Dean’s Speaker Series: 15 years of the Defining Leadership Principles’ ‘secret sauce’

Interim Dean Jenny Chatman hosted a Dean’s Speaker Series talk Feb. 5 that showcased the impact of 15 years of the school’s Defining Leadership Principles in the evolving culture of Berkeley Haas.

Chatman kicked off the event by sharing the origin story of the DLPs—Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself—during a fireside chat led by Punit Vyas, EWMBA 27, and David Bravo, FTMBA 25.

Chatman developed the DLPs with then-Haas Dean Rich Lyons, now UC Berkeley chancellor, after he grew interested in organizational culture while serving as Goldman Sach’s chief learning officer.

“One of the first things that he did as dean is prioritize identifying the Haas school’s culture,” she said. “He felt that the school needed to become known for its distinctive attributes.”

Listen to the full podcast:

Chatman emphasized that each principle, while distinct, has evolved over time and are best used together. For example, if you’re going to Question the Status Quo, you should remember that you’re a Student Always. Similarly, you cannot have Confidence Without Attitude without going and thinking Beyond Yourself.

“I like to look at the way that they move together,” she said. “I think there’s something about the four together that really is what is the secret sauce or the magic for us,” she said. 

The DLPs’ influence

Chatman invited three alumni to join her on stage to discuss the DLPs: Elena Gomez, BS 91, CFO of Toast; Marc Singer, BS 86, who recently retired from a 32-year career at McKinsey; and Sean Li, EWMBA 20, founder of University FM, a podcast agency that produces the Haas podcasts as well as  “The Culture Kit with Jenny and Samir,” featuring Chatman and Professor Sameer Srivastava.

Gomez, the first woman to chair the Haas School Board, said that the DLPs have influenced her throughout her finance career. When she began her position at Toast, she lacked familiarity with the company’s restaurant platform and relied on Confidence without Attitude and Students Always to guide her.

“At Toast, I immediately had to become a student,” she said. “I found myself studying at night, like I did for finals back in the day.”

Singer reflected on how exercising humility and constantly learning were crucial throughout his decades-long career in management consulting. In consulting, where technology and policy are constantly shaking things up, it’s important to remain inquisitive and to go Beyond Yourself—which is only possible with Confidence Without Attitude, he said.

“I think of the DLP as a little bit of a recipe where they’re almost multiplicative in their power,” he said, “if you only exercise three of them, you don’t get 75% of the potential impact.” 

Engaging with Haas alumni often, Li said he constantly sees the impact the DLPs have had on careers and lives. His own Haas experience was particularly enriching because of how much he invested in opportunities on campus, where he both exhibited and learned from the DLPs. 

“Just because you got here doesn’t mean everything is going to be spoon-fed to you,” he said. “You have to show up. You have to go Beyond Yourself, and the value that you’re going to get is what you put into it.”

Watch the video:

Read the transcript below:

JENNIFER CHATMAN: Hello, Haas. 

Hey, Marco. How are you? It’s great to see you all. Thank you so much for coming. Welcome to the Dean’s Speaker Series. I’m Jenny Chatman, the interim dean at Haas. This is a celebratory event. Fifteen years of our Defining Leadership Principles. We’re so happy that you are here to help us celebrate. 

I hope you’ve been contributing to the board behind me. If you’re virtual, hello. Look for the YouTube chat. And we’re asking you to answer the question: What did the Defining Leadership Principles mean to you? So you can check on this QR code. And if you would do this throughout our event, at the end, we’re going to take a close look at what came up. So please feel free to continue to engage. 

Last month, we conducted a survey of our community about the Defining Leadership Principles on the eve of our 15th anniversary, and we got some really interesting results. Eighty-five percent of our faculty and staff said that they’re using the Defining Leadership Principles to guide the decisions that they’re making. This is a sign that they’re engaged. The DLPs are deeply integrated into the fabric of the school. 

When asked which DLP resonates most, guess which one came up? 

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 

CHATMAN: No, no. 

[LAUGHTER] 

Confidence Without Attitude. Interesting. And in some ways, I think that it kind of captures how our community thinks about and approaches leadership. It has to do with excellence combined with humility and treating people with respect and dignity and so forth. So it actually didn’t surprise me. Although, I will say that of the four Defining Leadership Principles, if asked—and you may ask—which one I would modify slightly, I would say Confidence With a Little Attitude, only because we have a great story to tell. 

And in some ways, I’ve always thought of the school as a hidden treasure. And so, part of what we’re doing over the coming year is engaging the community in a strategic narrative project that allows us to tell our story a little bit better. So, think Steph Curry-level swagger, right? It’s really well deserved and justified—not obnoxious, I think what we’re going for. And in fact, that tension came up in the survey. People said that the DLPs really presented a distinctive identity for the school, but that, in fact, we didn’t articulate it as well as we could. So this is a challenge that we’ve taken up for the year. I couldn’t be more excited about that project. You’ll hear more about it over the coming months. 

