Speaker A
It's my pleasure to introduce Matthew. [Applause] McCarthy. Do I cry now or do I cry later? Uh, how's everybody feeling? That's okay. How's everybody feeling? All right, we're going the right direction.
Matthew McCarthy, former Ben & Jerry’s CEO, shares insights on leadership, courage, and navigating public perception in business.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
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Key Takeaways
- Leadership requires courage and clarity, especially when balancing business goals with social values.
- Effective leaders must empower employees by redistributing authority and fostering trust.
- Public perception and political narratives can complicate business communication and require careful navigation.
- Modeling courage is essential for inspiring teams and driving organizational success.
- Resilience and adaptability are critical in managing the intersection of business and social justice.
What the video covers
- Matthew McCarthy discusses his early experiences as CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, including launching new ice cream flavors and handling media appearances.
- He shares a memorable live TV interview with Stuart Varney where he was challenged on political perceptions and company values.
- The talk highlights the tension between business leadership and social justice issues, emphasizing the need for courage and clarity.
- McCarthy reflects on the importance of democratizing courage within organizations to empower frontline employees.
- He stresses the significance of modeling courage as a leader to inspire others in both small and large teams.
- The narrative explores the challenges of managing public relations and political narratives in a highly polarized environment.
- He discusses the role of trust and organizational culture in fostering courageous decision-making.
- McCarthy addresses the complexities of balancing profitability with social and environmental responsibility.
- The talk includes reflections on personal growth and learning from failures in leadership roles.
- He acknowledges the ongoing political challenges businesses face in today’s climate and the importance of resilience.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Early CEO Experiences
- 02:46Preparing for Live TV and Media Challenges
- 05:38Live Interview with Stuart Varney
- 08:41Handling Political Questions and Public Perception
- 11:49Dual Narratives and Leadership Tensions
- 18:18Democratizing Courage in Organizations
- 23:47Modeling Courage and Building Trust
- 28:01Balancing Business Success with Social Responsibility
- 30:19Navigating Political Challenges and Resilience
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Jerry about about five years ago and we're getting ready to launch some new flavors that's one of the most exciting parts of the Year we're getting ready to launch these flavors got a whole communication plan in place and my job
Speaker A
Um, so I had just started Ben & Jerry's about five years ago, and we were getting ready to launch some new flavors. That's one of the most exciting parts of the year. We're getting ready to launch these flavors, got a whole communication plan in place, and my job
Speaker A
flavors or our partners that's where the fun that's where the energy is so the I'm talking to my PR guy uh uh Sean Greenwood he's like all right I got a great gig for you we're going to go on
Speaker A
is kind of the CEO stuff is like, all right, we're going to put Matthew out and do some PR stuff, right? And usually business press, like I'll do consumer press, but I'm just not that interesting, honestly. The people who develop our
Speaker A
ice cream we go down to Manhattan we're there in the studios right in Midtown right and how many people here have been on live TV yeah it's terrifying so um and I like to talk I I I got kind of a big mouth I
Speaker A
flavors are our partners. That's where the fun, that's where the energy is. So then I'm talking to my PR guy, uh, Sean Greenwood. He's like, all right, I got a great gig for you. We're going to go on
Speaker A
social media it's like a no problem don't worry Matthew we won't say those stupid things that you just said so uh we get in there and they say would you like to go to makeup Mr McCarthy I'm like what so we get all ready I get
Speaker A
Fox Business. I was like, oh, oh yeah, okay, sounds great. And, uh, and he goes, and by the way, it's live TV. And so I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds great. So basically, we pack up all the
Speaker A
Viper of a guy really all over Business Leaders and I was like oh this is going to go great and we we got the ice cream out we're serving ice cream to people in the back and everybody's eating the ice
Speaker A
ice cream, we go down to Manhattan, we're there in the studios right in Midtown, right? And how many people here have been on live TV? Yeah, it's terrifying. So, um, and I like to talk. I, I, I got kind of a big mouth. I
Speaker A
I'm in The Green Room like this isn't helping cuz you're watching the video of like who's going before you I'm like just getting more and more scared about having to be on National Television on a business program and so they take you to
Speaker A
like, I very, um, get energy from other people. I'm really extroverted, but I was still freaking out. And it's one thing to do an interview with, with, uh, with press where it's recorded or it's a, you know, it's in the paper, it's on
Speaker A
and the ramamama dingdong whatever else you're talking about and plus next up I've got the CEO of Ben and Jerry Who's going to be here with us to talk about his company okay and commercial break and then kind of get you up there and
Speaker A
social media. It's like a no problem. Don't worry, Matthew, we won't say those stupid things that you just said. So, uh, we get in there and they say, would you like to go to makeup, Mr. McCarthy? I'm like, what? So we get all ready, I get
Speaker A
I'm doing interviews by the way it kind of puts things at ease uh and I highly recommend it whatever put and so steuart Varney looks to me I hi hi steuart it's nice to meet you he goes okay so we'll
Speaker A
miked up, and they take me around to the stage. Again, we're right in Midtown. It's the Stuart Varney show. Some of you may be familiar with it. Stuart Varney is this like kind of really like
Speaker A
Matthew McCarthy the CEO of Ben and Jerry's and he turns to me he says Matthew McCarthy why are you a socialist I'm sitting there like I got I got a spoon in hand like I'm like are you me and I didn't know what to say I froze
Speaker A
viper of a guy, really all over business leaders. And I was like, oh, this is going to go great. And we, we got the ice cream out, we're serving ice cream to people in the back, and everybody's eating the ice
Speaker A
tactics you know someone ask you a question here you're like can we get back to the ice cream and he and when he said the Bernie thing that that kind of made me angry because I was we don't
Speaker A
cream. It's great. And, and everybody's got smiles on, which was great. We're kind of in the joy business at Ben & Jerry's. And they take me around like, all right, your segment's coming up. Well, first they put you in the green room, and
Speaker A
do that and so I said no we don't support ber I didn't know what to say I didn't I had know like I had been prepared for this and I'm sure my poor Sean my PR guys on the side oh man they
Speaker A
