Jon Cook of VMLY&R
What would you regret?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 231: Jon Cook
Here’s a question. If you died today, what would you regret?
I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I’m asked to coach their leaders and their leadership teams. To help them succeed where leadership has its greatest impact. The intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is Jon Cook. Jon is the Global Chief Executive Officer of VMLY&R.
Jon died last October. As you’ll hear, the fact he is still here to have this conversation required a set of circumstances so improbable that they would have strained the credibility of your favorite episodic drama.
But the fact he is still here, gives him, and those that meet him, a living and breathing teacher of what will really matter to us, when we reach our end.
Charles:
What would you have regretted if that had been the end?
Jon Cook:
You take stock of all the relationships in your life. And I don't know if every single person in my life, by me telling them, knows how I feel about them. It's a little emotional for me to talk about. I still think to this day, I still need to do a better job of telling the most important people in my life what they mean to me.
My regret would've been, I don't think I… no, I don't think I had expressed as deeply as I could have to every single person in my life, what they mean to me.
As we age, our priorities and the emphasis of our life changes. We define success in more personal, more human ways.
And yet, when we become leaders we are judged - and we judge ourselves - against metrics that have limited shelf lives.
That will not change any time soon. If you do not deliver economic performance in a for-profit business, you will not be a leader for long.
But, and this is a big but, ask yourself now, what would you regret if today was your last day on the planet? And then live a life that makes room for the behaviors that would change that answer.
Life and leadership are about choices. Don’t wait until you’re dead to make better ones.
Here’s Jon Cook.
Charles (02:24):
Jon, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Jon Cook (02:27):
Thanks, Charles. Good setting to be in too, huh?
Charles (02:30):
Yep. Sitting in the lobby of the Majestic Hotel in Cannes during Cannes Lion Week. Um, when did creativity first show up in your life? When are you first conscious of creativity being a thing?
Jon Cook (02:40):
Yeah. Early on I was in the Cub Scouts, you know, in the middle of America, in Cub Scouts. And they have, Cub Scouts have a thing where you do the Pinewood Derby, and it's a thing where all the boys carve their race cars. And your intention is that the fastest car and you work with your dad on your car, and everybody's family was putting together the fastest, most aerodynamic balsa wood race car.
I was the guy who was making - I didn't care about the speed - I was making mine look like a Nike shoe, like a Faber-Castell pencil. I have to send you a picture. But it's really good. It was like, clearly I'm on a different mindset, on creative and I loved brands and my cars always finished last, but they were the coolest looking cars.
Charles (03:20):
So you weren't competitive as a kid? It was, it was more about the—
Jon Cook (03:24):
That's a good question. I think I was, but it was like competitive in a different, different, different light. I feel like I was on a different place competitively because I was already thinking about brands. But competitive wasn't the word I would've used, but, you know, I was definitely feeling like I was creative and I was expressive early on.
Charles (03:40):
How did you express yourself growing up?
Jon Cook (03:43):
Growing up? Well, music, sports, just being really active. I was a saxophone player, you know, and everybody else was playing football. I was a saxophone player in the band. And, (laughs), you know, as uncool as that sounded, it actually was kind of cool. Because I was in the jazz band and got to kind of rock it out there a little bit. And it's good all when all my friends are playing football and I'm the saxophone player at halftime, I'm out in the field, they're there.
You're taking a break from football that it's like, it checks your ego a little bit, (laughs), but, you know, it's expressing myself, you know, and I got a lot of pride about that.
Charles (04:16):
How did that translate into leadership? When did leadership show up in your life as a thing that mattered to you?
Jon Cook (04:21):
I mean, first of all, I think from a leadership standpoint, always been, not a reluctant leader at all, but a leader through setting examples and sort of, you know, never setting out to lead, but looking around in a situation and seeing that, that there was a leadership gap. And the leadership gap that I would usually see was somebody who would include people, somebody who would connect people.
And I found myself always the person who would sense that void. And then at some point it dawned on me that was leadership, or somebody told me that was leadership. But I always enjoyed watching the people who were, thought they were the leaders, (laughs), you know, and they’re, I'm a leader. I'm a leader, and I was never that guy. But then you kind of look around and go, wait a minute. I think I'm a leader.
Charles (05:02):
When you look back at your childhood and your parents, where do you think that instinct came from?
Jon Cook (05:07):
My dad was a minister, Presbyterian minister. I was growing up, I listened to the Keith Cartwright podcast you had, and he said his dad was a preacher. And I laughed, I said, it was great about Keith, but no, my dad was a minister. And, you know, from a leadership standpoint, the idea of including people, I always loved that people looked at a minister and said, oh, it's about preaching, it's about delivering certain Scripture.
And he's like, it's not about any of that. It's about the work you do to bring people together, to make people have self-esteem, to help people navigate the world together. No matter what the religion was, a lot of people thought that the biggest moment was preaching on a Sunday.
And my dad would always say, that's the easiest thing. That's like a pitch in our business. That's the pitch is the easy part, you know, because you've rehearsed and nobody's gonna interrupt you. That's the same thing as a sermon. The real work is through the week visiting somebody in a hospital or bringing a family together, or making people feel part of the same squad, a congregation.
