“The Fear Seeker”
Brad Hiranaga is a disruptor. Working inside one of the world’s most storied and established companies, he is bringing about systemic change to the way General Mills shows up in the world.
Unlocking creative and innovative thinking at scale requires not just an ability to take risks but a willingness to search for them.
Three Takeaways
Leadership is a journey of self discovery.
Establish an environment for collaboration.
Identify the difference you want to make.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 111: "The Fear Seeker" - Brad Hiranaga
I’m Charles Day. I work globally with some of the most creative and innovative companies, helping their leaders maximize their impact and accelerate the growth of their business.
It’s become clear to me that the most valuable companies in the world are led by people who have something in common. They've learned how to unlock the most powerful business forces in the world - creativity and innovation.
On this podcast, I explore how they do it and I'll help you use their experiences to become a better leader, and become that leader faster.
Brad Hiranaga is a disruptor. Working inside one of the world’s most storied and established companies, he is bringing about systemic change to the way General Mills shows up in the world.
Unlocking creative and innovative thinking at scale requires not just an ability to take risks but a willingness to search for them.
This episode is called, “The Fear Seeker”.
“I want to be kind of nervous and kind of scared of it and I kind of want the butterflies or I kind of want the feeling my gut like I don't know how this is going to go. cause otherwise I don't feel like I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to grow.”
Breaking down institutional walls and traditional ways of working is not for the timid. Those leaders that succeed confront fear in multiple ways.
They help others overcome their fear. They implant a collective fear of the present as a catalyst for change. And they seek to raise their own threshold for fear as a gage for their own growth.
In other words, they flip fear on its head. And instead of trying to avoid it, they actively seek it.
So, if you’re looking to make change across your company, ask yourself this question.
Am I spending enough time in the company of fear?
And if not, why not?
Here’s Brad Hiranaga.
Charles:
Brad, welcome to Fearless. Thanks for joining me today.
Brad Hiranaga:
Thanks, Charles. I'm super excited to talk to you.
Charles:
When did creativity first show up in your life?
Brad Hiranaga:
I think it was probably around young, young elementary school. we've talked about a little bit of this before, but both my parents, were teachers, and, art was like a big deal in our house. And so, you know, my dad had taken a lot of pottery classes, my mom, loved to write poetry. And so, there was always like a lot of different opportunities I think to engage in, in different kinda creative types of exercises and in play.
And, specifically, what stands out is like I love to draw cartoons, like that was a big thing for me. So Disney cartoons, there's this book series called Sweet Pickles, which is a really weird title, but just with different animals that they all represented different parts of the alphabet and I just remember just like tracing them and drawing them and then I got a Spiderman.
So I would draw all these things and I had a really good friend of mine, his name is Brian Hagerman. What's up, Brian? He and I would get together and draw this cartoon book that we created. It was called The Divers, and it was like the story of these two guys who would go and explore the ocean and fight sharks and pirates and everything else. I remember we just make these sheets of paper and we would color for hours and hours on end. now that I have kids of my own, I'm always like, "Hey guys, you wanna go color, or you guys should... Let's do a story," and they're like, "Seriously, Dad, I'm trying to play Fortnite." So I'm always like a little bit disappointed that I can't spark that same type of interest in that.
I mean even drawing today, I still will doodle and draw and it's like, I think back from those times and I still feel like that's a great creative outlet for me. the other day I found those old papers in a book, the drawings weren't as impressive as I remember them, but, we thought the books would be published.
Charles:
Were you a risk taker growing up as a kid?
Brad Hiranaga:
I always like whenever I take those personality surveys, I always like to fashion myself as, as the person that would, you know, go skydiving or parasailing and do all the crazy things. And I think there's some part of me that that's true, but I also feel like I, there's a cautiousness too as well. My friends would say, and family would say, I can overthink things and over process things in my, in my head sometimes.
But there were things that I feel like that I would lean into and do. So I would, you know, whether or not this is a big risk but you know, try out for a school play and, and, and get out on the stage in front of audience at a young age or do different sports that I had never done before and, and try to do a lot of them. In terms of like pure risk and pure adrenaline, I probably am like close to the, at the edge on some of those things, but not really ever jumping over the edge as much as I'd like to think of myself as a Daredevil.
Charles:
What do you think you were trying to find out by experimenting with so many different things?
Brad Hiranaga:
I feel like it was just the exploration and the learning part of that for me was really fun. I'm always super interested in trying something new and learning about it. It's given me confidence over the years to experience things. And as I try them out, if I'm not good at it or I fail at it, it never really bothered me. Or if I loved it, then I would have a lot of determination to try to get better at it.
I think even in terms of just the arts, right? I loved piano, I loved being in the band, I love trying for school plays, I took, you know, ceramics, ceramics class, I took a break dancing class, like, which is embarrassing to admit now. But, those are the types of things that I really loved to do as a kid. And sometimes I didn't like it after I had the experience it, I stopped doing it and move onto the next thing. But I feel like it was just the exploration and the learning part of that for me was really fun.
Charles:
You've become a leader in your business career. Were you a leader back then as a kid growing up? Were you the person that people gravitated towards?
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah, I think, that I always kind of felt a natural comfort in, in being the ringleader of things. and you know, being, whether that was being captain, on sports teams or you know, just kind of informally kind of the person that people look to you to kind of, you know, make decisions or do those things. I think that, that was something that was natural for me.
