Robert Brunner of Ammunition
What makes great happen?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 238: Robert Brunner
Here’s a question. What makes great happen?
I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I’m asked to coach and advise their leaders and their leadership teams. To help them succeed where leadership has its greatest impact on business performance. The intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is Robert Brunner. He was the Director of Industrial Design for Apple, a Partner at Pentagram and the Chief Designer of Beats by Dr. Dre, before becoming the Founder of Ammunition. They describe themselves as a design studio dedicated to bringing products and services that matter to market.
He was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business,” and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Design is the art and science of knowing what to start and when to stop.
In that respect, it’s very much like leadership. There are best practices but no absolute rules. Imagining and re-imagining what’s possible is where it gets its fuel.
“I've been fascinated by this difference between good and great. You do a lot of things, and most everything turns out to be good. Every ten things or so, something is great, and why does that happen? And as I began to peel the onion on that, it always came down to leadership.
I always found that the things that happen that are great, there was someone else involved that was maniacal about it. That just would not accept anything less, was willing to take those extra steps to really push people to say no, really, that had this sort of idea of greatness as part of what they wanted to do, and were willing to do it.”
Leadership is a position of staggering opportunity. And yet, I’m constantly reminded of how few people fully appreciate the potential of the position they hold. How restricted they seem in their imagination of what is possible.
I’ve come to realize that this is not caused by a lack of ambition or interest. It is caused by a lack of awareness and understanding.
Understanding of the power of leadership. Awareness of their own potential. And their impact.
I’m fortunate to work in industries and with companies that are populated, almost exclusively with kind and thoughtful people. They don’t all, always act that way, but when they don’t it tends to be from insecurity or self doubt or personal trauma.
These things can hold all of us back. I speak from deep experience. Both of others, and of myself.
When you step into a leadership position, you have the power to change the world. Perhaps a small corner of it. Perhaps more than that.
It is the part of your life in which you can make the biggest difference in the life of others and learn more about yourself than at any other time.
Do not let that go by without self exploration.
What do you want to do with this opportunity? What do you want to make of it and with it? What would great look like?
And, crucially, what is stopping you from achieving all that? What do you think and feel about yourself that is going to get in the way. Imagine your future. Design it. Then go and lead it.
I promise you one thing. You’re already better than you know.
Here’s Robert Brunner.
Charles Day (03:49):
Robert, welcome to Fearless. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Robert Brunner (03:52):
Oh, thank you, Charles. I'm glad to be here.
Charles Day (03:56):
When did creativity first show up in your life? When are you first conscious of creativity being a thing in your life?
Robert Brunner (04:01):
Oh, that's a really great question. I grew up in a creative family, you know, it was, you know, you, when you get older, you have the ability to look back, and say, how the hell did I get this way? And my father was an engineer, a mechanical engineer, but he was a very creative engineer. And in fact, he invented much of the mechanical technology in hard disk drives while he was at IBM in the late sixties. And he was a constant, he was an inventor. He was always making something. He built a number of a couple boats in our driveway. He was always just doing something. And, and then my mother was originally a fashion model then, then she became a homemaker, but was always a craftsperson, a fine artist.
And eventually started her own children's clothing company. and my father also started his own disc drive company. So I had not only the creativity, but sort of this entrepreneurial modeling, but it is the way our house was, you know, every, everything was a project, I joke that our Christmas tree changed every year, and it was like a piece of performance art, you know, to my mother, you know? So that's just what I grew up with. I never thought our home was different. I just thought we were weird, you know? And that was just the way we were. But that's the environment I grew up in. And it created these seeds. And I'm just a project junkie that's just, you know, because that's what all we always did.
Charles Day (05:24):
A Christmas tree is the most magical form of, what do you describe it as? Performance art. I mean, that's just so, strikes me, I would love to have experienced that process with you and her.
Robert Brunner (05:34):
Well, it was a little confusing as a kid, you know? Because you, you just like Christmas and all the ornaments, and like, one year, it would be a flock tree with bright pink ribbons and ornaments. And one year, it would be entirely red or, you know, that was just what she did. In retrospect, it was totally cool. But when I, I was a little confused. I'm like, why? Why does it have to be like this every year?
Charles Day (05:57):
When did design show up in your life? How did you come to design as a focus?
