Karl Lieberman of Wieden + Kennedy
What does your company reject?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 273: Karl Lieberman
Here's a question. What does your company reject?
I'm Charles Day. I believe that leadership offers us the greatest opportunity of our lives, to make a difference. I'm asked to help leaders discover what they're capable of. And then to maximize their impact. Welcome to the intersection of strategy and humanity.
This episode's conversation is with Karl Lieberman, the Global Chief Creative Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Wieden is a reference point among creative companies in many industries. For almost 45 years, they've been impacting culture and driving business for their clients by unlocking the creativity of their people.
“The place is at its best when people feel really safe to throw their thoughts out there and throw their perspective out there. The place is at its worst when it is having to conform. It's just not natural to the type of people that work here or the way it's been. So the leaders who come into this company and are like, “We're doing it this way from now on,” they always get roasted.
There is an expression we've had for a long time, which is, ‘The body rejects.’ The body eventually rejects people who demand conformity, who demand hierarchy.”
Creating the kind of environment in which people feel safe to put all their ideas on the table is the easiest thing to aspire to. And the hardest thing to do, in my experience.
It means giving people a voice. It means being open, genuinely open, to another way of looking at the world. And to the possibility that being criticized is much more desirable than being ignored.
These criteria are, at best, challenging for most leaders to accept. Control and predict are much more natural. But predictability and conformity are creative kryptonite.
To unlock creativity and unleash its power to maximum effect, you have to be willing to break the norms, to encourage the irrational and sometimes even the absurd.
You have to reject predictability for possibility.
And when you're yelled at, because no one has ever done it like that before, you have to be willing to shrug.
You'll hear all that and more in my conversation with Karl.
Here's Karl Lieberman.
[00:2:20] Charles: Karl, welcome back to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming back on the show.
[00:02:22] Karl Lieberman: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:24] Charles: Let me start with a question I've never asked anybody else, I don't think. What role do you think creativity is playing in society these days?
[00:02:32] Karl Lieberman: Mhm. That's a good question. A huge role, really.
I think things are becoming more and more individualistic, more about people's personalities. I think creativity is playing a huge factor in that.
Like, when I look at the range, the breadth and range of the music my 16-year old daughter listens to compared to what I did, which oftentimes it's felt like similar iterations of the same thing. Like, every band wanted to play that part of what a band was like at the time. Versus her thing, every artist has such a unique way they show up in the world. And I think they really lean into their creativity to do that.
[00:03:12] Charles: People have the ability to author anything these days, right? The creator economy is this enormous and rapidly growing part of society, in which you see up close and personal on a daily basis. I'm struck by the level of individuality that people are able to bring now, that they're able to discover things about themselves and how they want to express themselves, because they suddenly have vehicles by which to do that. You must see the same thing.
[00:03:36] Karl Lieberman: Yeah, for sure. And it's always really surprising. Like, when you see, watch the VMAs and then Chapel Rune’s performing, but she's performing at a medieval theme and you're. like, where did that come from? Is that just something she thought was interesting, you know? And then she shows up on SNL in a completely different way.
So I think, creativity is very much unleashed now, in a world where people are feeling the need to stand out and express themselves.
[00:04:02] Charles: Do you think it's ever been more potent and more powerful than it is today?
[00:04:07] Karl Lieberman: That's a hard question because, you know, I was born in 1977. So my only reference point is, like, the eighties, nineties, the aughts, I think is what they call it. I would say in my lifetime? For sure. But who knows, 60s, 70s, uh, Pink Floyd and the like, and they might protest that answer.
[00:04:30] Charles: Yeah, it's hard to imagine, though, that people have ever had more personal agency in how they show up and how they express themselves. And it's probably also fair to say people have never had more opportunity to figure out how they want to express themselves.
I mean, you know, when I was growing up, you had, what, a typewriter. You had a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The idea of taking an idea in your head and putting it out into the world came through such narrow, limited media.
Newspaper, maybe, publishing a book was an incredibly complicated process. Recording a song and putting it out there required the support of so many people, the acquiescence of so many people. Today, to your point, you can do any of those things by yourself, essentially.
