know, how do we serve our partners and customers? And much of our business is done through our partner community around the world. We have about 10,000 channel partners that work closely with our customers. So they're our customers. And then the end customer, as you talked about before, retailers around the world, the largest in the world, transportation logistics companies, manufacturers, healthcare providers, as you talked about, government, they're all our customers here at Zebra. And how do we really focus on our channel partners and our customers and our employees really get excited about serving those customers. And then we think about, you know, the idea of driving profitable growth across the business. So, you know, I say to our employees, no matter where I go in the world, our employees are really committed to make Zebra successful because they know ultimately they want to work for a winning company. They want to feel that, you know, being the leader in the market means something. And then ultimately to them it means rewards and recognition that they get. And lastly is how do we build, you know, a a strong, you know, culture and then attract the best and brightest around the world. Because our employees realize that if we've got a great culture, if we really truly care about each other as employees and not just come to work every day but truly, you know, care about others, then we'll attract the best and brightest talent. Because people will— word will get out that Siebert's a great place to work, you know, a loved workplace, right? And ultimately want to come work for us. That's really what matters is How do we attract and retain the best talent of our employees around the world?

Yeah. And you said a really important word, which is care. So, you know, as a leader, how do you foster that care environment? Because the care is really what it's about, you know? Yeah. Successfully. What does that look like for you?

I mean, it's almost, you know, ground roots here at Zebra, right? I think the organization we talk about, you know, the Zebra Nation, right? And the idea that our employees truly care about each other. They care about their families. They care about what they did on the weekend. They, you know, care about their, you know, colleagues around the world and what's happening, you know, in their environment, whether it's a natural disaster or the things that are happening in their countries, because we're a truly global company. And I think that that caring about each other means a lot in the idea of collaborating, working across boundaries, across the organization. You know, we really talk about the idea that, you know, it really takes a village, right? It's not just the engineering team who's innovating or the sales teams who's selling. It really is the entire corporation that has to serve our customers. It's our legal team and our finance team. It's our supply chain team. It's our sales team. It's our marketing teams, our engineering teams. We have to be all in the same direction collaborating. And if people care about each other and work together collaboratively across organizations, and truly have a relationship with someone else where they don't just come to work, they come to work and they engage with other, you know, other employees in other organizations, then we're even more successful because of it, because we're all pulling in the same direction. We all care about each other. We care about their success and everyone's willing to help out, do the— go above and beyond to be able to serve those customers around the world.

Yeah. And you're number one in key markets you serve, right? And so your growth is fueled by these new products or software. And, you know, one of the things I do know you do is you provide new candidates and current employees with the ability to define their own professional path, which is really cool, you know, to have this fulfilling career. And to— so, and that's really what is shaping the future of frontline work and helping businesses of all size really gain a performance edge. How can they do that, as you were like, how do they do this, the ability to, to define that, that professional path? What does that look like? You know, for you, when you see employees, like, how— what kind of successes have you seen, or what does that look like for you?

Yeah, I mean, a great example of that is our intern program, right? So we have an internship program that we, you know, look for the best and brightest talent in universities around the world each and every year. And, you know, about now we start looking, actually, because the best talent is, you know, attracted to companies, you know, early in the fall, earlier than ever before. It used to be you know, kind of January, February, you know, students started looking for internships. Now it's, you know, August, September, October where they're really committing to companies. But we try to find the best and brightest from, you know, not just in the U.S. but around the world. We do it in, you know, in Canada, we do it in India, we do it in Singapore, other places around the world where we have intern programs. And then a great example of it's our finance team that really looks to hire the interns from the internship programs, whether they work for us for a single summer or two summers, make job offers to them before they leave, you know, for the summer and ultimately bring them into a rotation program within finance. So they actually see a 3-year rotation program where they go through different groups within our finance organization and be able to get experience across the 3. And then they know that, you know, each organization you think, oh, they don't want to give that person up, but they know they'll get a next person, right? Somebody else will come into their organization who has just as much energy, just as much excitement about the company the following year. So it's a 3-year rotation. Then ultimately towards the, you know, second half of the third year, that person is looking for their career at Cigna. What did they enjoy doing most? Was it in the finance organization or somewhere else? Where in the finance organization they fit? So that's just one example of us really allowing someone who's an intern to come into the company. You know, they get to spend some time with us, we spend time with them, ultimately hiring them and then giving them a rotation throughout the company to be able to just figure out, hey, what's the best fit for them in finance? Or maybe it's somewhere else. Maybe through those 3 years they realize, I want to be in the sales organization or marketing, or I want to do something else. I want to be tied to, you know, the supply chain team. So that's a great example of it, I think, inside Zebra.