Robert Brunner (06:03):
I was, you know, so what it was when I was in high school, you know, when you get to the end of the high school in the US and you see the guidance counselor, right? And they look at your transcripts and tell you what you should do. and mine looked at mine and said, “Well, you're decent in math and science, and your father's an engineer, so you should be an engineer.” And, you know, he didn't look at my grades in art class or my grades in shop class. You know, he just, and it was, it was kind of a indicative, one of the problems with schooling, in my opinion, in the States. But, so I went into engineering and spent a year in it, and really was, um, unsatisfied.
You know, my father was overjoyed, you know, he loved to help me with my calculus homework. But it just felt like, to me, the least the way it was being taught was, you know, here's a problem. Here's a book. Go look up the solution, the formula in the book, and apply it. And, and that just felt kind of, hollow or boring to me. And so I decided I'd rebel and, and go over to my mother's side. And one day I went over to the art department, and I'd heard of this, this thing called graphic design, which, you know, I thought was some form of, graphic art or, advertising. I didn't really know, but I knew it was, it had art involvement. It was a profession. And I walked in the building and I was immediately presented a display case full of industrial design work.
And it was renderings and models and mockups and sketches. And I stood there, just like, oh my, this is it, right? This is what I want to do. And it all clicked for me. And I immediately went over the administration building and changed my major, which really pissed my father off, right?. But, prior to that, I had been drawing, I had been painting, I'd been building bicycles. I'd been doing all these things, with my hands, which is what I was always attracted to. So it's like, okay, this is it. I remember my, my father, I, I should have, uh, had him rec some way to record this, a statement. He was, you know, I've worked with industrial designers. They're the ones who specify the paint, and it usually peels off.
That was the engineer's perspective. And, regardless, I went ahead and eventually he came around. But yeah, that was, I literally stumbled on the design. In fact, it's there now. I try and go out and whenever possible lecture, not just to college, in schools, but get into high schools. because kids don't really know it exists as a profession, they don't really understand you can have a very, challenging, rewarding profession, being a designer, you know, that awareness is just not out there. But that's how I fell into it.
Charles Day (08:56):
And what is the reward from your standpoint? What is it that you get back from it?
Robert Brunner (09:02):
Well, personally, I like, you know, I just like making stuff. I mean, that's just it. I just like making stuff. I like this process of going through all this information and variables, and putting it together into something, and then realizing it. My wife believes that I am a, a supreme manifester. I have this ability to see something and focus on it until it becomes real. And, that's where I get my, my satisfaction. And then just getting it just right. You know? That's, that, that's really the big challenge. You know, when you're working, you're doing something on your own, you know, building one thing. You can get pretty close to perfection. When you're working with a mass of people trying to develop something then, and bring it out in the world in a certain way, it's incredibly challenging. So when you get there, it's really, for me, a big reward, right? When I see that first prototype, when I see something in the factory, when I see it out in the street, and you see it impacting people, that's the big, big reward for me.
Charles Day (10:00):
And how do you measure success in that environment? Like, what does getting there mean to you? How do you know? How do you, what does that feel like, and how do you know it? Because design, I mean, you could go on endlessly, right? I mean, there's always another way of doing it. There's always another approach. What makes you go, I'm done, this is good enough, or, we're finished here?
Robert Brunner (10:18):
It is very tricky, and it's a very fine line. Yes. And I've worked with people who don't know how to stop. And just continue to work it to the point where they just completely missed the opportunity because they, you know, they're still futsing around with it. I tend to view it as there's boundaries. There's a boundary condition around what makes something good, great. and you have to work those boundaries and know when you cross them, And so, you know, design, when you're designing something for mass production and bringing something out in the market, there are hundreds, if not thousands of micro compromises you have to make to get that to happen. Some are technical, some are political, some are financial. But you just have to do it. And what I always say is, what you're fighting is that what I like to call the death of a thousand cuts.
You start this thing with best intentions, you get it all the way through the process, and you get to the end you, and it doesn't look like anything like the original idea. And that's because you've said okay to all these micro changes, and they eventually add up. So it's really understanding what the core is and what's important, and really fighting for that and, and picking your battles, but really fighting the important ones very hard. You know, because part of what I do, and part of what I bring to organizations is that ability to guide them into not f*cking it up. and being very adamant about that. And so it's, it is, it's a tough challenge. Because you can make something perfect and it ends up taking too long, and it ends up being too expensive, may not get it to market, or if it gets to market, it completely fails. And yeah, you have a wonderful portfolio piece, but did it really impact anybody, other than feeding your ego? So it's something I'm very cognizant of.