[00:05:17] Karl Lieberman: For sure. And I think the currency right now, in entertainment and marketing, kind of a lot of fields, is having authenticity. And people are being encouraged to express themselves in authentic and creative way. Because when I think about… I'm a big NBA fan and I remember my favorite player growing up was Allen Iverson. And it was really controversial because he didn't wear the, like, Armani suit to the game or at the press conference afterwards. He didn't even always wear Philadelphia sports gear. He would wear a Yankees hat mixed with, like, a Red Sox jersey and people would be really scandalized by that. And they'd be like, are you, do you not like the Phillies? He's like, I just like this hat.
And it was multiple iterations removed from that kind of cookie cutter, here's how you're supposed to show up as an NBA team. And now, like that was, I think that the genesis in that. Now you see that when you watch a NBA game starting, it's like a fashion runway, all the guys coming down the tunnel. And then they're playing into it, because I'm sure they like the conversation that shows up on social about it.
So they're coming in in themes, they’re coming in in, like, really outrageous outfits. Think of that over the course of that was what, 25, 30 years, 30 years. We've gone from it being scandalous that Allen Iverson doesn't wear a suit to now it's a fashion runway. It's pretty interesting.
[00:06:46] Charles: It's a great description, actually. I mean, I'm a Chicago Bears fan for my sins. They drafted a quarterback at the first pick of the draft who was already a multi-million dollar brand by himself. So within the context of that high level of individual expression, the capacity to express ourselves as fully and as completely and as irreverently and as multi-dimensionally as we could ever imagine, and in many cases beyond our imagination, how do you guide a company for whom creativity is everything?
How do you create an environment in which that level of individuality is not only permissible, but desirable, in many cases in many ways, while also making sure that that talent, that expertise, that passion, that fervor is being directed towards solving business problems?
[00:07:37] Karl Lieberman: Another great question. I think the first thing is to understand that there is some nuance. That we aren't exactly just a creative company.
I'm sort of obsessed with SNL, that Lorne Michaels is still doing it, has such a long history, it has such an up and down trajectory over the years, and it's had to kind of redefine itself over and over again.
So I kind of gobble up any SNL books, articles, interviews, the recent movie. Because what I find really interesting is, I don't think of SNL as a comedy show. I think SNL is a show about culture, that uses comedy to talk about culture.
And I think of Wieden and Kennedy is not a creative ad agency. We're a culture agency that uses creativity to express ourselves out in the world.
So the creativity is more on the end of what we do. But first is understanding culture and having a perspective on it, a unique, interesting point of view on what's happening in the world. And then, then leaning on creativity, the how do you bring it to life in an interesting way that people take notice?
[00:08:50] Charles: How do you study culture within the context of that?
[00:08:53] Karl Lieberman: Oh, you just have to be in it. I was reading this book about CAA and Michael Ovitz said that, and he might have been being hyperbolic, but he said every agent at CAA had to have a hundred magazine subscriptions. Because he wanted all of his agents to have at least a level of understanding of every subject matter, so that they could be comfortable with the clients.
So if the client was into, like, deep sea fishing, they needed to be able to address that. If they were into golf, they should be able to talk about golf.
So I think we need our people to do the same thing, to be, like, participants in the world. And so that's TikTok, Instagram, that's making sure that, you know, when something's like high up on the charts on a streaming app, that you watch it.
I didn't have a ton of interest in watching that penguin show. It's been in the top three on Max for a month. And so I was like, okay, I need to watch this. I need to see it. We just ask people to be participants in culture on kind of every end. So , make sure you go to the MoMA, make sure you go to interesting concerts and plays and things. But also, like, go to the grocery store, walk around Target. See how things are set up, see how people buy things. Try to not be in a creative bubble.
That's I think what's so important about the cities we're in is that, hopefully you get a cross section of the country because not a ton of people are from New York City. They come from all over the world. So you can have a cross section of people and experiences. Like, I think that's why we've had so much success for so long in Portland was, like, that wasn't your typical kind of Midtown Madison Avenue agency.
