President Bell: It is my pleasure to introduce Mr. Harry Stonecipher, Vice Chairman (Retired) of The Boeing Corporation. Harry. Stonecipher is arguably Tennessee Tech Univertity's most prominent alumnus. He recently retired as Vice Chairman of the Boeing Company, a world leader in the aircraft industry where he also served as President and CEO. Harry's career in aerospace spans more than 40 years. He graduated from TN Tech in 1960 with a degree in physics and started his career at General Electric Company as a senior lab technician. By the early 1980s he was heading the company's entire aircraft engine product operations. In 1987 Harry left GE for Sunstrand Corporation where he quickly progressed to lead the company as President, CEO and eventually Chairman of the Board of Directors. By 1994 Harry was elected President and CEO of McDonnell Douglass Corporation. While there he initiated and led the company's merger with the Boeing Company. But beyond his personal achievements as an industry leader, Harry's rise to national prominence reignited his personal commitment to honoring his roots in Tennessee . In the early 1990s he took an active fundraising role at Tennessee Tech University , chairing our first major capital campaign. And by 1997 his leadership helped raise more than $23 million for our campus, including more than $ 4.7 million personally raised or donated by Harry and his wife Joan. Now that he's retired, Harry has committed to an even more active role at Tennessee Tech where he chairs our first Foundation Board of Directors and chairs our National Board of Advisors. Harry, it's great to see you and it's great to have you back at Tennessee Tech and back in the state of Tennessee . We want to cover a number of questions with you. The first question: What's the essential role of a leader?

Harry Stonecipher: Well, I've always described that a leader's most important thing they can do has to do with selection. Selection of really good people is most important. But, I think selection of goals and then being able to communicate those goals. You find many people who are in positions of leadership may be great at goal setting but they're never able to communicate the goals in a manner which motivates the people. And of course that is the essence of leadership: motivation. How do you motivate those people that you're trying to lead? And before you can get to that point you have to make up your mind that you're going to be a leader and not a driver because there's a big difference.

President Bell: Speaking of being a leader, what have you found, personally, to be the biggest challenges to leadership?

Harry Stonecipher: I think the biggest challenges are always the social side of it or the people side. It's change. People hate change. We all hate change. Or, said another way, we'd like to see change, but we want everything else to change to the way we like it. So I think, throughout my career at every level, the biggest challenge has been instituting change or trying to describe change or get people comfortable with change. So it comes down to people.

President Bell: Tell us a little bit about some of the pitfalls that have caused good leaders that you've known to fail.

Harry Stonecipher: Well, I think they lost the recipe, as I say. Sometimes people come along, they're doing great work and they get promoted to a position beyond their capabilities or maybe it's even within their capabilities but somewhere along the line they become imperial in their approach. They think they're invincible. So they suddenly decide that all the rules don't apply to them and they make some serious mistakes in judgment. I think today we're seeing the results of some of that in many of our companies. I think it's happened throughout government, throughout industry and everywhere. People forget where they came from. It's very important to remember your roots. My father used to call me frequently, when he was alive and as I was progressing and he said, “Be humble.” Every conversation ended with “Be humble. Remember where you came from.”

President Bell: Could you name some other leaders you admire and tell us why?

Harry Stonecipher: Certainly Jack Welch is one of the great leaders in my mind. And of course he was selected as CEO of the Century by Fortune magazine a couple years ago. And of course about 20 years ago that same magazine coined the phrase “Neutron Jack” and of course they vilified him at every turn. Jack had a style that was one of trying to change the environment not to just deal with the environment. So he inspired people with that. So he's certainly one. I think Andy Grove from Intel has to be one who recognized the importance, I think, as he took over Intel from Gordon Moore that you have to keep technology moving. Too many people want to try and protect their technology. So they get stagnant and they start building fences. His whole idea is ‘move fast and no one can catch you'. So Andy Grove is a great leader. I think Roberto Guizetta, from a consumer products standpoint, who took over Coca Cola. He redefined what his competitor was. He convinced his people that Pepsi Cola was not their competitor. Their competitor was water. Their competitor is what people drink. In fact, I personally heard him say on one occasion that he wishes he were younger because he had just discovered Indonesia . It's the fifth largest population in the world and they only drink tea and water. So he doesn't have to compete with alcoholic beverages or a number of other things. He was a great marketing guy as far as I'm concerned. So there's three and there are lots of others.

President Bell: What advice would you give to someone who aspires to become a leader?

Harry Stonecipher: You have to like people. That's the first thing. You have to like change. You have to inspire change and you have to be open to change. The two most important skills you can have; and many people argue they're the same; communication skills and interpersonal skills. I've seen some really brilliant people throughout my career but they were never able to get their idea across because they simply couldn't communicate. They couldn't communicate it in a way that would cause the people you need to buy in. You have to have buy-in. There's a selling job that goes with leadership. I think the most important thing you can do every day is to say ‘do I have a better idea? Am I willing to accept a better idea from someone else?' So, it comes down to communication and communication is not just talking, it's listening. You don't learn very much from talking. You learn a lot from listening.

President Bell: Final question: A lot of leadership seems to focus; or at leas what students study seems to focus on leading downward; leading people who report to you. The chief executive and really most other leaders in companies also influence people who are outside their realm of control: their boards, they influence upward and influence customers. How does that balance work? What's the most important side? Is it the followers? Or is it the others who are also part of that leader's responsibility?

Harry Stonecipher: I think it's actually the others. In fact, once you've come to a position of leadership of those people, as you described downward, those people downward are going to give you their loyalty. They're going to give you their best efforts because they're counting on you to deal with those other constituencies, whether they be shareholders, whether they be governments or the media because all those are important in developing the integrity, the reputation of the enterprise. So you have a responsibility to those people that are working very hard to execute your vision and you have a responsibility to take care of those constituencies that aren't so easily controlled. I know that you, as a college president, represent a number of good Tech students in trying to represent to the constituencies you have to answer to.

President Bell: Thank you for being here.

Harry Stonecipher: It's great to be here.