Do you find that some people come in and realize this, you know, is the right place for me, or, and they need to sort of think about how they fit in more, right? Or do you see people moving a lot? Do you see more movement, or you see more fit? How does that work?

I think we, you know, I think we see predominantly people, once they come into an organization, they kind of, you know, are they in a supply chain team or sales team or marketing teams, they, you know, they typically stay within those teams. We'd like to actually see more movement, quite honestly, across the organization. I think there's tremendous leaders across every organization, and one of the things we think a lot about is how do we build more general managers within the business, right? Just as our finance team moves people around inside the finance organization to get them experienced young in their careers or early in their careers. We think about how do we build general managers, how do we people with a broad breadth of experience across the organization from customers to product management to engineering to finance and really, you know, understanding a P&L and be able to run a business. So how do you build broad leadership skills? So we've got training programs again for all levels of leadership within the company from first-level managers that have just taken the job all the way through, you know, senior vice president, you know, vice presidents in the company that we want to become senior vice presidents and lead bigger organizations. So we're always looking to build broader skills around business management and, and, and, uh, and general management within the company.

Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. Especially in your industry, it's people, it's talent, right? It's, it's, uh, well, every company, right? It's, well, and here's a generalist, technology and talent and expertise And building that general manager capability, especially as I know in your culture, your values around accountability, teamwork, innovation, agility, and of course, integrity, and putting that front and center is really very important for a company, and as you're, for your company and your success. You make that a part of your, your stable of who you are and how you promote your culture and how you execute.

Yeah, I mean, we're organized like many, you know, technology companies ultimately, right? A a business unit structure that have product management and engineering that ultimately decide on what products and solutions to bring to market and the engineering teams who engineer them. But that's not where it stops, right? The engineering teams will need to rely on our supply chain organization to actually build the product physically, right? And to service that. They rely on the marketing organization to take what they've developed and be able to tell the market how great it is. It relies on our sales organization to have tight customer relationships, right? It's our finance organization behind the scenes supporting, you know, those sales teams and the company as a whole. It's our legal team that ultimately has to negotiate the contracts, right? It's every organization that ultimately we rely on across the organization. So it's not just one that's successful. We celebrate success together, but we win and lose together, right? Because it is truly one team. We can't do it, one organization can't do it without the other. Sales can't go sell if they don't have the products to sell. You know, our customers can't deliver your products if our supply chain organization can't build them. So we think of it truly as a, you know, across the organization is really shared accountability to serving our customers and bringing new innovative solutions to market each and every day, because that's how we continue to grow as a company.

You know, it's interesting that, you know, recently I've been thinking a little bit more about this, especially with technology and organizations, which is, you know, do we find talented people and mold them within our culture, or do we find people who fit our culture, right? And mold them to grow. So that's really, it's a choice.

It's both, I think. I think you have to do both, right? I think ultimately there's times when we've entered new businesses or new areas where we just haven't had the expertise, right? That we've got great leaders in the organization, but they just don't have the knowledge in a specific area. And then we've had to go outside. Our preference always is to promote somebody, you know, from inside the organization to grow their careers, but there's times you've got to go outside, right? And then you've got to use some of the, you know, best recruiting firms. You ultimately got to spend a lot of time with the candidate. You know, we make it a point for senior-level folks when we're going to hire them is to really just go— the last step in the process is literally go out and have dinner, right? Just spend time together for a couple hours, just really making sure there's a cultural fit on both sides, quite honestly, that they're going to fit in and they, they, you know, appreciate what Zebra does and what we represent. And then ultimately, you know, an interview for them and really us understanding, are they a cultural fit for us? So, you know, we find you got to do both and our preference is always internal, but there's times you got to go outside.

