Building a Foundation for Success | Mark Gottfredson

About Mark Gottfredson

Mark Gottfredson is a partner of Bain and Company at the Dallas office, the office he founded in 1990. Mark’s client work is primarily focused on full potential programs, revenue enhancement, cost reduction, complexity management and major change programs.

Mark is the author of The Breakthrough Imperative book, and has written extensively for publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Singapore Business Times, South China Morning Post, London Business School’s Business Strategy Review, World Business Review, and The Edge (Malaysia).

Mark is fluent in Japanese and has worked extensively in Japan. In 2005, Consulting Magazine named him one of the world’s top twenty-five consultants. He graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University and in 1983 he received his MBA from Harvard Business School with high distinction.

 

Interview Transcript:

Alan
Welcome back and visiting here today with Mark Gottfredson. He’s a partner with Bain consulting Mark, welcome to today’s show.

Mark
Thank you. Happy to be here.

Alan
So Mark, for the listeners here. Can you give us your background of your pathway, maybe just starting from school, what? What brought you up to where you are today, the positions you’ve held and some of the notable things in life?

Mark
Sure. So I was born into a family, a military family, my father was in the Air Force. And so I grew up all over the country, I lived in 17 different places. By the time I was 17 years old. I then went and served a mission in Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And then did my education at Brigham Young University, got a degree in Japanese from BYU, and then headed off to Harvard Business School. I graduated from Harvard Business School in 1983. And I joined Bain and Company then I’ve been with Bain and Company ever since.

Alan
Yeah, it’s interesting that right out of school going with one company and not changing, I think that it’s not like the millennials today are people coming out of school, several career changes. But this coming back what? What directed you towards the consulting industry? And it’s it’s changed over the years. But what was it like when you started?

Mark
Well, you know, when I went to Harvard, I had had a little bit of background in consulting, because I had a, a missionary companion, who had a father who had a small consulting firm, and I did a little bit of work for him during the summers when I was at BYU. So I had some idea of what it was, and then I, I went to business school. And the thing that I realized very quickly is that you could have a big impact. And that that has been kind of a theme in my life is making a difference having an impact. And it just seemed to me like in the consulting industry, and the kind of things that Bain and Company worked on, got to the biggest issues that companies faced, and you could get in, dive in and work on those issues, and then see the company change, you can make a difference early on in your career. And so that’s kind of what got me started. What kept me going was really the people that I worked with the variability in the work constantly new, interesting challenges to focus on. And as I had many opportunities over the years to go and do different things, and as I evaluated them, I found that I loved what I was doing. And so I stuck with it.

Alan
You know, so you haven’t in your tenure with with main consulting, you took a little bit of time off. And what what, what did you do during that time? And, you know, how did that affect the career.

Mark
So just to give you a little bit of background on, you know, how I had progressed in, I worked at Bain and Company actually started in our San Francisco office, I was there for about a year, moved to Boston and worked there for about six years. And then, and then I opened the Dallas office of Bain and Company and lead the office in the growth there. And I did that for about a decade. And in 1990, or assuming the 2000, I had the opportunity to go and serve the church, the church came to me and said, Would you be willing to do this? And I said, Yes, I would. And, and so I had the opportunity to serve as a mission president in the Japan Fukuoka mission. For those three years, it was 2000 to 2003, I had the opportunity to preside over about 160 missionaries in the southern part of Japan, and just had a wonderful experience in helping to share the gospel and to serve other people give a little bit back.

Alan
Now serving the missionaries is no easy undertaking, especially I guess you’re used to running a consulting company or an office and suddenly you’re thrown in the midst of a bunch of 19 to 21 year old paperwork. But what was the the changes that you notice as you’re you’re trying to get your ground there?

Mark
Well, there are some differences. You know, when you’re in the business world, and you have relationships with people that are boss and employee kinds of relationships, and where you can actually give them compensation. You motivate them with a series of carrots and sticks that you have, if they don’t perform well, they won’t stay with the company. If they perform well they can they can grow and be promoted and, and then receive compensation and so on and so forth. When you’re working with a group of volunteers, what you’re really doing is you’re dealing with intrinsic motivations. And their intrinsic motivation is they want to make a difference in people’s lives. So you’re not working with the top of the top, you know, at Bain and Company, we recruit from the top 10% of the top schools. Here you get a mishmash of across the across the spectrum. And yet what I found it Is that when you’re dealing with people’s human emotions, and what their most important incentives which are to make a difference in people’s lives, to bring the gospel to people, and to do the right thing, you can actually get a lot out of it. And because people are trying to do things for the right reasons, if you can really instill with them, here’s what you need to do to accomplish the things you want to accomplish, they will break down walls and go after it. So it’s a very different set. But once you get used to it, it’s actually even more powerful, I think, in many ways.