I'm in the green room like, this isn't helping because you're watching the video of like who's going before you. I'm like just getting more and more scared about having to be on national television on a business program. And so they take you to
Speaker A
and happy people and whatnot and so I get through the I get through the interview and it was it wasn't terrible I don't think but you can probably find it online have a good laugh uh but we get to the end he's like all right and
Speaker A
the sound stage and Stuart Varney's there. This camera's all over the place, and I'm standing on the side. He's like, all right, when he's getting for the next segment, you know, blah, blah, blah, let's talk about the price of oil and the NASDAQ
Speaker A
said have you ever actually had Ben and Jerry's ice cream and he said this just hilarious he said no I won't eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream I came from Europe I came from a country that where socialism
Speaker A
and the ramamama dingdong, whatever else you're talking about. And plus next up, I've got the CEO of Ben & Jerry's who's going to be here with us to talk about his company. Okay, and commercial break, and then kind of get you up there, and
Speaker A
Stuart I'm a capitalist I've been in business for 30 years we are an extremely successful profitable company and by the way it's owned by Unilever which is a 60 billion Euro major consumer package goods company sir I I'm a business person and
Speaker A
you go sit in the thing, and Stuart Varney's just going through his paper. I got a cup of ice cream. I'm like ready to go, like talk about the ice cream. And I like to eat ice cream when
Speaker A
been the the end of that right um I tell this because I had just in my first couple months on the job just basically decided we were going to grow Ben and& Jerry's faster than it had ever been
Speaker A
I'm doing interviews, by the way. It kind of puts things at ease, and I highly recommend it. Whatever. Put. And so Stuart Varney looks to me. I say, hi, hi Stuart, it's nice to meet you. He goes, okay, so we'll
Speaker A
of business experience so I think think I'm halfway decent at running companies but on all those other issues on climate justice social justice and all the detailed things that I had had some exposure to in my prior roles and I've
Speaker A
talk about your new flavor and maybe about business. Okay, that sounds great. And then there's this guy standing over there. He's like this, and I'm like, oh man. And so L is all right, action. All right, I'm joined by
Speaker A
that I needed to kind of was like a like a big slap in the face or like brick to the forehead type of moment and it taught me really highlighted for me two things one is that I'm going to have to
Speaker A
Matthew McCarthy, the CEO of Ben & Jerry's. And he turns to me. He says, Matthew McCarthy, why are you a socialist? I'm sitting there like I got a spoon in hand like I'm like, are you me? And I didn't know what to say. I froze.
Speaker A
or that and that's come up consistently in all the talks since last night to today this idea of dual narratives um things that have tensions Gary talked about the tensions we talked about the head in the heart we talked
Speaker A
I froze. I was, well, we got this new flavor, you know, terrible. And, uh, and he's like, yeah, but you support Bernie Sanders. And I, I was like I'm trying desperately to bridge. They teach you in PR bridging
Speaker A
that that I've um set about trying to to to smash this idea of actually I think the concept of the balance is inappropriate a balance when someone say me how do you balance I get this question all the time how do you balance
Speaker A
tactics. You know, someone asks you a question here, you're like, can we get back to the ice cream? And he, and when he said the Bernie thing, that kind of made me angry because I was, we don't
Speaker A
there I said listen a balance is fundamentally Zero Sum when one side goes down the other one goes up and when the other side goes down the other one goes up that's I want more growth and I want
Speaker A
support politicians at Ben & Jerry's. We support policies. We support change. We support fighting the systemic issues that cause marginalization, but we don't go like politicking for, for, for politicians, especially when they're like, you know, elections and stuff like that. We don't
Speaker A
but it is pretty simple and I reject the balance trope I how many people want to have less sales but they did good things how many people are like yeah I want to grow my sales and I'm okay with you know doing
Speaker A
do that. And so I said no, we don't support Ber—I didn't know what to say. I didn't, I had no, like, I had been prepared for this, and I'm sure my poor Sean, my PR guy's on the side, oh man, they
Speaker A
success created economic growth and empowerment employment uh big profits um and a lot of great ice cream not in spite of the positions but because of them and and a lot of people the past few days have asked me a question that I
Speaker A
feeling like so. Anyway, we, we kind of struggle through the—I struggle through the interview, and you know, we talk about stuff, and they're rolling b-roll kind of in the background, so there's like, you know, pictures of ice cream being made
Speaker A
other thing and now this Supply Chain's taking longer and my bills are going to be this how much of the social Mission stuff can I can I do I don't have a ready answer for that I've get asked
Speaker A
and happy people and whatnot. And so I get through the—I get through the interview, and it was, it wasn't terrible, I don't think, but you can probably find it online, have a good laugh. Uh, but we get to the end. He's like, all right, and
Speaker A
digital Communications um the internet and and and all related things really started to take off transparency has really change what public relations can be all about in the past senior Executives could basically like oh man this is not a good issue we
Speaker A
coming up next, we're going to talk about, you know, NASDAQ and oil prices and some other Ram lamama dingdong, and they go, okay, now we're to commercial break. And so I, I'm sitting like, well, I'm glad that's over. And so I, I said to Stuart, I
Speaker A
a huge way elevated the do so you are what you do and if you to park you the stuff that you think is important to your values the stuff you know is important to you and you park it you're
Speaker A
said, have you ever actually had Ben & Jerry's ice cream? And he said this just hilarious. He said, no, I won't eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I came from Europe. I came from a country that where socialism
Speaker A
who adopt to choose to buy your product your service partner with you whoever whoever they might be they're doing that because of you because of the things you're doing and actually it gets sometimes harder as you scale I think
Speaker A
was the problem, and I escaped it. And I looked him dead in the face. It's the only kind of maybe thing that I did that had a little bit of hood spot. I looked him right in the face. I said, I just
Speaker A
going to have bigger Ambitions and and the price tag may be bigger but percentage wise it doesn't so the beautiful thing about being uh in a world where you are what you do is that the people who are still living in the I
Speaker A