We’ve also started to get stories in from our community about how they’ve used the Defining Leadership Principles in their careers and lives. And I’ll just read one that came up to us because I think it was quintessential. This comes from Leslie Little, MBA 94. I know many of you weren’t born yet, but we were doing an MBA program then. 

And she says, my current startup, Ethical Decision-Making Limited, EDM, is a social impact business that embodies all four Haas DLPs. Our main mission is challenging the status quo in the talent management industry. We seek to move the needle on the high failure rate of CEOs who are fired in the first 18 months due to unethical behavior. I’m back to being a Student[s] Always as I delve deep into the latest neuroscience, behavioral science, psychology, and ethics, as well as being a founder and CEO. 

So we love to hear these stories. So please keep them coming, and we will keep sharing them broadly with our community. And here’s our QR code. Speaking of amazing students, Puneet Vyas and David Bravo, are here. And I’m now going to come over, and they’re going to ask me some questions. So please welcome them. 

[APPLAUSE] 

PUNEET VYAS: Well, thank you, Jenny. I’m Puneet. I’m the EWMBA student here. And it’s an amazing opportunity to talk about the DLP because the DLP were one of the major reasons why we came to Haas. So, I’ll pass it to you. 

DAVID BRAVO: Thank you, Jenny, for being here with us. Thanks, everyone. I’m David Bravo, full-time MBA. This is my second year. So about to graduate, sadly. But yeah, to kick off— 

JENNIFER CHATMAN: You can stay. 

BRAVO: I wish. To kick us off, the first question is just can you tell us the story behind the development of the four Defining Leadership Principles 15 years ago? 

CHATMAN: Yes. Thank you for asking that question. I happen to have some slides with me. It’s totally shocking question. So—no. So, I actually thought it would be just a little bit more comprehensive if I just go through this really quickly. The first thing to note is that we actually wrote two cases on the Defining Leadership Principles. Chancellor Lyons and I wrote these. 

The first one covers the early period where the defining principles were first being identified and codified. And the second period, the B case—if there’s an A case, there’s going to be a B case. So the B case covers the period of the transition from then Dean Lyons to Dean Harrison. And it’s pretty interesting. I actually give it out to executives all over because it’s a how to in terms of dealing with leadership transition and culture change. So those are available. And I think, in your invitation, you have those. 

The first thing to know is that then-Dean Lyons—I guess I’ll just call him Chancellor Lyons, but know that he was dean while this was happening—he and I had offices next door to each other, which was a little bit unusual. He was a finance professor, and I’m a management professor. And he had helped me—I was doing research in the banking industry, and he helped me learn about the Glass-Steagall Act and some other important things. 

And he had gone away to Goldman Sachs to be the chief learning officer there. And when he came back, he was really excited about organizational culture. And I was like, ‘Dude, you are a finance guy. Really, culture? Are you kidding?’ He’s like, ‘No, I think it’s really important.’ So he becomes dean. And one of the first things that he did is prioritize identifying the Haas school’s culture. And this is what grew into the Defining Leadership Principles. He saw, at Goldman Sachs, how their strong culture really benefited the organization in multiple ways and was inspired by that. He felt that the school needed to become known for its distinctive attributes. And so, he was very thoughtful and systematic in how he did this. And if you think about the DLPs, the four of them, they didn’t come out of thin air, of course. So Question the Status Quo—I mean, that’s so Berkeley. If there’s one institution that has claimed to that, it is the University of California at Berkeley. Students Always—we are a university. We are a public university that is deeply embedded Beyond Yourself. Students have always thought of the public mission at the university. It has inspired them. It’s part of our lifeblood here. And Confidence Without Attitude—we had a claim to that because you can contrast us with other proximate business schools nearby, who will remain unnamed, who can’t claim that. So these were four. Does anyone know what the fifth DLP was that we ended up not using? Anyone? You’re an insider, Jeanne. Anyone know what that is? The fifth. Jeanne, what was it? Excellence. Why did we reject Excellence? Excellence is the price of admissions. Of course, all the business schools are excellent. So that was not going to distinguish us in any way. These four are distinguishing attributes of our business school. 

So what has that done for us? Well, we got really serious about embedding the Defining Leadership Principles. And one of the first things we did was we carved them in stone. So this means there’s a permanence there that is really going to be lasting. So you see out on our courtyard, you see up on our building, it turns out the dean’s office is right across from the DLPs here on our building. 