Charles Day (12:08):
I mean, the extraordinary power of innovation and creative thinking, its ability, their ability, depending on how you look at them, to solve any kind of problem. And I think perhaps, and I'm, I'd love to get your point of view on this, perhaps the challenge often is that the wrong person is setting the problem, or the wrong person is setting the wrong problem. Or even the right person is setting the wrong problem. When you are given a brief, how do you interrogate it?
Robert Brunner (12:32):
Yeah.
Charles Day (12:33):
How do you go about that process of making sure that yes, we're spending our time answering the right question and solving for the right problem?
Robert Brunner (12:40):
Yeah, that's a great question. It's very important. It's something I've learned over time, that you could follow the brief and you might feel like, yeah, I don't know if this is right. But then, you know, I'm not hired to challenge the brief. I'm hired to deliver on it. And you go out and you deliver something, and it's not right. So you learn over time. It's like, okay, my part of my job is of course to make this thing successful and make it amazing. So what do I do? and so we sort of coined this, this approach in our studio for our initial, initial strategy and research phase call. We basically refer to it as, you know, figuring out what's worth designing in the first place Because, when you go and develop a product, which is largely what I do, you know, it can cost to bring it to market anywhere from five to 50 to a hundred million dollars.
You end up working with, you know, as few as 20 and as many as a thousand people along the way. So it's an, it's a huge commitment of resources. So yeah, figure out what you're doing in the first place and how you're applying it, right? So, so we tend to look at a lot of things. We tend to look at what the product is, who the audience is, what's going on in the market, all the usual stuff to sort of how people have, have position, wanna position it all these things and throw them in it. And really challenge the stuff that we think's like, okay, you're wrong on this. We, we need to go back and, and do this. Because what's really hard is you take that information, you chart a course, you know, northeast, you get several months to do it.
You figure out, wait a minute, we should have been actually heading northwest, and now it's complete stop and a complete reset. and that is in incredibly important, and it's become a really important part of what we do. And, and there's also a component in there that I never discount, which is just your gut. What your gut is telling you. And, you know, as, as you go on through time in your career and do things 10, 50, a hundred, several hundred, maybe even a thousand times, your gut instinct gets very finely honed, largely through scars,, and, and, and injuries along the way. So you really trusting that and really knowing, okay, this just does not feel right, this, let's really dive in and examine that, see what's going on there.
Charles Day (14:55):
I hear a lot of people who I think are very successful creative leaders talk about their gut. How big in a part does that play for you? Because I think, I find that not enough people, especially as they get more and more senior, are willing to actually trust the instinct that in many cases has served them so well, to give them the opportunity to be in that position in the first place. So, I just want to linger on this point for a moment. How much of a role does it play for you? How important is it for you?
Robert Brunner (15:21):
It's very important. It's, you know, I've been wrong. I'll admit it. And when I figure out I'm wrong, I'll just say, okay, let's move it in another direction. But it is something that's, you know, it gets discounted. I used to, I still do sometimes joke that, you know, Excel is the enemy of design, right? Because we'll get all the information, the spreadsheet, someone will come in and say, okay, if we make this decision, it's gonna cost us an extra $25 million of the life of product, So, no, when the reality is, if we spent that money, yeah, it'll cost another $25, but it could have made $200 million more, because, you know, it's such a much better thing, So, based on experience, you, you gained some confidence in that.
So yeah, there's a lot of confidence that you gain through experience and just, just self-confidence as a creative person. But I'll, I'll be honest, I actually do a lot of exploratory work to sort of feed that. It's not, it's not like I just start and say, oh, here's an idea, let's do that. You might feel that way, but I really have always put that aside and done a full 360 degree look at something, it sometimes drives my team crazy that I just, will just want to look at every angle, put aside all the, the preconceived notions, put aside all the things you think it should be, and open it up. And, really, you know, we do these wallpaper exercises where we just put up every possible thing we can think of.
And when we get to that point, what the experience and confidence is given to be able to look at that forest and see the trees that matter, and then also causes you to challenge some assumptions or challenge things that you thought were, you know, in the beginning you believed, sometimes you're right. But a lot of times it's just like, oh shit, I never looked at it that way. That is something amazing. Let's head down that path. and then when you, when I have that, you know, when you have that cadre of thinking, right? It allows me to be much more confident to go into our partner or our client and say, look, this is what we need to do and this is the direction we need to head in, because we've really looked at it fully and, and in all these different ways. And this one is the one that's going to make a lot of sense.