I think I got it from that, honestly. I gravitated to that, had no interest in being a minister by any stretch. But I love the idea of bringing people together. And I think that's leadership.
Charles (06:23):
So that sense of service showed up early for you.
Jon Cook (06:26):
Very, very early. Very early. I think a good leader is somebody who can look across the room and can't stand if somebody's not feeling included. And like, it would break my heart if I was at an event. Even last night, we gathered a bunch of people together here from our crew. I will be having the best time until I look over and I see somebody who's doesn't know somebody yet, or feels a little shy. And I remember being that person.
And my sense of being will not be complete unless people are feeling like they have an opportunity to be together. And I think somewhere along the line I realize that's leadership, without even intending it to be. And that can happen at big scale. And that's at five people sitting around together or in the sense of what I do for a living. It's a whole company together.
Charles (07:10):
So tell me how you scale that. I think there's such an interesting reference point. I mean, how do you bring that kind of very intimate personal levels of sensitivity to an organization that's as huge and as widespread as yours is now?
Jon Cook (07:23):
Yeah, it's been something I've learned because it's gotten big fast through, through the years. I blink and we're 13,000 people. And I think that the sense of scale has come from not trying to put my own tactics into what the company has to be, but saying if we've got scale, that means we have a lot of people. If we're growing, that means we have good people.
Once you recognize that, you say, well, good people are doing good things that put them in a good situation. Let's repeat those things. Rather than, what I used to think was everything needed to be the center of VMLY&R out because we were doing something good. Maybe we needed to have everybody do the same thing.
When I, and I think as a team, we realized this is about taking other people's traditions and other people's ways of including people and letting them bubble up to the top and to the middle, the scaling of culture got really good. We were always able to scale business, but scaling culture became brilliant once we recognized this isn't about putting the culture of the middle out, it's about bringing everything from the world in and scaling that.
I don’t know if that makes sense, but that flipped the game really well for us. Scaling culture.
Charles (08:34):
Based on that context, how do you define success?
Jon Cook (08:40):
You know, I think about success in a lot of ways. I, right now, and probably for the last several years, I have determined that that success is about being connected. And it's a strange word to answer your question. (laughs). I'm in WPP, so we have every measurement under the sun—
Charles (08:57):
(laughs)
Jon Cook (08:58):
—of how to measure success. It's clear to me that it's a year over year margin and revenue and like, I got it. But, you know, that's not subtle. But for me it's about being connected. And I, I could elaborate on it, but I think that the thing is, I found that by being a connected company, by connecting people, all the success we've ever had came when we've done that. If I look back at any big client success, new business success, creative award success, it's about connecting people.
So I look back at the year and to be honest with you, that may sound easy or sound obvious, but you know, we've merged a big company five years ago, we've brought other parts of WPP into VMLY&R so connected is no small task. And there's a lot of ways that I think about doing that.
Charles (09:44):
So, to your point, there are so many different entities now as part of the company that you run. And most vividly, you took two very, very well known, very well defined brands and shoved them together. Shoved, maybe slightly unfair, but I've lived through mergers from both sides.
Jon Cook (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some shoving.
Charles (10:04):
(laughs)
Jon Cook (10:04):
Yeah. There's some shoving.
Charles (10:06):
Right.
Jon Cook (10:06):
Yeah. (laughs)
Charles (10:07):
How did you go about that? What have you learned from that experience—
Jon Cook (10:12):
Yeah.
Charles (10:13):
—that you might do differently the next time?
Jon Cook (10:15):
It's so funny when you say shoving, because it's, this is five years ago now that VMLY&R are together and I just, I remember some of the shoving, it was, it was good shoving, but there were shoving. I didn't grow up a… I mean I'm an advertising kind of creatively minded person. I grew up with no M&A training, no merger handbook.
And, I think that's actually the key, (laughs), to all of it. It was pretty, pretty simple. When we merge VMLY&R there's a list of 50 things that you have to come together on. We stacked ranked the things I'm making up the 50, but whatever the number was, we stacked ranked them about what our priority would be about bringing them together.
Because we started talking in the summer of ‘18 about doing something that would happen in the fall of ‘18 or the start of ‘19. There was only so much time, but there's a lot of pressure. Took the list of things. When we ended up ranking what we wanted to bring together first and best, everything that was at the top was about people knowing each other. Culture, setting core values, surrounding clients.
At the bottom of the list was time sheet systems, processes, having a common creative brief. I mean, there were some important things on the bottom, but you could only do so much. My biggest lesson of all was we gravitated toward knowing each other, appreciating each other, respecting each other. And I swear, it's been a great five years, but we still haven't got to the bottom of the list. We still don't have one common time sheet system.
And I don't care because we know each other. Nobody cares about what brand anybody came to. if I had to write a, a handbook on merging, I think it'd be different than a lot of people's, it would be, take that stuff that has to do with getting to know each other, connecting with one another, loving each other, respecting each other, put it at the top, do that, the rest will follow.
I think it's been better than a lot of people who have 10 years of merging experience.
