Businessweek Extra-Cliff Hudson

the CEO. He's got a new book out. It's called Master of None, How Jack of all trades can still reach the top Man. I kinda say his path to SEEO not exactly a planned one, and he shares some of that story and his thoughts also on Today's Leaders with Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney and me. I think at times, both in small ways and big ways, I can actually refocus better by having some variety of my day, variety in my life and doing other things that are quite

contrasted before responsibilities that carried all those years. I think actually makes me a more productive person. The subtitles of book, I think is pretty critical here how jack of all trades can still reach the top. Um. I didn't study business. I didn't study business, and undergraduate or graduate school granted studies some business law, but never really saw myself going into business in a full time way, nor running a company like I ultimately did. So it was a little

coincidental in some ways. You can even say that an accidental CEO. But there is a chapter in the book it says just say yes, and in fact that we're about a four four year period. I guess yes, it was just three year far from nine two to nine. Each time I had a job opportunity to move up in the company. Um, there was a lot of training, a lot of risks associated with the center. But each time I just said yes. And then one day at the board of me, the CEO said he had a

new job. The board turned to me and said, you want to be CEO and would the over twenty or three years, Clifford, who who do you think would benefit will benefit most from your book? Did you have any kind of level of employee in mind as you're writing it? Well? I think, first of all, I think the topic can have broad general appeal. I wrote the book because I felt like there are a number of good stories that I could tell from my time period in the job.

But I also wrote it because I think my the leadership. I mean, if there is a expertise I developed throughout my life, it was leadership skills, and I thought being able to tell a number of people that story of the development those is a good story and one that people can appreciate it, perhaps particularly younger people earlier in their careers in this kind of a displacement period with the pandemic um people earlier in their careers might find

particularly in particular enjoyment from it. But I also think a mid career person is kind of saying, you know, how should I be, you know, framing my outlook on the Should I just bury my head in deeper in what I'm doing? So I think that, uh, you know, maybe it's self serving, but I think everybody could enjoy the book. How's that? So? I love your chapter names and I've just been kind of perusing the book. You've got one that says your and matters more than your

What what do you mean by that? Well? Good question, Uh, the the very idea about variety and looking out You've got to keep your head focused in a lot of ways. But in order to evolve your career and evolve your your your professional capabilities, your skill sets, you also have

to be looking out. One are the ways to be to think about doing that is even within an enterprise where you're employed or if you own and operate it um there generally are going to be business opportunities within opportunities. So in other words, your what in a way is what you're working on today. You know, what do you do? When someone I asked you that, what do you do?

You know? But at the same time, wherever it is you're working, whatever it is you're doing, or an enterprise you're operating, there really is a new business and a new enterprise. It's often an extension of what you're doing. It's sonic. We had that experience. I talked about this in different ways in the book, but one of them was we viewed ourselves basically as a Hamburger chain thirty years ago, and that was most of our business hamburger

drinks and side orders. But the fact is we had an ice cream machine in every store, and once we simply shifted our thinking about that, developed a program again marketing it it really took off. My suspicion today is a Sonic does something in xcess to five million dollars in ice cream and it's and it's ice cream and drink. It's ice cream and drink business. Uh uh. Generally is probably more on the order of one point five to two big in sales. So it's an enormous part of

the business that wasn't promoted thirty years ago. And all I want right now, Cliff, is like an ice cream Sunday, So thank you very much, because I am starving. I am starving, so good, stuffy, so interesting. You know, Cliff, being a leadership role at a major company, I'm sure you've learned a few things when you think about leadership. You know, what are the key key pillars for you? And are there any leaders that you learned from well, so Keith colors that you in terms of leading a group,

um uh. And I'm going to take these in this order, but they're they're equal weighted. One is I think you a leader needs to have, you know, a passion for the mission of the organization. And if the mission, if the leader doesn't have passion, then you know things are gonna You're gonna have trouble, but the leader needs to have passion for the mission of the organization. And the leader needs to have compassion for the people within the organization.

And if a leader doesn't care about those people and want them to be successful, those people are going to see through that and they're going to be less loyal and they guess not going to stay around as long. They're not gonna work as hard to be as committed. I think these are two colors that are critical for leaders in virtually any position. Well, okay, I'm going to

go there. I'm probably gonna get yelled at. But we have a commander in chief that doesn't seem to have a lot of compassion for what's going on in our country. I am just curious, you know, And that's not me. I think if you read and you talk to people, there is certainly that feeling. But I do wonder what you make of leadership today, especially at a time of crisis and what we say, are you know, dual pandemics between the health crisis and then also racism and the

injustices there in terms of inequalities. Yeah, well, these are these are critical and important issue is um uh, Well, this is it's just lead their critical issues for our country and and they're not new issues obviously. The idea particularly is her latter point, the equality, uh critical thing for our country and its culture. Um traditionally in business dominant position that we look at boards and CEO postions

now still dominant, dominated by white males. That the problem problem when that's the case is you're excluding you know, pick a number, but roughly you're excluding, you know, three quarters of the population, which means you're excluding the talent of three quarters of the population. So that that's just a hurdle. We we you know, we I think many of us thought we were building over but uh, maybe we've got some things we still have to work through as a as a country and the culture to recognize

we need a big tent. We need everybody under that tent moving the same direction, um as it relates to our leader. Um. Uh So, something that you see on my website but you don't see on the book. I did. Um. I did serve in the Clinton administration in a part time position, and uh and that's kind of been my

those have been my stripes all my voting life. Uh. So, I think that people need to believe that their leader once again has that their best interests at heart and compassion you know, for their lives, you know, for their daily lives. And when they don't feel that way, that the gap that opens up there is not gonna it's not gonna be healthy for an enterprise, not gonna be healthy for a country, and ultimately results in some changes

in leadership. When you look at leaders that are out there, who do you admire or who do you admire you know in the past in terms of leaders well, are they variety of front uh? Um, That's a that's an interesting one. I've always been I've always enjoyed them biographical UM reading, you know, I've always enjoyed the history and UM. And so as I look back at leaders in the United States, I mean it's very easy to look at that, you know, coming out of World War Two, because that

was such an extraordinary period of time. And look at the leadership that FDR provided to US, UM through the war. Look at the leadership that Eisenhower provided to its as a military figure but then also as a political figure. Coming out of the war, Um, things started getting a little you know, thin in some ways. Once you get uh, sixties seventies, eighties. Um, I think, uh uh, it's a

little more challenging. I think the style of leadership that Barack Obama brought to the country, his his integrity, the way he communicated with us. I have no doubt that he cared enormously seeing United United States continued to grant succeeds. A wonderful style of leadership that he brought to the country. That was Clifford Hudson, former chairman and CEO of Oklahoma based Sonic Drive In and Sonic Corporation, spent a long

time at the company. He's got a new book out, Master of None, How Jack of All Trades can still reach the top. It's a great story and a great read. Or you've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra for sure to listen to Bloomberg Business Week Radio, airing live Monday through Friday at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser along with Bloomberg's Paul Sweeney. This is Bloomberg