I've also been around, you know, other friends who are great leaders in their own right and, and I'm happy to also play the support role depending on the circumstance. I would say, I kinda cultivated more of like involvement in more formalized leadership as I got into high school. I was very involved in student government.
And I had this teacher, her name is Eleanor Schultz. Mrs. Schultz. I’m still connected with her on Facebook. Uh, she was an amazing, amazing role model for me on leadership. And she actually taught a class, it was called leadership in high school. And I think back to that, you know, I took a lot of classes that I, I can't really remember, you know, biology and algebra and all, all sorts of things. I remember leadership class.
Charles:
What did you do you learn about how you wanted to lead back then?
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah. I wanted to, I wanted to lead in a collaborative way. I feel like I wanted to lead in a way that was, I'll use this word as popular, but very human and fun and more laid back in terms of everyone can contribute and not that it's dictated from the top. Not that I was looking for consensus on decisions, but I wanted to hear from everybody, that were part of those teams and build it together. And ultimately, like for me, and this is going to sound very basic, but I also just wanted to have fun.
I've recognized at a young age that you only have so much time on the planet and in those moments of time, and I've taken this to work too, like I enjoy other people. I enjoy building relationships, I enjoy having fun.
And so when I lead and if I'm on a team, I love working with teams and having a good time, to accomplish things together. And so those were big, those are a big part of my learning journey on how to do that, how to create good teams with different kinds of people, with different perspectives, with different skill sets, and really be able to orchestrate and get the right people in a room to solve a problem.
Charles:
What's your relationship with fear?
Brad Hiranaga:
So very afraid of sharks, very afraid of sharks. And my family's-
Charles:
Big problem in Minneapolis I understand.
Brad Hiranaga:
(laughs) It's funny and I only mentioned this, uh, partially kidding. My family's from Hawaii. And so that was always like a, like a thing for me of like how far I, I love being in the ocean. Like how far out am I willing to push myself. How far out from the shore am I willing to snorkel or swim or surf and all these things.
What I'll tell you is I will take it to a certain limit when I'm scared. And so my relationship is like, I'm not going to not get in the water. But when I'm in the water, I'm going to be cognizant of what's around me. And it may be mindful of those type of things.
And I may not take the most significant risks that I, that I might, if I wasn't thinking about that or worried about that or fearful at all. And so I try to find balance within that. Some of the things I'm most proud of over my life is, if you were to say like, are you a great surfer? I'd say no, but I've surfed. And I'm very proud to tell people that. I'm more proud of that even though I'm not very good at it because I recognize that I had to push myself to be able to go do them, learn how to do that.
And I think for me, why I'm proud of that is because there was an element of fear in there. And without the fear, I think I wouldn't have felt like it was as much of accomplishment or I wouldn't have pushed myself or I wouldn't have tried those types of things. And I've gotten to a place in my life where I'm kind of looking forward a little bit too.
You and I have talked about this a little bit of like, you know, you're getting on a big stage at something like Cannes, you know. You got something in your gut, you're like, man, this is, I'm nervous about this. And I think as you get, I've gotten further along in my life. You know, there's, those opportunities are a little more few and far between cause I've had more experiences. but to get that true growth that I'm looking for, I want to be kind of nervous and kind of scared of it and I kind of want the butterflies or I kind of want the feeling my gut like I don't know how this is going to go. Cause otherwise I don't feel like I'm going to grow.
So my relationship is kind of like, I don't love being scared. I was very scared of movies growing up. I thought Darth Vader was under my bed for many years. and my parents will attest me running into the room and trying to sleep on their floor. Not recently. But I do think that that's a, that's a thing that I've gotten more comfortable with, of being scared is, is okay.
Charles:
So looking for it in fact these days.
Brad Hiranaga:
Seeking it a bit.
Charles:
Yeah.
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah. And I and I position it for growth. Like how am I going to push myself that I actually feel scared so that I grow.
Charles:
Yeah. Yeah. So you are a leader of innovation at General Mills, you are a leader of disruption and disruptive thinking, from the inside. How do you differentiate between creativity and innovation in a business environment? Are they different from your perspective?
Brad Hiranaga:
It's a very good question. We've been having this debate internally about growth and innovation of like, hey, what's growth is innovation? What, is growth above innovation? Where does it fit? You know, in creativity, and I take responsibility for this, I think we talk about creativity within my group a lot. We had a town hall just this week and we talked to creativity was the topic and we brought in a bunch of creatives and how do you think and how do you need to be briefed and all those good tactical kinds of things. And it was really interesting. But I think that's too narrow a view of creativity. I think creativity has to be applied across every function. Everybody that works at the company.
You know, a lot of the innovation that we've been talking about is actually not necessarily new product innovation. It's like if Betty Crocker was a modern day brand, would it be just for cake mix and frosting and brownies? No, Betty Crocker would be the voice of the home and the voice of the kitchen. So Betty Crocker would actually be a service brand. Betty Crocker as a service brand, what does that mean? What does that look like?
The question I have, is that innovation? Is that creativity? I think it's probably both.
Charles:
So I want to jump forward to your current role at General Mills.
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah.
Charles:
It feels to me sometimes when you describe it as almost an entity within an entity that you are creating. When you were asked to take that on, did you put together a vision for what success looks like? How did you start to create this kind of disruptive dynamic within an institution that has been built for a number of years, very successfully in using certain tried and true practices? how did you go about creating that disruption?