A second thing that we did is we began measuring adherence to the Defining Leadership Principles. And this was actually a pretty hard won battle—not battle, conversation—with our faculty. And, in fact, the faculty were seeing the benefits of defining our Defining Leadership Principles and so are now evaluated in their courses for their adherence to the Defining Leadership Principles. Of course, we developed wine, DLP wine. That’s very important if you’re doing organizational change. 

And so, the question is: Where has this gotten us? And I’ll stop after this. The first thing is that the DLPs are deeply ingrained in our organization. At last count, 180 different business processes from how our students apply to our program, how our staff are rewarded and celebrated. Our alumni events are themed around the Defining Leadership Principles. These are deeply ingrained in the organization. Student fit—we win more of the students who we want to come and you come because of our DLPs. Eighty percent of the largest gifts in the school’s history were given in the name of the DLPs. This building alone, Chou Hall, was given in the name of the DLPs. And we get countless emails and notes and stories from our community, revealing how important the DLPs have been in their careers and lives. One person wrote me and said that he had started a consultancy, his consulting firm, CWA Inc., Confidence Without Attitude. And I was meeting with two of our alumni down in San Diego earlier this fall. One of them told me he’s raising his children according to the DLPs. And coincidentally, two weeks ago, I was at a restaurant with friends, and we got a kitchen tour, and we walked into the kitchen, and over the stove was a sign that said: Question the Status Quo. And I’m like, oh, OK, that’s interesting because that could be more common. And then I looked to the other side of the room. And it said, Students Always. I’m like, wait, what. And then I looked to the third wall and it said, beyond yourself. And I looked to the fourth wall. What did it say? 

So the chef—I asked him where he got these. He said, ‘Well, my wife’—he didn’t know who I was. He said, ‘My wife went to Haas. She graduated in 1999.’ And I thought these were so important, that he specifically had ‘Question the Status Quo’ where the sous chefs could see it. It was right over the stove where the main chefs were. The sous chefs needed to remember that. The main chefs were mainly looking at Students Always, so that they could remember what it was like when they were learning. I mean—anyway, I’ll stop there. They are all over. 

What else did I have here, I think? Yeah, so this brings us up to our current timing. And we’re now plotting the future for our Defining Leadership Principles. And that’s what this event is. It’s kind of a kickoff. You’re seeing flags out in the courtyard. There’s more to come. So that’s the history. 

VYAS: Thank you so much, Jenny. I mean, it’s great to learn about how this all happened because as I said, when I applied, I was applying looking at some of these principles. And as a student now, I’m trying to see which of them is close to my heart. And I’m trying to define my own leadership style. So that brings me to my next question. So, on a personal note for you, which of these leadership principles resonates most with you, and how has it impacted your leadership style over time? 

CHATMAN: You ever seen the movie ‘Sophie’s Choice’? Yeah, so she has to make this ridiculous choice. I shouldn’t even compare it to this. But it is pretty hard to make the choice. And instead—so I’m going to punt on this. But we’d love to hear what your favorite is. I actually think that the four go together. And I think that that’s, for me, the best way to think about them and the most enlightening. In other words, you don’t want to Question the Status Quo unless you’re also a Student[s] Always, unless you have some information that you can bring to bear. You don’t want to Question the Status Quo unless you have a little bit of humility and are willing to be wrong because you’re taking a risk. So, I like to look at the way that they move together. I think there’s something about the four together that really is what is the secret sauce or the magic for us. 

BRAVO: Thank you. For the next question, I think you talked a bit about this at the beginning of the session. So, on this 15-year period, when you first worked on defining the principles, which one do you think has evolved the most, either like, its interpretation or adaptation based on circumstances, the market, other business school strategy—and how?

 CHATMAN: Yeah, so I’ll just double-click on Confidence Without Attitude hasn’t changed. But I think it’s something that we want to ensure that we’re telling our awesome story. But the one I think has become more well-defined is Beyond Yourself. And it’s a very distinctive element here at Haas. So not only do many of our students go into areas of high social impact, even when they don’t officially go into those fields, they are having a positive impact that goes beyond themselves. So I think we’re seeing that in terms of career choice and career paths. And I also think we’re seeing it in terms of how our community interacts with one another. And particularly, I see this among students. I mean, you can contrast us with some of the other top business schools, and it is not the level of collegiality and people having your back and the willingness to work together that we really have here. So I think that’s the one that I feel has become richly defined beyond, I think, what the initial expectations were. 

VYAS: Thank you again, Jenny. It’s good to see how they change. So my next question is around change. How have the principles shaped Haas’ response to recent challenges? So, for example, the pandemic, the changes in the tech industry, or even organizational cultural changes? So how has that happened? 

CHATMAN: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think there are many ways. We have a big AI proposal that we’re putting together. And it’s going to really transform the school. But let me give you a distinct data point on how the DLPs really informed us during the pandemic. So what was it, March 20? Shelter-in-place orders came through. 