Charles (12:04):
How do you wrestle with the human dynamic within all of that? So the idea of feeling connected and being connected, the idea of putting the human being first, those resonate powerfully, certainly for me. But I'm also conscious within a business environment, you, as you said, you're part of WPP, you better deliver results. Or you don't have this job at some point in the near future.
You've got people who can't perform at the level you need them to.
Jon Cook (12:29):
Yeah.
Charles (12:29):
You want them to feel like, you want everyone to feel like they're part of something, but you have to maintain standards. How do you put all that together?
Jon Cook (12:36):
Yeah, I mean, we just had an annual meeting - speaking of put it together. You got everybody on one big and you're trying to think about one big video and you're trying to think what to say and how to help to your point, scale connectivity. Because we're not all wired the same. And the thing I asked the company to do was to, and I think this answers your question, was to really think about connecting dots.
And everybody's like, "What's connecting dots? What does that mean?" And I've really got this feeling that if you imagine that, that each of us, if, if each of our priorities are a dot or a circle, if you looked at mine, I may have 10 dots. They're all different sizes. I got big dots, I got little dots, big priorities, little things.
But any one of us, any given time, we have those 10, or whatever they are, priorities. What happens is that, that's all great, except when you start intersecting with somebody else in the company. What dawned on me is sometimes I'm interacting with somebody where they only have one dot in their life, and it's a big one. It has to do with something that I'm involved in.
But that their biggest dot happens to be my smallest. Their entire week is dedicated to this meeting we're going to have for this one thing. It's one of my 10, but it's not my biggest. I think the mistake is when you don't realize that everybody is operating with a different priority. When I started looking at it through the dots idea, and I know that I'm meeting with you and your biggest dot is this thing we're doing right now, and you multiply that across the company, you can have a major amount of dysfunction disconnect if people aren't recognizing that.
So I asked the entire company to just recognize the level of dots that people are coming in with. And at some point you're interacting with somebody who's biggest dot is that moment, even if it's not your biggest. When you realize that and can change your behavior because of that, and recognize the empathy that comes with knowing that the whole company and you do that at scale, the whole company connects better.
And so ask the whole company to think about that. And it's working because I've noticed situations where people are different or people know each other differently, treat each other better. It's a big company and it's a hard, hard world. And the idea of connecting dots and being cognizant of that has helped so much.
Charles (14:49):
There's massive empathy in that approach. And two few leaders bring that kind of mindset, I think, to the way they run their business. I'm also conscious, though, that when through that lens, every dot that you are participating is almost certainly the biggest dot in the other person's—
Jon Cook (15:06):
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Charles (15:06):
—weak. For you, the pressure to be able to show up with that level of respect, that level of intention, that level of commitment has to wear on you after a while. How do you find the energy to keep showing up and making sure that you are respecting the size of the other person's dot essentially?
Jon Cook (15:22):
Yeah, I think you're right. I think that it is often depending on your level in the company. I hate the word level by the way, but you know what I mean, like the—
Charles (15:30):
It's a functional necessity.
Jon Cook (15:31):
Yeah. It's a function that, that you do find yourself in somebody else's biggest dot almost every moment. And then it's not just me, everybody in the company has some relationship with somebody where they're the bigger dot. And I'm not saying I'm the bigger dot, but to your point, the energy that I get is the reaction to somebody when they know this can't possibly be your biggest dot, but it's theirs and you show up prepared.
I'll be real tactical. You know their name, you know the purpose of it. You respect their time, you are on time, little things, but they're the biggest things in the world when you're somebody's biggest dot is your not biggest. And you've just fundamentally show up. And then if you fundamentally follow up and were to send that person a thank you for their time, you know, when maybe they think they should be thanking you for your time.
But my mindset has always been, no, let me thank you for your time. You're the one who's got this big dot and trying to fit it into this plate I have. And I know your plate's big too, and I mean, I'm being very specific, but just I think showing up and following up in those moments, it's unexpected. And then to your point, I get energy from the reaction to that, and the way that propels the company forward.
Because it's not about me. It's about if somebody sees that and they're that same way to somebody else, that's the more important thing. When I see that happen to the company, it has nothing to do with me. The energy is like, it skyrockets for me. You know, I've been VMLY&R for 27 years now, and I sometimes I look around and go, "I think I'm supposed to change jobs, (laughs), or maybe move or something."
But I haven't done any of that. And it's because I have so much energy just for what we're doing. And I think that that energy confuses people sometimes. Because this business is not supposed to work like that. (laughs) But, you know, I love it. I love it.
Charles (17:11):
Your values are clearly really important to you and you are specific about them, which is also relatively rare. How often do you check in with yourself that you are actually living against those values? How often are you conscious of that?
Jon Cook (17:24):
Yeah, I think there's probably a spiritual answer to that. I'll give like a real specific answer, though, is I probably do it weekly. There's nothing better... I travel a lot. There's nothing better for me than being home. And I live in Kansas City. If I'm in that office on a Friday and I'm driving home and I'm cranking my music and I'm, for a moment, I'm having a good time. I'm like, "This is, this is awesome. This has been a great week."