Brad Hiranaga:
I've been fortunate to have been at General Mills for almost 16 years. And so, I built up a lot of relationships and it's a company where people tend to stay there for a good chunk of their career. And within the time I've been there I've been able to, I think move back and forth between a number of roles, some of which were more geared toward experimentation and innovation.
And so, you know, earlier in my career I was able to start a little bit smaller. So, you know, I worked on a brand, a great, great brand, Pillsbury for a number of years. I was on that business and I just built up enough, I think learning experience on the brand where when I started wanna experiment with things that I thought were going to be right, cause I knew the consumer really well and the brand really well and I just was very interested externally in what was happening.
This organization that I'm leading now, you know, I moved into for the first time about 10 years ago and they gave me a pretty ambiguous scope of what my job was and it was okay, do digital marketing. And I was like, I'm not really sure what that means. What I did know though was that I knew that, it provided me an opportunity to kind of craft what I thought it should be in a way that, was going to lead us forward.
And so a lot of that work wasn't about, you know, setting up digital marketing capabilities is like, how should we work differently in a world that's constantly changing in digital. And so we rolled out a program that was more philosophical based around the future of marketing. We rolled out some, we've, we've brought in new talent that, that could support that. And then I was able to actually like dive in and actually get my hands on crafting what it could look like.
And that was really the important piece. Cause I think a lot of times what I learned is you can talk about this stuff until you do it and put an action,You can't get to that transformation. And we were able to pull out a brand at the time, which was Kix, which is one of our smaller cereal brands and one that we didn't pay a ton of attention to just given the size of our portfolio. And I just took that and ran with it. And was able to conduct great, work environment with a different kind of team that we built. We spent a ton of time at that time out in the Bay area to understand how startups were working and try to infuse that in.
We had a partner in Zeus Jones who, was really smart about thinking about working differently. His partners work together. And we just crafted amazing just really brilliant ideas in a very short period of time. And that was output that we could show so people could see it and feel it. Okay, that's a different kind of packaging instead of like standard cereal packaging, we were looking at canisters, and they're like, well, we would never get to that in the operating units. I'm like, I know, but we're separate so we can do stuff like this that's interesting. And we can move quickly.
And so this is a decade ago. You know, we're still talking about how do we do that today? And I think a lot of companies are, they’re trying to figure out how do you get to that innovation and how do you do it in the big companies and their structures. And we're very beholden to, you know, short term growth that we need to go get, and all that's true. But I was able to take that and I pushed that then into my next job where I was running big billion dollar brands that they needed to deliver.
But I was able to figure out ways to navigate within the system to start to create the innovation underneath that, which isn't about like necessarily innovation that was going to show up in the marketplace, but more of how do we work, how do we streamline things, how do we bring new ideas and creativity into a place where we're set up for optimization. It's hard to do that.
Now at the same time, I had to run the business. And so I recognized that we had to keep the lights on and do that work. And so I think the trick of it is, in that situation was like understanding in a big company, you better deliver your short term results. But you can have an ‘and’ mindset to say, and I also need to figure out how do I innovate completely different, how do I work this, the system very differently.
We did things with April 20th, at 420 for marijuana and Totino's. And, you think about Midwestern CPG companies, blue chip companies that are pretty risk averse. Building our brand around a cultural moment like 420, when it was legalized marijuana in Denver, was a big risk. But again, I think because I'd proven I could get the results on the business side with our team, it gave us the ability to try and experiment on the other side of it and build out these cultural kinds of aspects of how to work. And when this opportunity rolled around, they were like, hey, go do what you're doing there, but take it to the rest of the company. And because I've been there so long, because I had experiments that I have built from small to big, like I knew what to do when I got in this job. Like I knew what I wanted to do.
So back to your question on, did I have a vision? I absolutely did. Our brands have to be relevant. We had this rallying cry for a while. I was like, I want to do epic shit here. Like, I want this to be something that people are gonna really, when they think about our brands, we have amazing brands. I want them to, to move from like, oh, there's good nostalgia about that brand to like, no, this was, these are brands that do whatever way that they should do to add value to people's lives, an epic experience.
And so right out of the gates, what we did is we, you know, my experience back when I worked on a smaller brand and pulling it out, we kind of did that with our three biggest brands. And so Cheerios, Nature Valley and Pillsbury are three of our billion dollar brands. And I said, I gotta pull them out a little bit so that we can work them differently, different talent, different team, different, different methodology, different incentives on how we want to build brands.
And my boss, Jon Nudi was super supportive. And having a boss like that is obviously very critical to being able to unlock the kind of innovation that we want to go get. Now, CPG brand management model has been around for decades and decades and decades. We were able to challenge that because we said, hey, we need people in different roles with different skills. I hired a lot more external people to come in. And we just have to build these brands differently and we need to run them differently.
And we were able to build a totally different structure, with different people in different roles and get to better outcomes. And because the brands were so big and so visible, everybody in the company saw it, they're like, oh wow, you guys are working this differently. And Cheerios as a brand was just crushing it with ideas. And so that gave us the cases and the momentum to say, okay, take that and apply that to the rest of the org.
So I always envisioned myself starting here in a really small pocket on a brand, got a little bit bigger with like a brand lab in Kix, got a little bit bigger with like a business unit and now bigger now with my function. And my goal is to create that pocket where it's no longer a pocket. It's actually just how we work as a company and how we are transforming this 150 year old amazing company that has all these great brands, has all these super smart people, has a ton of passion in like what we're trying to do, which is make amazing food that meets all of these needs for people.