Within 36 hours, we had moved 250 courses online. Unbelievable. And that was a challenging time for everyone. But we also used it as—they say, never waste a good crisis. We used it as a moment to start to get our faculty to think about the rich curriculum that they were able to deliver remotely—and could this be a possible growth area for the school? The University of California is all about access. So if we could have a remote offering at our MBA level, wouldn’t that be amazing? We could offer access to a set of students who couldn’t come here in our full time program or one of our professional degree part time programs. The faculty saw that they were able to deliver high-quality curriculum and, in some cases, improve on the model. 

And we were the first top business school to launch an online program. It’s called our flex cohort—it’s called the Lux Cohort actually. And these students—is there any Lux folks here today? Well, they’re probably—they’re probably online. I don’t know where I should look. Hello, flex students. You will know them because they have so much school spirit that they’re getting tattoos of Lux in blue and gold on their arms. They have blue and gold shoes that match that they all wear when they come to campus twice a year. They have the most school spirit of any group that I have ever seen. It is unbelievable. So here, this Questioning the Status Quo—no one else had gone and done this. Should we move? We invested millions of dollars in this very tentative time of COVID. But I think our DLPs really gave us the confidence that we should move ahead and really try it. And it has worked, I think, beautifully. Yeah. 

VYAS: Well, those were all our questions. So I’ll hand it back to you for the rest of the program. 

CHATMAN: Thank you, both. Fantastic. 

[APPLAUSE] 

Do I stay here? So now the really interesting part of the program is to invite our three amazing Haas alumni to the stage. I’m really honored to invite them. These are very, very good friends of the school. First up, we have Elena Gomez who is— 

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE] 

Elena is currently the CFO at Toast. She has a long career history of being high impact in really interesting companies and interesting industries. Several Fortune 500 firms. She’s been recognized for her leadership as one of the most influential women in business 2017 by San Francisco Business Times, which is a very heady list. There are amazing women all over the Bay Area. Elena got named as No. 1. And the thing I am most grateful for Elena is that she is the chair of the Haas Advisory Board and has been just an amazing partner. So another round of applause for Elena. She earned her business degree from Haas, her undergraduate degree in— 

ELENA GOMEZ: A long time ago. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, right. There’s no date here. That’s so interesting. OK. I know. I’ve started leaving mine out, too. Marc Singer. Marc is—

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE] 

Marc has recently retired from McKinsey after a 32-year career. And I’m talking months from retirement. He primarily focused on technology enabled growth strategies and implementation. He received a business degree from Haas. Also no date. And an MBA from a local school down in the Bay. He’s a committed high impact Cal alum. He has served on our Haas board and is an incredibly wise voice in that group. And I deeply appreciate the input that he’s had. So please, again, welcome Marc. 

And our third guest is Sean Li. He’s— 

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE] 

Very popular. Sean is an entrepreneur in the education and media space. He founded University FM, which is the leading podcast PR agency that empowers universities and academics to produce and distribute podcasts. Even me. We have a podcast called ‘The Culture Kit with Jenny and Samir,’ which Sean has overseen and produced. Sean received his MBA from Haas in 2020. And he is the host of our Alumni Podcast, ‘One Haas,’ and involved in our other podcasts as well. Please help me in welcoming him again. 

So I’m going to start with individual questions. And then, we have a couple of questions for the whole group. The first one is for Elena. As CFO at Toast, how have you navigated the rapid evolution of fintech and restaurant technology, particularly during periods of industry disruption? And of course, how have the DLPs helped you? 

GOMEZ: Yeah, happy to share. And thank you, guys, for being here. I appreciate it. I’m sure we’re all busy. So thank you. At Toast, just to get grounded, it’s a restaurant platform. And so, think of if you walk into a restaurant, there’s technology that underpins the workflows in a restaurant. And so, we like to say we’re the central nervous system of a restaurant. And if we’ve done that, we’ve done a good job. 

And so, COVID was a really important moment because prior to COVID, not every restaurant was adopting technology. And you probably can see that in restaurants where you see Post-it notes, you’d see your waiter taking a little notepad and putting it on a little round thing. At least, that’s how I grew up. And so, COVID actually was a catalyst for restaurants adopting technology because they needed it really to survive. 

And so, for me, it’s really important to be with customers, spend time with customers, go to restaurants, and really see how it’s working. And so, that’s how I’ve sort of navigated, understanding really what’s happening in the restaurant technology field and what is the guest experience, as an example. You and I walking into a restaurant, the guest experience today will be very different three to five years from now. And I know that just by seeing what happened even over the last three years. And so, just spending a lot of time with customers. And I think that’s kind of going back to the defining principles. I’m always learning. I met with one of our top three customers two days ago. And I asked her, ‘How are you responding to all of the geopolitical situation?’ And thankfully, in her restaurant—and this is the one that we all know—she said, ‘We’re sort of insulated.’ And then, I talked to a different restaurant in my town. And they’re like, 

We don’t know what we’re going to do. Our supplies are directly impacted by tariffs as an example.’ So I spent a lot of time intentionally with customers. And that’s why I think I’m always a student. Learning what our customers’ expectations, how can I deliver a better product to them, et cetera. 

