Laura interviews Peter Cuneo about leadership tips and how to use them to improve your personal finances.
Laura interviews Peter Cuneo about leadership tips and how to use them to improve your personal finances.
Money Girl is hosted by Laura Adams.
Transcript: https://money-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/money-and-leadership-lessons-with-peter-cuneo/transcript
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Hey friends, welcome back to episode 934 of the Money Girl Podcast! I'm Laura Adams, an award-winning author, financial spokesperson, speaker, founder of The Money Stack, a Substack newsletter, and host of Money Girl with over 44 million downloads. You can always connect with me and learn more at LauraDAdams.com.
Today, I’m excited to be joined by the special guest you just heard, Peter Cuneo. He’s a recognized leader and one of the best turnaround CEOs in America, according to Forbes. Since 1983, Peter has completed seven turnarounds of global brands you know, like Clarirol, Black & Decker, Remington, and Marvel Entertainment. He took Marvel from bankruptcy to one of the world’s leading entertainment brands, with a $4.5 billion sale to Disney in 2009.
Peter hosts the Superhero Leadership Podcast, which starts its second season this month. Whether you want to lead a huge company or create more financial success in your household, Peter says there are similar strategies and values to adopt.
On his site at PeterCuneo.com, you’ll find his 32 Essentials for Superhero Leadership, which are all gold. As you’ll hear in today’s interview, Peter and I have a great conversation about:
So here's my interview with Peter Cuneo.
Laura Adams
Peter, I am so excited to have you on Money Girl. Thank you so much for joining me.
Peter Cuneo
Very happy to be here.
Laura Adams
You were named Mr. Superhero on the cover of Harvard Business School Magazine. Tell us a little bit about that and a summary of your background.
Peter Cuneo
I was raised in New York City. I went to public high school in New York City. I went upstate New York to Alfred University and got a degree in ceramic engineering. Alfred is number one in the world in ceramics. Many years later, I was the chairman of the board of trustees for six years at Alfred.
After I worked for a year in a fiberglass factory, I decided I didn't want to be an engineer. So I went in the US Navy to the Vietnam War. I was an officer on a guided missile destroyer. Did two tours. I was a communications officer one tour and I was a damage control officer on another. For those of you, your listeners, your audience that know the Navy, would know what I mean when I say I was also a qualified officer of the deck fleet and command duty officer and air intercept controller as well.
And then after the Navy, I went to Harvard Business School. And then after that, I started a career really as a financial person in big corporations, but primarily consumer products, and entertainment. And then I fell into the world of turnarounds. My first turnaround, I thought, you know, I was thrown into it by my boss actually.
I had no idea I had any skills whatsoever. I was frankly kind of down the first six months. And then we started getting results. And I realized it was about leadership and my leadership and so on. And then I, over time, became addicted to turnarounds.
So I've done seven successful turnarounds. The one that gets the most attention is I was the CEO of Marvel Entertainment coming out of bankruptcy. I was there for 10 years, four years roughly as CEO and then six years as vice chairman of the board. And we sold after those 10 years to the Walt Disney Company for $4.5 billion. So bankruptcy to $4.5 billion in 10 years, not too bad. And so on.
And my family has some of his own businesses. But today I'm in tech. I'm currently the chairman of three technology companies. One is an AI company based in San Francisco. One is a med tech company based in New Jersey. And one is a technology company, a nanotechnology company based in Luxembourg in Europe.
But I'm also doing a lot of nonprofit stuff. I'm on the board of the National Archives in Washington, National Archives Foundation. I've been on the board now, I think it's 14 years.
And I have a podcast we just completed last year, season one, it's called Superhero Leadership. And we just announced we're launching season two on the ninth of this month. So we're about a week away from doing that. The podcast is evolving. Last year was more of a learning experience on our part. I have a team of four people and we learned a lot and we're doing a lot of things differently this year, hopefully better. We did not video last year. This year we're videoing as well as recording. We're also, I interview proven great leaders. Some of them are names you might know.
Some of them are names that people in their industries know, but the average American or listener might not know their names. But when you hear their story, it's pretty amazing.