But doing it in a way now that's pivoting us a bit from like making food to, we talked a bit about this too, creating food solutions, which is a much more modern way to think about what our business should deliver and opens up so many more paths to innovation that we can go explore because food is just so basic and so important in everyone's life and fits in so many different places. That's just growth that we can go get as a company if we think about it, I think in a slightly different way.
Charles:
In many ways I think the hardest thing for any leader to do is to transform an existing large institutionalized business. When you are building a start-up, people have no expectations. There's a white or fairly white sheet of paper, right? The world is your oyster. When you are in a position where the business is completely broken, there is no expectation and so you can fix it.
The hardest place I think is to be where you were and you described that your success, the ability to convince people to give you more room and more room and more room was founded on one simple premise which is we have to deliver our business results and you build what you described as an ‘and’ mentality. Which sounds very simple but I think is not very simple, because just running the business on a day to day basis is in and of itself challenging enough for most leaders.
How did you and how do you go about creating the practical reality that allows innovation and creative thinking to come on top of doing what people are already tasked to do on a day to day basis?
Brad Hiranaga:
You nailed it. It's really difficult to do. And as I've gotten further along, I think in different models that I'm trying to do different kinds of learning around, done it both ways where I've pulled it out. I've actually created a growth capability group now that is just focused on growth and looking out to the markets and how do we create different markets and how do we think about services and experiences and work with our product teams to go build that. And I've done that a little bit because to get to your point, sometimes the day to day, the business just is too overwhelming for some of that innovation activity and some of that thinking to happen.
When I was running a business like Totino's and I ran Old El Paso and Pillsbury. On all those businesses, the great thing that I had at my disposal was products that were actually remarkable, like they're actually really great brand products that have existed for a long period of time.
And I knew that we also had a lot of talent in the building that was really good at running a business, you know, smart finance people, solid supply chain people, great R and D people. Like all of these people are super talented.
And I realized that my job wasn't necessarily to be down in the day to day running of the business and in the weeds with them because they were highly capable and I wasn't going to be additive to that. I think though, a lot of times you're trained in classical companies that you gotta be over every detail and you've gotta know your business.
I grew up in finance and I know how to, you know, work a P and L and I know all that stuff, but I don't need to be in the minutia of it, I think. And that helped free up time for me to say, okay, that's going to be something that the team can go and do.
Now I can apply my time, which I'm more passionate about, more interested in, in figuring out what's coming, what's new, what's innovative, how are we going to build these brands in much more modern ways and how do we really be clear about what's happening external and then how can I understand what's happening internal and flip the model and think about things differently. I remember like thinking in business school, I was like laughing at like, you know, org HR classes. I was like, I'm not going to use this. but I better study really hard on my, on my accounting. You know what, I never uses accounting. I wish I had taken more org people, human classes because 90% of my job and I'm sure the leaders say the same thing is about that.
To be clear about it too Charles and be honest about it. Like I wasn't incented necessarily to do those other things the, the more innovative forward thinking, experimentation, innovation, you know, six, seven, eight years ago was not in my incentive list. It was more of a nice to have. But I wanted to do it because I knew it was the right thing and I was super passionate about it and I thought, hey, listen, if I do this and it doesn't work and I don't deliver the business and this innovation doesn't work, what's the worst that can happen? I get bounced.
I've never been worried about that because I can take those experiences. And especially now in a case where, where people want failure and want learning. Like now it's more applicable than ever. Like if it doesn't work, there's something else I can go and do and I want to take that learning and apply it somewhere else. And so I think removing that fear from that part of the equation was really important for me because I knew I was learning about stuff that was going to be really important, whether at General Mills or somewhere else, and I really was determined to learn about that and to figure out there's a better model, there's a better process, there's better ways to do this. I know there is, and these brands deserve it. They're awesome brands, people care about them and make a difference in people's lives.
You know, General Mills has, I think it's 99% household penetration in the United States, if you think about our whole portfolio. So if I could just get that right, I could impact almost every person's life in America and in some different way that's eating some of our food. And so I created those conditions for myself and my team and that was very inspiring for us. And I did feel responsible that if, that if we didn't do well then I was gonna also be responsible for helping find them jobs too (laughs). But, I do think that there is part of this that the end mindset is like for me is like you're going to have to be willing to lean into that risk a little bit because you're going to have to take that on for yourself.
And that's not for everybody. And I know that's not for everybody. Now I will say I've been really fortunate in that General Mills is a great company, attracts great talent, to find other people who think that way and it is so powerful. You don't even actually need that many of those types of people that come together. But you get them the right leadership roles and get them the right kind of scope and they will go crush it and exponentially change how people think about the business.
Because part of that ‘and’ mindset for me is also not just about the running the business and coming up with innovation, it's also about connecting the two. And this ability, like in most companies that I work with and at General Mills, there's great thinkers and there's a lot of great doers and executors. Those people in the middle that can connect those things and can see across the matrix and across functions and across brands and understand how to put the pieces together, those are the people that are the glue of companies.