Stuart, I'm a capitalist. I've been in business for 30 years. We are an extremely successful, profitable company, and by the way, it's owned by Unilever, which is a 60 billion euro major consumer packaged goods company, sir. I, I'm a business person, and
Speaker A
the pace of businesses getting disrupted by many of the entrepreneurs who are in this room been greater than today that's a great thing I'm perfectly comfortable with big companies go under I don't want to see people lose their jobs because of
Speaker A
it just—he didn't know what to say because he had this whole narrative in his head about, I don't know, business or long-haired hippies with beards or whatnot. God, thank God I didn't tell him I drove a Subaru. I mean, that would have
Speaker A
believer in um really focusing on uh the do and then the say stuff kind of sorts itself out um a bit so uh so that was my steart Barney story that's I I was thinking about like how would I open up
Speaker A
been the end of that, right? Um, I tell this because I had just in my first couple months on the job just basically decided we were going to grow Ben & Jerry's faster than it had ever been
Speaker A
inspired okay that's pretty high um now yeah I not like I'm surprised by this is not a trick question now by a show of hands to yourself right because this I don't want you to raise your hands I want you to
Speaker A
grown, and we also were going to take positions on things to drive the social mission, uh, further. Now, I didn't know how to do either of those things. I always like to say, like, I got 30 years
Speaker A
you to think for a second and that's why I don't want you to put your hands up because it doesn't matter what the other people think what matters is if you believe you're going to do something bigger so if you feel that like
Speaker A
of business experience, so I think I'm halfway decent at running companies, but on all those other issues on climate justice, social justice, and all the detailed things that I had had some exposure to in my prior roles, and I've
Speaker A
you've actually taken that decision I want you to raise your hand to yourself right now all right now that I've said that how many people by show of hand are feeling nervous about something you've got some anxiety about the
Speaker A
been moving in this direction, but not really as deep as what was required at Ben & Jerry's. And so Stuart Varney, I have to maybe I'll send him a thank you note one day. Um, he helped me with two key things
Speaker A
nervous if if you're feeling agitated if you're feeling a little scared about your own goals I've got news for you get excited all big things that we do as people and as team as teams are preceded by nervous
Speaker A
that I needed to kind of was like a big slap in the face or like brick to the forehead type of moment, and it taught me, really highlighted for me two things. One is that I'm going to have to
Speaker A
you know Aida or angst anxiety they ain't a good thing that I've ever done in my life where I could point back and say I think that was pretty good that wasn't preceded with a lot of nuts knots
Speaker A
really fight a lot for the stuff that we're doing at Ben & Jerry's, particularly if you want to do, uh, more of them. And the second thing was, man, I'm going to have to attack these tropes about this
Speaker A
and I'm not saying I'm there that but training myself that when I feel those feelings hey Matthew get excited because there's probably some good stuff right ahead and is it a little bit of a ninja move on my brain maybe but if I can
Speaker A
or that. And that's come up consistently in all the talks since last night to today, this idea of dual narratives, um, things that have tensions. Gary talked about the tensions. We talked about the head and the heart. We talked
Speaker A
here and been actually the connective tissue between the speakers we all know how things how challenging things are things were really challenging and I observed lots of business Executives under incredible duress before the pandemic so if you think about the
Speaker A
about these things where there's kind of duality, but specifically as it relates to, um, a business doing good things versus just doing less bad things or actually not giving at all. Um, that's one of the biggest tropes
Speaker A
peer to me whatever it might be was really feelings of fear because that old adage what got me here is not going to get me there was becoming more intense for lots of people I don't care whether you had 10 or 20 or
Speaker A
that I've, um, set about trying to, to, to smash this idea of actually, I thi—
Speaker A
and then the pandemic hit and all hell breaks loose in all ways for humans for communities um and for all the businesses that they choose to be part of or other organizations that choose to be part of um and you know the pace of
Speaker A
change is unfortunately I think framed as something to be scared of and something bad and I think Consultants are particularly good particularly Big Business Consultants at making businesses feel scared about the pace of change oh change this is that's bad well
Speaker A
yeah you know change is is like awesome change it's when things are bolted to the ground that we should feel frustrated when change is happening it creates huge opportunity no great things happen when there isn't change and disruption um happening um and the other
Speaker A
thing is that I spent a bunch of my career early on kind of we used to talk about gurus like gurus of digital media or digital you know dig uh uh gurus of of uh of kind of a social media and what
Speaker A
one of the beautiful things about the pace of change is that it's two things one it's probably not going to slow down it's pretty I think we can all kind of agree that change is not going to all
Speaker A
of a sudden slow down but more importantly change is an incredible democratizing Force just cuz you were the exper ERT yesterday actually has very little bearing on whether you're not the expert today and so that causes a lot of panic
Speaker A
for senior people and that's too bad for them honestly they they're going to have to redefine you know their the value their value proposition to their own organizations but the pace of change be I believe is an incredible democratizing
Speaker A
Force because it allows everybody in the organization yourself your teammates everybody in your or whether it's a business or not I'm going to use the word business a lot but I mean organization no matter how long you've been there what your expertise is you
Speaker A
now have an opportunity to shape what gets done now decisions that get taken now and where that organization has an impact today and tomorrow more than ever before that's the benefit of the democratization that the speed of change
Speaker A
creates the other thing that that requires is that it really forces people with positional authority to um to either radically redistribute that Authority and agency to the people on the front line in the organization the people actually doing the work um or
Speaker A
bankrupt the company I mean if you think about the pace of CEOs getting fired CMOS turning any SE Suite any senior person I've never seen it it's never been as fast as it is now board members board members
Speaker A
and I don't know and I love I I I always joke with my team the higher you go the less you know and that becomes trer every day because of the pace to change and it's and and I say that not to belittle
Speaker A
myself because there are things that I in my prior job as the CEO there are things that that only I can do the stuff that only I can sign bills that maybe only I could sign or big decisions like