I use that. I use that Friday afternoon drive home or flight home if it's that kind of week. And I just say, you know, did I - I just mentioned showing up and following up. Did I show up and follow up this week? And I get pretty excited because yeah, I did, you know, I still am. Or I'll have something I forgot about. I say, you know what, something happened Tuesday that I should probably send that person a note and just say thank you or say, "Hey, can we push further?"
It's not always like, thank you. It can be just pushing something further. And I check myself that Friday night and then I go into the weekend real good.
Charles (18:24):
That values led, values driven leadership, I think is at the heart of leaders that have built trust within their organization. Trust, from my perspective, is probably the most valuable attribute that a leader can engender in an organization. It creates all kinds of positive energy and possibilities, particularly in a creative business where if you don't have trust, people are just not willing to emotionally invest.
Are you conscious, actively conscious of the need to create trust? Or does that come as a by-product of the things that you do?
Jon Cook (18:53):
Yeah. First of all, I agree with you on trust being the, well, first it's a word that gets thrown around—
Charles (18:57):
Yeah.
Jon Cook (18:58):
—too loosely. And I, but I agree with the way you're describing it, which is just, it's pivotal behavior that sits at the center of everything, especially in this industry. And I'm conscious of it to a point. I'm conscious of it because, again, I mentioned being at the same company for a long time. At some point in my journey, I realize that's not just a fact.
Sometimes that's a fact. It looks good in your bio or it, or it looks good when you start a meeting, you say, I've been here a long time. Then you started realizing, or I started realizing, what does that mean? That's just a fact until you make it a benefit.
The benefit of being, having history and then making it clear that I'm in this for the long run, the outcome is trust. Because if I say something, you asked how conscious I am, I'm conscious that if I say something, I'm going to be here at this company to make sure it happens. And I've got a track record at this company with people that I wouldn't be able to promise you this if I didn't have the history and that future.
And so those are things I think about. And then I start to realize, well, you know, that helps with trust because I can back it up. And I think we have a big leadership team that's the same way, but specifically about me. That's when trust comes into my consciousness. It comes up a lot. It comes up with recruiting somebody into our company to look them in the eye and say, I'll be here and we'd love for you to be here.
Clients to say, we've done it. I've done it, and we're gonna be here for it. It comes up every day. And I think I'm conscious of trust in the context of being committed, having been here and going to be here for the future. That's where trust comes up for me.
Charles (20:32):
You mentioned spirituality. What role does that play for you in your life and your leadership?
Jon Cook (20:38):
Yeah, it comes up, spirituality for me, and this may come back to an upbringing that, like I said, with my dad being a minister, I was around spirituality a lot. My takeaway from that has nothing to do with the Presbyterian church that we were in. I appreciate all that it came from the core value of that was treating people the way you want to be treated, being inclusive of others, making sure people feel connected, being somebody that somebody can count on.
That's my spirituality, I guess. I think spirituality is something that, that you should get joy from. It shouldn't just be a behavior. I think by definition, spirituality brings you an effect, a joy. It brings me joy, honestly, to, to see people connected and to see people included. And so I think if spirituality is about having a feeling and an emotion that comes out of that, an uplifting value, it's definitely there for me.
Charles (21:40):
Do you ever doubt yourself?
Jon Cook (21:43):
Good question. I, yeah, I do. I wouldn't say I doubt myself. I have moments of worry. I have moments of stress. Like, I certainly have some moments of stress, but it's probably different than doubting myself. As I think about the way I'm thinking about that now, I'm a very, secure, confident person, but I'm very clear on what I'm good at and what I need to work on and having weaknesses and things like that.
So, no, I don't think I doubt myself. But sometimes I probably confuse stress or worry with doubt about myself. It's not. It's two different things. I don't doubt myself, but I do have my share of worries. And I wonder if people, I don't know what, what you think do, do people confuse stress and worry with doubt themselves? Because I don't think they're the same thing.
Charles (22:33):
Yeah, I think it comes for me at the moment in a broader context. I read a fascinating article in the Harvard Business Review just the other day actually, which talked about how quick a lot of people are to talk about imposter syndrome for women. And I've had guests on the podcast recently who've talked about their imposter syndrome. And the article makes the case that we are too quick to help women see themselves through that lens.
Jon Cook (22:59):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (22:59):
And in fact, we need to be creating organizations, cultures, environments in which they see themselves differently. And the article makes a pretty strong case that this, that imposter syndrome exists predominantly for women, maybe exclusively for women through the—
Jon Cook (23:13):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (23:13):
—lens of the article and that men don't really suffer from that. I don't think that's true.
Jon Cook (23:17):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (23:17):
I know that's not true because—
Jon Cook (23:19):
I agree.
Charles (23:19):
—I absolutely have suffered from imposter syndrome.