And there's not a lot of them that exist, I don't think in companies, but they can see both. Like we need to have great, we now have great strategy and we have great execution. Okay, how do I do that? I feel like that's the hardest thing for any company to do. And that's kind of where I like to sit in between those spaces of like, I want to help craft a vision and I want to help craft a great strategy, that's important. And I need to understand how to beautifully, flawlessly, seamlessly execute an experience where someone's gonna make their life better or easier or more convenient in some way.
And that's the elegant dance of trying to figure out, okay, when do I need to be visual, when do I need to be into like the mode of like, let's get stuff done. And sprinkling those people across an organization that way I've found to be, it unlocks a lot of the things that get stuck in big companies.
Charles:
As a quick aside, I'm curious if, if you're reaching 99% of the population, are you worrying about who the 1% is that you're not?
Brad Hiranaga:
(laughs)
Charles:
You found out who that person is?
Brad Hiranaga:
The 1% yes.
Charles:
Who's that person?
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah. You know, it's a pretty fantastic problem or opportunity to have when you think about it because it's like, we don't, and we don't think about it like that a lot of times. We think about it, like on my brand that I'm on, only has-
Charles:
The 330,000 people out there that we haven't yet convinced to buy General Mill's product.
Brad Hiranaga:
(laughs) That's who I'm going for. I'm not worried about the 99%.
Charles:
So in that description, you, you talk a lot about bringing the right people and you've talked about creating an environment in which that mindset is so instilled that you can trust the fact that people are doing what they need to do, so you can focus on the things that you need to do. How have you gone about creating the kind of culture that is necessary in order for that to all work, right? Because there's a lot of cultures in which that wouldn't work at all.
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah. Well, I think, you know, again, part of the General Mills is there, there's definitely a culture for the company that exists and it's a, it's a great culture in terms of like very talented people. And you know, it's in Minnesota and part of that, you know, the location kind of impacts the culture. And so, I think I've been fortunate that I get the broader macro culture of General Mills, but then I know, and again, you know, presumptive and then I know what we need to do to move forward.
And so that's a culture that I want to create for the teams that I'm on. And that's my responsibility to do that. And my culture is that hey, we're all here to grow, any business is. But how we do that is, is where I want the creativity to really flow. And so part of that is, I think of, of being really explicit in our, my function is about 200 people that are in it right now. And when we get together, we talk about it all the time, like, what are the values that we've got as a function.
Now, some of those values may or may not be as prominent within General Mills, but they're not completely different. But we talk a lot about, you know, some of our core values, and this is going to sound kinda silly and maybe a little basic, but like one is like we're, we're human. And my expectation when people on my teams are in rooms is that they bring the human lens to it. It's like we're selling food for people.
Let's be very diligent about if we're getting too like corporatey or businessy or financey or whatever, that you're going to bring that lens and say, okay, the end of the day are we solving a problem for a person? We also talk about, a lot about this idea of curiosity and constantly questioning. I want those people the table to, in our culture of like asking different kinds of questions for, again, for solving people's problems but also on how we're doing and how we're working in. And that's something that we've really built up. And you know, growth mindset is a popular topic externally. But that's really, I mean it can be more important and relevant than I think for people that are, that are in marketing and that are working for brands and consumers.
And then the last part is just about, I think about leadership and I think we've, as a function, you know, we're not, you know, brand management or general management functions at the core of the wheel in CPG. And I work a lot with those folks and that's where I grew up. But, everybody needs to lead whether you're a support function or you're in that function. And leadership looks, I think to me, can be not necessarily that it's the person leading the team, but if these folks have an idea that they want to push and they need to influence, they need to lead about how to go and do that. Cause we've really delineated. Like our job in this company is to get brands more relevant to grow and we are responsible and accountable and need to lead what good looks like for that.
And if we don't do that, we're not doing our jobs. And so building that accountability piece back into this organization has been a big part of that too. And so again, those things I wouldn't say are distinctive from General Mills but they are definitely more specific and important for the culture that I want to build. And one thing that it's been really, I think very important for success at a company like General Mills that I feel like I've had, is the ability to like be able to create that culture but then also be able to go get people that are going to embrace that. And you can, and you can put in help you create it. Cause those are great words on paper but to like to actually have other leaders that can live that at a little bit more senior level.
I feel really passionate that like putting together the right teams creates exponential ideas and growth and, and, and inspiration for, for us. And you know, the funny thing is like, like all companies, we do these, you know, Myers-Briggs tests and strength finder tests and you do them and we usually do them as like team building exercises. And I've been on teams before earlier in my career where like we were all the same or like there was no cohesion to where the strengths were. And I was always like, why don't we do this before and then build teams with this information instead of after as a team building exercise.
Like, wow, this is not how we do it. And I was like, well that's how I'm going to do it. So like we started to build those into it and now I've got an inventory of like where people are, where we can fit them in. I mean that's just another, talk about using data. I mean that's just such a smart way to use data to apply it to build highly effective functional teams. Because, you know, my Myer, Myers-Briggs all share, in my moment of vulnerability, which isn't that vulnerable, is like an ENFP. That's not a very common one in corporations. And I know that. Also, you know, who else I don't like to work with is ENFPs. Because what happens is we have a great ideas, but we never get anything done. And so I have to surround myself with Js.
And so I'm very mindful of those types of things that build the right composition of a team and then also just offset my many weaknesses and can plug in. I, and I geek out about that stuff. And maybe cause my dad was in HR. But I think that that is so critical to getting those, those things right. And oftentimes I think we as corporations, we don't look at that enough to build out these teams. But, putting the right teams together, as you know from effective creative leadership is, is so instrumental.
