3 Life and Business Lessons from the CEO of Art.com http://bit.ly/2DQULg9 Kira Wampler is the CEO of Art.com, which was acquired by Walmart in December. Prior, she was the CMO of both Trulia and Lyft. When I caught up with Kira at the gathering of the Duke Association for Business Oriented Women (BOW) we talked about her defining career moments, what keeps her energized, and the advice she’d give her 21-year-old self. Sanyin: When you look back at your amazing career, what was a defining moment? Kira: One of the most important moments for me was when I was given Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset. I read it in an afternoon. I picked it up and I could not put it down. I read it at a time when my daughter was a year and a half, and I was pregnant with my son. My career was really growing. It changed how I approached my life: instead of a fixed mindset, I wanted to approach my life with a growth mindset. I started to apply this mindset to everything: How could I raise my children with a growth mindset? How could I run a company with a growth mindset? My favorite quotation is, “You have to go out on a limb to get the fruit.” That's fundamentally about taking risks. You want to take smart risks, and you want to mitigate risk that might affect the business, but you still have to take them. To me, a growth mindset is about having insatiable curiosity about the world around you. It drives change and disruption. I hadn’t realized that I had grown up with a fixed mindset. I remember my first semester of college—I went to Georgetown for undergrad, and I got a C on an economics test. I had never gotten a C before, so I thought I was going to fail out. I called my dad and he said that my college career wasn’t going play out that way. I learned to embrace challenge, embrace the unknown, and that it was going to be okay. I needed to learn how to face challenges through a lens of growth. Sanyin: Carol Dweck's book has had a tremendous influence on me as well and how we look at failures and mistakes. It’s about realizing that failure can be part of our long-term growth, even though they can be painful in the short-term. Kira: I've been in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, and while it seems that some of these companies were overnight successes, the folks at these companies have been working on these ideas for 10, 15, 20 years. John Zimmer and Logan Green, who founded Lyft, were working on that idea when they were teenagers. They founded Lyft in their late twenties and early thirties, but they had already been in transportation for over a decade. It’s important for people to understand that you’ve got to work with a long-term goal in mind. You’ve got to be passionate and understand why you’re passionate. Sanyin: When you went from Lyft, as a CMO, to the CEO of art.com, what got you excited about going to work? And what keeps you energized when you go to work every day? Kira: It's the same thing that's been keeping me energized throughout my career: Being obsessed with customers. We're trying to make our customers’ lives better with art. We believe, and we know from the data, that when people have art around, they're happier. They're more creative. They're more relaxed. They have a higher sense of well-being in their in their lives, whether they're at home or at work. I obsess about how to put more art in people's lives—which couldn’t be more fun! The team at Art.com also energizes me. We have some of the most creative thinkers, designers, engineers, marketers, finance folks, and merchandisers, and our interactions are democratic. The leadership team believes that our job isn’t to tell you what you should like. Our job is to help you discover what you like to do. Sanyin: Your employees feel like they belong in the conversation. You clearly love your team. Kira: I was just in Ohio where we have our manufacturing facility. We hand-make all of our frames and wood mounds on canvas. I was watching all the work it takes for our customers to buy a single piece, and it makes me so proud to see what the artists are doing. Sanyin: Your company is also going through a transformation. What do you look for when you're hiring new team members? Kira: I look for passion. I also want to know what bugs you. What is irritating? The best managers—whether they’re product managers or engineers—are never satisfied. If I know what irritates you, I know what you’ll work to make better. I like people who are driven problem-solvers, collaborative workers, and those who put the customer first. I’m always looking for lifelong learners. Sanyin: You’re looking for those who have a growth mindset. What would you tell the 21-year-old Kira? Kira: The first thing I would say is, “Don't worry.” While worrying can be a benefit and help you to stay focused and plan, I would say that enjoying the curiosity matters more. I’d tell her to continue to experiment and explore new things. I’ve taken risks in my career, but it wasn’t without some worry along the way. I’d go back and say, “Look, don’t worry so much. It’ll work out.” Sanyin: Having insatiable curiosity is a great way to overcome the fear of failure every time. As an executive coach, I often counsel those I'm working with to think about the positive what-ifs and what are the potential learning that can help with a longer-term goal. How else do you think about building success? Kira: I think the other thing I'd add, and maybe not so much for the 21-year-old Kira, but certainly for the type-A, high-performing, individual contributor, which is what a lot of folks would like to be as they're coming out of undergrad or business school, I would say what I have seen over and over again when I interact with founders, when I interact with business leaders, when I hire leaders, is that the people for whom the team's success is more important than individual success are always the ones that come out on top. I went to the Fuqua School of Business here at Duke University, and I just am so grateful for the structured approach to collaboration: the lessons that you learn on how to quickly make it work with a team, and how to get the best out of a team. I had been learning that lesson before business school, and then I really got the playbook solidified here at Duke. I can tell you about the folks who are the smartest in the room, the most accomplished, the best IP, raised a ton of money, and if they if they can't get over, that my team is more important than me, they don't make it. It defines for me the difference between someone who's a high performer and someone who's going to be exceptional. Takeaways
Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/dTEDZf February 18, 2019 at 12:24PM
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