Jon Cook (23:20):
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles (23:21):
I was talking to a friend last night who's a pretty well known white male figure, who said the same thing. But I think we're at the beginning of - maybe a bit slightly beyond the beginning - but we're at a point in a conversation that's really important. I think that we start to talk very much as you are through the lens of the kind of environment we want to create, the level of inclusivity, how we bring people into that—
Jon Cook (23:44):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (23:44):
—how we're sensitive to, you know, you and I are both white males. We've never understood what it means to be excluded from anything—
Jon Cook (23:50):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (23:51):
—based on the gender we were born with, or the color of our skin. And we can intellectually recognize it, but the feelings of that we don't, we can't understand. I was making the point to somebody last night that I think in a society, and in an industry that has been developed and designed by white men, predominantly for the benefit of white men—
Jon Cook (24:11):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (24:12):
—we are going to need white men to help restructure and reorganize that. It's the equivalent of trying to redirect an oil tanker that's aimed at the shore.
Jon Cook (24:24):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (24:24):
It's faster to redirect if you get the help of the people who have control over the steering and the engine. And I, it feels to me we've only just met, but it feels to me that you are somebody who has that kind of sensibility, who like me, would like to be part of helping to redesign an industry so that it is genuinely inclusive. And I think for that to happen, we have to be able to acknowledge as white men that we have doubt.
Jon Cook (24:51):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (24:51):
I'm not questioning your sense, but I—
Jon Cook (24:53):
Yeah. I—
Charles (24:54):
—think we do have to be able to look at ourselves and say what am I actually afraid of?
Jon Cook (24:57):
Yeah.
Charles (24:59):
What is it that I can do to make a difference? And what do I have to overcome in myself? Because part of the challenge, obviously is that if we are living in an environment that we have essentially designed and created, there is going to be a lot of fear - spoken or otherwise—
Jon Cook (25:14):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (25:14):
—about what would it mean to change that, where we don't have the same kind of rights and privileges. We're not as necessarily fundamental as we have been. And that's a terrifying proposition, I think, for many men.
Jon Cook (25:27):
Yeah. I think the world that we created, as you said, it creates a paradigm where if your power and your superpowers come from the paradigm you created. It's like taking Superman and taking him off of his planet. All of a sudden he has these powers. It's like, I think there are white men to be specific who fear the paradigm changing.
Because the paradigm is like the environment that gives them all their power. It's like, what if I didn't have that? You know? And then it forces them to have to be something, you know, more interesting. You know, more value. I think there's people that are scared of that.
And where I can see it, where I can see it at its best, where I can see it at its worst is in the exact same setting. And that's when you're trying to create change and you're just with people who are in the majority. When you are just with, in this industry, with white men, you see the bravest behavior and you see the worst behavior. And that's where it's hard. It's really easy to be a diverse thinking, forward thinking progressive white man when there's different races and different genders around because that's where it's just the environment forces one to be that way. The true test of somebody like you or I is when you're just with other people who are, in this case, white men, that's when you see people's real bravery.
And that's when you can see the guys that are, "Hey, nobody's around here. We can finally talk like this in our little power kingdom." You see it all the time. But you also see all the time people who are like, guys, we got to change. And that's the place where I see it the worst and the best. And that gives me the hope because I know I'm somebody who will speak out even in those environments. But I do think there's people who only speak out when it's cool to do so because—
Charles (27:05):
Yeah.
Jon Cook (27:06):
—there's other people around, you know?
Charles (27:07):
Yeah.
Jon Cook (27:07):
So...
Charles (27:08):
I think that's absolutely true. If you are willing, let's explore vulnerability a little bit differently. So the world has changed a lot in the last three and a half years. The pandemic clearly being one of the driving forces, the murder of George Floyd clearly being another one of those forces. How have you changed in the last three and a half years as a result of specifically those two—
Jon Cook (27:32):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (27:33):
—dynamics?
Jon Cook (27:34):
Yeah, I think, taking those two different things there, there's lots of things in the last three and a half years. Those are definitely two of them. And then, and then the business environment we're in is completely different in the last several years. And I can feel that difference, too. But I think specifically I've changed. Let's take the pandemic and the isolation a bit and I think it's being more in tune with, with how people live and how people live in this world where I was definitely somebody who thought there was one way to, to work one way to be one way to express yourself.
And, it's probably, probably not giving myself enough credit. I probably did understand the differences, but I'd say a heightened acute sense of how different people exist in this world and our, and let's specifically talk about our advertising world and being open to the way people want to work.
And I've really struggled with, as somebody who really likes people in the office, struggled early on with the idea of people not being in the office, if I'm being honest. And I've come a long way to see how productive people can be. I still believe in the mix, the hybrid mix, and that's what we have in our company right now.
But I was probably somebody who was all office all the time. And to be specific, you just see people living life different with different economics and different family situations. That's changed me a lot. Murder of George Floyd. I was always somebody who - I'd like to think - I was somebody who was always for diversity and, and not just for it. Everybody, I hope everybody's for it. It was, I was always actionable with it.
But I realized on that specific thing that I needed to be less about the statistics of diversity. We have the statistics of diversity in our company. I need to be more about real change in the company. And what my role in that was that means it's one thing to have statistics about diversity. It's another thing to have people in place that are making, you know, putting people in place that can make decisions about who we're hiring that are diverse and who are getting raises and who's being promoted.
That had to change. And I think that's… I found myself early on in that journey, if you're really putting the work on diversity, it's harder work. And I realized, wait, it's supposed to be harder. And kept going with the harder, the more committed you get to it in the agency world, the harder it gets because you're having tougher conversations.