Charles:
So, you've got a vision, you're clear about the kinds of people you want to bring in, you've done the work and built a methodology around putting teams together. One of the things that holds organizations back once they get to that stage of development is a reticence or an unwillingness or inability to hold people to account, which then damages trust enormously, right? And when you're trying to create the kind of change within the organization that you are, having people want to join, having people believe that there is a reason to do this, there's a reason to push back against the institutional walls, there's a reason to buck the trends and to do things in a different way, requires that not just you show up every day with that kind of passionate determination, but that they bring their own energy to it. Otherwise there isn't, there aren't enough hours in the day, right?
Brad Hiranaga:
Absolutely.
Charles:
You can't do it all by yourself. You need them driving forward as well. How do you hold people accountable to that? How do you make sure that they join for the right reasons and now they're behaving in the right ways? How do you build and maintain trust that this is the right thing for them to be doing and that they are the right people for you to have be part of this?
Brad Hiranaga:
Oh, that's a great question. I have learned a lot the last couple of years on like what you know are, what, you know, people within this specific group need and the broader organization needs, to be able to do that. And I think accountability is a, is an important word cause that's one part of the continuum. It's one part of the spectrum of what we want. I want people always to feel accountable for what the work that they're doing for themselves, for all of that cause that you feel that's very important.
I think the other part of the dimension is, and we've talked a lot about it at work and this term sounds like very in a kind of weird term, but like there's like the psychological safety to do that. And I think with high accountability, without that, you've got a culture of fear. A lot of psychological safety with no accountability, you can have people doing whatever they want to do.
And so I think getting the right mix of that is really important so that you get to growth. And so, we have a function where, you know, and marketing as an industry I think a lot of times it's hard to measure what success looks like. And especially when I have a lot of capabilities that they're like, well, I'm just running the capability better. And so we've, we've had a lot of, a lot of conversations and we're still having them around, okay, well what does success look like for us? It for sure is growing our businesses and driving penetration and making the brands healthier. That's for sure.
But my expectations are for each of them to be like, what is good need to look like beyond that for your brand and how are you going to be accountable to do that? And what do you need from me to be able to unlock that? And I think that's, that's the next level conversation that we're starting to have. Because I'll tell you, I personally feel a ton of accountability for, for when, when we're not hitting our key metrics of growth, but when we're also not evolving quickly enough.
And I think it's my job to be declarative about that's what I want to see. And it's their job to figure out how are we going to go get there and then be accountable for that along the way, if both of us be accountable along the way. That's where I've had, had some personal growth is like, I need to explain where we're going to go and then I need to empower the teams to figure out how to get there. And then we've gotta be accountable for not, if we're not getting there fast enough and we've got to call it out and be like, we're not moving quickly enough.
My hope is that when people come into the function that I'm leading right now, they're like, you know, I'm coming here with a mindset that I'm going to grow,I got to deliver what I need to deliver, whatever. If I'm working on a brand or a capability, I have to do that. And that my expectation from this leadership team is that we're going to be pushing to find new ways to grow and develop and bring that to the table. And right now what I'd say is like, we're building, that, that's a culture change. We're, we're building that into this. The other candid honest truth is the function I'm leading, you know, it's, it's changed over a lot the last few years. Some people have chosen to move cause that's not what they signed up for, which is totally fine.
Charles:
And, and in fact necessary, right?
Brad Hiranaga:
Necessary. Totally. And I think the other thing is we've had, we've brought in a lot more external people than we normally do. Like General Mills is a company, like a lot of CPGs that grows from within, which is great cause we hire really talented people but we don't always have the right expertise and perspectives. And so those people have been, have come in and some of them have been extremely successful. Some of them have been not at all. And so I think the comfort with that and that these changing orgs and everything, every time we say in a meeting, the only thing I can tell you it's gonna happen as that there's going to be more change and we all can get as comfortable with it as possible.
But every time we come back here it's going to be changing. And there's not an end goal in place of like, okay, the change is done. I think just hitting that drum over and over is really important to hear. The great news for my org is like most of the folks, if you looked at age composition are probably more junior in their careers. And so they've kind of grown up in that environment. Like yep, of course dude, like we know that. But I think that's important to say. Because there's also a group of people there that are very talented that have been there a long time and that's a little bit different for them.
Charles:
So you talked about making progress and I think making progress in any organization is obviously fundamental. When you're doing it in the kind of environment that you have created, it can be difficult sometimes to figure out what's appropriate in terms of the kind of progress we're trying to make. You're trying to create disruption. You're trying to achieve certain business results. You're trying to change the way that people think. I see a lot of companies who, either try and set the standards too high and so it's not attainable.
And so the initiative fails, right? The disruption fails cause it's disrupted, but it didn't do what they thought it would. Or they set the standards too low so that in fact the kind of progress that is made isn't particularly compelling for reasons that you described earlier. How do you set the standards at the right level?
Brad Hiranaga:
Yeah. If I was leading an entire company, I would probably be guilt or guilty of trying to set it to too high and too big and too lofty. Like I know that's where I would fall, which again, if it doesn't seem reasonable or it doesn't seem like a path to get there is not that helpful. I think big companies a lot of times, and more traditional ones set the bar too low and, and I think, you know, there's, there's change that we're all willing to take and want to make, but we're not able to get there because of the way in which like the goals that we have are different.