Laura Adams
If someone has a personal financial hardship, maybe the loss of a job or something challenging going on in their career, how can they approach it like a corporate turnaround?
Peter Cuneo
Well, let me talk about Marvel for a minute. Now Marvel was a New York Stock Exchange company, so it's not a startup. But the concept that I'd like to talk about fits just as well for this kind of situation you're talking about. Most people are surprised, particularly when they ask me about Marvel, how could you pull that off? It's amazing. And it must be because you made great movies and great comic books, and we did do very well there, but that's not the reason.
The reason, and this is always the basis for any turnaround situation, and I'm seven for seven on turnarounds, I've done three in Europe as well, is the culture of the organization is always wrong. The value system of the organization, how the organization treats the people that work there treats the people it works with outside the company, suppliers, investors, consultants, whatever form that takes. And it's also, the culture is, what's important for us to be great at? Is it customer service? Is it manufacturing? Is it new products? Whatever is appropriate for that particular business. What are the things you really have to be a star at? Don't have to be a star at everything. Obviously, you want to be good, but what do you have to be great at?
And in every one of my turnarounds, the culture was completely wrong. So I had to work on changing culture, as well as making other changes and changing culture, changing the way people think takes time. Don't think you can do it in a month by just announcing here's our new culture. No one will change. Where the leadership really comes in is you have as the leader have to behave in a way that says, this person is not kidding.
Laura Adams
In households that are struggling with their finances, I think a lack of good communication can often be a part of the problem. How do you improve communication, you know, not only in your company, but also at home?
Peter Cuneo
Well, in a way, they’re both different. I think they're similar, but they're also different. So starting with a company, sounds like someone briefed you because I often say that one of the biggest lackings that I see in poor leadership today, and there's a lot of poor leadership, just turn on the news. And I'm not talking political parties or whatever. I'm just saying in general, we have less good leadership in the world than maybe ever.
And one of the problems is a lack of communication. Very effective leaders are very good at communicating. But many leaders who are not effective just don't understand the value of communicating. And talking to the people in the organization on a regular basis, formal, informal, both can work. You're not going to get to everyone informally if you're ever a big organization.
And consistently being honest, transparent. Here's where we're doing well. Here's where our problems are. That's okay. Human beings are really interested in being in the know. They hate not knowing, even if the news isn't good. They prefer to hear the not so good news, if there is any of that. And there always is a turnaround to start, for sure.
So I think, you know, you've got to consistently say and be saying the same things to everybody. Don't repeat the last person that talked to you, told you something and suddenly you're coming out with something different from what you said three days earlier. You know, you have to be consistent and value communicating.
I think at home, now I'm married for 54 years. So my wife and I have figured out communications. They may not be perfect every day, but I think you do. It's the same, a lot of the same things. You have to talk regularly. Make sure your family, whether it could be your kids, your wife, your partner, your husband, whatever form, make sure that you're still thinking simply, you know, even on simple stuff.
You know, I think we should move. Okay, let's move. A month later, I don't want to move. Well, I already did this and that and you know, that can happen. It's things like that. Talk constantly about what everybody's thinking and just be transparent, particularly with kids. Good news, bad news.
You know, people are not learning leadership you know, these days for a lot of reasons, but one of them is over parenting. And over parenting, there really isn't much good communication. These are well-meaning parents, but they think the best way for their kids to grow up is never to have a negative thought about themselves. So they basically program, you'll go to this school, you'll play this instrument, this sport, these will be your friends.
You know, bad grades in school? Well, I'm going to go to school and tell the teacher off. It's the teacher's fault, not yours. You didn't make the elite soccer team, lacrosse team, whatever team, it's the coach's fault. And it might be, by the way. But the kids have to learn that you can't walk through life and everything will work out. Sometimes you'll make mistakes. We're all human. We all make mistakes.
Laura Adams
Peter, can you think of some financial advice you wish you had learned earlier?
Peter Cuneo
I don't know about sooner, but I might have had less sleepless nights. Because I'm a risk taker by nature, and as you can see, I wish someone had said to me, Peter, take some percent of what you make every year, stick it in a very conservative account with a brokerage firm and forget it. And you'd be surprised at, you know, many decades later how much money you'll actually have in there.