You're having conversations that make you uncomfortable. And I think in my past, I would've shied away from that fire. The fire gets a little hot, you move away from it. I've become a person who moves closer to the fire, and likes to be a little less comfortable because I know that means I'm making change. And harder situations means real things are happening.
Charles (30:13):
I think that that, that sense of moving towards the fire is really present in those leaders that are really making an impact. I interviewed Mark Thompson, used to be the CEO of New York Times, some years ago, three or four years ago, but I re-ran the episode a couple of months ago because I thought his point, one of his many points that I found powerful was that he talked about as a journalist running towards the gunfire.
Jon Cook (30:34):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (30:35):
And I think it's very similar to what you're describing. I know that through doing the research on you before we, before we started this, that you've had a life-changing event.
Jon Cook (30:44):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (30:45):
Tell us about that.
Jon Cook (30:46):
Yeah, yeah. I did, I did, I had it in October last year, had a cardiac arrest jogging on a Thursday night in Kansas City. I have a really good heart, but I had a atrial flutter that was like a lightning striking. The doctors told me that something that I wouldn't have controlled is not hereditary. It's nothing to do with the way my health is. But I was living with this thing for a month, didn't know it. Two minutes into a jog, and I basically died for nine minutes, went down to one knee, then went flat in the middle of the road.
And I was really lucky of a lot of things that happened that I'm still here. And the biggest thing was, um, two women who drove by, stopped and started the CPR. They weren't able to get a pulse four or five minutes.
And I kid you not, (laughs), if you had a script who would drive by next, you couldn't have done it this good. A cardio internist, from a local cardio hospital drives by sees two women. And doing that stops, does CPR for a few minutes and gets my pulse back, meaning gets my life back, and I’ll be forever grateful.
I mean, a couple people don't stop and I wouldn't be here talking to you today. And, anyway, it was, it was a, it was a big experience and sometimes the world just the like angels and the, (laughs), and the coincidences just happened in the perfect way for me to still be here.
Charles (32:12):
How have you processed that? I mean, has it changed your life?
Jon Cook (32:16):
It has. I think, first of all, I, I think the cliché about living every day to its fullest at, at the beginning somebody asked me that family member, and I said, I said that and I sounded… I found it so cheesy or corny saying that, then I realized, why can't I say that? It's a cliché for a reason. I absolutely live every day the fullest out. Like why would, why wouldn't I say that is totally how I feel? I feel every day that's… I, to be honest with you, the night it happened, my wife was out of town and out of phone signal. My three daughters are 24, 22, 20.
So they're all grown, and living in different cities. I felt really alone that night and I never feel alone. And it kind of scared me because if what could have happened happened, I was not ready to just die on a Thursday night with none of my family around to, I'm being really stark about it. I thought, "Man, one little thing didn't happen right. And I'd be dead and had not have seen them." To answer your question, what I really think about now, especially with my family and my closest friends in the company, is what's that last moment you've had with somebody?
Not in a morbid way, not, but more of a celebratory way. I had just had in the weeks before the nine minute death, I had had some really fun days with my kids. I thought if for some reason that would've been the ending, which it wouldn't have been, which it could have been, you know, I had these great moments with them at their college or seeing one of my daughters in New York. I now think about that all the time.
Every time I see anybody, I'm in that mode of, not because I think I'm gonna die, but just as like celebrating it and making it full. That's changed me. I think I took some of those moments for granted.
Charles (34:03):
What would you have regretted if that had been the end?
Jon Cook (34:07):
You take stock of all the relationships in your life. And I don't know if every single person in my life by me telling them knows how I feel about them. It's a little emotional for me to talk about. I still think to this day I still need to do a better job of telling the most important people in my life what they mean to me.
My regret would've been, I don't think I had expressed as deeply as I could have to every single person in my life, what they mean to me. That means from parents to kids, to my wife, to some really close teammates in VMLY&R.
Now I feel pretty good because I think the way I live my life and the way I have relationships, I think all those people know deep down how I feel. But I would've regretted not being more specific in the times I would've seen them last.
Charles (34:59):
Have you changed the way that you spend time?
Jon Cook (35:04):
I think I've changed the way I think about the time. Like, I process a moment in my mind thinking, that was great. (laughs) You know, that was really great. I really appreciate that time. I don't think I've changed a lot about how I spend the time because I think I was living pretty, pretty full already with my relationships.
But yeah, I do think about it both how I spend the time, but also more just how I reflect on the time I'd say is the thing that's changed the most.
Charles (35:32):
How do you wake up in the morning? What are you conscious of?
Jon Cook (35:36):
I have this battle every morning with the short term and the long term of the day. I'm sure you (laughs) have this too, where, you know, I roll over and I'm gonna look at my phone and that's what I would do for 30 minutes every day. Until more recently, my long term sets in and I said, "As soon as I look at my phone, my day's done." (laughs)
You know, and I know I'm not alone in this. And so I now consciously, I wouldn't say it's meditation, but I force myself to think bigger picture for about 30 minutes. It's a very conscious thing. I will lay there in bed, before I get up, I'll turn on the lights because I want the lights on to start my process. But I purposely stay away for 30 minutes and just think about bigger term things.