It's funny that the other thing too, with that in mind, is, you know, just determining cultural fit, right? Taking the time to do it. Actually will pay off in dividends. Because the execution takes longer when there's not a fit. And, you know, the execution is very important in our companies, especially with growth. So I think taking that time is very important to know there's a fit. This is an interesting question from Carrie Gilliam. She said, in your talent strategy— and this is important. I'm sure everyone wants to know how to do this properly. We haven't all gotten this. You know, how do you assess new talent to determine if they'll be a good fit for your most loved workplace culture, the one that we've been describing, like, how do you actually, you know, how do you actually do that? And you mentioned dinner, which is awesome, last step in the recruiting process, you know, are they, which is awesome. So are there other ways that you find are very effective just for that particular, you know, maybe, you know, most loved workplace culture you found?

Yeah, I mean, it really is the interview process, right? I mean, that's the only real way to tell. The other is that, you know, as I said, the intern process is easier because you're spending you know, a couple of months at least, right, with the candidates. So that's an easier timeframe or easier to do because you're spending 6, 8 weeks with a candidate, right? Now they're new outta school, so they don't nearly have as much, but, you know, to offer the organization at the time, they're still learning. But again, that's a bit easier. I think through the interview process, it's a bit more challenging, right? It is, it's only a limited number of, you know, hours, right, or half-hour segments or others that you're interviewing a candidate. And making that determination, right? And I think that, you know, we've gone to a hybrid work approach, right, really to give employees flexibility, but really want to be in the office, you know, 3 days a week to really collaborate. And that's another way is not just dinner at the senior level, but, you know, interviewing our candidates in person, not just over Zoom, right? Trying to make sure that there's at least some time, first place in the interview where they're meeting face to face with somebody within the organization and really trying to find the best fit. You know, we work towards diverse slates of candidates, right, ultimately to make sure that we're looking at the entire marketplace and looking at, you know, diversity across the organization because that's an important piece to us too, is the diversity of thought within the organization, right. There's, you know, that's really important to us as we continue to innovate, so that's another important piece of the interview process. But it really, it's hard, right, it's hard, but, you know, I think that ultimately assessing not just somebody's execution abilities, as you said, but are they a cultural fit? Because then you excel in execution by collaborating across the organization. As someone who really is a cultural fit, you get so much more out of overall from the organization's perspective.

It kind of brings me to this question. Just brought it up. People comment, so it's like stream of consciousness. This one's interesting because it's talking about your collaborative approach, right? You were talking about that before. And there's also sort of, you know, making decisions timely, right? So like you have consensus building, which takes more time, more collaborative. And then you, then there's sort of more of an execution, got to get this done, right? And I know both exist, you know, they're not mutually exclusive. You need both, right? So tell me more about how that's, this manifests to drive innovation and employee satisfaction at the same time. How does that work? How do you, how do you make that work at your company? Especially in, you know, yeah, yeah, you've got to have deadlines, right?