It was people in the real world, people who, like, drink beer, buy 30 packs, you know, maybe have a truck. And they get to be out in the world, and experience that. And then bring that perspective back to the work.
[00:10:56] Charles: So the concept of having people who are engaged in culture is rare but not unique. You're not the only company for whom that's important. But there is something about the way you take all of that input, and all of that energy and turn it into stuff that moves people, changes people's behavior ultimately, changes people's perception of how a brand shows up.
What is it you think about the way that you take all that cultural reference and all that cultural input and then do something with it? What is it about this company that allows you to be so successful doing that? What makes you different?
[00:11:32] Karl Lieberman: I don't know if it's what makes us different. But I can talk about why I think it works pretty well, which is, we have a perspective on it. We're not just a mirror.
You know, SNL is never just a mirror of what's happening in the world, that would be pretty boring, but they always have, like, a interesting point of view on it. So we try to bring in people who have both a high awareness of culture and a ton of opinions about that. And that's where you end up with something like Charles Barkley, I'm not a role model. Because I think if you're putting a mirror to culture at the time, the fact that he was, again, very early in the authentic, non-cliché, sports player world. The mirror of society would have been sports talk radios telling him he should stop talking, or telling him he should get in line, or telling him he shouldn't be so outrageous.
And at the time, I think the agency, it was long before I was here, but like, at the time, I think the agency looked at that, and they're like, nah, that sucks. It's cool that he's himself. It's cool that he stands out. It's cool that he does outrageous things. So like, our perspective is he shouldn't be a role model.
[00:12:48] Charles: Does that mean that you hire people specifically who bring that kind of Instinctive irreverence? Because to your point, if this company is essentially the ability to absorb cultural reference, and then convert it into a point of view, and then apply that to how a business shows up in the world, it's the people that are doing that that you're hiring, right?
It's a mindset, it's an aptitude, it's a perspective. How do you hire? What are you looking for?
[00:13:17] Karl Lieberman: Just looking for interesting people. And people with prolific thoughts. There used to be when you had to get a job at Disney animation, they would give you, like, an inanimate object. And I think they would ask you to draw 50 different emotions for it.
They give you a bag of flour. And then you had to draw the bag of flour sad, dejected, ecstatic, happy, content. And that was how they could tell if you were going to be a capable editor. We don't have any kind of test like that. But when we talk to people, we want to hear their arguments. We want to hear their perspectives.
When you walk around this place, if you're in the elevator and someone's got a takeout from somewhere, inevitably the elevator will have a conversation with takes on that. Is that any good? Why'd you get that? Here's what's best. Here's a different thing that's better. This place is just full of people with opinions, which doesn't always make it the easiest place to be a creative director or a leader or whatever you might be. But it makes it super interesting.
[00:14:22] Charles: So given the fact that everybody around here has got an opinion, or multiple opinions, and you want them to have opinions. In fact, you're hiring them on that basis. You're encouraging them. You're giving them permission to have opinions. There's a lot of noise in a system like that. How do you lead in an environment where there are that many? Where there are people who are being encouraged to be outspoken, to have a different point of view than the way the world works.
A lot of leadership or a lot of leaders are looking for conformity and regularity and consistency and predictability. You're looking for, in fact, exactly the opposite of that.
[00:14:52] Karl Lieberman: Yeah, you're look— it's a delicate balance here. It's you need to be a consensus builder, but that shouldn't group-think homogenize the place. You're constantly looking for, what is the take that someone has that feels compelling, that gets the room being, like, oh, that's interesting.
And you're sort of gathering and harnessing that stuff. A lot of working at Wieden and Kennedy is just, like, making a case for something. And sometimes that case can be ludicrous, you know.
I remember years ago on KFC, there was a line that was for KFC Crispy and it was something like, ‘It's not a meal. It's a lifestyle.’ Which is an absurd point of view. But, you look at that and that gains traction, that gains momentum. So that's usually the thing here, as a creative director, is kind of feeling out in the space, what is the thing that is getting people excited? What is the thing that leads to people being prolific?