And honestly, that can bring some pain, because big term things can bring bigger stress. But that's like, bring it on. Let's get into it, Jon, and do that. And then I take a look at my phone and I'm curious if that's how other people do it. Because I… but I've figured that out lately. It's helped me a lot.
Charles (36:35):
Has this had any impact on how you think about the rest of your life? I mean, I say to people all the time, life is short, your career is shorter, so make sure you're doing things that really matter to you. This is obviously a dramatic and vivid example of—
Jon Cook (36:45):
(laughs)
Charles (36:46):
—of the—
Jon Cook (36:47):
Yeah.
Charles (36:47):
—the rightness of that, the trueness of that. Have you thought differently about the rest of your life?
Jon Cook (36:53):
I have. I used to be somebody who—
Charles (36:56):
Is this where you announce you were resigning or retired?
Jon Cook (36:58):
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. Brace yourselves. To all my eight fans out there, no, no big announcement. No, but I can tell you that going through everything I went through with this, you know, um, I, I used to be somebody who I couldn't relax and enjoy any success I've had because I felt like, like I was proud of it. I knew that I'm doing good things in my career, but I would feel guilty if I stopped and thought about that being good or it was a— it's a weird feeling. I would feel guilty for enjoying it or guilty for... I don’t know who I'm guilty too, by the way.
I just, it just felt like maybe my push to do more and to be better comes from not being satisfied. I think after this incident, if I'm honest, it's been a beautiful thing because I'm way more proud and reflective and clear that I've done good things. I'm more proud of myself and know that I do do good things, but the good thing is that doesn't come with the after effect I was worried about.
A lack of passion or lack of continuing to push. It's probably even made it more. So I'm really happy that being able to reflect and, and know that you're a good leader and doing good things in your career, building a good company, I can now be proud of that without sacrificing the push. And I still have both. It's a way better place to be.
Charles (38:26):
It's such an important point. One that I'm growing in awareness of that we come to define success in such narrow and specific—
Jon Cook (38:34):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (38:35):
—ways. And often it's based on how we compare to other people and what they have achieved or gained or acquired. And I think we're sitting in an environment which is all about measuring success through some pretty specific metrics, awards, companies we work for, where we are in the hierarchy, who we know, which dinners and parties we get invited to. I mean, there's a lot of definitions of success here that can really get in the way actually, I think if you're not careful.
But I think what you are describing is a different metric. It talks about impact, talks about making a difference in people's lives. It talks about things that will matter long after some of the metrics that we currently view as being important. and it seems to me that that's a conversation that all of us should be having much more often. And, I'm surprised that—
Jon Cook (39:25):
Yeah, I agree with you.
Charles (39:26):
I was going to say, I'm surprised to some extent that the pandemic hasn't fostered more of it, but maybe actually we're not completely aware yet of the impact that the pandemic has had.
Jon Cook (39:34):
I think you're right. It's funny we're sitting, the comment you made, we're sitting here, in the middle of Cannes, it's, it's literally the worst environment for making you feel like there's a certain metric because it's all about the awards and how many. And I had an exchange last night with our chief creative officer, Debbie. We've worked together 20 years and I can just feel her pressure coming into this week, you know. (laughs)
And we exchanged a test text messages that we probably wouldn't have exchanged a couple years ago. And maybe it's the pandemic. And it was, it was basically, "Hey, Debbie." "Hey, John." We were going back and forth. We're either going to win a billion awards this week or we will win nothing. But none of that changes what we are together or if we're a good company or not.
Let's assure ourselves of that. And that's maybe a position and like, we're still going to be friends. If we win zero awards this week, we didn't get stupid all of a sudden. We're not dumb people. We're not bad, you know? Nor if we win, are we amazing gods of the creative community. We are great people no matter what.
But I think to your point, I wonder if the pandemic changed that and we're just more reflective. And maybe that is a true change the way Debbie and I would've been. How many awards are we gonna get? How are we feeling? How are we feeling? You know, every day we check with. Now we're like, we love winning. But I think it might be, to your point, I think it be a little change because of the pandemic. That's a one small version of it, but I think it's because of that.
Charles (40:54):
Yeah. And I think, I'm sure I've said on the podcast before, but I think the pandemic has created a massive amount of undiagnosed, untreated post-traumatic stress disorder. And because most of us are going to have to self-medicate our way through that, I mean, from a therapeutic, conversational standpoint. I think the thing that Cannes does provide is the ability for these kinds of conversations to happen. I mean the sense of community—
Jon Cook (41:16):
Mm-hmm.
Charles (41:17):
—is I think in many ways the most valuable, the most lasting, the most impactful aspect. It's why all of us get on planes and come down here and—
Jon Cook (41:26):
Yeah. Cannes could be a dangerous place if you don't think like that.
Charles (41:28):
Yeah.
Jon Cook (41:29):
Like, you know, they should put your words on the back of the ticket because I think I can, you can see how it can tear somebody up if you're not with that perspective.