Speaker A
oh we're trying to debate this and Matthew's got to take a decision but I really want those to be few and far between because if if they're going through me that that's that's a problem too slow I'm very far away from the
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front line of the organization and um and again the higher you go the less you know um and so I've I'm on a journey of redefining and re kind of rearticulating what value do I even offer to the organization and I
Speaker A
think this is true of all founders and all SE Suite Executives I don't care if you've got one employee yourself or you've got 10,000 employees you know Ben and& Jerry's we grew Ben and Jerry's to uh to over a billion in sales we're in
Speaker A
over 30 countries several hundred employees and thousands of of people that work in our scoop shops around the world and I would often joke with people that you know as the CEO I may I just may be the most dangerous person in the
Speaker A
company because I'm the furthest away from actually the stuff that matters most I'm not saying I wasn't I I eat ice cream every day right we were we were often tasting ice creams and looking at Innovations but my job is not to do the
Speaker A
R&D team's job my job is not to do the culinary team's job my job is not to do the BR marketers jobs my job is not to do the social Mission team's job on our climate and our social justice
Speaker A
initiatives so stepping back and actually finding I'm not saying I did a good job at it by the way please don't I don't want that to be sub subtext here but this idea of senior Executives whether they're one of one or they're
Speaker A
one of many really have to redefine how they are radically redistributing power away from themselves and probably redefining their role more as a sage or um a guide a shepherd and I would thing I would say to my team often is um I'm
Speaker A
not the future you are that's just the way it is especially for CEOs now you I suppose you could stay as CEO forever but that that's probably not necessarily the best thing for everybody else and giving other folks the opportunity um
Speaker A
everything about leadership requires courage right and I think courage is there's a lot of Mythology bar I Craig I'm super inspired by by Craig's work on on mythology and and laurology I I spent a lot of my um I'm a student of Courage
Speaker A
organizational courage courage for people and organizations and the reason I'm a student is because for a lot of my career I didn't have enough of it I watched people make decisions and take decisions because they seemed they were
Speaker A
the they were louder than me they answer they had their hand up in class faster than me and they just uh seem to demonstrate more confidence than I did and I was like oh well person seem really confident they they got a lot of
Speaker A
courage in that and then you know we finally find out it was a stupid idea it was a total stupid ass idea and I'd be like you know Matthew you should have put your hand up you should have spoke
Speaker A
up in that moment and so you know after like many years of that I S started to kind of say you know dude you only have yourself to blame here so not like at like a shame way but like like come on
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you know and so uh I think there's a lot of Mythology around courage so when we think about courage this is going to be a free word association I love people to just shout out some words there's no
Speaker A
right or wrong answer this is totally like group work on this I'm not going to like no you're wrong uh so courage what does it mean to you no really think about your own experience and forget everybody else in the room courage to
Speaker A
you what are some word associations confidence I'm I'm sorry Fearless Fearless inal for bravery intestinal fortitude excuses R thick skin thick skin I'm sorry risk risk okay what else action action what else fear fear strength strength did I hear
Speaker A
humility I'm sorry humility yeah okay this is great listen I I I um I will always be a student of Courage because every if you want to do big things you're going to be afraid it's just kind of simple you know
Speaker A
and and and and I I I do know that people who um that say that that you know fearlessness is really dangerous it kind of goes a little bit to this idea of the hero you know someone who's truly Fearless can
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often be very dangerous right we we in particularly if you're trying to build and develop a people centered organization where you're really bringing together your purpose your head your heart you're flourishing your focus on yes um you're the bigger it is the more afraid you're
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going to be and that's totally normal and courage for me I used to think courage was like you know just just be tough enough I could do this thing right or I could just maybe just act tough enough you know um and I don't think
Speaker A
that was it that was it either I think courage often is common sense we talk about things that were courageous usually in the past tense ah person that business that they they they were that really was that was courageous
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what they did when I go talk to people that I feel did courageous stuff I said holy how'd you do that that's like all those headwinds against your team or your business or you know the anti-woke movement whatever it might be how did
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you do that and usually people say and and back me up on this one if you feel you say it's like well that just it was the right thing to do and then later we'll we'll kind of talk about it as courageous I've never I
Speaker A
I you know people I think we just need to be courageous here and then I go out you know steuart Varney we're courageous that's not the way it is so often courage is is common sense in the moment
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where you are clear you've got clarity about your values you've got clarity about your purpose and the shared purpose of the people that you've chosen to jam with and you choose to do some stuff that makes you really nervous but
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you know is going to be important right and the courage to do that often simply comes from the clarity that you've got about what it is you want to do and why you want to do it and that
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sounds really really basic but I think we make courage inaccessible to ourselves and that's unnecessary and so I believe that courage is often it's it's it's kind of Common Sense even if it's hard even if you fail a lot I'm not
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saying it's like uh Pleasant all the time but moving towards things that you want to do as long as they're consistent with your values you have clarity about your values you have clarity about your purpose actually you can take a lot of
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punches but if you're not clear and someone kind of comes at you and you you may not be able to kind of you may not have the resilience and so I think a lot of of Courage is common sense that flows