Because you might have a point of view or an opinion that you think is really interesting and then no one generates anything off of it. But someone else might have one that everyone's like, oh, I love that, we could do this, we could do this, or we could do that. And that's constantly what you're looking for as a leader here.
And, in every discipline. So as a creative, so you're going to a shoot and you're in a pre-pro and you're talking about wardrobe, you're kind of also trying to look at the room. I think the best creators are doing this, trying to figure out what is getting traction, what is getting momentum. If you're a creative director, it's with ideas. It's with the strategy. If you run an office, it's oftentimes things that don't have anything to do with work. It might be about a vacation policy. It might be about paid leave. But you still use that same skillset, of listening to people, of throwing things out there, of trying things, of not being nervous about looking dumb, because you can have an opinion and share it. And your Head of HR might be like, that's a terrible idea. And then you're like, okay, let me, I'll keep, I'll keep going.
The place is at its best when people feel really safe to throw their thoughts out there and throw their perspective out there. The place is at its worst when it is having to conform. It's just not natural to the type of people that work here or the way it's been. So the leaders who come into this company and are like, “We're doing it this way from now on,” they always get roasted.
There is an expression we've had for a long time, which is, ‘The body rejects.’ The body eventually rejects people who demand conformity, who demand hierarchy, who are, like, you have to listen to me just because I'm here on the org chart and you're here. You can maybe pull that out every once in a while. But if that's your kind of standard operating procedure, you won't last long.
[00:17:45] Charles: So given the fact that you have survived and thrived in this environment, and given the fact you can now identify that behavior doesn't work, what else have you seen or experienced now that you realize I can not do this? What are the biggest mistakes you've recognized you can make as a leader of this company?
[00:18:03] Karl Lieberman: Oh, man, there's there's plenty. Coming in hot, especially if you're new to the place or new to a role, never goes well. It's a very specific culture, and you need to kind of get in and get to know the place and get comfortable, again, at every level. So I definitely made the mistake of coming in hot in Portland as a creative.
I remember Alberto Ponte who was my boss and creative director on Nike for a long time. And incredible creative. He, one day he just said, oh, so you're just another New York asshole.
It's like, I am? I don't know. So I had to kind of go home and evaluate that. And I realized like a bit of it was, there was, there was truth in that for sure.
And then in the sense of understanding, I had moved from New New York to the Pacific Northwest. They have a kind of a different way of communicating there. And kind of having to learn that language. So over time, I started doing better, but I really struggled out of the gate. I remember I had to have a root canal. And we didn't have a ton of money. We'd just had kid and my wife had moved away from working when we moved to Portland. And so I didn't get a crown on my tooth because it was like 500 bucks.
And I remember, this is really embarrassing. But like my mom was getting on me about it at Christmas. You need to get a crown for your tooth. And I was, like, Mom, I'm going to get fired. Like, I need that 500 bucks. I can't put that in my mouth. So yeah, it started off, it started off pretty rocky. I was fortunate enough that Susan Hoffman and Mark Fitzloff, saw some value in me or just needed a warm body to do something. And I was able to get some traction.
[00:19:52] Charles: The last time you were on the podcast you were on with Neal, your partner. Talk to us about how that partnership works, because it's rare again, perhaps even unique within the industry, to have two people that have spent so long at one company coming together to form what is a really potent partnership. How does that partnership work?
[00:20:13] Karl Lieberman: Well, first of all, we're like-minded people who go about life pretty differently. So we have a complementary skill set to each other.
Like, for instance, I'm very uncomfortable doing this right now, because Neal's great on his feet. He gives me time to think, and his answer off the top of his head is just as good as his answer he had given in five minutes. He's just very fast and I'm pretty slow. I need a beat to, like, think of something.
So, what we realize is, there's all kinds of little nuances like that, between us. And being really aware about them and honest with each other is super important. And then sharing with people what those things are. You know, telling someone when we are considering a piece of new business, he tends to kind of take a cynical route, like, he goes and reads a lot of articles and looks at the business and thinks about where the category is.