CHATMAN: Yeah. I mean, that’s so interesting. Did I mention that Elena is the CFO? And she’s talking about spending time with customers. So that’s— 

GOMEZ: I’m in sneakers a lot walking into restaurants. 

CHATMAN: Are they blue and gold? 

GOMEZ: They are gold. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, good. 

GOMEZ: They are gold. I said, I need a blue star on them or something. 

CHATMAN: Good. We can get you some. We definitely have socks, right? [INAUDIBLE] We can get some socks? Yeah. Marc, so the DLPs were codified after you graduated. How has the Haas culture influenced your amazing career at McKinsey? And which of the four Defining Leadership Principles resonate most with you? 

MARC SINGER: Thank you. And thanks, all, for showing up here on a gorgeous day after what we’ve been through the last few days. So I think the Defining Leadership Principles, somehow I think you called it a codification. They were here and they were so—when Rich iterated on them, you’re like, ‘Yes, of course. Wasn’t that always the case?’ And I think what I’ve particularly liked about them is it helped distinguish this business school. At that time Haas was among MBA program’s 20th, give or take. And I know there was frustration here. How can we be 20th and be associated with one of the very best universities in the world? And I personally think because, at the time, the school stood for nothing other than being associated with a great university. And this was real and distinctive about Cal. And certainly McKinsey Company has helped us a lot from a recruiting standpoint that the students stand for something. And I’ll link it back to if this has been at all helpful. When you’re a management consultant, and I tell people, the last couple projects I did over the last year, if you looked at the content, five years ago, if I’d looked at those materials, I would have said, what are you talking about? This is about: How do you use AI to drive productivity in your business? What’s the real strategy to do this stuff? And how do you get moving on it from an organizational standpoint? All these terms. So you do have to always be learning new things. You have to be challenging the way we do things. And I would say that I’m a little biased, but on the Confidence Without Attitude, maybe it’s just without a bad attitude or confidence without arrogance. And I personally believe that management consultants, and maybe we were at more risk of it than anyone, the slightest betrayal of arrogance. People go, ‘I knew they were arrogant bastards, and they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ No, it’s true. And so, I think you have to come at it with a little bit of self-assured humility, which is, the world’s a big, complicated place. Nobody knows even the right questions to ask half the time, much less what the answers are. But if we lean in and work on it, we can get there together. So I think that’s helpful, particularly in this profession. But I actually think for all of us who’ve had the privilege to hang around elite institutions, the world actually thinks we’re kind of arrogant. And it’s that same dynamic of the betrayal of patronizing behavior or arrogance just pisses them off. So I would just say it’d be a good thing if higher education had a little bit more of you to it. So I hope that’s helpful. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, super helpful. And I’m reminded that during the transition between Dean Lyons and Dean Harrison, you were on the advisory board. The advisory board wrote this really interesting letter as the prior dean search was going on, which was: We want to double down on our support for the DLPs. So the board was kind of all in. And I think that helped with the transition. 

SINGER: Yeah, all in would be an understatement. It was like, this is an amazing thing. It would be tragic to have a change in course. It doesn’t mean they can’t evolve. It’s one of my clients says, values are timeless. These aren’t values. They’re Defining Leadership Principles. But they’re like values. But behaviors and practices can change to the contemporary circumstances. 

CHATMAN: Yeah. Great, thank you. Sean, so through your podcast, you’ve interviewed countless Haas alumni. Which stories of questioning the status quo have inspired you the most? Can you share a couple of examples that kind of stayed with you? 

SEAN LI: I think it’s pretty hard to share a couple because there’s just so many. But one thing I’ll say first is that, to follow up on Marc’s side, is that a lot of these things, when I talked to our alums on the podcast, they already exhibit, they already had all these traits of the Defining Leadership Principles. And sometimes, we don’t even realize that. And I’ll just bring up, actually, Elena’s interview. This was two years ago. It felt like yesterday, but— 

CHATMAN: I remember that. 

LI: Well, one of the things you had shared really stuck with me because, at that time, my daughter was just born. And Elena had mentioned that one of the touching moments, most memorable moments at work, was another lady coming up, a co-worker coming up to tell her that she was so glad to see a Latin, a Latina in leadership. And I bring up that story because sometimes, we don’t even realize how we are Questioning the Status Quo ourselves and how it’s an iterative process. And then, from that realization, then we realize, ‘Oh, there’s something more that we need to do.’ So we have to learned something new. And so it is very cyclical in nature in how these things tie together and are interwoven. 