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from you know the clarity of of of your values and kind of why you're jamming with a certain uh group of people I I I use the term commonplace also because I I often in my head I would make things
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that I felt I needed to do out of my own reach by my own internal language like w heroism or fearlessness or whatnot in reality is courage is it's kind of like a it's kind of like a human right we all
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have the capacity for courage we all do and it's kind of funny how uh L I'll speak personally how I would move the bar away on doing courage of stuff cuz it was like you I'm not sure if I can do
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that I'm a crier by the way so bear with me um you probably what's wrong with this guy his voice is cracking U uh but you know why would why I had to I had this conversations I said why am I
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moving the bar away of of for in terms of making things accessible when they are consistent with my values I know that for me I like to grow businesses I like to beat the competition and I like to actually use the business to do good
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things right I'm and I'm you know learning a lot more about those things now I'm not a lifelong uh person that's been engaged in Social and climate justice but over the past decade I'm learning lot why would I move that bar
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further out when in fact courage doing difficult things that I know are consistent should be a daily practice and the number one barrier we all know is is here right it's here sometimes here sometimes here like you're freaking out whatever it might be
Speaker A
so this I so I would encourage you to think about when have you been at you're most courageous and why for simple exercise you know grab a coffee or tea or cider or whatnot and um and or or hog
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andaz ice cream and uh and and sit down and think of I'm serious and think about it and say you know when was I at my most courageous but don't just say most you got to have more than one you and
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you all have hundreds and hundreds of when when was I like on the the most courageous side of stuff and how how did that happen What barrier did I overcome what obstacles did I overcome and this this is a super simple thing like this
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is really really simple and I encourage you to make this part of your daily practice so that you remind yourself that you're actually super courageous right now and I'm not saying to pump you up I'm just saying it is a
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fact and you also I think can benefit maybe some of you already do this so I don't need to be presumptive but I find that I can benefit by making it part of my daily um selft talk my daily mantras
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to talk about what crous looks like not so that I can Pat myself on the back or puff up my ego that's a really important Point that's not the point here it's knowing that I want to do some
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things that are difficult I've got some approach avoidance I'm feeling some fear um I'm not sure how to handle this with my family my significant other my staff um you know courage making it common place is is incredibly important um and
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um the other thing I'd say about that is uh we talk about the courage of leaders and almost like that leaders are the ones that have to have all the courage or they have to have almost like a little of Monopoly on
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Courage that the CEO or SE Suite of executive they're they're the ones that need to take the tough calls you know the tough decisions I can't tell you how many times in my career I've seen um tough in quotes masquerading is
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smart you know we're just going to be bold it's dumb you know and and I for most of my career I didn't have the courage to to say to people listen don't don't try to like don't don't dress up
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this bad idea is we just need to take a tough call here we just got to be tough here and do the tough thing and it came up earlier you know that Nick mentioned this you know the the um the easy wrong
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versus the difficult right um and so um we talk about that in ourselves and and certainly if if we are founders if we are senior Executives if we're running our own organizations we do have to have a daily practice I believe you know
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every maybe other day where you're investigating what kind of Courage you're bringing personally to your life to do those things to to to live your values we're trying to live up to our values that's that's one of the golden
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cables of this conversation I think is values and then how do you live up to purpose and how do you have the intestinal fortitude to go actually do that when there's a lot of headwinds but there's another thing that
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I think uh that I have a hypothesis that I want to share with you that I think is more important than your courage is that how do you democratize courage within your organization and I think you see where
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I'm going your courage is important and modeling courage is one of the most important things that we as Leaders can do again whether you work with one person or you got 10,000 people on your staff modeling courage is important but
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far far more important is democratizing courage within your organization and I I'll say a little bit more about this but I think it's pretty self-explanatory I will tell you this if you're in a business and your competitor is doing a
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better job at democratizing courage in their organization than you they are going to beat you conversely if you're able to democratize courage and make it more commonplace for the people in your teams particularly people that don't actually look like they've got a lot of courage
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or they're maybe they're more junior or maybe you see that they their self-esteem they don't talk first in the meeting maybe their voice isn't being heard in your meetings right so I I would I think this is a an important and
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underd discussed thing particularly when we talk about it's just just like romanticizing about the founders and and seet folks and that's fine that's fine but but I'm becoming less relevant every day it doesn't actually what matter what my positional Authority is you again I
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ran a very large company with lots of employees and you know number one ice cream package ice cream in the United States but the reality is all of my 30 years of business business the funny thing about experience is that 100% of it is in