Alan
And visiting here today with Mark Gottfredson, and he’s a partner with Bain and Company, Mark, I need a quick break. And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back in this mere day with Mark Gottfredson, he is a partner with Bain and Company and, and mark in the last segment, we’re talking about working with a group of individuals that were missionaries at a time that, you know, how do you motivate people when when compensation is not part of the criteria? I want to jump back into Bain and Company and what drove you to get where you are in your career today. You mentioned that you you jumped into opening up a new office and expanding but

Mark
Sure, so I’ve had many, many opportunities, and in my career has been tremendous. One of the things that’s always been important to me, as I mentioned to you in the previous segment is this idea of being able to make a difference in whatever you do. And so when I work with companies, and I work with chief executives, it’s always about what can we do to accomplish something that is, in fact, truly great. How can we turn around a company and make it go from perhaps not great performance to great performance? How can we take good performing companies and really get them to, to become great, this idea of we need to do something that’s constructive. If we do something that’s constructive, it helps the society it creates jobs, it creates opportunities for people, if companies are growing, then then they have people that are excited, happy, their lives go better. So this idea of making a difference has driven me throughout even when I was a mission president, the idea of making a difference in people’s lives, seeing them be able to become more happy, more grounded. One of the things that has been critical in all of that, I think, is having the right foundation. And this has been a theme that I brought as the head of the Office in Dallas. It’s a theme that I’ve tried to bring to the company as I’ve served on the company’s board of directors. And as I have headed practices and so on within the company, this idea that you have to have the proper foundation in your life to be able to accomplish the other things. I often use the phrase and I’ve used it with people I recruit I’ve used it in speeches within the company is that if you put first things first and second thing second, you can have both first and second things. But if you put second things first, and first thing second, you’ll get neither first nor second things. So what are the first things and what are the second things? Well, the first things are building a foundation, with your family. Family is the foundation of everything. If you have a strong family foundation, you get along well with your spouse, you have your children doing the right things. It frees up a lot of mindshare to be able to focus on what’s happening in the business world. Faith is another foundational issue here. People of faith tend to have a grounding, which helps them to be ethical and appropriate in the workplace. If you have that foundation of what I call first things, and it’s actually quite easy to succeed in the business world, because you’re doing the right things for the right reasons. That’s such a critical foundation. I’ve seen individuals who their career is their foundation. And they work hard, they come into the business and they work hard then their family life starts to suffer. Their marriages break down. And when that happens, there’s success in the business world starts to falter, because they can’t keep their mind on it don’t have the space to be able to accomplish on succeeding. And so for me having the right foundation is one of the things that has driven me right from the beginning. And it’s proven to be true. If I’ve had that foundation, everything else is falling into place.

Alan
Mark, I need to take a quick break and visiting here today with Mark Gottfredson he is a partner with Bain and Company and we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back and busy here today with Mark Gottfredson. He’s a partner with Bain and Company. And, Mark in the last segment, it resonated so well, when you talked about First things first and second thing second in putting your family first and then your faith. But let’s let’s move that into now the workplace, you you alluded to the fact that people that don’t have that initial foundation oftentimes falter in their life? And how do you how do you apply that in a day to day work setting and relationships with those around you?

Mark
Well, I think, you know, you’re probably looking at how does that impact an individual? And and also, how do you provide leadership to get people to apply that in their own lives? You know, there’s been many, many books written on leadership. And, and I’m sure that in the time that we’ve got here, we can’t cover all the elements of leadership. But there are a couple of things that I would say. One is, there’s a there’s an integrity, there’s having a set of values, and then living by those values. And, and if if you are living values, people will look up to you. That’s something that I think is absolutely critical. And leadership is people are looking for a beacon that they can sort of go after. And so you need to have a pillar of basic values that you espouse. And those who can share those values will be attracted to you. And they’ll follow. Second thing is that, when you’re working with people, one of the things that’s really important is, is that you be a good listener. And people will ask your advice, if you can, if they feel that you can understand them. And so it’s first understand before you can provide any advice, and actually, probably seven times out of 10. If you just listen to people, they’ll actually figure it out themselves. And you don’t have to give any advice. And so you take the opportunity to listen to them. And if you’re a person that they feel they can listen to, they’ll actually be almost magnetically attracted to you. And so I think one of the key elements of being a good leader, and applying things in the business world is to be a good listener. And if they come at you, and the values are not there, or the core is not there, that’s where you can provide them advice. And I find that it’s really interesting, people will come and talk to me oftentimes about their career. And all ended up giving them advice about their family. If you fix that, these other things will take care of themselves. Of course, sometimes there are very specific things you need to talk about. You shouldn’t be saying stupid things in a meeting or, you know, those kinds of those kinds of comments that you’ll that you’ll make to people, but people are attracted to this. And if they feel like you’re developing them, they’ll go to the end of the earth to help you jointly accomplish great things.

Alan
Can win when you’re when you’re in the consulting arena. And you spent a number of years before coming into opening up the Dallas office. I want to spend a few minutes though, talking about that transition of speaking directly working with the companies to working internally being the captain among the consultants. How was that transition?