And Elena further shared, I remember how she wanted to continue to be an example and really show her own daughters the path, the light. So that was really amazing. And just recently, this episode, I just finished this episode, this interview with Chuck Gibbs. He’s probably one of the most senior, I’ll say, alums I’ve ever interviewed. Class of 73. It was before Haas even was Haas, I think, which was just absurd for me to hear. And I didn’t think there was such a thing before Haas. But that episode will be coming out for Black History Month. But it was him sharing the story of how he himself continually challenged the status quo, where back then, back in the ’70s, there were still coming out of segregation. He was actually from Georgia. And how the chance—I think Barrels? Was he at— 

[INTERPOSING VOICES] 

Yeah, how he took classes in Barrels Hall. But at the time, Barrels was actively trying to prevent African-American students from coming to the school, to the business school. But he pushed through. And not only did he push through, he Questioned the Status Quo on campus and created all these organizations and really set the framework, the groundwork for, I think what I felt like, a lot of us to be here today. And so, that was pretty amazing. So look forward to that episode in coming weeks. 

CHATMAN: Yeah. When is that one dropping? 

LI: Oh, probably in two weeks. 

CHATMAN: Oh, great. 

LI: We’re working on it right now. Yeah. 

CHATMAN: I’ll make sure to listen. That sounds fantastic. Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions of all three of you. And you can go in any order that you like as the moment strikes you. So how have you incorporated the Haas DLPs into building and leading teams or organizations? And what’s been successful and what’s been difficult? 

GOMEZ: Yeah, I can start. When I joined—so I always have felt that I should continue to be a student, always, just from Haas days. And, as a CFO, you’re constantly challenged with that all the time. And one that really stands out was when I became Toast CFO. It’s a fintech company, but SaaS company. But I had not known fintech. And I was hired—we went public in September. My first day was May 10. And so, I knew nothing about the company. I didn’t even know who our restaurants were. And I had to take the company public within four months. So imagine, ninth inning, bases loaded, two men on, and two outs. That’s what it felt like to me. 

And so, I immediately had to become a student. All day, I found myself studying at night, like I did for finals back in the day. And what I didn’t appreciate was the people around me were watching. They were like, wow, she’s—I felt like I was acting because I don’t think I knew exactly what I was saying, but I was consuming and learning with them. And they had assumed, ‘Well, you’re a CFO, so you kind of should know what you’re doing.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I kind of sort of know what I’m doing.’ But in this case, the subject matter expertise around this business and how restaurants work and all that was very new to me. And so, I think I really set a tone just by me being new to the business and so on and made it very comfortable for people to ask questions. And also Question the Status Quo because I came in and was asking a bunch of questions as a student. But it was also questioning, well, why are we doing it this way. And that, I think, allowed everyone else to feel comfortable asking questions and becoming students. So that’s how it showed up more recently. But I’ll let the others chime in. 

LI: Yeah, so that’s an interesting question. And I think the one for me, especially building new businesses from scratch, is Questioning the Status Quo, the most challenging one. I think the other one’s easy to implement in my opinion, difficult to execute, but easy to incorporate. But Questioning the Status Quo is challenging because I realize you have to—there’s a right time and place to question things. There’s a timing aspect. So you have to plan it out, and you have to execute it right. And you have to follow up on it. It’s not just questioning. We’re just questioning. As some fellow students during my years on campus thought, there are Question the Status Quo. It was just complaining, and we’re not doing anything about it. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, don’t do that. 

LI: So you have to follow it up with action. But when that action happens, it’s challenging. For example, one of the things that we wanted to implement very early on for my startup was maternity policy, maternity-leave policy. But we’re such a young company. We don’t exactly have all the resources to be able to or enough staff to allow someone to just leave for three months or six months without finding a replacement. But it was such an important goal for me building this company to have that in place. 

And obviously, the timing was a challenge. But it was one of those things that we just kept hammering on, make sure that we can provide this for our team members. And so, that’s probably the most challenging thing is you want to do something now, but sometimes you can’t. But you still got to keep it on the forefront of your mind and just keep working at it. 

CHATMAN: Great. Great. Two great insights there. One is the distinction between Questioning the Status Quo and complaining. And the second is about timing. I mean, that’s fantastic. Yeah, Marc. 

SINGER: I’ll talk about Beyond Ourselves in a slightly different sense of releasing your agenda. You asked, ‘What is it that’s been difficult particularly the last few years?’ And I noticed this behavior creep in when we were doing all remote work, which was: There was no small talk at the beginning of meetings. And I spent my career working for people like Elena, and then we’ve got a charter to go off and get data from people and talk to them and interview them, and so, we regularly end up in meetings where it’s those people. You hope they’re not mad that you’re there. You hope that they’ll— 

GOMEZ: Most often not. Depends how much I pay you. 