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yesterday right no matter what I want to say is I 100% of my experience is yesterday so this idea of democratizing Courage is is all about creating these circumstances the environment a very rich and fertile environment um really
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employing the things that all the speakers and all the local leaders who have talked about here uh particularly around the human- centered nature of of the imperative for driving change when you you know what is democratize and courage in your organization look
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like is a question you may want to ask yourself how will I know if I'm democratizing courage everybody has I think the human right to tap into their courage right it's not on the list of Human Rights but yeah but but but but
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certainly from a leadership perspective it's it's our job to to support people but how do you know what it looks like is a question I would suggest uh that that you you ask yourself how will I know I'm doing
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it because we talk about like inclusion and and Dei is already you know uh you know come under incredible fire most recently it's really it's really you know the anti-woke movement is really disgusting in lots of ways and
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maybe that's for another talk uh but the headwinds aren't going away way because actually we are making progress we need to make more of it and the forces that don't want things to change are just going to continue to fight harder so
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that's why you need everybody on your team jazzed up and tapping into their own courage there's no pump up speech that you can give people that's going to last much longer than that pump up speech you can jazz people up with a
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current crisis or an opportunity but that's kind of Foxhole mentality actually we need Fox whole mentality sometimes sometimes we are in crisis we need to be more directive we need to take control we need to exercise our our leadership
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control and organizations to deal with crises but but most things are not that way and if you can find a way to democratize uh courage within your organization you really will unlock the uh the the the a lot of the eye of
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inclusion or people feeling heard are their voices being part of the discussion um and I don't I and I I need to work more with some experts that to take this idea of of kind of organizational courage and connect it
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with inclusion because we all know for I shouldn't say it that way for folks that work in racial Equity um and Dei that representation is a symptom representation for different peoples and different voices by itself does very little the goal is not representation
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and let's have diversity as a representation the power of diversity is when people are actually taking action I heard action said a couple of times when it relates to courage so um and the um so I'll pause there for a second I'm
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gonna shift to another what are we doing on time here anyways give me a time check because I'd like to do a little C what's that3 when do you want to wrap up uh like five minutes okay so uh and we can do people
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we getting together outside or something like that yes all right so if this we'll do Q&A kind of we'll do Q&A here we do on okay cool groovy um the um so one of the couple of the thoughts that that I want
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to touch on briefly is uh and it's come up a number of times from from from a lot of smart talented people who who who who've been speaking around the power of trust trust is man oh man I've I've done
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so many stupid things that hurt trust when I think back trust is absolutely the lifeblood of courage it's It's You could argue that trust is lots of things but on this topic of Courage I don't care how many
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consultants you I don't many books you read I don't care what if you're not actually building trust forget about courage not rocket science is it but trust and and trust mean means it's a big fat word i i i acknowledge that but
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if people don't trust you they won't help you and if they don't help you you're not going to change the world or change these Three Counties change this Valley if people don't trust you they won't they won't want to tap into their
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courage for you or their co-workers and so this idea of that as Leaders we are by definition in the trust business whether we know it or accept it or not and so that's an additional question I would I would I
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would respectfully ask people to think about I ask myself all the time what does trust look like how can I get help creating more Trust um in my organization um do people trust me do they trust each other people will not
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take big leaps if they don't feel that they have each other's backs again not rocket science but pretty pretty scarce in organizations particularly with the pressures that people are under you put people under pressure you put organizations Under Pressure we all go
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back to our easier tool boxes this is you kind of psychology 101 but really what we need is to is to Leap Forward um and and so when I think about that kind of use that analogy of the golden cable
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of kind of of of Courage for yourself democratize and courage and the nature of trust and how important that is really I would I would say that these are these are your most important kpis sales profit enrollment um market share I argue that
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those kpis are symptoms they're important symptoms because very often that's what we're measuring or that's what the financial fol like but I would argue my experience is that sales profit market share Affinity with your consumers household penetration um uh social followers are
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symptoms of a team that has courage at the top democratized courage across the organization Anda and Trust as the number one those are progenitors of all great outcomes and I'm a big believer also in the forensics of success and the
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forensics of failure we are today Upstream from all of tomorrow's successes and failures and we have that incredible opportunity to to to to drive that change the last thing I'd say and we can maybe wrap up do a little Q&A is
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that I see myself as kind of like um running around with cans of gasoline looking for Sparks I know may be not a great analogy so I'm sorry it's a petrochemical analogy and it's not an owed to the the the industry in the area