Charles (41:38):
Yeah. And you see that all the time.
Jon Cook (41:39):
All the time.
Charles (41:40):
And it just, you know, sometimes it just takes more of life to get to the point where you—
Jon Cook (41:44):
Yeah, there's no way I'm not flying out of here feeling good. Because I know, I know for a fact it's like, control what you can control, can't control the awards. But I know for a fact we're gonna have great community this week. I'm gonna see everybody that I love, you know. (laughs)
And like, there's no way I'm not going to fly back happy for, you know, later this weekend. And that's a good feeling. And if you take Cannes any other way, you're in trouble.
Charles (42:06):
How do you lead?
Jon Cook (42:08):
Yeah, I think it goes back to some of the things we talked about. I think it's about the simple formula of making sure people are connected, you know, and that sounds easy. But I know for a fact it's not. It's being connected. Good things happen. I think in the pandemic, just as, as kind of something I was thinking about in terms of being connected and how I lead or how I hope we lead the company is I do a lot of thinking about what my week looks like at the end.
I was telling you about that Friday drive in the pandemic. What happened was you start to realize how, how many bubbles exist in your world. I'd like to think of myself as the most connected, most outgoing person in our company in terms of connecting people.
But if you really look at your week, as connected as you are, as I am, if you really process the week, it's a pretty tight bubble. And the pandemic locked those bubbles even tighter. Like there'd be four years ago people sitting outside my desk that I don't work with, but they're art directors and people on different accounts that I talked with every day on the way to the restroom or just standing in the hall.
In the pandemic all that went away. My bubble got tighter. And I think the way I've been trying to lead is to say, let's break those bubbles. Like you can't be a good leader unless you're conscious of your bubble and you're consciously breaking the bubbles in the company. And then a really good leader, which I hope I am, doesn't just say, let's break some bubbles.
You’ve got to create situations for people to get out of their bubbles and go join something else. And so to be specific with it, of course I want people to break their bubbles. I'm trying to put things in the company that give you a reason to break your bubble, you know. And we have this whole big global thing and it's like none of it matters. It's just dots on a map, (laughs), you know, unless you're, you as an employee of the company are gaining perspective and breaking a bubble and getting out and learning about something different.
Otherwise we're just like a big old holding company mess, of dots on a map that nobody cares about. And that'll never be in my leadership. I'm very conscious of that.
Charles (44:14):
Based on everything that you've lived through, how do you experience fear now? What's your relationship with fear now?
Jon Cook (44:21):
Yeah, I definitely have it, manage it well. My relationship with it though, and where, where it manifests itself, is trying to stay relevant. That's, that's the thing that wake me up in the night is, is this fear of seen so many, I mean, be specific to our agency. It's so interlocked with who I am, I guess is I just don't want to be that irrelevant agency.
And will do anything to make sure it doesn't happen. And that's probably comes through my leadership too. And I'm very conscious of it because I've been there a long time and I, when I look at the formula for irrelevant agencies, it's usually somebody who has a leader that's been there 27 years, that's getting tired or thinks that their success from 10 years ago is going to be the success.
I am hyper cognizant about that because the competitive me will never let this company get irrelevant. Our numbers may go up and down, but I always tell people internally, we will never suck. You know, because I can promise you that because we're going to stay relevant. We're going to stay good people, we're going to stay connected. Don't let the numbers fool you. We'll grow up, we'll go down. I'm sure. We will not suck.
And I'd say my relationship with fear is making sure that when I'm talking that big game about not sucking, that I go back to my room. I go, "How are we going to make that happen?" You know, the fear of making it happen, but I got it. It's something I think of all the time.
Charles (45:39):
And on a personal level, as you look to the future, what are you afraid of?
Jon Cook (45:44):
Yeah, good, good question. You know, maybe it comes back to that, that incident I had in October, which I didn't have a lot of fears before, but that, that fear of the relationships of my life not being there, something changing for the negative about them. If I'm being really specific. I just enjoy really good relationships with my daughters and my wife.
And there's great ingredients in place that allow that to happen. I just fear anything changing, (laughs), that would, that would, that would challenge that. And I know that will, but it's life. There's going to be challenges. There's going to be, they're going to go through marriages and jobs and we're going to have fights and, you know, I just, I… being real personal, I just, I don't want, I'd fear anything being so vast that it changes the relationships we have. And I would, it's this, just, that's everything to me.
Charles (46:41):
I want to thank you for joining me today.
Jon Cook (46:43):
Thanks.
Charles (46:43):
There's no way you would know this, but having an unanticipated cardiac event, has been the greatest fear of my life since I was 14. So to be sitting across from someone who has not only experienced it, but lived through it and has come out the other side of it, it means a lot actually on a personal level to me.
And so I'm grateful to you for being here, for sharing so willingly and for the example that certainly on a personal level that you've set today.
Jon Cook (47:07):
No, thanks, Charles. You've made me think about (laughs) a lot of things, especially my fears and that incident. You've helped me process that incident in a way that I probably haven't taken enough time to stop and think about what it meant to me. And I appreciate your words about it. Thanks for having me.
Charles (47:22):
My pleasure.
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