SINGER: Yeah. But too often, our group would start with here’s what we want to do today, Jenny. And I’d be like, can we do a little, like, here’s a proposal for how we use the time today. By the way, did anyone tell you what this project was about and why we’re asking the questions that we’re asking? And just training people to not go, ‘Oh my God, Marc expects deliverables from me by tomorrow afternoon.’ And therefore, I got to just pound through this agenda. And you might find out, their boss just got fired. They’ve got a family issue. They need 15 minutes at the end of the meeting. And it’s not just—I’ve seen this behavior in this language of ‘Here’s what we want to do today.’ And I just think it’s so unproductive because the person may then spend 80% of their time cycling on something that is only loosely related. So I just think make sure that you give the chance for people to co-create the agenda with you when you’re trying to get difficult, hard things done under time pressure, which is true for lots of us in lots of roles. 

CHATMAN: Yeah. I mean, as you were talking, it got me thinking about my experience as interim dean here at Haas. And there are difficult decisions that come up. We never have all the resources that we want. We have to make some hard trade-off. And what I’ve been inspired by, among our staff is this kind of one Haas orientation, where people are willing to give beyond what’s immediately good for their part of the organization because they know it’s going to build up Haas altogether. So we’re really kind of anchoring on this one Haas mentality, which I now realize is a Beyond Yourself orientation. So that’s a great insight. 

How about this question? Each of you represents a different decade of Haas alumni. How have you seen the practical application of the Defining Leadership Principles evolve as a business, as business challenges and societal expectations have changed? Kind of a small question. 

SINGER: I’ll try with a short answer to go first. And one of the things that I’ve observed is that, Beyond Yourself. And I just gave you an example that’s a little bit different. It can be about what you do individually. It can be what institutions do. I think that, over time, I’ve seen folks who graduated after me have more and more expectations that institutions are going to solve the important problems that they see in the world. And I think institutions often can take a bigger role, but I don’t think it means that you can abdicate responsibility as an individual to figure out what you’re going to do versus just hope that Haas is going to solve the problem for you or McKinsey is going to solve—your employer—is going to solve the problem for you. I think there’s a lot of organizations out there trying to do good in the world. And with the training and expertise and commitment to the DLPs that we all have, it doesn’t take very much effort to really help a lot of organizations be a lot more effective in the world. 

CHATMAN: Great. Sean? 

LI: Yeah, I’m also on the Beyond Yourself. I was just thinking about this. Two things I want to say about this. One was my experience here at Haas. And for any current students, this was one of the things I constantly would tell applicants and incoming students who reach out to me is that, ‘just because you got here doesn’t mean everything is going to be spoon-fed to you. You have to show up. You have to go Beyond Yourself. And the value that you’re going to get is what you put into it. It’s very kind of simple concept to understand. And personally, I feel like I got the most out of my education here because I invested so much into everything on campus, starting the podcast and things like that. And on the other note is that going Beyond Yourself isn’t just being compassionate toward people that you find agreeable. It’s actually being compassionate and seeking to understand people that you don’t find agreeable. 

And that’s another thing that I think the podcast and all the guests have taught me is that there’s so many perspectives and stories out there that you won’t know unless you go out and actually hear it. And the other thing, too, on hearing and listening, people ask me all the time, what are some interviewing skills, advice? And the No. 1 thing I learned through the greats, Oprah or Terry Gross, is just being a good listener. That is the essence of being a great conversationalist, of being a great interviewer, is just listening. And that’s really what I find is needed these days. I don’t know if it’s my generation or anything. But just with social media and algorithms really just senselessly dividing us, we really need to actively reach out and listen to different perspectives. So that’s—

CHATMAN: Yeah, really wonderful. Actually, it made me think about one of my most favorite parts of this job is talking to our alumni out there in the world. I’ve been to New York, I’ve been to Southern California. I’m going to Asia. And listening to the stories of how people have used this place to transform their lives, which is—I could listen all day. I mean, those are just remarkable stories. All of you have those stories. And all of you as a community should ask around because the stories are just remarkable. Yeah. 