Be conservative, just solid returns every year. Don't make any bets on the latest thing, the trend in finance. Just take 10%, 15%, 20%, whatever you can afford. And just put away and literally barely remember you even have this account.
I wish I'd heard that. It would have helped me a lot, actually, with my sleep. Although, as I said, in turnarounds, if you can be good and successful, you're going to do very well financially. But in my case, it came in big lumps. You know, rather than steady every year, it was, you know, like this. So, yeah, that's one thing I wish I'd grasped a little younger.
Laura Adams
Yeah, I always believe that slow and steady can win the race, right? Investing 10% to 15% of your income is something that I always recommend. And you know, as you said, almost forgetting about it, not really forgetting, but almost forgetting about it. And then over decades, you can see just some incredible growth. What else? Is there anything else you can recommend?
Peter Cuneo
And then I think lifestyle. It's all about lifestyle really and everyone has different feelings about that. So on the one thing I would say is tailor your lifestyle to what you can afford I've all known an awful lot of people who go as they say over the tips of their skis when it came to spending and what have you just you know, just lost control and actually made fair amount of money, but just lost control.
Don't worry about keeping up with the Joneses. This is another thing I see particularly with young people today. You I live in this fancy neighborhood and the guy down the block is earning this, so I gotta earn that. Or they've got the fancy car, I gotta have a fancy car. It happens even with very intelligent, highly educated people. Ego matters. Keep your ego in check. You can go up nicely, but in smaller steps. Don't get carried away with the Joneses.
Laura Adams
Peter, what leadership advice do you have for new graduates or maybe somebody who's just starting their career or really starting to move up the ladder at their job?
Peter Cuneo
I'm glad you asked me that because I mentioned earlier that one of the, when we were talking, one of the themes in my podcast, my speeches is that young people, and I'm going to define young as 30 and under are not learning leadership. And why not? There's nothing wrong with them per se.
I mentioned over-parenting is an issue, but you know, we, as human beings, actually, we survive very simply. We tend to make it complicated. We have to learn our strengths and our weaknesses. But we have to learn them at a young age. And with the weaknesses, we can either avoid or work to get better. Either way might be the appropriate course of action. But it's that simple. And understand that we're not perfect.
We are going to have failures, failures that will not be someone else's fault, will not be bad luck. We blew it. And live up and own it. Own it and learn from it. I say it virtually every talk that I do and I will say it now. We need to fail to succeed.
Now I know that may sound completely unhinged to some people and I get that. But we learn far more as human beings from our failures, if we're honest with ourselves, than we do from our successes. And I know in my case, I mean, I remember Marvel, which turned out really well. I remember it from 40,000 feet really, I couldn't write a book. My book is not about Marvel. Marvel's in there, but I couldn't write, because I can't, I don't remember enough details, you know.
So, but I remember every gory detail of my failures. And I'm committed not to make the same mistake twice. And that's how you become a better leader. And by the way, good leaders are very self-aware for the most part.
Laura Adams
How do you do that? How do you cultivate leadership and self-awareness in yourself or maybe even in your kids?
Peter Cuneo
When I was very young, I look back now at a tremendous gift I did not appreciate until fairly recently. My father was a Navy officer in World War II in the South Pacific and in the Korean War. And when he was called up, he was a reserve officer, he was called up for the Korean War. He and my family lived in four different cities in two years. I think I did fourth and fifth grade at that time, those two years.
We were first in Pensacola, Florida, then in Bremerton, Washington, which is across the Bay from Seattle, the big mothball fleet there, then San Diego, then Pensacola, Philadelphia. My father's last assignment was in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. I could even see that at that age, the differences regionally in America among people.
So I didn't need to go to a foreign country or anything else. And I had to make friends at four different locations. I don't remember it being difficult, but I became, talking about the alien environment, that was my early training, if you will, in leadership. I was very comfortable. And after we came back, I always wanted new adventures. That's where I think where it started.