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but I find that that a lot of my job particularly the further I've gone in organizations and and a lot of privileged opportunities that that I've had is I feel like I I'm running around looking for Sparks and I want to like
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get down on my knees and start Fanning them like right it's like that little you know ball of stuff and you're like and then I come over and I want to Fan them and whatnot and so I would just
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and uh just want to say a big thank you to Sandy and the team for letting me uh be part of all this and I'd love to actually do a little Q&A you want to wrap a little Q&A all right any
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questions anything I say you're like that's total I don't what I don't agree with that at all hi oh yeah speak to the Box what's what's one way that you implemented democratization at Ben and Jerry's what's an example yeah okay um so um one
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of the biggest focuses for our business particularly in Europe for Ben and jer's was immigration the rights for uh uh immigration and Asylum Seekers and there's a number of countries in Europe you've seen it in the news maybe that
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it's horrendous what is done to immigrants literally anti-human rights people dying in boats and people being put in detention centers period and I'd be happy to argue with anybody if they feel like the the way that countries treat immigrants is a good thing um I
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know very little about the topic so right out of the gate when the team came to me with some pretty heavy duty things that they wanted to do I think also the team felt that I was up for a bunch of
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stuff like let's take this into Matthew what but my job was not to approve those things but was actually to instigate so for me when the team came in when they said to me we want to do this here's the
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situation we want to put this post out we want to do this campaign and we want to go directly at Major politicians in the UK I was like whoa you know and by the way my parents comp my parent company's headquarters
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Unilever his headquarters is in London so but I had to hide some of that reaction honestly and I say hide it I don't think hide is not a good one kind of basically set that aside for a moment
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and so because the last thing they they should hear is hey we're all jazzed up about this thing this is total what they're doing um let's say in a country like the UK in terms of its policies specifically and really
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regressive antih humanitarian policies the last thing they I want them to see on my face is like talk about like C o screwing the whole thing up right like let me hear cold water let me grab another bucket so
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the first thing is actually managing myself I'm not saying I do a good job of it I'm not saying I did a good job but managing myself knowing that we were up for big stuff and I had put the call to
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action let's double down let's triple down on these things that Ben and Jerry stands for because the forces are really going the other way for crying out loud on some of these social justice and climate justice issues so that was the
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first thing I got to manage myself all right and I got to think about that how do I manage myself because positional Authority is real and I don't want to I don't want to screw that up right and I
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screw it up a lot the second thing was to provoke as I said I I alluded to a moment ago and I would ask the team questions and when I first started with Ben and Jerry's uh um one of the social
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Mission uh folks was like I started they basically they wanted to call President Trump on one of our packages of ice cream and I was like who whoa and I was in the job like 90 days I was like can
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can we just say you know but I didn't say that uh and he he said to me when I was asking questions I was saying well what's your goal why do you you could do this campaign with or without naming the
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Trump Administration why do you want to do that and he said well Matthew if you're if you're not behind this and this is you're not up for it I said stop right there don't misinterpret me asking questions and me trying to understand
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what you're trying to do and make it better as code for I'm going to give you the runaround now I was challenging him he obviously had that experience with leaders in the past and so I wasn't trying to chastise him because clearly
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he's you know M Matthew's going to ask us 15 questions at the end in the end of the day and a week he's going to say no and people are afraid of that particularly the most courageous people in your organization they are afraid
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that the senior people be too expensive yeah maybe later can you do this analysis 10 more times like they they're going to have a vote on this thing in like a week and a half and so that was usually my first
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question do we have to do this right right now no um so those so managing myself and being really clear about why I'm asking and pro provocative questions in order to make the program as strong as it can be and often they had the
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expertise there a lot of the questions I was asking was about damage control risk management because I got 30 years of business experience I I've failed a lot I've screwed a lot of things up way more than my staff has that's an area that I
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can bring value in I've scw screwed a lot of stuff up I've seen other teams screw stuff up so how do I use my powers of inquiry and curiosity that we're talked about a lot over the past couple
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days to help the team but be really clear with them why am I asking you this question I'm not asking you this because I'm hoping that if I ask you enough questions you'll go away and you won't do this really kind of scary program
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that's going to cause a lot of PR no I'm doing it because of this this and this and even when there were times when I knew that I was going to get called out I'm fine with that that's part that's
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that's part of my job for crying out loud that's why I need your help staff please educate me and when they ask me this what do I say not when they ask me this what am I supposed to say no let's