Charles Day (17:38):
You know, I'm intrigued by this topic of failure in this context, because you hear, you know, every company in the world that aspires to being creatively and innovatively driven, talks about, you know,, we have a culture that promotes failure, that encourages failure, that allows failure.
Robert Brunner (17:51):
Yeah.
Charles Day (17:52):
Which is mostly palpably untrue, because there's never a line item in the P and L for it, right? There's no, there's nothing in the chart of accounts or the balance sheet that says, here's our failure investment. So it's a great talking point, but I'm more interested in this moment about the emotional dynamic. Because when you are deliberately creating a process, designing a process, that requires a certain amount of failure, how do you place that in the context of the emotion that must come with a sense of, I tried and it didn't work. I mean, that's a very human reaction, right? I tried and it didn't work. There's a certain mindset that allows that to be a positive, rather than feeling defeated. How does that play for you?
Robert Brunner (18:30):
It is difficult. Especially if it's a very public failure. And there are some people I've worked with, that will support you when you fail, as long as you were trying to do something interesting. I mean, as long as you don't fail too many times, like you get one or two max. but the failures that we have within our studio are really important. And it's something that we've created as a culture in our office that, you know, go ahead and fail. Go ahead and try something and let's figure out whether it works or not. and if it doesn't work, that's fine. We'll go do something else. But, you know, don't get locked up around worrying about this thing that looks to be very challenging.
Let's try it first and, you know, and really understand it, right? And then you can go, you know, when you present the idea and, and propose it, you can say, look, this is risky for these reasons. Here's how we think we can solve all this. And yes, it's going to take more work, but, you know, the benefit is huge. So, but it's, so, those failures internally are fine. And I think an important part of the process, an important part of learning for our team, you try not fail in the market too often, and you try not fail during a program to the point where it's going to cause, an enormously painful reset that does happen sometimes. and then you learn and, and you move on. But yeah, no one likes to fail, especially in a public way.
I would rather screw it up a few times and take some deep risks than be overly conservative or be concerned about my own, my own skin. Because it's, you're, again, you're not doing right by the people you're working for. They're, that's not why they're hiring you. You sometimes have to remind them you're not paying us all this money to come back with mediocre, average solutions, You're paying for us to move the needle. So to do that, it's not, you have to be in that boat and really agree to take on those risks.
Charles Day (20:34):
Would you go so far to say that under the right conditions that failure is good?
Robert Brunner (20:40):
Yeah, I do believe so. I do believe so, because I mean, of course as an individual failure is, you know, you learn more from failing than you ever do from things going right. There's no doubt about that. That's well documented. But it, I think it also, many times a failure can really help clarify something, It can really help sort of, okay, this is what we need to do this. Yeah, we tried this, it didn't work. We learned this, these things from it, we've come back to a different direction and now we, we feel even better about. So it can really be a clarifying moment. and again, you hope, it happens early enough, the process where it doesn't create an enormous amount of pain, but it usually almost always has a good result in some way.
Charles Day (21:24):
I was doing some background reading about your career, and you've worked in some extraordinary companies and some of the most revered companies of our time. And I think in Apple, perhaps the company that best personifies the ability for a business to take innovation and creative thinking and monetize it, at enormous scale. Through that lens, I'm curious what you've learned and seen and observed and experience about leading a business like that. What are the skill sets and characteristics that are necessary when you're operating at a really high level within a company like that?
Robert Brunner (22:58):
It's obvious, but not obvious. I think, of course, you have to have, you know, your abilities as a creative professional and your ability to manage and lead work and get it through a system and come out on the other end in a positive way and have the technical knowledge to know how to make that happen, and the managerial abilities, too. But there's this thing that I began to realize, and it was going back, I was talking about a little while ago, about the amount of effort and resource it takes into developing something. And within that, you do have to somehow figure out how to get a large number of people to follow your vision and especially if you're doing something that requires those people to work very hard or spend a lot more money or spend more time.