Ultimately, that, uh, you've got to make the decision and move forward, right? So I think it's the, you know, the idea of consensus-oriented is really giving everyone a voice, right? And making sure that they feel they could be heard. And I think ultimately that, you know, sometimes the decision doesn't go the way that they'd anticipate, right? But I think, you know, in a culture of saying, hey, now we're aligned, we understand all the perspectives, but we have to move forward. I think that ultimately that's what it comes down to in this idea of making timely decisions. I think it's, you know, you won't want to rush to a decision. You know, I always point out to my team that, you know, I may have an opinion on something as CEO, but I'm open to someone else's, you know, ideas and thoughts around it because I could be wrong, right? It's many times I'm not, you know, the smartest person in the room. My team is, right, ultimately. And it's that collaborative approach, that decision-making together that consensus building if you can get there. But ultimately you need to move on at some point and the leader of the organization or myself as CEO has to go make that decision in that call. But most of the time we could find middle ground across the organization. It may not be— or across the decision. Sometimes it's tough and you just got to go make it. I think that, you know, but I think that trying to build consensus, working closely, stakeholder management we talk about a lot, right? Before we come into the meeting, sometimes we talk to our presenters about presenting an early view of what they're going to share to a leadership team before they're going to share it with us. And that way they get some feedback early on, right? And some things to think about, and they can come into the room with a more balanced approach as well. But ultimately, the decision has to be made and timelines have to move forward. And I think that everyone's in that same position is Allow everyone to be heard. Um, ultimately make the decision and move forward with the best information you have and be willing to change it and pivot if you got it wrong. I think that's the only thing is that you've got to realize if you've made that decision and ultimately it turns out not to be the right one, it's okay to say I made a mistake and it's wrong. And we're going to head in a different direction because either things have changed or we haven't been able to execute the way we thought we would.

I found there's people who have different tolerance for changes. I like that. And I think, oh, they either have two points of view on that. You're wishy-washy or you have agility and innovation mindset. I like the latter. I like the latter. I like the agility and innovation mindset means you've had enough information to make a decision that pivots to provide the best possible innovative product to the market. I do believe that's how our best companies do their work. They put the best product forward, then they market. You know, Steve Jobs always said it that way. I always believed in it, and I always loved it. I put it into everything that I do too. Make the best product for the customer, you will get the best marketed product, and then it will sell the best. And it's just, it's simple math. I was curious something, Bill, about something is how things have changed with the hybrid workforce. Formerly, people who have been at work Has there been more asynchronous communication because of the hybrid that may help your company come maybe to more consensus? Has it helped or, you know, has it helped with this collaborative mindset and quick-to-market mindset that keeps you agile and able to innovate and bring the best possible product to market? I'm sure.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, look, I think it's always easier when everyone's in the room, right? But as a global company, that's hard to do. You know, in an environment that we were in prior to COVID, right? Everyone wasn't in the room that needed to have a voice, you know, in the decision-making. So, you know, many times you're in an environment that's, you know, partially remote, partially, you know, people in the room together. I think it's always easier if you're literally face-to-face to make that decision, to have the hard discussions, to really discuss the topics. I think you can share information, and we try to do this even with our executive leadership team meetings and encourage We encourage our employees the same. If there's information just being shared, then that, you know, applies well to kind of Zoom meetings or Teams meetings or others, right? That, you know, ultimately you can do it through video and share information. If you really want to have a collaborative discussion, it works better in person. And is there a way to divide the agendas up between, you know, in-face meetings and/or face-to-face meetings and remote ones wherever one's remote? I think it also works a bit better when everyone's remote. It's hard when, you know, 5 people in a conference room and 1 or 2 people remote. It's just hard to have a voice in that unless you're very conscious around it. So I think that's how we think about it is sometimes it's harder, right? It's harder remote. It's harder to really get everyone to speak up. It's harder. But if everyone's remote, I think during COVID everybody saw that everybody was equal because you were all on the same screen and you were all working from home. I think now that you're in this environment where there's employees in the office and employees remote, it just becomes a bit harder. But I think you, you work through it. You can't, you know, the— it's, it's a time-consuming, expensive, and others to travel as well. So you got to work in an environment where you got to find where both works, because otherwise you end up spending a lot of money, you know, traveling, and a lot of time and energy doing that just to be in a room for a meeting or two, you know, an hour or two meeting, or three or four, and It's just unproductive from that perspective. So you got to find the balance. It's always easier in person.

Well, let it— I hear you— get it done in person, let you see the whites of our eyes, right? And see if serious or not we are about something. Let's go to the diversity and inclusion for just a moment. I know you said you talked about that. I want to give, uh, I want to definitely give a word to it, especially. So, so, uh, Anders Gustafsson Gustafsson, am I saying it right? He joined— yeah, he joined a coalition of CEO to Action in 2019 to advance diversity inclusion in the workplace. How does that manifest? And how does that work within your company itself? Like, what is your diversity inclusion council? And what does that look like for you?