And I'm just like a nerd typically, and just kind of fanboy out on it. I'm, like, on eBay buying stuff. I go on Etsy, see what's happening there. I try to remember or think of how that particular thing relates to me in my life. And so we kind of come in with this helpful, it's not artificial, it's just kind of how it worked out.
But we, I think our way about doing things oftentimes compliments each other. And we try to talk to people, because a lot of people work in teams here, and try to talk to people about, like, hey, it's actually really important to talk about what you're good at and what you're bad at and be honest with each other and be true to that.
I'm not a very demonstrative presenter. Nothing like in the movies where the guy walks around and grandstands, like, I can't do that. I like to just sit and I just look at my computer or what's printed out and kind of read it with my head down. I've just gotten used to, that's just kind of how we do it. And I think it's better to just lean into that than it is to, like, go to some presentation school or, like, do something that is out of character in order to quote unquote “become a better presenter.” Hopefully the work just presents itself. Hopefully the work's good enough that you don't have to put on a show.
So we encourage people to be really aware of their stuff. And then to be comfortable, as long as it's not, you know, damaging to the place or toxic or anything like that. But if it's just kind of quirks and idiosyncrasies or things you’re not great at, just lean into that. That's completely okay.
[00:22:59] Charles: Do you guys have a lot of conversations about that stuff?
[00:23:01] Karl Lieberman: Yeah. Yeah. We… and he'll point out things that I don't know I do. He pointed out a couple of years ago to me that I didn't realize I do. And he says when things, like, presentations with clients aren't going well, and they're being rude, he's like, you usually go slower.
I'm not even that conscious of the fact that I'm doing that. But like, it's good to know, because then, then I can be like, is that all right, should we do that? Or should we or should we not do that?
[00:23:29] Charles: Do you ask each other for insight?
[00:23:31] Karl Lieberman: Oh, for sure. Yeah, you're constantly, you know, we spend so much time with each other, and it's a unique relationship because you're both, you're both just trying to get better. You're both trying to be as open as you can because it's not about the two of you. It's about this whole bigger thing, this thing that Dan and Dave created.
So you have to, like, be really honest with each other in hopes of taking care of it as best you can. So you talk about those things, you ask each other about things, and you don't take any of it too seriously. That's the other kind of super important thing.
Our nickname for Neal is Late Picky. Because he always seems like he's cool with something, like, where do you want to, where do you want to eat? And he'll be like, I'll go anywhere. And then you'd be like, okay, what about, like, we'll go to a steakhouse and he'll be, like, yeah, sure. And then, as you get closer, you can start to feel his agitation.
And he's like, I don't want to eat a big lunch. And I don't really want to do that. I don't like this place. Hey, what about Mediterranean? And we're like, ah, there's late picky again. Here he comes. So it's good to, like, talk about that. Could get kind of defensive, but if you don't, it's pretty funny. I mean, we all have our things.
[00:24:41] Charles: You said you don't want to take it too seriously, which is a great thing to say. Really, really hard to do when you've got multiple hundreds of people working for you in a very large, very successful, very visible business. I mean, there's a real gestalt about Wieden, right? People in the industry still to this day use it as a reference point for creative excellence. And have for, how old is the company now? 45 years? Is that right?
[00:25:06] Karl Lieberman: Not quite yet, but yes.
[00:25:08] Charles: How do you marry, don't take it too seriously, with the reality?
[00:25:13] Karl Lieberman: I've never thought about that before. I don't think taking it seriously takes care of the place. And by it, I mean the work and the business. I don't mean the people or our business. I think we have to take the things that our employees face and the things that we're dealing with in society super seriously.
I think if someone comes to you and they're having a hard time, you can't be like, oh, well, don't take it too seriously, because that's highly personal to them. But I think the process of making work, especially in the process of making advertising, like. you shouldn't take that seriously, because that's really detrimental to where you're trying to get.
You need to be loose about it and you need to keep in perspective what you're doing, because that allows you to bring a sensibility to it that I think most people don't have. I think most people… well, maybe that's not fair. I think a lot of people in this business take this business very seriously and you can feel it in the work.