GOMEZ: Yeah, I have a different take on the question, which is, I do believe while there’s probably—and you said it earlier, Marc, that there’s probably some tweaks and modernization to the defining principles. But I do think, overall, they’re enduring and they will—in 10 years, we’ll still be talking about them. In 20 years, we’ll still be talking about them. And then, you just said it. I think all of us may experience it in different ways, at different times. But just Beyond Yourself, just to tag on to what Sean was saying, there isn’t an executive out there or an nonexecutive, really, anyone in the workforce who hasn’t had to think beyond themselves to get something done, or to influence an outcome or to get someone on the other side of the table to agree to a decision they may not want. And that’s just a fact. That’s just the reality of how business is done. And so, we often in the workplace call it ‘let’s agree to disagree or disagree and commit.’ I’m sure you guys have heard those words. But that’s really someone coming to the table and saying, ‘Well, this is my angle. But Joe thinks about it this way. Maybe there’s a compromise.’ That happens day in and day out. And it happened 20 years ago. It’s going to happen 20 years from now. It’s always going to be that. That’s just an example of how that defining principle is enduring. And then, all the others, we could go on. And I’m sure you guys all have your own stories. But I think they are enduring in my mind. That’s how I see them. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, very profound. Yeah. Last question. What advice do you have for our current Haas students and recent grads about living out the four Defining Leadership Principles in their careers and personal lives? 

SINGER: I’ll start with you’re—if that’s OK. You said it’s like choosing your favorite children or ‘Sophie’s Choice.’ I think of it as a little bit of a recipe where they’re almost multiplicative in their power. And so, if you only exercise three of them, you don’t get 75% of the potential impact. I think they’re a powerful recipe for impact in the world. So pay attention to all of them. And I think you can use them. I’ve certainly used them to coach and develop younger folks, even if I haven’t told them, these are carved in the wall at my undergraduate business school. But when I’m at a loss for this person’s just not being effective, I find it a reasonable framework to think about which of these things isn’t working because it usually isn’t that they’re not smart. To the excellence point, it’s table stakes. Almost everybody we deal with is more than smart enough for the task at hand. It’s usually some of this is not working. So use it as a framework. 

CHATMAN: Nice. So useful. 

LI: Yeah, I’ll build on that a little bit more, too. My advice, if you get lost, because sometimes you might forget one or two of them because— 

CHATMAN: Because there’s four. 

LI: Because there’s four. Yeah. You’d be surprised. I mean, the wording sometimes, I just like, what was that wording again? Anyway, something grounding for me that I’ve leveraged is just starting with Students Always if you forget because I feel like that lays a foundation for a lot of things for me personally. And that’s what I teach my team. I also teach this to my team. And we have these guiding principles in our own company. Because for me, Students Always is also curiosity. That’s something I teach my kids. That’s a very important trait that I want to pass on to my kids. Curiosity is what allows you to think Beyond Yourself, be curious about other people. It allows you to learn and build confidence. And then—see, I already forgot the fourth one. 

CHATMAN: They’re all around. You can read them. 

LI: Of course, Question the Status Quo. The Students Always allows you to Question the Status Quo. So that’s really how I– student always just always sticks with me. That’s my favorite one. But that’s my advice and start there. 

CHATMAN: That’s a nice way of framing it—I like that. Yeah. 

GOMEZ: Yeah, I’m going to cheat, and that’s what I was going to say. I think once you leave Haas, you don’t stop learning. You really continue your learning. It’s a lifelong sport, I think. And you said it earlier, they’re all very related. I don’t think one is more important than the other. For me, that one lands really well because I can think of many times in my career—early and now, later in my career—where I’m still learning. And I show my kids that all the time. Actually, I was tested last night because my kid had a geometry, something corresponding angles. And I was like, ‘Whoa, this is beyond ChatGPT. Let me get this proof solved.’

CHATMAN: Sal Khan. 

GOMEZ: But anyway, just showing that you’re always learning, even as you are later in your career or early in your career. 

CHATMAN: Yeah, amazing. Hey, can we give our panel a huge round of applause? 

[APPLAUSE] 

Thank you. Just fantastic insights and perspectives. Wow, what a great offering. Thank you. We’re going to look at our board now. Is this what we came up with? 

So the biggest ones are the most often—so the blueprint authentic representation community, the DLPs are a differentiator. Guiding light, shared values. My core. That’s nice. North star, outside the box. Very cool. We’re going to keep building this and we’ll keep looking at it over time. Thank you, all, for coming. This is amazing. It shows great sort of school spirit and your interest, and your contributions will keep us evolving on the DLPs, will keep them fresh and refreshed and keep them moving. 

Thank you, Elena, Marc, Sean—Sarah, who organizes the Dean Speaker series. She never wants a clap, but Sarah and Carrie. Where’s Carrie? Amazing. Yeah. Special thanks to our Dean’s Speaker Series. Puneet and David, continue to live out the DLPs. You inspire us and your stories inspire us. I want to hear if you’re raising your kids this way, how it’s working. Or if you’re going to place the DLPs in your business, what angle are you using? I’d love to hear these stories. Thank you so much. Go Bears! 

[APPLAUSE] 

Oh, hey, we have pins, if you want to pin. And there were cupcakes. I don’t know if—there are cupcakes in the back. Be sure to grab a DLP cupcake. Thanks, everyone.