Yeah, within, you know, our organization, you know, within Zebra, as I said, you know, we foster an environment where we, you know, look for every employee to really be heard and And we look for it, you know, diversity across the organization and would always like to have more diversity. I think we're a diverse company, certainly because we're, you know, diverse around the globe and have employees around the globe. We could be more diverse like most tech companies inside North America, and we're working hard to be that. I think that, you know, we think of it as really about, you know, fostering innovation and fostering thought across the the organization really is better when you have diverse points of view, all kinds of different views. You know, on decision-making, as we talked about before, how do you come to this consensus? Well, you come to better consensus and better decisions if you have diversity of thought within the organization. I think that to grow our diversity within the organization, as I said, we do things like many companies, right? You know, diversity of slates of candidates, really think about diversity is we're hiring within the organization. How do we grow careers of, you know, diverse candidates within our organization through some of the training and development I talked about before? So it's an important part of our culture. I think that we've always been an inclusive organization because we truly are global and because we care about each other, you know, um, we are absolutely inclusive around the world. We could just be more diverse in the U.S. like most tech companies, and I think that We're seeing more, you know, graduates from universities that are, you know, female and diverse candidates on the engineering side. That's a good example of there hasn't been the candidates in the past. Now there is. So there's no real excuse. You just got to go find them, right? You got to work a little bit harder to attract and grow and develop and retain those diverse candidates within the workplace. So it's really important to us as a company. Absolutely.

That's the thing is that, you know, diversity is not just You know, it's not just a nice thing to do; it's a business imperative. It represents our customer set. It helps us also with inclusion and belonging, to think differently, to help people become psychologically safe within an environment. It's such a, it's so important, diversity and inclusion. You know, it's, I'm delighted to hear how seriously you take it. As well. It means a lot to hear that from a CEO and to see that you continue that at Zebra. Well, this is wonderful. What else do you, would you like everyone to know, right? So you're talking to either candidates or your employees, what kind of message do you want to tell them today? Kind of a final parting message from Bill Burns.

Yeah, I think, you know, what we're most excited about is, of the award, right, is that, you know, is the fact that it came, it comes from our employees, you know, truly voting and saying, Zebra is a, you know, a loved workplace, right? And I think that, you know, when awards come from our employees as opposed to someone outside looking at Zebra and making an assessment, I think that we're most excited about that because it's really our employees voting on how great a place, you know, Zebra is to work. And that continues to foster this idea that, you know, other employees or other potential employees would like to come to work at Zebra overall. And that's true kind of around the world because I think that fostering this best and brightest talent around the world is what makes us successful. But that's what excites us about the award, I guess I'll wrap up with, is that it truly comes from a grassroots of our employees truly saying we're a loved workplace. And I think that that's really important to me overall is that our employees are voting as opposed to someone else from the outside.

Well, I'm excited that you understand that. And that you appreciate that because that is exactly what Most Loved Workplace is. It is, it really is truly coming from your employees. They've just given you an acceptance certificate to tell you they really said that you are loved. Other, what, indices, well, lists, they don't do that. And we actually took the time to do that, to to nurture it, to find it out, to be, to care about it in a deep way. And that means you really did make it. So Zebra actually made Most Loved Workplace, and their employees actually did give this to them. Thank you so much for recognizing that. That is exactly, that is the truth. They really did. There's a lot of responsibility too with that, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's interesting too, because we can't influence our work, our employees, right? So we can't even go out and tell them, hey, this survey's coming out. It's good, you know, it really is, you know, totally comes from yourselves, right, in your organization, and the organization does the polling. So again, it's a great award, you know, and we're excited about it.

We're excited for you too. Congratulations again, Bill Burns, CEO of Zebra Technologies. Glad to have you on the show, and we'll hopefully see you again soon, Bill. Thank you.

Thanks, Lou. Thank you.

Good stuff, right?