The Secret Sauce Silicon Valley Bank Is Hard to Copy

There are levels to leadership, and at the CEO level, the leadership needs are many, but it’s important to strike the right balance. CEOs must think about strategy in both the short and long term but also must not lose sight of the culture they create. ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ as Peter Drucker famously said, and a wise leader pays close attention to the culture in their organization. 

Ken Wilcox is the and previously served as its CEO. Ken is also an author, and his latest book, Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures That Motivate People to Achieve Great Things, is a guidebook for leaders of all kinds on how to create culture and, more importantly, why it is so important. 

Ken and Greg discuss Ken’s history with Silicon Valley Bank, but also why he was so successful there because of his emphasis and attention to creating the right culture. Ken goes over some key parts of being a good leader and the characteristics of different types of people in the organization. Ken and Greg also discuss the current state of SVB and what happened, as well as the interesting history of SVB starting a joint venture with China. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

You cannot hire good people to help you build the culture

04:35: You can hire good people to help you build the strategy. You cannot hire good people to help you build the culture. That's something that has to emanate from the CEO, I believe. And the other thing about that is that if you have a good strategy but a poor culture, you're not going to do well. If you have a great culture and maybe a poor strategy, you can always bring some strategic thinkers on board, either in the form of employees or consultants, and they can help you create a much better strategy.

Great leaders have a vision

09:30: Great leaders have a vision. They're not focused on the present. They delegate most of the responsibility for what happens today and tomorrow to their management team. But most of them are looking into the future and saying, "Where is it I would like us to go, and how will we get there?" and sharing that over and over again with the management team and with the entire corporation.

What makes a great CEO?

10:01: Great leaders realize they can't do it all by themselves. They build themselves a management team, and then they use that management team to inform them before they make a decision. And one thing that's key here is who makes the decisions. I think good CEOs delegate most decisions downward and focus on only the really big decisions that have to do with long-term direction.

Choosing the right adults for your team

13:38: The people on your team are adults who understand that adults have different opinions, that all opinions may be valuable to one degree or another, and that the way to solve problems with other adults is to have good discussions where people are being honest without being bossy. There are two kinds of people, or three kinds of people, that you could bring onto a management team that are adults, and those are the people you should seek.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Forbes article on ‘Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast’
• LinkedIn article on Leadership Shadow
• Wikipedia article on Cyrus the Great
• Wikipedia article on Charles M. Williams

Guest Profile:

• Professional Profile on LeadingThroughCulture.org
• Professional Profile on WildChina.com
• Contributor’s Profile at Stanford University
• Ken Wilcox on LinkedIn

His Work:

• Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures That Motivate People to Achieve Great Things
• Amazon Author Page for Ken Wilcox
• Stanford Lectures by Ken Wilcox

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