You know, I think it's mostly face to face. You know, I tell people even in my talks and in the book we're bringing out, they can read. That's great if you learn a couple of things from that wonderful, but it's still face to face interactions with other people. And the kids are not getting that today. The cell phone is your enemy. A Zoom call, you don't learn anything about a Zoom call.
The truth is learning other people and learning leadership, 50% of what you learn from people face to face is body language. You may not even realize it when you're going through it. I, no offense, Laura, but we're on a zoom call. I can't tell anything about your body language. You have a very nice smile. So I assume you're happy, but you know, but face to face, you, you, learn so much more!
That's all part of those instincts of leadership. So, I have a list on PeterCuneo.com of 15 things I recommend for young people to learn leadership. And many of them would not surprise you. Team sports. You're dealing with all these different personalities, but you gotta get together for one goal. To win. Performing arts is a team sport in effect, the same thing.
And whether you're on stage or behind the stage or, it doesn't matter. You're all part of that event and you've got to do your part to make that successful. And so, know, but again, there are 15 different things that I recommend. The one that also gets a lot of attention from people in the audience is let your kids fail. I used to get almost boos when I said that. Now they don't even, now they're all nodding their head yes.
Kids have to fail because if they don't, they're not equipped to go into the world. They don't know and I continue to hear, there are exceptions of course, but I hear from C-suite executives, things I hear about young people and their behavior. It's tough. No social skills. Afraid to look you in the eye. Afraid to speak in a meeting.
Not thin-skinned, no skin. This gets back to never having failed.
You look at them cross-eyed, they're crying in the bathroom five minutes later. I'm not exaggerating, by the way, on this. I've heard these stories. And then finally, no work ethic. I think I'll quit today, but I'm not gonna call up and tell them. Or, you know, I don't feel like going to work today. I think I'll just stay home. I'm not gonna call up to let them know I'm not coming in. Or, and here's the one I just heard.
It's really interesting. The boss says, you know, I noticed you're only working two hours a day. And the young person says, yeah, well, you hired me to do a job and it's only taking me two hours a day. I happen to be very good at it. So the boss said, well, we need to find something else for you to do for the other six hours.
But the young person feels, no, no, I'm not here for the hours. I'm here for what you hired me to do. If I can do it in two hours, I'm fulfilling my responsibility. The boss may think, no, they hired you for eight hours. And that's a genuine back and forth that really comes from people not communicating very well. But that's the kind of thing that's happened. And both sides have a point. Both, you could argue either side of that discussion. Those kinds of things are happening all around the world, every day.
Laura Adams
Yeah, I totally agree that remote work really has its challenges. Not that it can't be done successfully, but I certainly learned a lot of my leadership skills by modeling good leaders that I saw day to day in the workplace. You know, seeing how they interact with other people, seeing how they respond to challenges, and even how they create friendships outside of work. All of that was really important for me when I was starting my career.
Peter Cuneo
I agree completely and you're going to learn leadership from both professional and personal.
Laura Adams
Peter, thank you so much for being here. Please remind everyone how they can learn more about you and leadership.
Peter Cuneo
So, Peter Cuneo, my last name is C-U-N-E-O, PeterCuneo.com is where you'll find a lot of different things, including the 32 essentials, including the list for young people, activities to learn leadership. You'll also find my podcast there, season one and now season two starting.
And the podcast is also on all of the typical streaming services that you go to Spotify, iHeart and so on and so forth. You can find it. It's Superhero Leadership. But if you go to PeterCuneo.com, you can listen to all of the interviews from last year. No problem.
Laura Adams
Leadership is such an important topic for young people and anyone looking to get ahead professionally. And I love the idea of taking these big leadership concepts and bringing them down to the household level and figuring out how to be a leader in our financial lives.
A big thanks to Peter for joining me on the show!
That's all for now. I'll talk to you soon. Until then, here's to living a richer life!
Money Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and I want to thank our fantastic team! Steve Riekeberg audio-engineers the show. Holly Hutchings is our director of podcasts, Morgan Christianson is our advertising operations specialist, and Nathaniel Hoopes is our marketing contractor.