What I try to do is look at both those things and really try to balance them out and say, I want to try to set like really high goals, realizing that this organization is probably going to be more conservative in the approach. So there's a middle ground here that I can get leveled back down to that's going to be more reasonable. On a personal perspective, like a lot of like the work that I've done in my career, like a lot of feedback I get a lot of times is, hey, it's great that you're more out and seeing the future and you've got big visions and aspirations, but you got to bring people along because this organization, you know, we have a lot of people that aren't that close to that or don't think that way.
And so it's a constant struggle for me of like, okay, how do I bring folks along knowing that there's multiple matrixes, there's multiple brands, there's multiple levels, there's people in different points of view. There's a lot of personal frustration I think that goes into that for me. But I also know the challenge for me, and I, you know, I mentioned this before a little bit, which is like my brief I think is like, which gets me excited is like, how do you transform this great 150 year old company so that it's around for another 150 years?
I feel like that's, that's my brief and I know that that change is hard and I got to eat my own medicine a little bit too to figure out how to get there. So I think it's about weaving that together a little bit around being real, trying, trying to be, this is gonna be a funny term and when a person in my team will laugh at me, but this idea of ‘practical magic’ is a really interesting one and I think you have talked about that too. But like you want the magic there but it's also going to be practical for people to walk to get there.
It goes back to the ‘and’ mindset thing again. Like it's inspirational and we can do that. I feel like that's where I have been able to live in my career a lot of times. I grew up understanding business, understanding P&Ls, understanding all that stuff and to me that's one of those things that I'll always be grateful for. But to be able to understand how I can, I get the realities of the everyday, but also inspired by the future. Playing in that ground to get people that are, that don't necessarily see one of, see one or the other is really I think important. And that's, that's the role that I feel like why I can, move this transformation forward.
Charles:
As your own leadership develops, what do you find you struggle with?
Brad Hiranaga:
I think that I think I have to be careful about getting frustrated things don't go as quickly as I want. If I want them to go that fast then I realized that I should probably go work for a start-up company. And you know, they probably won't be good but it would be fast. There's pacing and then there's also perfection.
And so I try to, I try to balance that out in my mind a little bit, but I struggle with it and I think that comes out in, in necessarily not the most positive way. Sometimes my teams or others that I'm close to rely on for kind of emotional support where I'm like, man, this is not going fast enough. Like it's frustrating or, I have such big aspirations for this company, this is what I'd like to do. And, that's okay. Like as long as I can find the support for it. Again, I got to find the right pace and balance for this journey that I'm on too, to figure out how do I do it in the most productive way for everybody. Cause there's a lot of stakeholders in a company this large and there should be.
And so that's where I struggle with myself a little bit cause I don't think I necessarily always show up as the most compelling leader when I'm feeling that kind of like tension in myself.
Charles:
Do you have any regrets?
Brad Hiranaga:
I get asked a lot like, you know, you've been in this company a long time. That's pretty unique and rare. In a lot of ways I'm really proud of that cause I feel like that's, to be the place, to be successful in a place, people should be proud of that.
I think, you know, there's always things that I could, I could have done a little better or opportunities that, that might've been really interesting to go take that I've, I've like kind of passed by. I will say like, I'm pretty open to like always understanding what's going on externally and what opportunities are out there. And because I'm curious about those things, I'm aware of that.
I've been choiceful about things and opportunities that I have not necessarily pursued inside and outside of General Mills over, over the years. So I don't have any regrets when it comes to that. I guess the only regrets that I would say like that are, that I think about today where I'm at is, I still would like us to, as a company and as my group and as what I can control, just to take that next jump for what's possible.
And I think that's a moving target for me all the time. But I look at these brands, I look at brands like Lucky Charms and Nature Valley and Betty Crocker and even small brands like Wheaties. And there is so much potential in those brands
The people and the brands are why I stay at this company and the ability to get us to think in solutions is the next tranche of growth. There's so much potential and I am 100% confident of that. I gotta move that with more urgency and pace to get these brands as famous as I wanted to get them. There's a great quote that Mark Addickes, who is the previous CMO of General Mills who's a mentor of mine and like probably the best like human leader I've ever worked for.
And he said to me, your job now is, is to put these brands in a better place than when you got them. I think about that everyday when I go to work, I'm like, that's my job is to do that. It's not stewardship cause I think it's beyond that. But there's value in that and there's stories in that and there's characters in that and there's history and there's potential and all that. I'm in love with brands. Like I love them, I love the stories and I love the texture and I love all of it.
Last week we came out with news that we're bringing back Dunkaroos, which are like a '90s nostalgia, like dipping like Graham Cracker cookie thing. And the amount of emails and messaging, Kim Kardashian even tweeting about Dunkaroos being back, which is hilarious.
I was on a panel yesterday and that was the first question I got was about Dunkaroos, is this insane? Like people love this stuff. I want to match their love and intensity of the brands with love and intensity that I can bring to bring them to life. And that's really, you know, it's not a regret, it's just, it's just, it's just an opportunity that I, that I feel like I always have, which keeps me very inspired to be working at Mills.
Charles:
How do you lead?
Brad Hiranaga:
I feel like sharks are always around me, so with fear (laughs). No, I don't want to go back to shark again. Here's what I would say. And this word has become more prevalent in my mind over the last probably year or so is I'm trying to lead with more, uh, vulnerability because that's the kind of leaders that I like to work for is people that are vulnerable.