It can feel worthy. It can feel overly serious. It can feel pretentious. And we never want that to happen. We always want the work to feel like it understands its place in the world. Now sometimes we do really lofty things, and sometimes we make some pretty, pretty provocative statements at that time. I think we do approach that with a serious manner.
But if you're just, if you're selling a cheeseburger, you kind of have to understand where that falls in the hierarchy of needs and emotions for people at the time.
And I think if you meet them in the cheeseburger place, where they're thinking about cheeseburgers, you're going to be infinitely more effective than if you're coming in and taking it super seriously.
[00:26:55] Charles: People point out the company's independence all the time. It's one of the labels, one of the reference points. How important is independence in terms of how you're able to behave?
[00:27:05] Karl Lieberman: It is a abstract thing, I think, to talk about. I remember when Dan would get in front of the agency and talk about independence, I had no idea what he was talking about. But he would talk about how important that is and how we would never sell and how we would never be owned by shareholders.
And I, having never worked at an independent company, didn't quite understand why that was so important. But as I've worked here longer, I realized that at the very core of the DNA of this company is a real sense of independence. I don't know which came first. The fact that it's remained independent and that's why we behave in an independent fashion, or if because independence is such an important value, Dan decided, hey, this company should never sell. I don't know which one really came first. But like, the independence of the place and of the people is super important and how we show up and how we behave, because I think it allows us, because we're not dealing, you know, quarter to quarter, answering to shareholders, we are allowed to have bad meetings.
We're allowed to say something to a client that might be unpopular. We're allowed to show up to a pitch and be comfortable with, hey, we might not win this thing. And I think that independence can translate into a vulnerability that's actually really helpful, because we show up in a honest way. We're not always trying to win every pitch, every argument, every client shootout.
We're just trying to do what's right because we have that protective bubble of independence around us that allows us to think longer term than about what the revenue stream looks like in the coming month.
[00:28:51] Charles: Do you think Dan Wieden saw that? Recognized the gift that independence represented to a company for whom creativity is the driving forces, that is the energy behind, is the fuel behind success? Did he look into the future and say, if I establish this company in a way that it can never be anything other than independent, that is the surest thing I can provide it in terms of ensuring its long term success. Do you think he was that prescient?
[00:29:16] Karl Lieberman: I never feel comfortable trying to guess what Dan was thinking. I don’t really think that's my place. Nor do I feel that's something I'd be great at. But what I can do is lean into my observations of him over the years. And he was an independent free spirit. I think he wanted the place to be a reflection of people, but I think in a lot of ways, he wanted to be a reflection of him.
Yeah, he would show up to clients with a crazy swagger. We did a pitch one time, and it went terrible. We had flown out from Portland to New York and just a dud of a meeting. And to the point where I saw a client write on a piece of paper and slide it to the guy, a client next to him that just said, are you f*cking kidding me?
So we showed all this work. Dan had been really proud of it. And at the end of the meeting, it was one of the first pitches I've ever been in at Wieden. At the end of the meeting, we're, in my experience, maybe in a head of a agency or head of a company might have been like, hey, you know, we come back, we can try something else. You know, I see this isn't really working. And Dan just gets up and he's like, well, I think this work is great. And I think you're all f*cking crazy. And he walked out.
And I was like, wow, that is a baller move. And I think he valued that independent spirit.
[00:30:46] Charles: And built the business in a way that allowed for that to be consistent. I'm assuming you didn't win the business.
[00:30:52] Karl Lieberman: We did not. Weirdly, we won it years later.
[00:30:55] Charles: Oh, really?
[00:30:55] Karl Lieberman: Yeah. Funny enough.
[00:30:57] Charles: Any of the same people in the room?
[00:30:58] Karl Lieberman: No, different people, different people, same brand.
[00:31:01] Charles: What have you learned about yourself doing this job? What have you learned about who you are and who you want to be?
[00:31:07] Karl Lieberman: I guess the thing I'm most thankful for about myself, and I'm not the most reflective person, so this question is a little hard. But I do think myself and the people who do really well here have a pretty strong degree of resilience. I think that's super important because it can be an emotional job. It can be a hard job. A lot of our clients spend a lot of time telling us how terrible we are.