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actually work through it let's work through that thank you for that question one more lucky person the LA thank you you mentioned uh daily courage and talking giving yourself little pep talks about courage can you give us some
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examples of what you might have said or how you might have done [Music] that yes um I wouldn't call him thank you for the question I wouldn't call him pep talks I used to give myself pep talks but the pep didn't last very long
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like I'm like I pep up and like this huge crappy thing would like and I'm like uh I can't pep myself up to deal with this freaking problem um so I'm not not to pick on that term but
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I I I'm glad you asked it that way cuz this isn't about for me this isn't about psyching yourself up or like yeah I do you know I do like to look in the mirror and go yeah you know there are times for
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that right you know power moves and yeah but um but uh but uh one of the things that I had to do that I really had to um uh there was a daily thing for me is when we took
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the positions on Ben and& Jerry's around black lives matter so um sorry so when George FL was killed uh we got together as a team and we knew we needed to do something right just as Ben and Jerry's we basically
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came together and said hold on you know this these are just the latest most public versions of inhumane treatment to lots of people people of color these just happen to be public you it's not just George Floyd it's not just Brianna
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Taylor but but a whole series of things that we've been tracking and working on and so once we had decided there positions that we wanted to take around white supremacy culture really moving kind of Beyond some of the language and
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really through the work with some of our partners advancement project national office raised forward um movement for black lives we we weren't just they weren't Hollow positions they were actually pretty meaty based on the expertise of our Partners in the markets
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um and how we and that that's bit of the business model but what happened as this was going on and on is that people there was a there was a lot of support not only in the United States but around the
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world in the markets that we operate for something has got a change after George Floyd was murdered but then the anti-woke movement got a hold of this and his sense been pushing back on those things so when we
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would use language around defund the police when we use language around black lives matter when we would talk about front-end Criminal Justice Reform as part of our our social Mission work again with our grass Partners I would get lots of questions from people
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outside the company and from the parent company what's this about particularly as we were owned by a European company and they're like what the hell's going on over there in America and and and should you even be talking about this
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stuff again not that un lever wasn't supportive our parent compan is incredibly supportive of Ben and cherri's and menag has thrived actually under Unilever that's not just me saying it to to Hero Unilever but the company has actually done extremely well and
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when Unilever bought the company in 200000 they knew exactly what they were buying that doesn't stop the fact that the anti-woke mov is putting incredible pressure through media the business press investors why are you using this inflammatory language well first of all
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you may find it inflammatory but that's the language of the people in the movement so and this this had gone on for a long time because every time we wanted to put out a new piece a blog or
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explaining when we see DF on the police what are we actually talking about this isn't you know an anti- police thing what are we really talking about here I had to learn about it and I'm not an expert in these topics and I had to be a
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translator to people who were far less knowledgeable than me in different you know let's say stakeholders and that actually was pretty grueling to be honest with you so I had to find every day usually every day every week ways to
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in in a pep talk would have never gotten me up to that so I had to become at least proficient enough in the issue and then find out ways to talk to stakeholders not just to say get the
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hell out of here we're doing it because we're Ben at Jerry's you know that that's not really helpful how can I be the educator of other people and the translator for other people when I myself am not the
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expert this is one of the things that that happens because we all none of us can be experts in everything um so and and to have those conversations um I had to um prepare for those conversations and really model through
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how I wanted those conversations to go and often I would use uh role playing with my staff the people with the experts because they weren't going to be in the room these were usually confidential conversations that related to public relations and statements and
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lots of people backlashing you see it every day now Bud Light the biggest brand in the United States Disney that's not going to stop and I don't say that with negative I say it with almost like a smirk right the
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anti-woke movement is really afraid about the change that we've made and the changes that we're about to make and things aren't going to get easier there isn't anything that isn't political anymore everything is political to somebody and so people would say to us
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I'll wrap up on this know when someone the funniest thing is people like I'd go on Twitter uh and they people like why don't you just stick to make an ice cream it's the stupidest thing right I'm not buying any more Ben and Jerry's and
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we always joke like these people whoever wrote that never bought Ben and Jerry's anyways boycott Ben and Jerry's and we'd have a good laugh about it uh because we there's a saying in in the in my former employer's office you
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know we would say nothing drives sales like a good boy Cod thank you very much I'm going to wrap up on that one thank you thank [Applause] you
Topics:Matthew McCarthyBen & Jerry'sleadershipcouragesocial justicebusiness strategypublic relationsorganizational culturelive TV interviewcorporate responsibility