So what really became important to me to understand was how best to communicate and how best to tell a story and how best to enlist people in that story, and how best to keep them involved in that story. And, and it was something I realized was never taught in design school. You know, you learned a little rudimentary presentation techniques, but you know, when a student today asks me, you know, what should I do, to help me be more successful, you know, take a public speaking class. Take an acting class, take a comedy class, right? Get comfortable with putting yourself out there in front of people and learn how to tell a story and learn how to do it well. And so a big part of, for me, being successful in an organization like Apple was being comfortable being out in front and really being comfortable with leading people down a path
Because again, I have to figure out how to get this army of people to do what I want to do. And it happens at a high level, and it happens at a low level. So that to me is one of the most important skills that I don't think people focus enough learning on some, some people that come naturally to me. It wasn't, it took me 10 years to get comfortable with public speaking I knew I had to, the first, it was brutal. But I finally got comfortable and figured out how to do it, and realized I could be good at it. So that, I think that was, is something that's, if you're going to lead, you have to really know how to do that.
Charles Day (24:13):
What used to get in the way for you, and how did you overcome it?
Robert Brunner (24:17):
You know, I'm a classic overthinker, which is a blessing and a curse in my job. And so, you know, when I first started doing it, I would so over prepare. It was insane. I would, you know, spend, if I had to do something, I would spend months prepping for it and make sure I had just everything locked down. So I just felt reasonably comfortable getting up there and delivering whatever I wanted to do. But I finally began to realize that, you know, it was really about just understanding internally the things that I needed to put out there and, and relying on things that I knew very well. and just having the confidence in that. And also, like, for, with the public speaking example, I also came to the realization, nobody's going to go see me twice.
So it's okay to tell the same stories, and it's okay to tell the same jokes. And it's okay to do that because, and again, it's like a comedy routine, right? It's not a new comedy routine every time you go see someone, it's something that's been practiced and nuanced and prototyped and tested. So I sort of began to take the same approach. And so now, today when I'm doing a presentation, I just get very clear to myself on what I'm trying to communicate. And it's always, it's always building up to that, I was just mentoring one of my leaders and, you know, pointing out to, you know, he's very good and, but whenever he's presenting, he just puts in a ton of information because he's really fascinated and excited about the design. And so you, you have a picture up there, it's got a lot of information. What you need to do is pick out the things in each picture that are leading to this endpoint when you're gonna say, this is what you need to do. and craft that. so when you get there, nobody's gonna argue with you because you've set it up that way, So it's really, it's really just learning how to do that, and being effective and getting comfortable with it. But it does take repetition.
Charles Day (26:15):
I may have said this on the podcast, I'm not sure, but I know I've talked to a number of clients in the past about this, for sure, which is that the concept of repetition and consistency for people who have been recognized, rewarded, promoted for their originality is a very difficult bridge to cross for many of them, because they believe, rightly so for most of their careers, that by being original, that's the thing that has actually brought them to this high exalted position. And when you get to this exalted position, exactly the point you've just made, I find that mostly leaders simply just aren't aware enough of the importance to just keep saying the same thing over and over and over again, and get better and better and better at saying, and yes, you can iterate the story. But people want to, want to follow people who are consistent about, to your point, what's the vision? What are we trying to do? How are we trying to get there? Were you conscious of that at the time that you were attracting people in a more compelling way, in a more lasting way, as you became more consistent about the stories you were telling?
Robert Brunner (27:11):
Yeah. Yeah. The thing that clicked for me on it was I began to also look at that as a craft, And, you know, it's the same way I look at designing or drawing or anything like that. It's, it's, there's a craft that takes practice and learning what you know you're good at and so forth. And so, yeah, it clicked when I just figured out, okay, I have to focus on this piece, which is really about the delivery, not the content and really figure out how to do that and do it much better. I'll give your your audience one simple tip, which I discovered, at least this is for me, which makes a huge difference. You know, before you stand up in front of a group and deliver something, talk about something, go in a room by yourself and say it out loud. There’s a big difference between your head and speaking. And then you listen to yourself and you instantly find all the flaws, you instantly find all the things that are lacking you in, you know, it's a very simple thing, but not enough people do it. And when you do it, like I said, it all becomes very clear what you need to do and whether the problems are so, you know, go find a place and no matter how uncomfortable you feel talking to yourself in a room, do it. Because it, you'll, whatever you're doing will be much better for it.
Charles Day (28:30):
I imagine that was difficult to do the first few times you did that.
Robert Brunner (28:33):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I spent so much time, you know, just figuring out everything and rehearsing it over and over and over. I find I'm best when I can just be myself and, There's an overused phrase or idea, but it is really very important. And that is this concept of flow, you know, a lot, it's been talked about a lot of being in the flow, finding the flow, but it is really important that when you hit it, no matter what you're doing, you're so much more productive and so much better. So with the sort of communication aspect, it's sort of finding your way to get in that flow and then you're much more compelling.