So you have to just be like, okay, all right, that's cool. Like, let's move on to the next thing. Versus, you know, inherently, I think you want to kind of, when your client's telling you, you suck and then your work sucks, it's, you know, that can be a pretty emotionally taxing thing. So you need this sort of resilience to just push through that.
My assumption is that goes back to even just when I was a kid. I had a ton of learning differences. I had dysgraphia, which makes it really hard for me to get my thoughts from my head on the paper. I believe I had dyslexia. I found this out last year. My son was diagnosed with ADHD, and we were at my parent’s house and my wife was in the kitchen with my mom, and she was talking about our son's diagnosis and my mom's, like, washing some dishes. And she's goes, oh yeah, Karl and his brother have ADHD. Amy's like, they do? She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They got tested for it. And then Amy's like, did you ever tell them they had ADHD? And she's like, no. And I think she said something like, nah, they're smart. They were fine.
So I didn't do particularly well in school. I couldn't, I didn't read a book until I was— like, sit down and read a book, ‘til I was, like, 14. The first book I read was Jurassic Park because I'd seen the movie. So I could kind of, like, start to kind of connect the two and, like, understand how to read a book.
They had a thing, I forget what grade I was in. I was, like, fourth or fifth grade or something. And they had this new principal, and he was all about the power of positive thinking. That was his whole platform. And he wanted the school to be more positive place. And they did a thing where they, one day, it was almost like a graduation ceremony. It was a K-8 school. And they had, I believe every grade, if I remember correctly, every grade, they had them stand up, they said their name and the kids would walk up and they handed them a trophy, like a positive, power of positivity trophy. And they didn't call my name. They'd forgotten me. But I was, my mindset is so weird and oftentimes it'd be a little negative. But I just was, well, I guess I didn't get that award either.
[00:34:00] Charles: That must have been crushing.
[00:34:02] Karl Lieberman: I think I eventually talked to a teacher about it. I was like, oh, yeah, it's kind of upsetting. Every single kid got a trophy except me. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with this, but I think a lot of that stuff, a lot of just kind of dealing with adversity, and being kind of slightly clueless about it, has been helpful in this job, because it's a familiar space for me.
[00:34:25] Charles: So how do you look to the future? What's your natural energy as you look to the future?
[00:34:30] Karl Lieberman: It's funny. A lot of people say I'm really optimistic. I don't know if I necessarily think of myself that way, but like, I think the future is really interesting. I always feel like Wieden's best days are ahead of it, not behind.
And I think that's because, you know, I've been here for 15 years or so. And Neal's been here, I think, 20. We've been through so many iterations and through so many iterations of the place.
There'd been a very loud chorus of people in the place being like, oh, it used to be better. And you go through enough generations of that, it becomes funny because you're like, well, I was there during that time. I actually don't, I don't think that was better. I think this is better. So I'm optimistic because I'm not a person who's particularly, like, sentimental about the past. I like to keep going, I like to see what's next. And I think overall on the kind of, the long arc, the trajectory gets better.
And we have our ups and downs, as a company, as a world. But overall, I'm always excited about what's next.
[00:35:38] Charles: And what do you want to learn about yourself going forward?
[00:35:41] Karl Lieberman: Ha! I should probably learn more about myself at some point. I always am just kind of like, I don't know, this is working. Don't look under the hood too much. That again, that's probably not the healthiest thing. But I have a lovely family. I've been married to my wife since 2001. We live in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn and the job's been going pretty well and the company's doing pretty well. So I don't really want to investigate that too much because it seems pretty great.
[00:36:09] Charles: I really want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing so openly. I've always been struck in the time, in the years that I've known you, I've always been struck by your willingness to put the people in the company ahead of your own personal sense of self.
It's always been present from my perspective. I don't know whether you're conscious of that, but I think it really is one of the big reasons why you've been so successful in taking this company through, you know, remarkable transition, actually, and I wish you nothing but success for the future going forward.
[00:36:38] Karl Lieberman: I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
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