Mark
Well, it was learning experience, obviously, you know, I mean, I think one of the things you do as you go throughout your life is you have different roles and as you have the different roles you need to you need to learn about them. When we first opened the Dallas office, I had a group of people here and suddenly I had the experience of it was actually a difficult period in beans history a time when we had some financial troubles back in the 1990 91 timeframe and I had opened an office. And I was suddenly in a position where I realized that I was largely responsible for whether these people had a job or not, that my going out being able to generate some business was, first of all, absolutely critical as to whether these people would be able to feed their families or not. And that was a new sense of responsibility. For me that was overwhelming in many ways, you know, it would lie awake at night, wondering if I’d be able to accomplish what needed to be done on it. And to be honest with you, I hadn’t been well trained in things like selling business. So I went out and bought sales tapes and, and listen to them in the car as I was traveling in it, it built a habit for me of when I have time, when I’m in a car or something like that can otherwise be engaged, to constantly be trying to learn about new things, as I’m going through that. And that sense that I need to learn at every step along the way. You know, at other times, you know, I served on the board of directors of Bain and Company. And with that, I’ve had to think about the the good of the entire company. When you’re dealing with things like promotions, and compensation and things like that, there’s a lot of administrative aspects to that. But at their core, they’re actually intensely personal things for the individuals that you’re working with. And being able to recognize and think about how that impacts them personally, is a critical element, again, of having sort of the integrity in the process.

Alan
You know, that Warren Buffett once said that the things that drive markets are our fear and greed. And you touched on something that the level of uncertainty, stepping into a new role. Now, I want to bring this fast for we live in a world today of ever changing values and technologies. And when you look into the future, what are some of the drivers that really keep you going, pushing the new frontiers in the boundaries?

Mark
Well, you know, I think, again, I’ve talked about the fact that I want to make a difference in people’s lives. And that that drives me, I have, since I’ve been back, in addition to the work that I do at Bain and Company, I’ve been very involved with a number of nonprofits. I’m very involved with the Boy Scouts, for example, I’m very involved, I continue to have positions of responsibility in the church. And so I have a lot of outside interests, in addition to inside interests. And if you look at the things and the places that I spend my time, it’s all about trying to build constructive values and ethics amongst people. I think that, for example, the Boy Scouts of America is a is really the best organization at building ethical values in in young men. And, and therefore I spend a lot of my time on that. As I said, I have leadership roles in the church. And so I am, I’m speaking to people on a regular basis, about about building faith, and becoming happy in this in this mortal life. And so that’s that motivation, I think this will be with me throughout my life, which is it’s about helping people accomplish their full potential in their lives. It’s true with my clients, is true with the employees at Bain and Company. It’s a true with the people that I work with at church, and that I work with in other extracurricular activities as well. That’s really the theme.

Alan
If you looked at fast forward, and then say, looking back in the future, what do you want to be known for? The person says, you know, Mark, was this type of individual?

Mark
Well, first of all, I’d like my kids to say, he was a good father. And, and that they looked up to me, I think that that’s my most important responsibility at the end of the day, and if I failed with my children, that would be the biggest failure of all. The second thing that I think I would like people to, to say about me and to be to be known for is that this is somebody who helped to develop others. He was successful in his own right. But he was somebody who gave credit to others, and he developed others, and they were able to be successful as a result. And I mean, successful not just in a business sense, but successful at life. And if I’ve accomplished that, that will have been a tremendous, a tremendous legacy.

Alan
When you look at the world today, what do you say some of the biggest challenges are amongst society and maybe rather than do the broad struck that we’re always just looking in this country.

Mark
You know, I think in this country, we, one of the one of the real challenges that we have is, is around the values that we hold. I see lots of people wanting to be good and wanting to do good things they want To save the planet, they want people to be healthy. They. There’s lots of good things out there. And I think that that’s absolutely tremendous. But I think that many of the core fundamental principles, remember I said that first things are families. And I think our families are in trouble. I think if our families were strong, and we had strong nuclear families, and those enveloped values were taught to children, and those children carried those values forward, we’d be much better off as a country, you can talk about what’s happening politically and everything else. But I think at its core, it starts in the home. And I think too often the home is ignored. And that foundation is the critical element.

Alan
Okay, and the last thing where I’m just gonna throw this out there being abandoned company, where do you see the future, the consultancy practice?

Mark
Well, you know, our business has grown. If you look back over the 33 years that I’ve been at Bain and Company, our average growth has been 12% a year and you say, you know, how long can you grow at double digit rates before you’re sort of taking over the whole economy? And the truth is, there’s actually a lot of room. And the reason is that the world is moving faster, business problems are becoming even bigger. And there’s always going to be demand for people who have experience dealing with strategy and can solve the world’s toughest business problems. There’s always going to be demand for that. And so I think as the pace picks up, our business will continue to do extremely well.

Alan
Market person wants to contact you on a consultancy basis. How would they go and do that?

Mark
Well, my email address is mark.gottfredson@bain.com. You can also contact us generally by going to our website which is www.bing.com.

Alan
Mark, thanks for being with us today.

 

We hope you enjoyed this interview; “Building a Foundation for Success | Mark Gottfredson”.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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