Charles Day (29:11):
I'm intrigued by the tension of somebody who has made their professional focus and their personal focus, it feels like that of design, which by, by definition is filled with intention, filled with deliberation. and this idea of being in flow, which is about letting go, exactly the opposite. How do you bring those two things together? What is that connection like for you?
Robert Brunner (29:37):
So I'm always seeking to get in a space where I have some time, And that, that's something I find that's really important, that if, if you're, you of course, have deadlines and schedules and so forth, but when you go into something and say, okay, I've got two hours to figure this out,, you're not gonna do it. Right? You, you have to sort of remove that and just say, okay, I'm gonna get it to this place and I'm gonna explore it, and I'm gonna continue to explore it and let that happen and dive deeply and cut out all the distractions and really focus. So that, that for me is really important. And it doesn't matter whether I'm working on a design concept, whether I'm developing a presentation or I, whether I'm preparing a meal
But it's figuring out what do you need? What's the environment you need to create, and what's the mindset you need to create, to get there. A really great book on this subject, if you haven't read it yet, is Rick Rubin's new book, The Creative Act. It's almost poetic, but it's just so full of examples and approaches to sort of find this state and how to stay there, that I think anyone who's a creative individual or wants to enhance their creativity should read that book.
Charles Day (30:50):
It feels to me that it's such an important topic from a life perspective, that I think putting tension deliberately into our lives is the surest way to stretch, evolve, find out what we're capable of, who we actually are deep down, I mean, I really am drawn to this concept of design and flow as a integrated part of a human being's existence. This is probably an unfair question, but I'll ask it anyway. How would you design a leader, given everything that is changing about leadership? I mean, leadership is changing in real time. the difference between what we need and expect from our leaders today compared to pre pandemic, I think is completely underestimated and underrecognized, and we will look back on this time as having been the most seismic shift in leadership in perhaps the entire history of leadership. How would you design a leader if you were given that brief?
Robert Brunner (31:43):
Well, it's not an unfair question, and it's a great one. And I actually have been thinking about this topic. Because I've been trying to get my second book off the ground. I wrote one 10 years ago about the relationship between people and design and people and things. But, I've been fascinated by this difference between good and great You do a lot of things, and most everything turns out to be good. Every 10 things or so something is great, and why does that happen? And as I began to peel the onion on that, it always came down to leadership.
I always found that the things that happen that are great, there was someone else involved that was maniacal about it. That just would not accept anything less, was willing to take those extra steps to really push people to really say no, that had this sort of idea of greatness as part of what they wanted to do, and were willing to do it. And, you know, of course, many leaders have been well-documented, your Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, whoever that have that. But you do have to have that commitment and everything.
All the work we did for Beats by Dr. Dre, that was so impactful. Jimmy Lovine was always there pushing and pushing and not accepting when it wasn't good enough, and always just driving it. The same thing when the work we did for Square that was so impactful. Jack Dorsey was just, he wanted this, It's always that. So I, so I think back to your question, it's, it's really, the great leaders have a passion and commitment for excellence that transcends the business proposition. it is really just an inherent thing of wanting to make something that's going to be impactful on our civilization, and wanting to do an amazing piece of design as part of that, and are willing to take all the risks and push everyone and apply the resources and apply the pressure and whatever it takes.
And what I find is when I'm working with a lot of executives, many of them will have that around making sure the product is a successful business endeavor, but it kind of falls short of that I want to move the needle, I want to move the needle from a, from a humanity point of view, from the market, from everything I just want. And, and that is a rare energy that you find. But when you do, it's amazing. Painful at times. But amazing.
Charles Day (34:21):
Yes, indeed. Given your understanding of that now, if you were to go back in time, what would you tell your 30 year old self about his leadership and his leadership evolution that you wish you could have understood at the time?
Robert Brunner (34:38):
Yeah, that's easy. Speak up more. when I was running the design and building the design team at Apple, I was pretty young. I was early thirties, and I remember having this epiphany that, because of what my job, I was in a large number of executive meetings, probably too many. And I remember sitting there and thinking, these, these guys are wrong, But, maybe who am I to say that I'll just sit back and listen and, you know, do what I'm supposed to do? And then finally, I remember the meeting and I was sitting there listening to, you know, the, the CFO and the C MO and all talking about the work that we were doing, and they were so wrong. I just realized these guys do not know what the hell they are doing.