We all spend so much of our time coming to work every day and our time at home, like thinking about work. And while that's important, at the end of the day, I think everyone's a person, everyone is a human. I love teams. Like I mentioned that before. I want to work in groups, like the work session things, I like to meet, I like to solve problems together.
And so when people who are bringing that, their self to the table and they're human and they’re dimensionalizing themselves in a way that like, I can understand where they're coming from it just makes it easier to challenge each other, it makes it easier to build on ideas. And so I try to lead that way with my teams. I try to, you know, to be a person that I think is human that can listen, that can,, understand where people are coming from and try to build on things and be creative in the way that we can collaborate together to, to solve the problem that they're facing in their career or with a team or at, in their personal life or whatever that might be.
And I don't think I've always been the best at that. I was definitely more self centered. I was, I was younger, I was focused more on like, what, what am I need to do for myself? Like, how can I move in my career? And I think that's natural. But as I've gotten older and more reflective and after having kids, my perspective on that has shifted a lot. And I think that it's my job now to kind of help this next generation of people get to where they need to go. It's my job now to be in this position because - and you’ve told me this before - but the reason people want to hear me talk is cause I've got this job that I'm sitting in this chair. And my responsibility now isn't just only about making our brands grow, that's a big part of it. It's about what are we doing for this next generation of people.
And you know, we've made commitments around hunger and around, around the climate and around schools that are really important to the company. And a few years ago, like, yeah, there's, that's great. That's our corporate sustainability stuff. Well, no, that's actually, that's actually my job now. And I feel very, that's a very important thing to me. Especially having kids that are in school. I'm like, I want schools to to be positioned in the best possible way.
And General Mills has a program in Box Tops for Education that focuses on that to give money to schools. And so how do I actually prop that up to drive bigger impact? Cause I do also believe that companies are going to step up where governments are not. And that's where I just get a ton of energy. I never thought I'd be in a job where I could like make that change. I thought I'd be just doing like fun marketing stuff and now it's positioned itself like, hey, this is your opportunity to like go create change in the world. Do positive things in the world. I'm like, oh man! That is a very motivating place to be.
Charles:
What are you afraid of?
Brad Hiranaga:
I'm afraid always that I'm not gonna reach the potential that I, that I want. I see potential in everybody and everything and I want to maximize it. And sometimes there's not enough hours in a day to do that. And so I know that's on the flip side of yes kind of weaknesses, I think I got to prioritizing those things is a challenge for me sometimes. I'm still pretty hard on myself if I'm like, hey, that didn't go as well as I thought. I wanted that to go better, I want that to be bigger.
I worry about that. I feel like that's on me. And I've got great people around me and they all have that same goal. But like that's a lot on me and I struggle with that sometimes cause that potential is what gets me out of bed in the morning, it's what gets me excited, but also gets me worried that I'm not going to get there. And again, that comes back to some level of fear. I like that I, it's some macabre part of me kinda likes that sense of like, okay, I mean how am I going to do that? I think it drives me, but it's never, it's never necessarily quiet. Like I don't ever feel like I, there's this quiet sense of calming of like, okay, you can relax now.
We're just talking about that the other day with a friend and I was like, I like that grind. I like that energy. It's helping me get to where I have in my life, and I need it, but I also sometimes, you know, it's hard to turn off sometimes I think. And so I, I worry about that, that too. It was a very deep answer. It's too deep.
Charles:
No, it's a good answer. I wrap every episode with three themes that I've heard that I think contribute to your success as a leader. One, you're on a journey of self discovery. You are really determined to understand what makes you tick, what drives you forward, who you are, how to be more of that, how to present that more authentically, more openly, more vulnerably as you've talked about. I think that is fundamental to the best leaders that I've encountered. That willingness to find out who they are and how they show up at their best, is central to success
Two, you are very collaborative. You are forever drawing people together. You are open to input from other people. You are very much focused on creating an environment which people can share and ideate together and produce something that is more than the sum of the parts.
And I think third, and you've talked about this quite a lot, you are determined to make a difference not for your own self development or self aggrandizement, but you are interested making a difference fundamentally on the planet. Obviously for your children, people around you. But I think even beyond that. You are determined, I think to use your skills and your position and your experience to have the biggest impact you possibly can. I think that draws people towards you as well and makes people want to get on board with whatever it is that you want to do because they want to go there too. How do those resonate?
Brad Hiranaga:
That, that was a much quicker and more elegant way of saying what it took me like 45 minutes to say.
No, I love those. Those are, those are great and I feel like they hit, they hit home for where, where I'm at in, in my life right now, 100%. And this journey has really been interesting. You know, I've talked a little about that. I feel like this self-discovery at this point in my life, you know, mid-life where you're like, you can learn so much more. There's so much learning out there, but just about yourself is so critical.
As I go through this, this process and it's more personal, I'm passing it on to people that I work with and friends and family because I'm like, I'm just learning so much about that and I think everyone can do that for themselves. And it definitely makes you, you know, you joked, it makes you a better marketer, but it actually makes you a better leader, a better person, all those things. And that's, it's a goal that I've kind of set for myself more overtly that I hadn't thought about until, you know, more recently. And so those three definitely feel exactly right for, for, for what I try to do.
Charles:
Brad. Thanks so much for joining me today. What a great conversation.
Brad Hiranaga:
Thanks so much, Charles. It was awesome.