And I've, almost every time when I've decided to keep my mouth shut, I've almost always been right when it came to, you know, the design of the product. So time to start using that voice. And so I think, you know, that early on I was just timid and felt, you know, here I am, I went from school, I have my own business. All of a sudden Apple's hiring me to be their director of industrial design, and I'm just learning. And so, you know, these guys are, you know, 15, 20 years older than me and the C'S in front of their title, so they must know what they're doing. and realizing, well, in this particular area, they don't. And so, if I could go back, I would've started being more vocal about the right thing to do much earlier. And, and also I learned over time is that it's this thing that's, you should do what you believe is right, even if you're potentially punished for it. Because one, you'll feel better about yourself. But two, almost always, people have come back and said, okay, yeah, you were right And, and respected you for it. So while at times it's scary and difficult to do, it almost always benefits you to speak your mind, on something you were convicted about.
Charles Day (36:46):
And do you have any issue with doing that today? Is that a problem for you at all?
Robert Brunner (36:51):
You know, I, not really. I'm a kind person by nature, so I don't, I try not to offend too many people. And so I am at times cautious about, you know, telling someone their baby is ugly. But you know, it has to be done. So figuring out a way to do it that makes it clear, you know? and at some point you just have to say, look, I've been doing this for a long time,, I think I know what I'm doing. You need to listen to me on this, you can choose not to, but I'm telling you, you'll regret it. And sometimes you just have to pull those out and say, that's just the way it is.
Charles Day (37:27):
It is one of the responsibilities of leadership, isn't it? Having the conversation that nobody else can have or wants to have. How do you lead?
Robert Brunner (37:35):
You know, a lot, a lot by example. I tend to lead by trying to be available to add my knowledge and expertise to what they're doing, I often see with, you know, designers will have, they'll have a variety of ideas and they can't see the one, that's it. You should do that.
They just cannot see that. And so, I tend to get very forceful in sort of pushing people in the right direction. I tend to use my experience to help do that. At times I will raise my voice, but not in a kind of mean way,, you know, just make sure you're being heard. At times you have to call bullshit and just say, you know, you don't know. But I, you know, I think for me, it's really just being present logical, but not being afraid of being emotional as well. Because again, that's a lot of times where the power comes out.
Charles Day (38:36):
And what are you afraid of?
Robert Brunner (38:39):
You know, at this point, not so much anymore. What am I afraid of? I'm afraid of, when I finally decide not to do this anymore, of not being able to look back and feel I've done a good job, and done everything I could, you know, within balance. I'm dedicated family man, dedicated husband, and really protect that part of my life. But I think from a creative individual point of view, I really don't want to pack it up feeling like I haven't put it all out on the table. And so I'm, you know, someone asked me recently, well, when, when are you gonna retire? And I'm like, I don't even know what that means. I have no interest in, I don't, it's like, what is that? You know? I'm a believer, and are you familiar with the Japanese concept of Ikegai?
Charles Day (39:31):
Yeah, very powerful.
Robert Brunner (39:33):
Yeah. Living your life with purpose. And so right now, this is my purpose and I'm going to keep doing that until it doesn't feel like a good purpose anymore. So I think I'm just, you know, I really sort of, that's one of the things that drives me, is just making sure I have you the impact and the legacy that I want to leave.
Charles Day (39:53):
I've often thought that design runs the risk of being self-interested and self-absorbed. And I think it's at its best when it is brought to real focus to solve human problems in human ways. And I think this conversation, and your career path is just a fantastic example of that. I really want to thank you for joining me today.
Robert Brunner (40:14):
Sure. Yeah. The one last thing I'll say about that, because you just keep something in my mind, was, it's something I don't think is, and creative people is valued high enough, and that is the concept of empathy. We're very good about creating things for ourselves, which drives it. And, but I've found, if you can for a period of time, really put yourself into someone else's life and really do that in a way where you can understand them and their pain points and what's going on with them, you do so much better work. So, encouraging and supporting the idea of being empathetic to the world and those around you, it actually becomes a very important part of being a creative professional.
Charles Day (40:59):
And a human being.
Robert Brunner (41:01):
Yes, exactly, it benefits you all around.
Charles Day (41:04):
Robert, thank you so much.
Robert Brunner (41:06):
Oh, well, thank you, Charles. It's been wonderful. I enjoyed it.
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